New Methods for Decision-Focused Integrated Assessment: Multiple Objectives, Risk Evaluation and Visualization

Ellis Hobbs Johns Hopkins University该奖项是综合评估方法和模型竞赛的一部分。它为研究人员提供了开发方法的资金，这些方法将提高综合评估系统执行政策相关建模和决策评估的能力，包括：(1)替代政策的明确表示；(2)可靠的物理模型和/或容易修改系统以纳入替代模型结构和参数的能力；(3)解决政策制定者/系统使用者关注的绩效指标或目标；(4)描述与模式输出相关的不确定性的水平和来源；(5)鼓励敏感性分析和探索的用户界面，并有效沟通目标和不确定性之间的权衡；(6)显示关于可接受风险和目标之间权衡的备选价值判断的含义的能力。这些目标需要在三个研究领域进行研究。将研究的计算问题包括：(1)非主导替代方案的快速生成；(2)多目标随机非支配方案的识别；(3)确定在基于遗憾的标准下表现良好的替代方案；(4)将客观空间中的解决方案与决策空间中的相应解决方案以及选择该解决方案所隐含的价值判断联系起来的能力。有待开发的可视化问题侧重于有效地表示有关权衡和风险的信息。最后，对系统用户动态的研究将比较用户保存的方法和结果。研究人员在这三个领域的工作将在由该奖项支持的一系列示范讲习班中进行测试。这些研讨会将在实际的综合评估中使用新的建模和展示方法，以了解决策者如何利用这些新方法。总的来说，这些改进应增加政策建议的潜力，这些建议应考虑到更全面的综合模式和可能的结果。

SBR-9634336 Ellis Hobbs Johns Hopkins University This award was made as part of the Methods and Models for Integrated Assessment competition. It provides funds for the investigators to develop methods that will improve the capability of integrated assessment systems to perform policy relevant modeling and decision evaluation by incorporating: (1) explicit representation of alternative policies; (2) credible physical models and/or the capability to easily modify the system to incorporate alternative model structures and parameters; (3) performance indicators or objectives that address the concerns of the policymaker/user of the system; (4) characterizations of the level and sources of uncertainty associated with model outputs; (5) a user interface that encourages sensitivity analysis and exploration and that effectively communicates tradeoffs among objectives and uncertainties; and (6) the ability to show the implications of alternative value judgments concerning acceptable risks and tradeoffs among objectives. These goals require research in three research areas. The computation issues that will be studied include: (1) rapid generation of nondominated alternatives; (2) identification of stochastically nondominated alternatives when there are multiple objectives; (3) identification of alternatives that perform well on regret-based criteria; and (4) the ability to link a solution in objective space with the corresponding solution in decision space and the value judgments implied by choosing that solution. The visualization issues to be developed focus on effective presentation of information on tradeoffs and risks. Finally, research into system-user dynamics will compare methods for users to save and compare results. The investigators' work in these three areas will be tested in a set of demonstration workshops that are supported by this award. These workshops will use the new modeling and display methods on actual integrated assessments, to see how policy-makers make use o f the new methods. Overall, these improvements should increase the potential for policy recommendations that consider a fuller range of integrated models and possible outcomes.