Fuzzy clustering of fuzzy systems

A fuzzy system entirely characterizes one region of the input-output product space S=U×Vthrough a relation expressed by a set of fuzzy rules. Effectively, the fuzzy system establishes a fuzzy map, which assigns for each input fuzzy set in U an output fuzzy set in V. The partition of this product space may be made through the decomposition of the relation. The fuzzy clustering of fuzzy rules, here proposed, as well as clustering of data, leads to a fuzzy partition of the S space. The result is a set of fuzzy sub-systems, one for each cluster that will be conveniently linked in a new structure. This paper proposes a new recursive clustering algorithm for the partition of a fuzzy system into a hierarchical collaborative structure. The global response of the hierarchical collaborative structure is identical to the input fuzzy system.Portuguese Ministry of Science and Technology (MCT) - Project SAPIENS- POCTI/33574/99

Firms as teams

This paper proposes the concept of a firm being totally constituted by a team over time and sketches some of its consequences.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Objective and subjective responsibility in business sustainability

This paper presents the distinction between objective responsibility – determined by social norms – and subjective responsibility – as a feeling and an attitude of an individual subject. The paper argues that both types of responsibility are necessary for the well functioning of businesses or social production and considers two consequences of the distinction for business sustainability. The first consequence comes through the interpretation of markets as systems to organize objective responsibility and the requirements this interpretation poses to attain the triad of economic, environmental and social sustainability. The second consequence considers firms as partnerships of participants as the most appropriate contractual form to acknowledge and foster subjective responsibility in the frame of the triad.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

A learning-oriented knowledge representation for teaching interfaces

This paper presents a formalism for representing knowledge, intended for use in teaching interfaces. The driving concern in developing the formalism was to get an explicit method for sequencing the presentation of materials to be learned. The first criterion for doing the sequencing is that it satisfies a relation of constructability or learning support among the materials. If the relation is restricted to be a function then it is possible to represent it by a directed acyclic graph, as it happens in other constructive processes. The directed acyclic graph representation enables automatic generation of presentation sequences satisfying the learning support relation. It turns out that the formalism suggests other criteria in a natural way. These criteria may be added in a variety of ways to refine the presentation and enhance the responsiveness of the interface to learner needs.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Organizational Decision Support Systems

This paper presents a notion for developing Organizational Decision Support Systems (ODSS). The lens used is to see ODSS as a specialization of Social Decision Support Systems (SDSS) and a generalization of Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS). A unit decision process can be raised by any person in a organizational whole, the organization itself or some sub-organization. The decision process can use a given formalism coherent with the idea that as the contributions from people in the decision process expands, so does the space of available perceptions (P), the space of available actions (A), strategies (S), and options (O), the space of available criteria (C) of valuation of options (V), leading to decision. Atomic decision processes link in the global decision process of the organization. Potential benefits, shortcomings and needed technologies are indicated as well as prospects of development.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Business sustainability and collective intelligence

In this paper one looks for contributions from the field of collective intelligence. Beginning with a preliminary analysis of businesses and their sustainability, the paper shortly defines collective intelligence and its potential contributions to organizations in general and businesses in particular.www.iproms.orgwww.isec.pt/ieeewww.masual.eswww.segin.ptwww.apcer.ptwww.dem.isep.ipp.pt/CIDEMwww.maismetal.ptwww.bureauveritas.ptwww.kaizen.comTétatrês Tecnologias e Equipamentos Lda

Coordination of systems through numeraires

A paradigm for coordination of systems is proposed based on a controller with enough power to induce coordination among systems with respect to some goal.The power considered here is of organization dissolution or system deletion, conditional on the values of an exchangeable scalar criterion applied to the system by the controller. The criterion is called a numeraire because the paradigm was abstracted from economic systems based on money.One describes a method for the computer representation of producing systems based on string rewrite rules. Then, one studies the regulation problem for an abstract example of a coordinated system through a numeraire. First, one considers to define and enforce a nominal operation point; second, one studies the effects of disturbances and what can the controller do to minimize them.Although the example is simple, it shows instructive results and allows to consider several research lines.Paulo Garrido was financially supported by FCT, Fundacao Portuguesa para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia, through the Program PEst, Strategic Program of the Algoritmi Research Center, Project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-022674.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Design of a social decision support system for organizations

The growth of Web technologies and collaborative Web-based software as means of tapping and making useful knowledge and perception distributed among people, makes evident the potential interest and application of the paradigm of Socially Supported Decision Systems (SSDS) for organizations. This paper describes on-going research on SSDS and development of a concept prototype of such a system, named Amplidir. Research highlights similarities and differences between control at the machine level and decision at the human organizational level. An initial set of specifications for Amplidir is also given.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Preface

[Excerpt] The biennial CONTROLO conferences are the main events promoted by the Portu-guese Association for Automatic Control – APCA, national member organization of the International Federation of Automatic Control – IFAC. The CONTROLO 2016 – 12th Portuguese Conference on Automatic Control, Guimarães, Portugal, September 14th to 16th, was organized by Algoritmi, School of Engineering, University of Minho, in partnership with INESC TEC. This edition of the conference has been approved for co-sponsorship by IFAC. The conference had three partners: CEA – Comité Español de Automática, SPEE – the Portuguese Association for Education Engineering, and SPR – the Portuguese Association for Robotics. [...](undefined)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

MODSSO - A Manager-centric Global Decision Support System for Organizations

The goal of this paper is to describe a set of structured concepts for the design of software systems supporting the global decision process in an enterprise or organization.The concepts has as elements: i) each manager has available a decision dashboard to support, in a framework of decision theory, the flux of decision-making for which he or she is responsible; ii) the dashboards also allow managers crowdsourcing from non-managers different aspects of decision iii) the dashboards are connected in a conversational network; iv) this conversational network is so structured to support the global decision process of the organization. An example of implementation's architecture for the concept will be described.This work was supported by the FEDER Fund through the Operational Program for Competitiveness Factors and by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - under the Project: FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER022674info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio