The increasing trend in (urban) water demand due to population growth places a growing stress on available water resources and calls for an efficient and acceptable long-term management of the resources. Hence, application of multi-attribute decision-making systems is essential for evaluating urban water supply schemes. A number of multi-attribute decision-making methods have been developed. This paper aims to survey the application of such systems to urban water supply problems and the effects of each multi-attribute decision-making method selected on the final ranking of alternatives. Three methods of Induced Ordered Weighted Averaging (IOWA), Linear Assignment (LA), and TOPSIS have been considered for a real urban water management case study in the city of Zahedan in Iran. The results revealed that the multi-attribute decision-making method selected had a considerable effect on the final ranking of a finite set of alternatives such that different MADM techniques yielded different results for the same problem. It is, therefore, necessary to select the method according to the specific characteristics of the problem at hand, type of data available, and the assessments made. The ultimate alternative must be, thus, selected once evaluations have been made of the results obtained from applying different decision-making methods to the problem.

Introduction: The phenomenon of deforestation is considered seriously by researchers as one of the most important issues in forest management. So far, many efforts have been made to identify the causes of deforestation and effective solutions have been proposed to reduce it. This study aimed to identify and prioritize the causes of deforestation of the Hyrcanian forests in northern Iran. The results of this research can provide a basis for understanding the conditions facing Hyrcanian forest management and help managers to make more detailed plans.Material and methods: In this research, group decision making was used to identify and rank the causes of deforestation. For this purpose, two types of questionnaires were designed. The first questionnaire was used to identify causes of deforestation of Hyrcanian forest while the second questionnaire was developed with the aim of Pairwise comparisons. The data obtained from the second questionnaire was used to rank the causes of deforestation in the Hyrcanian forests using the AHP, TOPSIS, ELECTRE III and SAW methods. Finally, to achieve accurate ranking, the final ranking was done using integration methods.Results and discussion: The results showed that the weight of anthropogenic deforestation causes is much greater than the weight of natural deforestation causes; the weight of anthropogenic destruction factors was much more than natural factors. This shows that a large percentage of forest destruction in Hyrcanian forest is result of mismanagement of this forest and many human destruction factors can be stopped or modified and, while the natural factors are lower and under control, those effects can also be modified. Among the human causes of deforestation, illegal timber harvesting, invasion of forests, livestock grazing in forests and timber harvesting were the most important causes of deforestation according to forestry projects. After these factors, harvesting of wood for fuel, arson or spontaneous fires, early replacement of management and non-systematic exploitation of forests and construction development activities (road construction) were the main causes of deforestation in Hyrcanian forests.The most important of these deforestation causes were pests and spontaneous fires, respectively. In all four ranking methods (AHP, TOPSIS, ELECTRE III and SAW) ranked first to fourth respectively invasion of forested areas, The presence of livestock in the forest, illegally harvesting of wood from the forest and harvest wood as fuel, respectively. This indicates that these factors’ ranks have high stability and the total weight of each of these factors is high compared to the next factor, which means the impact of these factors on the destruction of the Hyrcanian forest is important.Conclusion: The results showed that success in the Hyrcanian forest protection plans depends on the cooperation of local and indigenous communities; because many of the environmental threats that cause destruction of the forests are the result of human activities, the success in most natural resource-related and the environmental projects depends on economic and social situations associated with the local and indigenous community living in the region.

Engineering ethics deals with moral issues and decisions confronting individuals and organizations engaged in engineering, and it is, therefore, the ability and the responsibility of all engineers to evaluate their decisions based on the general well-being of a society. Aim of the present study was to identify and rank the components of engineering ethics. This study is categorized as applied research based on the aims, and descriptive research in terms of the methods and nature of the study. To collect the data, questionnaires were prepared based on multi-attribute decision-making methods and completed by five managers of technical and engineering service provider organizations in Bushehr; the managers had at least five years of management experience and presence in this profession. The data were analyzed by SuperDecisions software. The results of this study show the components of accountability, adherence to rules and regulations, and adherence to public welfare and environment are the most important components of engineering ethics. In general, it can be concluded that organizational components have had a far more important role than professional and individual ethics components.

Objective: The purpose of the present work was to present a framework to identify the competencies of sport managers (COSMs) in the General Office of Sports and Youth in the Tehran Province. Methodology: Three major steps were taken to achieve the research goal. In the first step, the competency model of the sport managers was identified through the study of the existing literature, and then it was confirmed by the formation of focus groups. In the second step, the weights of competencies were determined using the fuzzy DEMATEL method with the participation of 12 senior managers of the organization. In the final step, based on the fuzzy TOPSIS technique, eight candidates were ranked to enter the talent pool. Results: In the first step of the work, the competency model of sport managers including seven core competencies (i. e. awareness of business rules and processes, familiarity with knowledge and rules of sport, supervision and human resource management, communications and public relation skills, economics and finance, leadership skills, and intelligence and political consciousness) was extracted. The dimensions of these competencies were confirmed by the formation of the focus groups. In the second step of the work, by determining the weight or relative importance of competencies, their degree of relative importance was determined, and the three competencies (i. e. political intelligence, leadership skills, and supervision and human resource management) were selected as the most important competencies in the competency model of sports managers. In the third step, the fuzzy TOPSIS decisionmaking technique was used to prioritize the precise ranking of the management candidates, and then the ratings of candidates for entering the talent pool were identified. Conclusion: The framework and process introduced to identify the managerial competencies in other sports organizations can also be applied; however, due to the organization, different competencies can be counted for the managers of each organization. The process of extracting the competency model using a combination of literature in this area and endorsing senior executives is a common approach to develop a competency model. The weighting competencies is one of the less practiced functions but it is also a useful approach to determine the relative importance of competencies in different organizational and managerial positions.

Implementation and operation of municipal wastewater collection systems is an essential part of qualitative water resource management. In this paper, the most appropriate alternative among a set of limited of wastewater collection systems was selected using different quantitative and qualitative attributes. Moreover, the impact of risk attitudes of decision makers (DMs) on selection of the most preferred alternative was evaluated. As a case study the best alternative was examined using four MADM methods including Simple Additive Weighting (SAW), Compromise Programming (CP), TOPSIS, and Hybrid Weighted Averaging (HWA) to validate the application of RBMADM methods in wastewater collection systems. Then, the impact of selection of MADM method on the final outcome was studied and the results were compared.

One of the most important capabilities of information security management systems, which must be implemented in all organizations according to their requirements, is information security risk management. The application of information security risk management is so important that it can be named as the heart of information security management systems. Information security risk rating is considered as the key part of the risk assessment phase in the process of this management. This article presents an applied method by combining two MADM methods of AHP and TOPSIS in a fuzzy environment in order to improve information security risk rating. The results of comparison between the implementation of the combined FAHP-TOPSIS and the FAHP indicated that the weights presented by the proposed FAHP-TOPSIS model have lower variation coefficients and higher mean compared to the FAHP model. As a result, it provides more accurate results with less percentage error.

Multiple attribute decision making models which select the best alternative out of all possible alternatives are used in different environments such as community, economy, management, army, etc. In recent years most of the performed researches in multiple attribute decision making’s field have been focused on single period evaluations; while the value of attributes may not be fixing during all periods. Hence this research presents how to use a MADM model, for example TOPSIS model, in case of multi period. In this research, for describing the relations between periods, regression equations are used. The proposed model is also implemented in textile industry as a case study.