Towards a Reliable Framework of Uncertainty-Based Group Decision Support System

This study proposes a framework of Uncertainty-based Group Decision Support System (UGDSS). It provides a platform for multiple criteria decision analysis in six aspects including (1) decision environment, (2) decision problem, (3) decision group, (4) decision conflict, (5) decision schemes and (6) group negotiation. Based on multiple artificial intelligent technologies, this framework provides reliable support for the comprehensive manipulation of applications and advanced decision approaches through the design of an integrated multi-agents architecture.Comment: Accepted paper in IEEE-ICDM2010; Print ISBN: 978-1-4244-9244-

Контекстно-управляемый подход к интеллектуальной поддержке принятия решений на основе цифровых следов пользователей

A context-aware approach to intelligent decision support based on user digital traces is proposed. The concept of human digital life with regard to intelligent decision support is discussed. The aims of addressing this concept in diverse domains are clarified and approaches to modelling human digital life are identified. In the proposed approach, digital traces serve as a source of information to reveal user preferences and decision-making behaviour. Perspectives on decision support based on user digital traces are developed. The research outcomes are the specification of requirements to intelligent decision support based on user digital traces, the principles, conceptual framework and information model of such support. The principles form the basis for the conceptual framework of intelligent decision support based on user digital traces. Components of the conceptual model are user profiles; a user digital life model that structures information containing in the digital traces; group patterns that describe preferences and decision-making behavior shared by a user group; and a decision maker ontology. The information model defines information flows between the framework’s components, identifies tasks that require solutions to implement the framework and offers techniques for this. The novelties of the research are applying the concept of human digital life to intelligent decision support and context-dependent ontological inference of the type of user as a decision-maker, which determines a group of users sharing their preferences and behaviours with the active user, to predict a recommended decision. The paper contributes to the areas of modelling human digital life and intelligent decision support.Разрабатывается контекстно-управляемый подход к интеллектуальной поддержке принятия решений на основе цифровых следов пользователей. Рассматриваются вопросы использования концепции жизни человека в цифровой среде при интеллектуальной поддержке принятия решений. Исследуются цели обращения к цифровым следам человека в различных проблемных областях и выявляются подходы к моделированию жизни человека в цифровой среде. Предлагается подход к интеллектуальной поддержке принятия решений, в котором цифровые следы служат источником информации для выявления предпочтений пользователей и их поведения при принятии решений. Развиваются взгляды на поддержку принятия решений на основе учета следов пользователей в цифровой среде. Результатами исследования являются спецификация требований к интеллектуальной поддержке принятия решений на основе цифровых следов пользователя, принципы, концептуальная и информационная модели такой поддержки

Polarization and opinion analysis in an online argumentation system for collaborative decision support

Argumentation is an important process in a collaborative decision making environment. Argumentation from a large number of stakeholders often produces a large argumentation tree. It is challenging to comprehend such an argumentation tree without intelligent analysis tools. Also, limited decision support is provided for its analysis by the existing argumentation systems. In an argumentation process, stakeholders tend to polarize on their opinions, and form polarization groups. Each group is usually led by a group leader. Polarization groups often overlap and a stakeholder is a member of multiple polarization groups. Identifying polarization groups and quantifying a stakeholder\u27s degree of membership in multiple polarization groups helps the decision maker understand both the social dynamics and the post-decision effects on each group. Frameworks are developed in this dissertation to identify both polarization groups and quantify a stakeholder\u27s degree of membership in multiple polarization groups. These tasks are performed by quantifying opinions of stakeholders using argumentation reduction fuzzy inference system and further clustering opinions based on K-means and Fuzzy c-means algorithms. Assessing the collective opinion of the group on individual arguments is also important. This helps stakeholders understand individual arguments from the collective perspective of the group. A framework is developed to derive the collective assessment score of individual arguments in a tree using the argumentation reduction inference system. Further, these arguments are clustered using argument strength and collective assessment score to identify clusters of arguments with collective support and collective attack. Identifying outlier opinions in an argumentation tree helps in understanding opinions that are further away from the mean group opinion in the opinion space. Outlier opinions may exist from two perspectives in argumentation: individual viewpoint and collective viewpoint of the group. A framework is developed in this dissertation to address this challenge from both perspectives. Evaluation of the methods is also presented and it shows that the proposed methods are effective in identifying polarization groups and outlier opinions. The information produced by these methods help decision makers and stakeholders in making more informed decisions --Abstract, pages iii-iv

A MAS-based infrastructure for negotiation and its application to a water-right market

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10796-013-9443-8This paper presents a MAS-based infrastructure for the specification of a negotiation framework that handles multiple negotiation protocols in a coherent and flexible way. Although it may be used to implement one single type of agreement mechanism, it has been designed in such a way that multiple mechanisms may be available at any given time, to be activated and tailored on demand (on-line) by participating agents. The framework is also generic enough so that new protocols may be easily added. This infrastructure has been successfully used in a case study to implement a simulation tool as a component of a larger framework based on an electronic market of water rights.This paper was partially funded by the Consolider AT project CSD2007-0022 INGENIO 2010 of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation; the MICINN projects TIN2011-27652-C03-01 and TIN2009-13839-C03-01; and the Valencian Prometeo project 2008/051.Alfonso Espinosa, B.; Botti Navarro, VJ.; Garrido Tejero, A.; Giret Boggino, AS. (2014). A MAS-based infrastructure for negotiation and its application to a water-right market. Information Systems Frontiers. 16(2):183-199. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-013-9443-8S183199162Alberola, J.M., Such, J.M., Espinosa, A., Botti, V., García-Fornes, A. (2008). Magentix: a multiagent platform integrated in linux. In EUMAS (pp. 1–10).Alfonso, B., Vivancos, E., Botti, V., García-Fornes, A. (2011). Integrating jason in a multi-agent platform with support for interaction protocols. In Proceedings of the compilation of the co-located workshops on AGERE!’11, SPLASH ’11 workshop (pp. 221–226). New York: ACM.Andreu, J., Capilla, J., Sanchis, E. (1996). AQUATOOL, a generalized decision-support system for water-resources planning and operational management. Journal of Hydrology, 177(3–4), 269–291.Bellifemine, F., Caire, G., Greenwood, D. (2007). Developing multi-agent systems with JADE. Wiley.Bordini, R.H., Hübner, J.F., Wooldridge, M. (2007). Programming multi-agent systems in agent speak usign Jason. Wiley.Botti, V., Garrido, A., Gimeno, J.A., Giret, A., Noriega, P. (2011). The role of MAS as a decision support tool in a water-rights market. In AAMAS 2011 workshops, LNAI 7068 (pp. 35–49). Springer.Braubach, L., Pokahr, A., Lamersdorf, W. (2005). Software agent-based applications, platforms and development kits In C.M.K.R. Unland (Ed.), Jadex: a BDI agent system combining middleware and reasoning (Vol. 9, pp. 143–168): Birkhäuser-Verlag.DeSanctis, G.B., & Gallupe, B. (1987). A foundation for the study of group decision support systems. Knowledge based systems, 33(5), 589–609.Eckersley, P. (2003). Virtual markets for virtual goods. Available at http://www.ipria.com/publications/wp/2003/IPRIAWP02.2003.pdf (Accessed April 2012).Fjermestad, J., & Hiltz, S. (2001). Group support systems: a descriptive evaluation of case and field studies. Journal of Management Information Systems, 17(3), 115–161.Fogués, R.L., Alberola, J.M., Such, J.M., Espinosa, A., García-Fornes, A. (2010). Towards dynamic agent interaction support in open multiagent systems. In Proceedings of the 13th international conference of the catalan association for artificial intelligence (Vol. 220, pp. 89–98). IOS Press.Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents. (2001). FIPA interaction protocol library specification XC00025E. FIPA Consortium.Garrido, A., Arangu, M., Onaindia, E. (2009). A constraint programming formulation for planning: from plan scheduling to plan generatio. Journal of Scheduling, 12(3), 227–256.Giret, A., Garrido, A., Gimeno, J.A., Botti, V., Noriega, P. (2011). A MAS decision support tool for water-right markets. In Proceedings of the tenth international conference on autonomous agents and multiagent systems (Demonstrations@AAMAS) (pp. 1305–1306).Gomez-Limon, J., & Martinez, Y. (2006). Multi-criteria modelling of irrigation water market at basin level: a Spanish case study. European Journal of Operational Research, 173, 313–336.Janjua, N.K., Hussain, F.K., Hussain, O.K. (2013). Semantic information and knowledge integration through argumentative reasoning to support intelligent decision making. Information Systems Frontiers, 15(2), 167–192.jen Hsu, J.Y., Lin, K.-J., Chang, T.-H., ju Ho, C., Huang, H.-S., rong Jih, W. (2006). Parameter learning of personalized trust models in broker-based distributed trust management. Information Systems Frontiers, 8(4), 321–333.Kersten, G., & Lai, H. (2007). European Journal of Operational Research, 180(2), 922–937.Lee, N., Bae, J.K., Koo, C. (2012). A case-based reasoning based multi-agent cognitive map inference mechanism: an application to sales opportunity assessment. Information Systems Frontiers, 14(3), 653–668.Luck, M., & AgentLink. (2005). Agent technology: computing as interaction: a roadmap for agent-based computing. Compiled, written and edited by Michael Luck et al. AgentLink, Southampton.Ma, J., & Orgun, M.A. (2008). Formalizing theories of trust for authentication protocols. Information Systems Frontiers, 10(1), 19–32.Pokahr, A., Braubach, L., Walczak, A., Lamersdorf, W. (2007). Developing multi-agent systems with JADE. Jadex-Engineering Goal-Oriented Agents (pp. 254258). Wiley.Ramos, C., Cordeiro, M., Praça, I., Vale, Z. (2005). Intelligent agents for negotiation and game-based decision support in electricity market. Engineering Intelligent Systems for Electrical Engineering and Communications, 13(2), 147–154.Sierra, C., Botti, V., Ossowski, S. (2011). Agreement computing. KI - Künstliche Intelligenz, 25(1), 57–61.Thobani, M. (1997). Formal water markets: why, when and how to introduce tradable water rights. The World Bank Research Observer, 12(2), 161–179

Cooperative Decision Support Systems

National audienceDecision-making has evolved recently thanks to the introduction of information and communication technologies in many organizations, which has led to new kinds of decision-making processes, called “collaborative decision-making”, at the organizational and cognitive levels. The author will present the development of the decision-making process in organizations. Decision-aiding and its paradigm of problem solving are defined, showing how decision-makers now need to work in a cooperative way. Definitions of cooperation and associated concepts such as collaboration and coordination are given and a framework of cooperative decision support systems is presented, including intelligent DSS, cooperative knowledge-based systems, workflow, group support systems, collaborative engineering, integrating with a collaborative decision-making model in part or being part of global projects. Several models and experimental studies are also included showing that these new processes have to be supported by new types of tools, several of which are described in order to calculate or simulate solutions or global solutions for decision-making modification. Definitions and new trends for these models are given, along with types of systems

Integration of decision support systems to improve decision support performance

Decision support system (DSS) is a well-established research and development area. Traditional isolated, stand-alone DSS has been recently facing new challenges. In order to improve the performance of DSS to meet the challenges, research has been actively carried out to develop integrated decision support systems (IDSS). This paper reviews the current research efforts with regard to the development of IDSS. The focus of the paper is on the integration aspect for IDSS through multiple perspectives, and the technologies that support this integration. More than 100 papers and software systems are discussed. Current research efforts and the development status of IDSS are explained, compared and classified. In addition, future trends and challenges in integration are outlined. The paper concludes that by addressing integration, better support will be provided to decision makers, with the expectation of both better decisions and improved decision making processes

Spectral Band Selection for Ensemble Classification of Hyperspectral Images with Applications to Agriculture and Food Safety

In this dissertation, an ensemble non-uniform spectral feature selection and a kernel density decision fusion framework are proposed for the classification of hyperspectral data using a support vector machine classifier. Hyperspectral data has more number of bands and they are always highly correlated. To utilize the complete potential, a feature selection step is necessary. In an ensemble situation, there are mainly two challenges: (1) Creating diverse set of classifiers in order to achieve a higher classification accuracy when compared to a single classifier. This can either be achieved by having different classifiers or by having different subsets of features for each classifier in the ensemble. (2) Designing a robust decision fusion stage to fully utilize the decision produced by individual classifiers. This dissertation tests the efficacy of the proposed approach to classify hyperspectral data from different applications. Since these datasets have a small number of training samples with larger number of highly correlated features, conventional feature selection approaches such as random feature selection cannot utilize the variability in the correlation level between bands to achieve diverse subsets for classification. In contrast, the approach proposed in this dissertation utilizes the variability in the correlation between bands by dividing the spectrum into groups and selecting bands from each group according to its size. The intelligent decision fusion proposed in this approach uses the probability density of training classes to produce a final class label. The experimental results demonstrate the validity of the proposed framework that results in improvements in the overall, user, and producer accuracies compared to other state-of-the-art techniques. The experiments demonstrate the ability of the proposed approach to produce more diverse feature selection over conventional approaches

Implementing intelligent asset management systems (IAMS) within an industry 4.0 manufacturing environment

9th IFAC Conference on Manufacturing Modelling, Management and Control, MIM 2019; Berlin; Germany; 28 August 2019 through 30 August 2019. Publicado en IFAC-PapersOnLine 52(13), p. 2488-2493This paper aims to define the different considerations and results obtained in the implementation in an Intelligent Maintenance System of a laboratory designed based on basic concepts of Industry 4.0. The Intelligent Maintenance System uses asset monitoring techniques that allow, on-line digital modelling and automatic decision making. The three fundamental premises used for the development of the management system are the structuring of information, value identification and risk management