Analytical Hierarchy Process Essay Example for Free

Analytical Hierarchy Process Essay Abstract The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) provides a structure on decision-making processes where there are a limited numbers of choices but each has a number of attributes. This paper explores the use of AHP for deciding on car purchase. In the context of shopping, it is important to include elements that provide attributes that make consumer decision making easier, comfortable and therefore, lead to a car purchase. As the car market becomes more competitive, there is a greater demand for innovation that provides better customer service and strategic competition in the business management. This paper presents a new methodological extension of the AHP by focusing on two issues. One combines pair wise comparison with a spreadsheet method using a 5-point rating scale. The other applies the group weight to a reciprocal consistency ratio. Three newly formed car models of midsize are used to show how the method allows choice to be prioritized and analyzed statistically. INTRODUCTION The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a structured technique for helping people deal with complex decisions. Rather than prescribing a correct decision, the AHP helps people to determine one. Based on mathematics and human psychology, it was developed by Thomas L. Saaty in the 1970s and has been extensively studied and refined since then. The AHP provides a comprehensive and rational framework for structuring a problem, for representing and quantifying its elements, for relating those elements to overall goals, and for evaluating alternative solutions. It is used throughout the world in a wide variety of decision situations, in fields such as government, business, industry, healthcare, and education. Users of the AHP first decompose their decision problem into a hierarchy of more easily comprehended sub-problems, each of which can be analyzed independently. The elements of the hierarchy can relate to any aspect of the decision problem. Once the hierarchy is built, the decision makers systematically evaluate its various elements, comparing them to one another in pairs. In making the comparisons, the decision makers can use concrete data about the elements, or they can use their judgments about the elements relative meaning and importance. It is the essence of the AHP that human judgments, and not just the underlying information, can be used in performing the evaluations. The AHP converts these evaluations to numerical values that can be processed and compared over the entire range of the problem. A numerical weight or priority is derived for each element of the hierarchy, allowing diverse and often incomm-ensurable elements to be compared to one another in a rational and consistent way. This capability distinguishes the AHP from other decision making techniques. In the final step of the process, numerical priorities are derived for each of the decision alternatives. Since these numbers represent the alternatives relative ability to achieve the decision goal, they allow a straightforward consideration of the various courses of action. EXPLANATION For instance let’s consider cars (an example) which touch the lives of hundreds of millions of people nearly everywhere on this planet on a daily basis. Other than a house, a car is perhaps the largest purchase that we make. With the average cost of a car well over US$ 15,000, choosing just the right one becomes a major decision. Buying a new car is regarded as a decision-making problem and a reflection of customer preference. Someone shops for a new car, he or she want to take a look at finances and options. The possible budget is then a constraint in the decision on which car to buy. Most people shopping for a new car rank safety high among their purchase considerations. Other important attributes include: fuel economy; comfort and convenience features; insurance information; specification and warranties and resale value. Constant changes in customer demands lead manufactures to produce new and improved designs. Automation of manufacturing technologies allows this. Recently the production life cycle has become shorter. For example, General Motors in the USA is leading the industry in developing ground-breaking technologies to improve the driving experience and to meet the changing needs and life styles of modern drivers. They are making efforts to lower the cost of the technology to a level that will make advanced cars an attractive purchase. As the automobile market becomes more competitive, the industry has no choice but to adopt innovation that brings better customer service. Many customers seek advice from car experts or friends when purchasing a car. In many cases, there are times when the price and special features do not match the budget. An appropriate decision-making method for selecting the best car is useful to both customers and producers. An analytic method not only reduces the dealers burden, but also may increase sales The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is an intuitively easy method for formulating and analyzing decisions .It was developed to solve a specific class of problems that involves prioritization of potential alternate solutions. This is achieved by evaluation of a set of criteria elements and sub-criteria elements through a series of pair wise comparisons. The AHP model depicted in this paper uses the following decision criteria: exterior, convenience, performance, safety, economic aspect, dealer, and warranty as well as 39 sub-criteria. For the implementation of the AHP, we considered the three midsize passenger car models as alternatives 2. EVALUATION CRITERIA The source for deriving the evaluation criteria candidate was: 1. A telephone interview with dealers who are part of companies that make the models. The manufacturing company with the highest market share considered graceful body styles and smart design of facilities related to safety to be most important. On the other hand, warranty on the car and the dealers strategies for marketing are regarded as important customer criteria; 2. The use of personal experiences recorded on an online bulletin board was corrected using the Internet; The AHP model shown consists of three levels. Exterior involves components and factors seen from the outside such as color, length and width, tyres, trunk, wheels, doors and headlamp styles. It includes the following sub-criteria: model, style, length, quality of interior decoration, number of available color types, and instrument cluster. Convenience is related to the design of the equipments for easy operation. It includes: inside width, ease of loading or unloading packages, convenience of operating instruments, modern fittings (such as electronic systems and a burglar alarm), forward visibility and quality of the audio system. Performance is related to the functioning of the car. It includes maximum torque, maximum speed, fuel tank capacity, braking ability, cornering ability, inside noises and traveling comforts. Safety is enhanced by a body designed to protect the drivers and passengers against collisions. The most important safety features are those that reduce the risk of death or serious injury. It includes: airbags, antilock braking system ABS, impact protection systems, trunk safety, seat belts, safety of the body and number of alarm facilities. Airbags provide total chest and face protection. The ABS allows drivers full steering control and shorter stopping distance in adverse situations. The economic aspect refers to the price and cost of a new car, or maintaining the car within budgets, etc. It includes: purchasing prices, fuel consumption per month, insurance costs and installment conditions, resale prices of used cars and optional equipment costs. The dealer criterion refers to personal characteristics and attitudes that lead the customer to make the purchasing decision. This criterion includes: visits or calls needed to persuade the customer to buy, the dealers attitude, the dealers expertise and belief in the dealers promises. The warranty criterion include: the number of service stations, ease of acquiring spare parts, customer satisfaction after services, and the average repair time for minor troubles. We mailed questionnaires to each of two groups. The first group was given a questionnaire that contained a pair wise comparison sheet. The members consisted of 13 managers who were serving in the sales department and who had experience exceeding 10 years (see Appendix A for this questionnaire). Respondents were domain experts who easily recognized their own sales products and have valuable knowledge about the customer requirements and preferences. Twenty-two potential customers with experience over 7 years were in the second group (see Appendix B). They answered about their satisfaction with their current car. 3. Implementation and ranking A procedure of prioritizing each car model is shown in Table 1 shows the C.R. for each individual, where the circle represents meaningful C.R. Using Expert Choice, we obtained the synthesized priorities of the main criteria and sub-criteria. The reason that the groups weight is 1/C.R. is to assign higher weights for higher consistent persons. As a result, safety gains are the highest priority in the main criteria. The body safety is especially important. The synthesized priorities and ranks resulted in Table 2 (Case-II). The priorities of the sub-criteria are not proportional to those of the main criteria. This means the decision-makers have different opinions on the importance of the main criteria. By synthesizing the drivers rating values with the priorities, we obtain the priorities of the car models and the ranks with respect to the goal and synthesized priorities for each main criterion when the C.R. is bounded by the limit (see Table 3). In Case-I and Case-II, the computational methods used are reasonable when the groups consistency is more important than the individual ones. Because the conventional AHP has no choice but to increase the Delphi rounds in order to increase the groups consistency, much effort is required to reduce the C.R. If the Delphi rounds are not sufficiently processed, it is unreliable through the inclusion of inconsistent matrices [12]. Using the Spearman rank correlation test [1], accepting H0 means that the ranks are either uncorrelated or negatively correlated. That is, two decision makers exhibit an insignificant level of agreement in ranking for each criterion. Rejecting H0 means that the ranks are positively correlated. As shown in Table 4, we conclude that there are significant effects between groups since the rate of the H0 acceptance is 83% (65/78 Ãâ€"100). This shows that Case-I is the more appropriate method. It rejects greater agreement between groups. 4. SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS Sensitivity analysis allowed us to verify the results of the decision. A sensitivity analysis can be formed to see how sensitive the alternatives are to change with the importance of the criteria. The Expert Choice implementation of AHP provides four graphical sensitivity analysis modes: dynamic, gradient, performance and two-dimensional analysis [4]. Here performance sensitivity analysis is employed. It depicts how well each alternative performs on each criterion by increasing or decreasing the importance of the criteria. In addition to this, each sub-criterion performs on each main criterion by increasing or decreasing the importance of the main criteria. It should be noted that if a criterion is not sensitive, it would be better to eliminate it from the AHP model. In the case of increasing importance of a criterion to the maximum value of 1.0, we assigned the alternative that gained the highest rank to score 5 and the lowest rank to score 1. The value of Model 1 is 25, Model 2 is 21 and Model 3 is 15. In summary, we can conclude Model 1 is the best among the alternatives, although the highest priorities were different in Case-I and Case-II. 5. CONCLUSION This paper presents a decision-making method for selecting the best passenger car models through combining the AHP and a spreadsheet model. The C.R. is used as the decision-makers weights. As an implementation of the AHP, three car models were prioritized. Through the sensitivity analysis, the fact that Model 1 ranked the highest is consistent with the result of the highest market share. References E.H. Forman, T.L. Saaty, M.A. Selly, R. Waldron, Expert Choice, Decision Support Software, McLean, VA, 1983 T.L. Saaty, K. Kearns, Analytical Planning: The Organization of Systems, Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1985. Y Wind and T L Saaty, ‘Marketing Applications of Analytic Hierarchy Process,’ Management Science, Vol. 26, No. 7, July 1980

Behavior Changes of MDMA :: Illegal Drugs Medical Psychology Ecstasy Essays

Behavior Changes of MDMA The secondary effects on behavior are expressed in several ways that differ from one person to the next. These effects can range from memory impairment and anxiety, to depression and mood swings. They are a direct result of the chemical changes within the body that occur when someone uses ecstasy. I will discuss the range of effects in more detail, with explanations that get to the root causes for each. One of the major behavior changes, after the effects of the drug have worn off, is a symptom of the reduced levels of serotonin in the brain. As ecstasy infiltrates the brain tissues, its effects cause the brain to produce copious amounts of serotonin. Following such an extreme release of this neurotransmitter, the brain goes through of period of time in which it has a below normal level of serotonin. This reduced level creates elevated levels of anxiety in users, and can often result in panic attacks that persist for several months following the use of the drug. However, it is important to note that, according to a study from the European Journal of Pharmacology (Gurtman, et al, 2002); "whether such effects are a direct result of MDMA use†¦ is, at present, uncertain." This admission goes to show that correlation doesn't mean causation, and that until further research can be done we can only speculate about the relationship between the two. Another side effect, that is reported to be affected by the levels of serotonin in the brain, is that of memory functioning. Several different areas of memory are included in this assertion, including cognitive capacity, recall over time, and planning ability. It is suggested that heavy users, when compared to a control group, have a harder time with primary areas of brain functioning that relate to memory. In a study conducted at the University of Cologne, in Germany (Gouzoulis- Mayfrank, et. al, 2004), research indicates that, "findings of relatively low memory performance associated with heavy ecstasy use have been relatively consistent across different studies and user populations." This assertion is fairly recent in the literature, which would suggest that the findings have taken note of the broad range of studies that came before it. With that said, it's hard to ignore the idea that a drug that induces such euphoric effects on the mindset of an

Jerusalem A City of Three Faiths

Jerusalem, the city of the three faiths. Jerusalem founded in between 4500-3500 BCC has become a center of the three major monotheistic faiths in the world, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Rising from a proto-Cantle village to a city that has had crusades and Jihads launched In Its name has truly been an amazing turn of events. How did It happen? Why Is It Important? Why here and not elsewhere? What makes people so driven to capture Jerusalem? Why has It been captured and recaptured no less than forty four times? Questions that have great difficulty to be answered often times yield the most interesting answers.Jerusalem has been beckoning those of the three major monotheistic faiths to come and seek her since all three faiths inceptions, The City of David, The City of Jesus and the place where the prophet Muhammad ascended to Heaven can be seen as truly a focal point of the World's religions, though it is in a relatively isolated area in the Eleven. Jerusalem has been a center of r eligious fervor almost since it's inception, it has perhaps been this way due to its almost geocentric position in accordance with the empires of the world. At first glance, Jerusalem on a geographic level seems to have very little owing for It.In a region of relatively little rainfall and with an elevation of approximately 2500 feet It Is difficult to move water Into the city. The forests that were once around Jerusalem have been devastated by wars. Overall, It does seem to indeed have very little actually going for it in the geographic sense. The majority of Jerusalem allure might be seen to have come from the location and the centrality in world politics that it has had. Perhaps the main reason that it has been such a religious center since its inception is not due to the geography of the region at all but it's location. Jerusalem is located in the center of the Eleven.The Eleven is located at a prime position to be a part of quite a few empires. The Babylonians, Persians, Eclect ics, Romans, and the Ptolemaic peoples laid claim toastmaster at some point during the Biblical time frame. The Byzantine, Muslim, Turk, French and British empires have also led claim to it since then as well. Jerusalem has been fought over so many times that It has been fully destroyed and rebuilt twice. Being In a prime location has surely helped Jerusalem be a city of all three major monotheistic faiths, f one looks at the original monotheistic faith, one might see this in practice.With the Jewish faith, one sees a people that came from the legendary figure Abraham who purportedly gave a figure named Milkweed a tithing of his possessions. Moses, another patriarchal figure of the Jewish faith desired to lead his followers into the promise land. This promise land was none other than Canaan, the land in which Jerusalem is located. After the conquest of Jerusalem, David made it his capital and following the building of the Temple by Solomon, it became the capital of the Jewish Faith. With being the Political capital, there surely was some incentive to be the religious capital as well. When It comes to the Christian faith, It Is one of the two holiest clues In Christianity. Rome and Jerusalem are these two holiest cycles in the Christian faith. Jerusalem was the orally of the Christian faith and has always been the epicenter of protestant faith. Catholicism associates Rome as Its faiths epicenter. Other cities also exhibit importance in various churches as well. Jerusalem journeys of Jesus are centered around Jerusalem.With all of this writing based round Jerusalem, there was absolutely no reason for it not to be one of the primary centers of the Christian faith. When it comes to Jerusalem and the Muslim faith, it is the third holiest city of their faith behind Mecca and Medina. Jerusalem is the location where the prophet Muhammad allegedly ascended to Heaven. The Dome of the Rock is located on top of where the prophet Muhammad allegedly ascended to Heaven. Due t o this fact, several Jihads have been launched in the name of reclaiming Jerusalem for Islam. Jerusalem is definitely a holy city by any measure of the word.The three major monotheistic faiths have claimed Jerusalem among their holy cities since each of their inceptions. The reasons that they have claimed it originally were not strictly and completely religious. Some of the claims over Jerusalem have been due to its central location. Because of this central location, the propensity for historical events to occur there has greatly increased. One could also argue that from a religious perspective, like the formerly pagan Pantheon, that some cultures find sites that do have something truly special about them and other cultures come and build upon this belief.

Alexander The Greats Contributions To His Empire - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 3 Words: 810 Downloads: 1 Date added: 2019/04/16 Category History Essay Level High school Tags: Alexander The Great Essay Did you like this example? Great leaders often leave a lasting impression. Some even speak profoundly. For example, Alexander of Macedonia stated,I had rather excel others in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and dominion (Alexander the Great Quotes). Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Alexander The Greats Contributions To His Empire" essay for you Create order He was a famous king who did not fear anyone or anything; he was very powerful and had one of the biggest empires in history. By conquering Persia and Egypt, Alexander the Great had a positive effect on his empire through the development of Hellenistic culture. This culture served as an age of improvement that developed many mathematical, scientific, and medical ideas. Before becoming a king and conquering other areas, Alexander was born in 356 B.C.E in Macedonia . Alexander the Great was born into a royal family. His parents were Philip II and Olympias (Alexander, Britannica). Born into a royal family, he was motivated to become the great king because of his upbringing. Coming from a royal family, he acquired a better education than others. In fact, Leonidas, a relative of this mother,strained him in math. Additionally, he received philosophical training from Aristotle (Alexander, Encyclopedia). From this education and his family, he acquired the knowledge to become a powerful conqueror. When Alexander became king and started his journey conquering, he began with Persia. Alexander the Great wanted to fulfill his fathers dreams of taking over Persia (Nardo). Without his fathers idea of taking over Persia, he would have never had the thought of conquering Persia during his time as a king. Alexander pushed towards Persia, but the people tried to stop Alexander and his army from taking over their empire (Alexander, Britannica). The people of Persia looked weak against his army and the strategic plans of action he had. This demonstrates how well educated he was and how his parents raised him. Then he started to push towards the capital of Persia but, the king of Persia, Darius, stopped him (Nardo). Darius fell quickly to Alexanders army and his strategic plans (Alexander, Encyclopedia). Clearly, Alexander the Great was capable of defeating more powerful people other than the commoners of that empire. Specifically, after Alexander won the battle, Darius fled in fear (Alexa nder, Britannica). Alexander, still pushing forward, found Darius, and killed him (Alexander, Encyclopedia). Now, he has made it to the capital of Persia, Babylon, and took over without a fight. Finally, after eight years he conquered Persia which increased the size of his empire and demonstrated to others how successful he is. During his conquest to Persia, he passed through Egypt and saw how weak they were. Once he arrived in Egypt, the Egyptians hailed him like a god (Alexander, Britannica). Since he was already getting treatment like a god, it was obvious he was liked by the Egyptians. The native priests recognized him as their pharaoh (Nardo). During this time, the people of Egypt called Alexander their pharaoh which demonstrates his level of power he had while he was alive. Alexander stayed in Egypt to help organize their army and hired Egyptian governors (Alexander, Britannica). Then, he built the city Alexandria, which became the center of Hellenistic culture. Along with building a city, Alexander the Great also created the Hellenistic culture. Hellenistic culture is a blend of four different cultures which included, Greek, Indian, Persian, and Egyptian (Alexander, Encyclopedia). The reason for so many different cultures was because Alexander the Great conquered all of these places. This age led to many discoveries and advances in math, science, and medicine (Ellis and Esler 150). With the discovery of this popular culture, it demonstrates Alexanders ability to not only conquer but create. Archimedes is a famous scientist who created the Archimedes Screw (Ellis and Esler 151). The Archimedes screw had one sole purpose when it was created during the Hellenistic culture. Its purpose was to lift water to higher levels for irrigation (Ellis and Esler 151). During this time period in the Hellenistic culture, a new theory was created. An astronomer named Aristarchus argued that the Earth orbited the Sun and that the Earth rotated on an axis (Ell is and Esler 151). This theory he made was called the heliocentric theory. One doctor named Hippocrates studied the cause of illnesses and how to cure them (Ellis and Esler 151). His studies helped many doctors and scientists to see where the illnesses came from and how to cure them. Alexander the Great had several achievements during his lifetime. He was a smart and powerful man who was able to conquer many empires and discover a new culture along the way. His empire stretched from Greece to India. His Hellenistic culture spread Greek ideas throughout these empires and combined them with that of his conquered lands. Hellenistic culture made many improvements in the areas of math, science and medicine. Alexander the Greats contributions to his empire continue to influence the world today.