Investigating Decision Support Techniques for Automating Cloud Service Selection

The compass of Cloud infrastructure services advances steadily leaving users in the agony of choice. To be able to select the best mix of service offering from an abundance of possibilities, users must consider complex dependencies and heterogeneous sets of criteria. Therefore, we present a PhD thesis proposal on investigating an intelligent decision support system for selecting Cloud based infrastructure services (e.g. storage, network, CPU).Comment: Accepted by IEEE Cloudcom 2012 - PhD consortium trac

Ordering vs. AHP. Does the intensity used in the decision support techniques compensate?

The manifestation of the intensity in the judgment of one alternative versus another in the peer comparison processes is a central element in some decision support techniques, such as the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). However, its contribution regarding quality (expected performance) with respect to the priority vector has not been evaluated so far. Using the Intentional Bounded Rationality Methodology (IBRM), this work analyzes the gains obtained from requiring the decision-maker to report an intensity judgment in pairs (AHP) with respect to a technique that only requires expressing a preference (Ordering). The results show that when decision-makers have low levels of expertise, it is possible that a less informative and computational cheap technique (Ordering) performs better than a more informative and computational expensive one (AHP). When decision-makers have medium and high levels of expertise, AHP technique obtains modest gains with respect to the Ordering technique. This study proposes a cost-benefit analysis of decision support techniques contrasting the gains of a technique that requires more resources (AHP) against other that require less resources (Ordering). Our results can change the managing approach of the information obtained from experts’ judgments

Supporting Decisions: Understanding natural resource management assessment techniques

Report to the Land and Water Resources Research and Development Corporation. This document presents a review of NRM decision support techniques. It draws upon previous studies in the fields of management science, operations research, environmental economics and natural resource management. The objectives of the document are to: Explain the workings of the more significant (representative) methods of NRM decision support (including the latest developments); Discuss how these decision support methods may influence the outcome of NRM decisions; and Provide practicing NRM decision makers with guidance for choosing which methods to apply.Australia;natural resource management;assessment;decision support;

Intentional bounded rationality methodology to assess the quality of decision-making approaches with latent alternative performances

Expert’s judgments have been crucial in the development of decision theory; however, what criterion to use in the selection of experts remains an issue to address. Decision support techniques proposed to improve the quality of expert judgment decision making consider a demonstrated inconsistency of the judgments expressed by an expert as a criterion of exclusion in the decision-making process of such expert. Although consistency appears to be a desirable condition to qualify as “expert”, little is known about the quality of the decisions made imposing consistency as the expert qualifying condition. This paper proposes a simulation methodology, based on an automaton programmed to make decisions in an intended but bounded rational way, to assess the cost-benefit of different aspects of decision support techniques. Within this methodology, the imposition of the consistency condition in the selection of experts is studied. In particular, the paper shows with a case study example that the Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) decision support technique expected payoff is at most 5% higher when implementing Saaty’s consistency criterion of the expert’s judgments than when the consistency criterion is not considered.Spanish Government ECO2017-86305-C4-3-RGobierno de AragonEuropean Social Fund (ESF)Spanish Government PID2019-103880RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/50110001103

Authorization policies: Using Decision Support System for context-aware protection of user's private data

International audienceNowadays privacy in ambient system is a real issue. Users will have to control their data more and more in the future. Current security systems don't support a strong constraint: policy writers are non-technical users and not security experts. We propose in this paper to use Decision Support techniques and more specifically Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis in the process of authorization policy writing. This research area provides techniques to inform and assist non-technical users to write their own authorization policies following the paradigm of Attribute-Based Access Control

Local knowledge to support environmental resource management in data-poor regions

EnThe importance of shared decision-making processes in water management derives from the awareness of the inadequacy of traditional–i.e.engineering–approaches in dealing with complex and ill-structured problems.It is becoming increasingly obvious that traditional problem solving and decision support techniques,based on optimisation and factual knowledge,need to be combined with stakeholder-based policy design and implementation.The aim of our research is the definition of a Community-based Decision Support System (CBDSS),able to facilitate integration of local and scientific knowledge.The system has been applied to support public involvement in the drawing up of the river Idro management plan

Negotiation and the Web: Users' Perception and Acceptance

New information technologies invariably provide excellent opportunities for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of decision making and negotiation through the development of novel decision support techniques. Emerging Internet related technologies and, in particular, the World Wide Web provide yet another opportunity for radical change and improvement in the support and practice of negotiations. This view is supported by the results of a cross-cultural experiment that we have been conducting over the past year as part of the InterNeg project, observing computer-assisted international negotiations over the Web. One of the surprises from this experiment is the degree of acceptance that the Web/computer technology achieved among a user base comprising both experienced negotiators and students. In this paper we report our experimental results and suggest the reasons behind and requirements for successful acceptance of Web based negotiation support technology, with the aim of stimulating further exploration of the opportunities held out by these new technologies

Learning Business Negotiations with Web-based Systems: The Case of IIMB

Access to, and the ability to use computer and communication technologies varies widely between countries. It is often lack of proficiency rather than access that creates the barriers between developed and developing countries. The interNeg Web site and its online system INSPIRE and INSS, aim at overcoming these barriers by educating people around the world about decision and negotiation analysis and providing them with an opportunity to use decision support techniques. The systems allow one to conduct simulated negotiations with people from different cultures and solve realistic managerial decision problems. In this paper we present and discuss the limitations of the prevailing methods for teaching decision making and negotiation and present a technological solution that is Internet-based. We present our experiences with using our Web-based decision and negotiation support systems in executive training programs at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB). The discussion of extension to the presented methods and their use in higher education in developing countries concludes the paper