Postwar Reconstruction: Sustainability Approach using Hamming Distance and Analytic Hierarchy Process Concepts: A Case Study of Sierra Leone

By John Bundu Fofanah, Mohamed Al-Hussein, Hassan Safouhi and Ahmed Bouferguene.

Published by The International Journal of Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability

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Article: Print	$US10.00
Article: Electronic	$US5.00

This paper highlights a tool for the assessment of infrastructure sustainable criteria in war devastated municipalities. The Sierra Leone situation is analyzed. Effective management in rebuilding the infrastructure requires knowledge of the current status of facilities and the consequences of the infrastructure gap created by war devastation in municipalities. The Analytic Hierarchy Process is used to compute the criteria weights. The fuzzy set theory and hamming distance conceptual approach are applied to determine the infrastructure gap in the devastated municipalities. Lack of relevant historical data is the greatest obstacle in formulating an effective strategy for selecting reconstruction facilities under a constrained budget. Understanding the nature of postwar reconstruction, i.e., what it entails, its importance and contribution to the improvement of the quality of life of the citizens, has not been adequately addressed. Hence, the goal of this infrastructure management system approach is to provide a tool that is useful in making cost-effective decisions regarding the selection of the physical infrastructure facilities in municipalities. The results of the study showed that the bigger the absolute value of the infrastructure criteria gap within the infrastructure category the farther is the municipality, from the ideal conditions. The trends of the calculated deviations from ideal conditions do not show much difference between the municipalities. Generally, the gap can be rated as high. It is hoped that countries faced with similar problems, including funding agencies such as United Nations and the World Bank, can benefit immensely from this knowledge.

Keywords:	Hamming Distance, Fuzzy Set Theory, Quality of Life, Analytic Hierarchy Process, Decision Making, War Devastation

The International Journal of Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability, Volume 3, Issue 1, pp.27-42. Article: Print (Spiral Bound). Article: Electronic (PDF File; 860.347KB).

Mr. John Bundu Fofanah

Student, Construction Engineering and Management, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

I was involved in the reconstruction of postwar Sierra Leone after the eleven years civil conflict as project Engineerr, 2001 - 2003. My task was to assess the status of the infrastructure in devastated municipalities for the intervision of gogernment and the international donor community in the reconstruction process. Before this period I worked as senior engineer for the Sierra Leone Roads Authority. The evaluation of the status of roads and quantifying the requirements in terms of labour, material, time and cost was my job description.

Dr. Mohamed Al-Hussein

Assistant Professor, Construction Engineering and management, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Dr. Al-Hussein is interested in project management, including resource, facility, equipment, procurement management, as well as project cost control and claims analysis. He is also interested in computer modeling with regards to business process modeling and data modeling in construction. Currently he is at work on a project which utilizes 3D-Solids CAD modeling, object oriented methodology, and information management systems with regards to construction automation. The CAD model, prepared by the architect, integrates with other external information systems, such as databases, using object-oriented methodology. This research is intended to expand in the knowledge that exists in the field of construction automation

Prof Hassan Safouhi

Associate Professor, Faculty of Sainte Jean, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

In applied mathematics, the numerical treatment of scientific and engineering problems, oscillatory integrals and slowly convergent series occur abundantly very often. These oscillatory integrals and slowly convergent series are produced by approximation procedures depending on a parameter, iterative methods and perturbation techniques. The use of these oscillatory integrals and slowly convergent series presents severe numerical and computational difficulties. This is the reason why nonlinear transformations for improving convergence of oscillatory integrals, or infinite series have been studied for many years, and have been applied to various situations. These methods are based on the idea of extrapolation. With the help of nonlinear transformations, the improvement of convergence can be remarkable.

Ahmed Bouferguene

Assistant Professor, Campus Saint-Jean, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

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