Environmental problems, combined with a finite supply of fossil fuels, have made the use of renewable energy sources necessary. Biomass is a renewable source of energy that has played a very important role in energy production in recent years. Because there are a number of technologies that can be used to convert biomass into energy, it is important to select the best option. The fact that multiple options are available that need to be evaluated based on a set of decision-making criteria makes this a multicriteria decision-making problem. This paper takes the first step in proposing an evaluation framework and identifying the importance of the relevant decision-making criteria in biofuel production technology selection. To determine the importance of the selection criteria, experts were asked to respond to an online questionnaire based on the best-worst method. The results indicate that air pollution, land use change, and human expertise are the three most important criteria for selecting the best biofuel production technology in our case country, Iran.
In this paper, we evaluate the reasons for the failure of information systems in public universities. To that end, we start by presenting a hierarchical structure of criteria after reviewing related studies, and dividing the criteria into the categories of project management, organizational management, humanrelated, organizational and technical. To assess the weight of the criteria in the proposed framework, we collect the opinions of a sample of information technology experts working in different public universities in Iran, using an online questionnaire that is based on the best-worst method (BWM). By analyzing the weight of the criteria, we can reveal that misfit of information systems software (closely followed by lack of top management support and unsuccessful monitoring and measurement) has the greatest impact on the failure of information systems in the public universities of Iran. The methodology proposed in this paper can be used in other countries facing the same problem.
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