Decision support systems

Decision Support Systems (DSS) are a specific class of computerized information system that supports business and organizational decision-making activities. A properly-designed DSS is an interactive software-based system intended to help decision makers compile useful information from raw data, documents, personal knowledge, and/or business models to identify and solve problems and make decisions. DSS belong to an environment with multidisciplinary foundations, including database reasearch, artificial intelligence, human computer interaction, simulation methods, software engineering and telecomunicationdecision support system, decision makers, computer-based

Self-organization in complex systems as decision making

The idea is advanced that self-organization in complex systems can be treated as decision making (as it is performed by humans) and, vice versa, decision making is nothing but a kind of self-organization in the decision maker nervous systems. A mathematical formulation is suggested based on the definition of probabilities of system states, whose particular cases characterize the probabilities of structures, patterns, scenarios, or prospects. In this general framework, it is shown that the mathematical structures of self-organization and of decision making are identical. This makes it clear how self-organization can be seen as an endogenous decision making process and, reciprocally, decision making occurs via an endogenous self-organization. The approach is illustrated by phase transitions in large statistical systems, crossovers in small statistical systems, evolutions and revolutions in social and biological systems, structural self-organization in dynamical systems, and by the probabilistic formulation of classical and behavioral decision theories. In all these cases, self-organization is described as the process of evaluating the probabilities of macroscopic states or prospects in the search for a state with the largest probability. The general way of deriving the probability measure for classical systems is the principle of minimal information, that is, the conditional entropy maximization under given constraints. Behavioral biases of decision makers can be characterized in the same way as analogous to quantum fluctuations in natural systems.Comment: Latex file, 30 page

Higher education decision making and decision support systems

The authors illustrate several issues in decision support and decision support systems (DSS), state of the art research in these fields, and also their own studies in designing a higher education DSS. The final section contains our contribution in outlining the modules of the DSS, involving the present systems and databases of FSEGA and UBB, results and activities belonging to FSEGA students, teaching and research staff, to assist decisions for all the actors implicated in the processes, in various specific situations.decision support, decision support systems (DSS), higher education institutions, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Decision Making: A Computer-Science and Information-Technology Viewpoint

We address the phenomenon of decision making from the viewpoint of computer science and information technology. The basic question from this viewpoint is: what can the computer offer to decision makers and how it can support their work? Therefore, the main issue is to provide support to people who make complex decisions. In this article, we first present the taxonomy of disciplines that are concerned with methodological and operational aspects of decision support. At the main level, we distinguish between decision sciences, which are concerned with human decision making, and decision systems, which address computer decision making. This is followed by basic definitions related to decision processes and their components. We also describe properties that characterise different classes of decision problems. In the main part of the article, we present three prevailing approaches to decision support and give illustrative examples of their application: decision analysis, operational research, and decision support systems. Finally, we make a short overview of the area of decision systems and its achievements.decision making, decision sciences, decision support, decision analysis, decision systems