Group decision making problems in a linguistic and dynamic context

The aim of this paper is to present a new model of decision support system for group decision making problems based on a linguistic approach and dynamic sets of alternatives. The model incorporates a mechanism that allows to manage dynamic decision situations in which some information about the problem is not constant in time. We assume that the set of alternatives can change during the decision making process. The model is presented in a mobile and dynamic context where the experts’ preferences can be incomplete. The linguistic approach is used to represent both the experts’ preferences about the alternatives and the agreement degrees to manage the change of some alternatives. A prototype of such mobile decision support system in which the experts use mobile devices to provide their linguistic preferences at anytime and anywhere has been implemented. In such a way, we provide a new linguistic group decision making framework that is mobile and dynamic.     

A large-scale distributed framework for information retrieval in large dynamic search spaces

One of the main problems facing human analysts dealing with large amounts of dynamic data is that important information may not be assessed in time to aid the decision making process. We present a novel distributed processing framework called Intelligent Foraging, Gathering and Matching (I-FGM) that addresses this problem by concentrating on resource allocation and adapting to computational needs in real-time. It serves as an umbrella framework in which the various tools and techniques available in information retrieval can be used effectively and efficiently. We implement a prototype of I-FGM and validate it through both empirical studies and theoretical performance analysis.     

A framework of decision support systems for use on the World Wide Web

Decision making is one of the most important activities for human beings. Complex decision making problems are full of uncertainty and ambiguities. A large amount of data is needed and several strategies must be applied at the same time in order to get a good decision. Research about decision support systems has been proposed to help people effectively solve these kinds of problems. Recently, World Wide Web applications have grown very rapidly and have made a significant impact on computer systems. In this paper, we propose a framework for Internet computing on decision support systems by modifying traditional decision support systems on the World Wide Web. Modules of the proposed framework were also designed to meet the requirements of both decision support and Internet computing. An actual implementation of a travelling schedule domain was conducted to show the feasibility of the proposed framework. The proposed framework provides a feasible solution to building World Wide Web decision support systems in real applications.     

Risk assessment in IT outsourcing using fuzzy decision-making approach: An Indian perspective

Outsourcing of Information Technology (IT) is a common practice in global business today. IT Outsourcing (ITO) refers to the contracting out of IT services (or functions) with the objective of achieving strategic advantages as well as cost benefits. Recently, many IT industries are facing daunting challenges in terms of healthy alliances on their ITO strategy due to existence of inherent risks. These risks must be recognized and properly managed towards successful establishment of effective ITO strategy. Therefore, risk assessment appears to be an important contributor to the success of an ITO venture. In this paper, a hierarchical ITO risk structure representation has been explored to develop a formal model for qualitative risk assessment. The basic parameters for defining risks have been presented including the metrics for measuring likelihood and impact that aid to achieve consistent assessment. An improved decision making method using fuzzy set theory has been attempted for converting linguistic data into numeric risk ratings. In this study, the concept of ‘Incentre of centroids method’ for generalized trapezoidal fuzzy numbers has been used to quantify the ‘degree of risk’ in terms of crisp ratings. Finally, a framework for categorizing different risk factors has been proposed on the basis of distinguished ranges of risk ratings (crisp). Consequently, an action requirement plan has been suggested for providing guidelines for the managers to successfully manage the risk in the context of ITO exercise.     

Naturalistic decision making

OBJECTIVE: This article describes the origins and contributions of the naturalistic decision making (NDM) research approach. BACKGROUND: NDM research emerged in the 1980s to study how people make decisions in real-world settings. Method: The findings and methods used by NDM researchers are presented along with their implications. RESULTS: The NDM framework emphasizes the role of experience in enabling people to rapidly categorize situations to make effective decisions. CONCLUSION: The NDM focus on field settings and its interest in complex conditions provide insights for human factors practitioners about ways to improve performance. APPLICATION: The NDM approach has been used to improve performance through revisions of military doctrine, training that is focused on decision requirements, and the development of information technologies to support decision making and related cognitive functions.     

Decision making process: typology, intelligence, and optimization

Decision making is concerned with evaluating and/or ranking possible alternatives of action. In this paper, we develop a model for the process of decision making. Understanding the decision process can provide insights into how humans make decisions, understand their decision making approaches, and how they differ from each other. We believe that decision makers who are conscious of their decision process types can make more effective and balanced decisions. In this paper, we present a new decision process model based on the following four dimensions where each dimension is defined by two opposing types: Information Processing (Concrete and Abstract), Alternative Generation (Adaptive and Constructive), Alternative Evaluation (Moderate and Bold), and Decision Closure (Organized and Flexible). Furthermore, an approach for assessing each of the four decision process types by a mathematical function is presented. In a much boarder scope than decision making, these assessed functions can be used to evaluate and rank alternatives. The decision process model can also be used in conjunction with multiple criteria decision making and multiple objective optimization. The model can also be used to explain the reasons that the classical decision making models fail to describe real decision makers?? behavior, and mistakenly label such behavior as irrational. The proposed decision process model can be used for developing new behavioral, rational, and intelligent decision making theories and approaches. Extensions of this work may include group decision making, organizational decision making, team formation, and risk behavior analysis. Experimental results of over four hundred engineering students are reported. A web site has been developed for users (http://car.cwru.edu/decision/).     

装备测试性设计辅助决策系统关键技术研究

针对测试性设计的辅助决策工具是装备测试性设计水平提高的关键技术。围绕测试性设计辅助决策系统实现,从装备测试性设计建模、装备测试性设计与分析优化算法、辅助决策系统实现等三个方面展开研究,在分析现有模型的基础上提出了用于测试性设计的信息模型建模思想,并对测试性设计过程中的诊断优化算法进行了研究,最后完成对测试性模型、诊断策略的集成,对系统平台实现的关键技术进行了研究。本研究是实现装备测试性设计辅助决策系统的关键。     

An investigation of email processing from a risky decision making perspective

The prevalence of cyber crimes has threatened the business model enabled by email. Users have to evaluate email related risks before forming their attitude and read intention toward commercial emails. Drawing on a seminal theoretical framework in risky decision making, we propose a research model that incorporates computer risk taking propensity and email risk perception as influential in cultivating commercial email attitude and read intention. The research model is empirically validated using survey data and the results provide significant support. This study contributes to the literature on email use by exploring the process of risky decision making and influence sources.     

Linking Business Processes and Information Systems Provision in a Dynamic Environment

This paper discusses decision and communication processes which link strategic activity in a business with information systems development activity. We develop a model which illustrates these processes as observed in one company (AXA Sun Life, Bristol HQ), but we suggest there may be generalizable features. We use Role Activity Diagrams as our diagramming method.In most organizations it is impractical to achieve a fully articulated business model and IS architecture. Organizations do try to make development (or acquisition) of information systems which will serve business needs as orderly as they can, in circumstances which are inherently complex and unstable. We suggest that the degree of regularity which is achieved in IS development within the business context comes not so much from following one overarching plan, as from a continuous process of adjustment, in which local short-term plans are weighed against current understanding of the business's key interests. What is needed to aid this process is a general framework of communication and decision making within which plans can be reviewed and modified in the light of changing circumstances. This paper presents an attempt to reveal and represent such a framework.     

Financial early warning system model and data mining application for risk detection

One of the biggest problems of SMEs is their tendencies to financial distress because of insufficient finance background. In this study, an early warning system (EWS) model based on data mining for financial risk detection is presented. CHAID algorithm has been used for development of the EWS. Developed EWS can be served like a tailor made financial advisor in decision making process of the firms with its automated nature to the ones who have inadequate financial background. Besides, an application of the model implemented which covered 7853 SMEs based on Turkish Central Bank (TCB) 2007 data. By using EWS model, 31 risk profiles, 15 risk indicators, 2 early warning signals, and 4 financial road maps has been determined for financial risk mitigation.     

Consensus under a fuzzy context: Taxonomy,analysis framework AFRYCA and experimental case of study

Consensus reaching processes play an increasingly important role in the resolution of group decision making problems: a solution acceptable to all the experts participating in a problem is necessary in many real-life contexts. A large number of consensus approaches have been proposed to support groups in such processes, each one with its own characteristics, such as the methods utilized for the fusion of information regarding the preferences of experts. Given this variety of existing approaches in the literature to support consensus reaching processes, this paper considers two main objectives. Firstly, we propose a taxonomy that provides an overview and categorization of some existing consensus models for group decision making problems defined in a fuzzy context, taking into account the main features of each model. Secondly, the paper presents AFRYCA, a simulation-based analysis framework for the resolution of group decision making problems by means of different consensus models. The framework is aimed at facilitating a study of the performance of each consensus model, as well as determining the most suitable model/s for the resolution of a specific problem. An experimental study is carried out to show the usefulness of the framework.     

Scenario Development and Practical Decision Making under Uncertainty: Application to Requirements Engineering

In this paper, we address the question of how flesh and blood decision makers manage the combinatorial explosion in scenario development for decision making under uncertainty. The first assumption is that the decision makers try to undertake ‘robust’ actions. For the decision maker a robust action is an action that has sufficiently good results whatever the events are. We examine the psychological as well as the theoretical problems raised by the notion of robustness. Finally, we address the false feeling of decision makers who talk of ‘risk control’. We argue that ‘risk control’ results from the thinking that one can postpone action after nature moves. This ‘action postponement’ amounts to changing look-ahead reasoning into diagnosis. We illustrate these ideas in the framework of software development and examine some possible implications for requirements analysis.     

A work domain analysis framework for modelling intensive care unit patients

Work domain analysis (WDA) has been applied to a range of complex work domains, but few WDAs have been undertaken in medical contexts. One pioneering effort suggested that clinical abstraction is not based on means-ends relations, whereas another effort downplayed the role of bio-regulatory mechanisms. In this paper it is argued that bio-regulatory mechanisms that govern physiological behaviour must be part of WDA models of patients as the systems at the core of intensive care units. Furthermore it is argued that because the inner functioning of patients is not completely known, clinical abstraction is based on hypothetico-deductive abstract reasoning. This paper presents an alternative modelling framework that conforms to the broader aspirations of WDA. A modified version of the viable systems model is used to represent the patient system as a nested dissipative structure while aspects of the recognition primed decision model are used to represent the information resources available to clinicians in ways that support if...then conceptual relations. These two frameworks come together to form the recursive diagnostic framework, which may provide a more appropriate foundation for information display design in the intensive care unit.Abbreviations ADS Abstraction decomposition space - DST Dissipative structures theory - HIV/AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome - ICU Intensive care unit - RDF Recursive diagnostic framework - RPD Recognition primed decision model - R-VSM Revised viable systems model - VSM Viable systems model - WDA Work domain analysis     

概率语言术语集多准则决策方法研究进展

多准则决策理论与方法的应用能否达到预期的经济效益与社会效益,逐步成为该研究领域关注的核心议题。近年来,基于概率语言术语集（Probabilistic Language Term Set,PLTS）的决策理论与方法受到广泛关注,PLTS既能够反映决策者对方案或准则的犹豫模糊语言评价或比较偏好,又能体现各语言术语的概率信息,较为贴近决策者的思维认知过程,已广泛应用于投资项目风险评估、模式识别、医疗诊断等领域,产生了良好的应用效果。从PLTS的信息融合理论、测度理论、偏好关系理论、基于PLTS的多准则决策方法这四方面系统回顾PLTS的研究现状,分析现有研究存在的不足,指出采用概率不确定语言术语集（Probabilistic Uncertain Linguistic Term Set,PULTS）即能更为高效、精准地反映定性决策信息的模糊不确定性。阐述该领域后续研究应当重点关注PULTS的信息融合、测度理论框架、偏好关系的一致性-共识达成过程、多准则群决策方法及其应用研究等核心问题,并给出相应的研究思路,为该领域后续研究提供可行性借鉴。     

STROBE: A structured approach to observation of the decision-making environment

Information Analysts must be able to gather information and interpret it reliably to promote good organizational decision making. The Information Analyst has three ways of obtaining this information: (1) interviewing, (2) investigation of hard data, and (3) observation. Until recently, observation has only been accomplished subconsciously. This paper describes how STRuctured OBservation of the Environment (STROBE) was used to aid in determining the information requirements of a regional blood service organization. STROBE was developed from a methodology used in film criticism. It is conceptualized by drawing a parallel between the concrete and abstract elements in a film, and similar elements found in an organization. It is then applied to the blood service organization and examples are provided for both concrete and abstract elements. These examples demonstrate that structured observation provides information unobtainable through interviewing and investigation.     

Game theoretic decision making in IoT-assisted activity monitoring of defence personnel

Innovative growth of IoT Technology has enhanced the service delivery aspects of defence sector in terms of high-tech surveillance, and reliable defence mechanisms. Along with the sensing capability for ubiquitous events, IoT Technology provides means to deliver services in time sensitive and information intensive manner. In this paper, a framework for IoT based activity monitoring of defence personnel is presented to detect the precursors of suspiciousness in terms of information outflow that can compromise the national security. Though maintaining intellectual defence personnel remained a major area of concern for every nation, still investigating reports of recent terrorist attacks in different countries have discovered the number of suspicion factors from their daily activities. The work presented in this study focuses on these factors in terms of efficient monitoring of social activities and analyzing it over suspicious scale. Moreover, Suspicious Index (SI) is defined for every personnel on the basis of their activities that can compromise national security directly or indirectly. Furthermore, automated game theoretic decision making model is presented to aid the monitoring officials in suppressing the probability of information outflow. In order to validate the system, two types of evaluations are performed. In one case, an imitative environment is considered to monitor 10 college students’ daily engagements for 7 days. The results are compared with the state-of-the-art techniques of data assessment. In the second case, a mathematical evaluation for the game theoretic decision making is performed. Results in both cases show that the proposed model achieves better performance in efficient monitoring of suspicious activities and effective decision making.     

Preference solutions of probability decision making with rim quantifiers

This article extends the quantifier‐guided aggregation method to include probabilistic information. A general framework for the preference solution of decision making under an uncertainty problem is proposed, which can include decision making under ignorance and decision making under risk methods as special cases with some specific preference parameters. Almost all the properties, especially the monotonicity property, are kept in this general form. With the generating function representation of the Regular Increasing Monotone (RIM) quantifier, some properties of the RIM quantifier are discussed. A parameterized RIM quantifier to represent the valuation preference for probabilistic decision making is proposed. Then the risk attitude representation method is integrated in this quantifier‐guided probabilistic decision making model to make it a general form of decision making under uncertainty. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Int Syst 20: 1253–1271, 2005.     

Support for real-time decision making in mobile financial applications

Mobile users making real-time decisions based on current information need confidence that their context has been taken into consideration in producing the system’s recommendations. This chapter reviews current use of mobile technologies for context-aware real-time decision support. Specifically, it describes a framework for assessing the impact of mobility in decision making. The framework uses dynamic context model of data quality to represent uncertainties in the mobile decision-making environment. This framework can be used for developing visual interactive displays for communicating to the user relevant changes in data quality when working in mobile environments. As an illustration, this chapter proposes a real-time decision support procedure for on-the-spot assistance to the mobile consumer when choosing the best payment option to efficiently manage their budget. The proposed procedure is based on multi-attribute decision analysis, scenario reasoning, and a quality of data framework. The feasibility of the approach is demonstrated with a mobile decision-support system prototype implementation. This article is part of the “Handbook on Decision Support Systems” edited by Frada Burstein and Clyde W. Holsapple (2008) Springer.