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EWG-DSS Newsletter Nr. 8, Year 2009

EWG-DSS Newsletter Newsletter of the EURO Working Group on Decision Support System

In this issue

Editorial........................................ 1

EWG-DSS Online......................... 2

Recent Publications.................... 2

Interview ...................................... 4

Research Review ........................ 5

Call for Papers............................. 8

DSS Stream EURO XXIV ............. 9

EWG-DSS Meetings .................... 9

Upcoming Events...................... 10

Group News............................... 10

Contacting & Joining the EWG-DSS...................................................... 10

EWG-DSS Members .................. 10

Contributing to this Newsletter 10

Editorial Board The Newsletter of the EURO-WG on Decision Support Systems is currently edited by:

Fátima Dargam, Pascale Zaraté & Rita Ribeiro

Comments and announcements to next issues of the EWG-DSS Newsletter should be sent to F.Dargam@SimTechnology.com or Zarate@irit.fr with the subject: “EWG-DSS Newsletter”.

Editorial by Pascale Zaraté, Fátima Dargam & Rita Ribeiro (Coordination Board of the EURO Working Group on DSS since 2007)

Dear Euro Working Group members! Dear Friends!

The 2009 edition of our newsletter was published later than usual. Time seems to fly these days! Nevertheless, this issue includes a couple of interesting information concerning our Working Group (see the EWG-DSS Online, for instance), as well as a new session of Interview, which was inaugurated with our Madeira founding member and EURO President-elected: Grazia Speranza. Moreover, we also find in this issue a list of recent publications and some research projects being developed by some of our group, apart from the usual sessions about the EWG-DSS Meetings and Call for Papers. We are very grateful to all the members, who have contributed to the contents of this issue.

In 2009 our group completed 20 years of existence! This round anniversary was commemorated with a warm get-together in July 2009, in Bonn, by the occasion of the 23rd EURO Conference. It was great to meet some of our founding group members again, as well as to have a chance to get to know the new ones who also took part at the EURO XXIII in Germany. More about this meeting can be found in the sub-session “EWG-DSS Meeting 2009” of “EWG-DSS Meetings”.

The year of 2009 was not only the year of our 20th anniversary, but also a year of many efforts towards making the the EWG-DSS members interact via various different initiatives. The study about a “Collaboration Academic Social Network” for the group was one of them, followed by the new online fronts now available for the EWG-DSS in LinkedIn and in the EWG-DSS Wordpress Blog. This Newsletter briefly describes about all these initiatives. We hope you enjoy reading about them here and, most important, giving them a go online as well! Interact within EWG-DSS! Participate!

Yours Sincerely,

Pascale Zaraté Fátima Dargam Rita Ribeiro

Zarate@irit.fr F.Dargam@SimTechnology.com rar@uninova.pt

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EWG-DSS online EWG-DSS Web-Links:

• EWG-DSS – EURO Homepage

(http://www.euro-online.org/) Working Groups EURO Working Groups EWG Decision support systems

In the EWG-DSS page of the EURO-Homepage you find the updated information about the group activities in terms of past and future meetings, our means of communications and on-line networks, as well as some selected publications of the group.

• EWG-DSS – IRIT Server

A server hosted by IRIT, which contains all the EWG-DSS Newsletters’ pdf files; Call for Papers relevant for the group as well as project descriptions of group members (in “Shared Documents”). This web-site is devoted to the members of the EWG-DSS. It is possible that every member sends a message to the group mailing-list, ewg-dss@irit.fr, either using the facility “Post” of the IRIT Server or by directly using the e-mail address of the list in his/her e-mail environment. Also via the option “Review Members”, one is able to check the individual e-mail addresses of each member. All the EWG-DSS members are allowed to have access to this server.

• EWG-DSS – LinkedIn Group

The EWG-DSS Group in LinkedIn, was created in May 2009 aiming to encourage the cooperation of all

researchers involved with the Decision Making research area. It serves as another platform for all the members of the group to better interact as well as have a better reach of our academic production and network links. Currently the Linked-In EWG-DSS Group has 53 members. This group is also open to Linked-In members, who would like to interact with the EWG-DSS group without being a member.

• EWG-DSS – Slideshare

The EWG-DSS Slideshare account <http://www.slideshare.net/ewgdss> is open to any visitor and allows one to view the documents (pdf files, power-point files, etc…) that are placed there available by the EWG-DSS Coordination Board. Since 2008, the Newsletters are placed in this Slideshare account. It is our intention to publish also presentations of the group. If you would like to share one of your power-point presentations (within our research area) with others, you can also send them to us so, that they can be placed available for viewing (with credits to you) under this environment.

• EWG-DSS – Blog

Since May 2009, our EURO

Working Group on Decision Support Systems EWG-DSS has a Blog! <http://ewgdss.wordpress.com/> This blog opens another platform for all of us, members of the group, to better interact. The posts in this blog are supposed to range from reports of group meetings and their papers presented, as well as call for papers and conferences, interviews with group members and other informal information of the members. The blog is maintained by the Coordination Board of the group. You should take as much advantage as possible of this fantastic interactive means, commenting the posts, suggesting new ones and sending to the us your own posts to be

published. We hope you like it and use it! ♦

Recent Publication From members of the EWG-DSS: o A Special Issue on

“Technologies for Collaborative Decision Making “, in the International Journal of Decision Support Systems Technology IJDSST, including selected papers of the Decision Analysis & DSS Stream of the EURO XXIII Conference in Bonn, Germany, July 2009. Guest Editors: F.C.C. Dargam; P. Zaraté (to appear).

o Towards a Collaboration Network for the EURO Working Group on DSS (EWG-DSS). F. Dargam; R. Ribeiro; P. Zaraté. Jan.2010. Invited Review of the EJOR European Journal of Operation Research (to appear).

o A Special Issue in the Journal

of Decision Support Systems Technologies, edited by A. Respicio and P. Zaraté, on Technologies for Collaborative Decision Making; IGI Global, Hershey - USA, Vol. 1 N. 4, October 2009.

o A Special issue in EJOR on

Formal Tools and Methodologies for DSS, edited by P. Zaraté; Elsevier, Vol. 195 N. 3, June 2009. A selection of papers presented during the CIDMDS Conference 2006 are published: 4 papers are edited on 17 submitted.

o Collaborative Decision Making:

Perspectives and Challenges; (Eds) P. Zaraté, J.P. Belaud, G. Camilleri, F. Ravat; July 2008; N°ISSN: 0922-6389; IOSPress Publisher; available at http://www.irit.fr/CDM08/

o Integration of decision support

systems to improve decision support performance (Survey -Review Paper). Shaofeng Liu, Alex H. B. Duffy, Robert Ian Whitfield, Iain M. Boyle.

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Knowledge and Information Systems - An International Journal, DOI 10.1007/s10115-009-0192-4. Abstract available online at the link: http://www.springerlink.com/content/jm7k56n631252761/

o Bhattacharya, A., Vasant, P.,

Sarkar, B. and Mukherjee, S.K., 2008, “A Fully Fuzzified, Intelligent Theory-of-Constraints Product-Mix Decision”. International Journal of Production Research, Volume 46, Issue 3, pp. 789-815.

o Bhattacharya, A., Geraghty, J.

and Young, P. “On the analytical framework of resilient supply chain network assessing excursion events”, The 3rd Asia International Conference on Modelling & Simulation, Bandung & Bali, Indonesia, 25, 26 & 29 May 2009, 392–397.

o Bhattacharya, A., Geraghty, J.

and Young, P., 2009. “Optimised planning, ranking & selection of suppliers: An integrated QFD-AHP-LGP methodology”, Proceedings of the “Advances in Production Management Systems” (APMS2009) conference, held during 19-23 September 2009 at Bordeaux, France.

o Susanto, S., Al-Dabass, D. and

Bhattacharya, A., 2009, “Optimised cell formation algorithm considering sequence of operations, alternative routing and part-volume”, The 3rd Asia International Conference on Modelling & Simulation, Bandung & Bali, Indonesia, 25, 26 & 29 May 2009, 79–84.

o Susanto, S., Suharto, I.,

Rosmiyanti, N.T. and Bhattacharya, A., 25–27, 2008, “Fuzzy Multi-objective Linear Programming having Probabilistic Constraints: Application in Product-Mix Decision-Making”. The 5th International Conference on Fuzzy Systems and Knowledge Discovery (FSKD

‘08), Jinan, China, pp. 652–656.

o Vasant, P., Bhattacharya, A.

and Abraham, A., October 2008, “Measurement of Level-of-Satisfaction of Decision Maker in Intelligent Fuzzy-MCDM theory: A Generalised Approach” (Chapter 9). In: (Ed.: Kahraman, Cengiz) “Fuzzy Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Theory and Applications with Recent Developments”; Series: Springer Optimization and Its Applications, Vol. 16, pp. 235–261, Springer-Verlag: Berlin, ISBN: 978-0-387-76812-0. [http://www.springer.com/math/book/978-0-387-76812-0]

o Bhattacharya, A., Abraham, A.

and Vasant, P., October 2008, “FMS Selection under Disparate Level-of-Satisfaction of Decision Maker using Intelligent Fuzzy-MCDM Model” (Chapter 10). In: (Ed.: Kahraman, Cengiz) “Fuzzy Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Theory and Applications with Recent Developments”; Series: Springer Optimization and Its Applications, Vol. 16, pp. 263–280, Springer-Verlag: Berlin, ISBN: 978-0-387-76812-0. [http://www.springer.com/math/book/978-0-387-76812-0]

o Abraham, A., Vasant, P. and

Bhattacharya, A., October 2008, “Neuro-fuzzy Approximation to Multi-Criteria Decision Making QFD Methodology” (Chapter 12). In: (Ed.: Kahraman, Cengiz) “Fuzzy Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Theory and Applications with Recent Developments”; Series: Springer Optimization and Its Applications, Vol. 16, pp. 301–321, Springer-Verlag: Berlin, ISBN: 978-0-387-76812-0. [+http://www.springer.com/math/book/978-0-387-76812-0]

o T. Pais; R. A. Ribeiro, Contributions to Dynamic Multicriteria Decision Making Models. In: Proceedings of the International Fuzzy Systems Association World Congress &

European Society for Fuzzy logic and technology Conference (IFSA-EUSFLAT 2009) , Lisbon, Portugal, July 2009 : 719-724. ISBN: 978-989-95079-6-8

o L. F. Simoes; T. C. Pais; R. A. Ribeiro; G. Jonniaux; S. Reynaud, Search methodologies for efficient planetary site selection. In: IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC 2009), Norway, May 2009 :1981-1987.

o R. A. Marques Pereira, R.A. Ribeiro, P. Serra. Rule correlation and integration in fuzzy inference systems. International Journal of Uncertainty, Fuzziness and Knowledge-Based Systems Vol. 16, No. 5 (2008) 601–626

o S.H. Alavi, J. Jassbi, P.J. A. Serra, R. A. Ribeiro. Defining fuzzy measures: A comparative study with genetic and gradient descent algorithms. In: Intelligent Engineering Systems and Computational Cybernetics, Edited by J. Tenreiro Machado, B. Patkai, J. Rudas, Springer, e-ISBN 978-1-4020-8678-6 (2008) 427-438.

o P. Serra, R. A. Ribeiro, R. A. Marques Pereira, R. Steel, M. Niezette, A. Donati Fuzzy Thermal Alarm System for Venus Express. In: Encyclopedia of Decision Making and Decision Support Technologies. Editors: Frederic Adam and Patrick Humphreys. Publisher: Information Science Reference, Vol I (2008) 391-401.

o R. A. Ribeiro, I. L. Nunes. Interfaces Usability for Monitoring Systems In: Encyclopedia of Decision Making and Decision Support Technologies. Editors: Frederic Adam and Patrick Humphreys. Publisher: Information Science Reference, Vol II. (2008).

o B.R. Santos, T. Fonseca, M. Barata, R. A. Ribeiro, P.

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Sousa. A method for automatic fuzzy set generation using sensor data. Autosoft- Intelligent Automation and Soft Computing International Journal Vol 14, No 3 (2008), 279-292.

o C. Coelho, P. Serra, R. A. Ribeiro, R. A. Marques-Pereira, A. Dietz, A. Donati. Fuzzy alarm system for laser gyroscopes degradation. Autosoft- Intelligent Automation and Soft Computing International Journal, Vol 14, No 3 (2008) pp. 351-365.

o T. Simas, G. Silva, B. Miranda, A. Moitinho, and R. Ribeiro. Knowledge Discovery in Large Data Sets. In: Classification and Discovery in Large Astronomical Surveys, C.A.L. Bailer-Jones (ed.), AIP Conference Proceedings vol. 1082, AIP (Melville, New York), 2008:196-201. ISBN978-0-7354-0613-1.

o M. M. Gomes, B. R. Santos, T. Simas, P. Sousa, R. A. Ribeiro. Reducing the number of membership functions in linguistic variables: Application to a fuzzy monitoring system. 8Th Internatinal Conference on Application of Fuzzy Systems and Soft Computing (ICAFS-08), Helsinki, Finland, Sept., 2008: 198-206.

o T. C. Pais, R.A. Ribeiro,Y. Devouassoux, S. Reynaud. Regions rating for selecting spacecraft landing sites. In: Proceedings of The 8th International FLINS Conference on Computational Intelligence in Decision and Control, Madrid, Spain, September, 2008 : 1039-1044.

o Y. Devouassoux, S. Reynaud, G. Jonniaux, R. A. Ribeiro, T. C. Pais. Hazard avoidance developments for planetary exploration. In: Proceedings of the 7th International ESA Conference on Guidance, Navigation & Control Systems, Tralee, Ireland, June 2008.

o T. C. Pais, R.A. Ribeiro,Y. Devouassoux, S. Reynaud Dynamic ranking algorithm for landing site selection. In: Proceedings of the Int. Conference on Information Processing and Management of Uncertainty (IPMU´08), Malaga, June 2008.

Thanks to all members who contributed to this session. ♦

Interview

Grazia Speranza

“My view of EURO is that EURO is at the service of OR researchers in Europe.” On behalf of the EWG-DSS, Fátima Dargam had the pleasure to interview our colleague: Grazia Speranza, also a founding member of the EWG-DSS since 1989 in Madeira. Grazia Speranza is Professor of Operations Research of the University of Brescia since 1990, where she has also actively promoted research via assuming different positions. From 1998 to 2000, she was President of the Research Council, and from 2000 to 2002 she was Vice-President of that University and from 2002 to 2008 Grazia Speranza also worked as the Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Brescia. In 2009, EURO has elected Grazia Speranza to be its President for the next mandate. We congratulate Grazia for this achievement and thank her for

giving us the opportunity of producing this interview for our Newsletter. We hope you enjoy reading it! EWG-DSS: Tell us about your research / working experiences with EURO GS: Since the beginning of 2008 I have actively worked inside EURO, as Vice-President of IFORS (the International Federation of Operational Research Societies) representing EURO. EURO is one of the regional groupings of IFORS. The position of Vice-President of IFORS has offered me the opportunity to get to know IFORS and its organization and, through IFORS, the other regional groupings. In the last couple of years I have also regularly met the Executive Committee of EURO and got in touch with the several issues and challenges EURO is meeting nowadays. EWG-DSS: What do you think you could contribute during your mandate as President? GS: EURO is a grouping of 30 national societies. Many of the national societies have a long and consolidated history, numerous individual and institutional members, high quality journals. EURO is a strong grouping because the member societies are strong. The role of EURO with respect to the national societies can be seen as similar to the role of Europe with respect to the European countries. EURO can add value to the national societies and contribute to make the European OR researchers more visible and more successful in a globalized scientific world. Over the years EURO has created a number of tools to promote Operations Research in Europe, has a successful journal, the European Journal of Operational Research (EJOR), successful conferences, awards, meetings, working groups, workshops, summer and winter institutes,…. The role of EURO has become more and more important. At the EURO conference that was held in Prague in 2007 the number of

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participants exceeded for the first time the threshold of 2000. The EURO conference in Prague was considered an extraordinarily successful conference. Within the EURO Executive Committee nobody believed the next EURO conference, held in Bonn in 2009 could be more successful. And instead it was, with approximately 2300 participants! This is a clear sign of an increasing interest towards conferences of European size and scope. I believe that one of the challenges EURO has to face is, while keeping the present level of effectiveness and quality of the national societies, to increase at the same time the European level of aggregation. The previous Presidents of EURO I had the opportunity to work with, Martine Labbé and Valerie Belton, have done excellent work for EURO and I intend to continue their work along the same lines. I intend to cooperate with the national societies to understand what EURO can offer to them and how we can make EURO more useful to their members. One of my goals is to interact with the Presidents of the national societies and to work with them to identify the best balance between the fundamental role of the national societies and the role of EURO. One of the main challenges of EURO I see is the ‘editorial challenge’. Most European governments already identified or intend to identify objective measures to evaluate the quality of scientific publications. It is not easy to measure ‘quality’ and there would be a number of interesting issue to be discussed here. However, as a matter of fact, European universities tend to evaluate the quality of papers of their faculties through the quality of the journals where the papers are published. I think we need to understand whether the best papers by European OR researchers are published at present in the best journals, if the present editorial situation is satisfactory to the European OR researchers and, in case, to understand what the role of EURO can be in improving the situation.

EWG-DSS: How important is the duty of EURO President for you? GS: I will take this duty extremely seriously. I am currently on sabbatical, after two terms as dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Brescia. I feel I am ready to use my experience to contribute to the success of EURO and, through EURO, of OR research in Europe. EWG-DSS: How do you see the situation of the Euro Working Groups within EURO? Could it possibly be better promoted? GS: I have attended in 1989 the EURO Summer Institute on Decision Support Systems in Madeira (Portugal), an exciting opportunity to learn and interact with young researchers. The EURO working group on DSS was created in Madeira and has remained active over the years with initiatives, workshops, this newsletter. I learned from that experience the relevance of a European dimension of the groups of interest. I believe the working groups are extremely important and EURO should promote them at best. I am open to suggestions on possible ways to better promote the working groups. The coordinators may play a key role in the process and I intend to interact with them and carefully listen to their suggestions. We may use the EURO web site, the EURO mailing lists and the EURO conferences more effectively to promote the working groups. We may also create new awards for best papers or careers in specific areas.

My view of EURO is that EURO is at the service of OR researchers in Europe. ♦

Research Review Description from Research Projects from EWG-DSS Members

An Academic Social Network for the EWG-DSS (1st.Version) F.Dargam, P.Zaraté & R.Ribeiro

As already reported in the previous EWG-DSS Newsletter, the Coordination Board was invited by

the EJOR to submit to it an “Invited Review” concerning the area of Decision Support Systems. Since then, the members of the board (F. Dargam, R. Ribeiro and P. Zaraté) have been working on a social networks approach, aiming at representing and analyzing the academic interactions of the members of the EWG-DSS group, with respect to our activities on the area of Decision Making.

To carry on this study, the authors counted with research information input (mainly recent publications), provided by 70 group members. Their participation was of vital importance for the success of this project, which already in its 1st. version (link) allows us to obtain useful feedback for further academic collaboration in joint-research projects and publications.

This work was presented several times during its 1st version development phase, for instance at the International Symposium on the Management of Industrial and Corporate Knowledge (ISMICK) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in Nov. 2008; at the the Decision Analysis & DSS Stream of the EURO XXIII Conference in Bonn, Germany, in July 2009; and as an invited talk at the Statistics and Operations Research Department of the University of Graz in Austria, in Nov.2009. The presentation used

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in this last talk can be found in the EWG-DSS Blog (link) and also in the EWG-DSS Slideshare account (link).

The full paper (link) about this work submitted to EJOR as an Invited Review can be found in the EWG-DSS Slideshare account http://www.slideshare.net/ewgdss.

A comprehensive research report about this project, including all the publications considered, as well as all the authors’ network graphics showing their interaction with the others, is planned to be placed available soon at the IRIT Server within “Shared Documents”.

As coordinators of the EURO Working Group on DSS, we also encourage other EURO Working Groups to follow our example and try to identify the cooperation of their groups in order to encourage more participation and research production in joint-work. ♦

TESS Project

Transactional Environmental Support System

Project description submitted by Jason Papathanasiou.

TESS is an international research project supported by the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission. It aims to assist the integration of information about biodiversity and related environmental matters from the local level into planning and land-use decisions, while at the same time encouraging local people to collect such information in order to maintain and restore biodiversity and ecosystem services. To achieve this, a decision support system will be designed to exchange information required in environmental assessments at all levels for information that benefits local recreation and livelihoods.

What is TESS about?

For 50 years, subsidies at continental and state level have successfully driven cultivation of a few species in Europe. Intensive monocultures, replacing the former diverse local land-use, continue to degrade ecosystem services that sustained Europeans for centuries. Species have disappeared locally through habitat loss, fragmentation and chemical inputs, so that biodiversity has declined at an unprecedented rate. Animals and plants that once fascinated or fed people have vanished from many communities.

Governments now require Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) for land-use plans and programmes and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for specific projects, sometimes now also with sustainability assessments. SEA and EIA depend on experts to collect data and make predictions, and are therefore used for only a minority of the myriad decisions that affect our environment.

However, the ability to predict change and present options has now increased through the use of sophisticated computer modelling. Such models may incorporate behavioural mechanisms of key species and can be spatially-specific through linkage to habitat and socio-economic data. TESS argues that by making the computer models work for anyone, with environmental information gathered by local people, the principles of environmental assessment can assist decisions affecting development and management of land at all relevant levels right across the countryside.

What does TESS do?

TESS aims to design a decision support system related to environment and land- use that will make it easy for policy makers to integrate local knowledge into their decision making, while also guiding and encouraging local activities in ways that restore and/or maintain biodiversity and ecosystem services.

The project runs from October 2008 to March 2011. Its first phase

is to list and analyse government information requirements at national and intermediate levels and to identify the local information needs. It will then create a data-base of models suitable for bio-socio-economic predictions and see where there are gaps in the supply of models and data, compared with the demand for information.

Case studies of local communities will test how best to meet local decision support needs in exchange for local monitoring that meets central policy requirements. They will also examine whether local monitoring (based on schools, NGOs, local community groups or individuals motivated by use of wild resources) can supply the extra environmental data that are needed.

To identify current best practice for incorporating biodiversity and wider environmental information into decision-making on land-use across the EU, there will be a survey of government and local practices in all 27 EU member states plus some candidate states. It will assess how the use of biodiversity and environmental information in EIA, SEA and sustainability assessment has affected ecosystem services and biodiversity in both protected and cultivated areas. This survey will also identify priority areas for internet-based decision support and local monitoring to benefit livelihoods and biodiversity.

TESS Partners:

• Aristotle University of Thessaloniki – coordinator (Greece, www.auth.gr)

• Bournemouth University (United Kingdom, www.bournemouth.ac.uk/ccee/)

• NERC-Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (United Kingdom, www.ceh.ac.uk)

• Anatrack Ltd (United Kingdom, www.anatrack.com)

• ERENA, Ordenamento e Gestão de Recursos Naturais Ltd. (Portugal, www.erena.pt/)

• Tero Ltd (Greece, www.tero.gr)

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• European Sustainable Use Specialist Group (Belgium, http://data.iucn.org/themes/ssc/susg/sub/europe.htm)

• Federation of Associations for Hunting and Conservation of the EU (Belgium, www.face.eu)

• Pro-Biodiversity Service (Poland)

• Centre for Cartography of Fauna and Flora (Slovenia, www.ckff.si)

• Szent Istvan University, Institute for Wildlife Conservation (Hungary, www.vvt.gau.hu)

• Institute of Sustainable Technology at Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia, www.ttu.ee)

• Danube Delta National Institute for R&D (Romania, www.indd.tim.ro)

• WWF Turkey (Turkey, www.wwf.org.tr)

More details about this project can be found in the web-page: www.tess-project.eu ♦

DECERNS Project & WebSDSS Project description submitted by Boris I. Yatsalo.

The objective of the DECERNS project (Nov 2006 – Jan 2010) is creation of methods and software tools that provide decision support on multicriteria analysis of [spatial] alternatives, including land use planning/management, environmental protection, location problems, etc.

Three organizations participate in the DECERNS project realization:

- Obninsk State Technical University (IATE), Obninsk, Russia;

- Khlopin Radium Institute, St.-Petersburg, Russia (KRI); and

- Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, USA.

The three main Work Packages (WP) within the DECERNS project are:

- WP1 on development of web-based Spatial Decision Support System (WebSDSS) DECERNS;

- WP2 on models and databases development (database on

remediation/revitalization measures, models for assessing risk values, results of remediation measures implementation, etc.);

- WP3 on elaboration of the case studies and implementation of DECERNS SDSS for realization of multicriteria decision analysis on land-use management and remediation of contaminated territories. DECERNS WebSDSS Environmental risk analysis and sustainable land-use planning require implementation of tools for spatial information analysis, problem-oriented models for assessment of risk values, and corresponding methods for

decision-making support. As a rule, land-use management problems are complex and involve multiple and often competing objectives/criteria. DECERNS (Decision Evaluation in Complex Risk Network Systems) is a Web-based SDSS that aims to provide a methodology and software tools which will facilitate decision-making support in the field of multi-criteria analysis of (spatial) alternatives, including land-use planning and environmental management. DECERNS offers the possibility to access the GIS and MCDA subsystems independently as

stand-alone software. For example, GIS functions and kriging methods may be used for spatial data analysis only; MCDA tools may be implemented for non-spatial multi-criteria problem investigation. However, the full power of DECERNS is utilized when GIS and MCDA subsystems and the models provider are used in an integrated problem analysis.

DECERNS users have access to handy tools for the analysis of uncertainty in the recommended decision. These include the opportunity to use several different MCDA models to analyze a multi-criteria problem and the ability to address the robustness of the decision to variations in the relative

importance and value of each decision criteria. For this, the sensitivity of the decision to changes in weights and/or value functions can be used. An alternative approach to uncertainty analysis implemented in DECERNS is the use of distributed /random or fuzzy weights and/or criterion values. More about DECERNS Project and WebSDSS, as well as some demo-files can be found at the project’s web-site: www.decerns.com.

For further information, send your requests to Boris I. Yatsalo: yatsalo@iate.obninsk.ru. ♦

DB

Models

Models Provider

MP Core

- Request handling- Models initialization- Task management

- Input/Output data storing

Models GUI

Model Adapters

HTTP

DecernsSDSS

Models Manager

- Provides GUI to manage tasks- Models output visualization (tables, graphs, map layers)

MP Connector

- Communication with Models Providers (N >= 1)

- Information layers loading into SDSS- Table/Graph data preparation for

Models Manager

Application tier

Presentation tier

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Call for Papers Conferences EURO XXIV:

The 24th European Conference on Operational Research will take place in the period of July 11th to 14th, 2010, in Lisbon, Portugal. The Programme and Organising Committee are preparing a high quality academic programme of the Conference. More details about the Conference and the venue can be found in the Conference Web-site: http://www.euro2010lisbon.org/ .

DSS2010:

The 15th IFIP WG 8.3 International Conference on Decision Support Systems, under the theme "Bridging the socio-technical gap in DSS - Challenges for the next decade", will take place in the period of July 7th to 10th, 2010, at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, in Lisbon, Portugal. In recent years, bridging the socio-technical gap has been a challenge in many areas of research. The socio-technical gap is the great divide between the social aspects aimed to be supported and those that are actually supported, due in part to technical limitations and in part to the complexity of the contexts where decision support must be provided. In Decision Support Systems, this challenge has raised several important questions concerned with the account and encapsulation of social aspects of managerial decision making as well as with the representation of certain human cognitive aspects, such as intuition or insights within computational systems.

Submissions to DSS2010 from academics and practitioners are invited and showcases of real

case studies will be especially welcomed. Manuscripts will be peer-reviewed. The acceptance of the contributions will be based on the originality of the work, the relevance for the conference theme and its overall quality.

Conference Chair: Ana Respicio Faculty of Sciences University of Lisbon, Portugal IMPORTANT DATES:

• Paper submission due: January 30th, 2010 (extended)

• Notification to authors: March 1st, 2010

• Final version of accepted papers: March 26th, 2010

• Workshop proposal submission due: February 15th, 2010

• Poster submission due: April 1st, 2010

• Doctoral Consortium submission due: April 1st, 2010

• Main Conference: July 8th-10th, 2010

• Doctoral Consortium: July 7th, 2010

• Workshops: July 7th, 2010

More details about Call for Papers for the DSS2010 Conference and the venue can be found in the Conference Web-site:

http://dss2010.di.fc.ul.pt/

URPDM2010:

The 25th Mini-EURO Conference on Uncertainty and Robustness in Planning and Decision Making will take in Coimbra, Portugal, in the period of April 15th to 17th, 2010.

The URPDM2010 follows up the successful conference on "Managing Uncertainty in Decision

Support Models" that was held in 2004.

Organizing Committee:

Carlos Henggeler Antunes, Ana Rosa Borges, Carla Oliveira, Luís Cândido Dias, Maria João Alves.

The accepted papers will be published in a CD-ROM Conference Proceedings. Full versions of the papers presented at the Conference may be later submitted for publication in the International Journal of Systems Science, Journal of Mathematical Modelling or in the Algorithms, International Journal of Intelligent Decision Technologies.

IMPORTANT DATES:

o March 22, 2010: Registration deadline (for authors to guarantee inclusion in the final program and proceedings volume).

o April 15-17, 2010: Conference. Conference Secretariat: urpdm2010@inescc.pt

More details about Call for Papers for the URPDM2010 Conference and the venue can be found in the Conference Web-site: www.inescc.pt/urpdm2010 ♦

Journal Announcement Special Issue in IJDSST

“Technologies for Collaborative Decision Making”

edited by F.Dargam & P. Zaraté

The proposed feature issue will publish in the International Journal of Decision Support Systems Technology IJDSST, a selection of the best papers presented at the Decision Analysis & DSS Stream of the the EURO XXIII Conference in Bonn, Germany, in July 2009. In that DSS Stream 14 interesting papers have been presented. Among them, only 4 papers will be selected for this Special Issue. Schedule for publication: - Acceptation / Rejection: 26

Feb. 2010.

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- Revised papers submission: 2 April 2010.

- Final decision: 30 April 2010. - Expected publication: End of

June 2010. For further information, please contact the guest editors via e-mail: F.Dargam@SimTechnology.com or zarate@irit.fr. ♦

DSS Stream at the EURO XXIV

EWG-DSS Stream at the EUROXXIV Lisbon, July 2010

Call for Papers EURO XXIV Lisbon, Portugal. July 11-14th, 2010

Stream: “Decision Support System “ Organizers: Pascale Zaraté & Fátima Dargam

The 24th European Conference on Operational Research, EURO XXIV, will take place in Lisbon from July 11th to 14th, 2010.

Within this Conference, the Stream of Decision Support Systems, expects the participation of researchers, practitioners, as well as students working in the areas of decision making, analysis and decision support. The Call for Papers document for the DSS Stream, in pdf format, can be downloaded here.

Topics concerning the areas listed below are of particular interest in this stream:

. Models for Decision Making and Decision Analysis . Network-based Collaboration Decision Systems . New Methodologies and Technology in Group Decision

Making . Knowledge Management as a Collaboration Model . Applications in Decision Making and Decision Analysis

Contributors are requested to submit their Abstracts (no more than 600 characters) in English (no formulas or mathematical notations are allowed), via the Abstract Submission web-page of the Conference site, where the information about the submission procedure can be found. Link: http://www.euro2010lisbon.org/

IMPORTANT DATES:

Deadline for Abstracts: February 28th, 2010

Acceptance notification March 15th, 2010

Deadline for early registration March 31st, 2010

Deadline for author registration April 30th, 2010

Conference dates July 11th-14th, 2010

We hope to see you all in Lisbon!

EWG-DSS Meetings List of all past EWG-DSS Meetings,/ Workshops & Mini-Conferences:

. Fontainebleau (France) – 1990;

. Bruges (Belgium) – 1991;

. Hungary – 1992;

. Sintra (Portugal) – 1993;

. Turku (Finland) – 1994;

. Samos (Greece) – 1995;

. Ispra (Italy) – 1996;

. Bruges (Belgium) – 1997;

. Granada (Spain) – 1998;

. Turku (Finland) – 1999;

. Toulouse (France) – 2000;

. Caiscas (Portugal) – 2001;

. Bruges (Belgium) – 2002;

. Luxembourg – 2003;

. Istanbul, (Turkey) – 2003;

. Prato, (Italy) – 2004;

. Graz (Austria) – 2005;

. London (UK) – 2006;

. Reykavik (Iceland) – 2006;

. Montreal (Canada) – 2007;

. Prague (Czech Republic) – 2007;

. Toulouse (France) – 2008;

. Bonn (Germany) – 2009.

EWG-DSS Meeting 2009 In 2009, the EWG-DSS annual meeting took place in Bonn, Germany, on July 7th, within the EURO XXIII, The 23rd European Conference on Operational Research. In this EURO conference, the EWG-DSS group organized a DSS Stream, where a total of 14 papers were presented within the stream’s three sessions: “Social Collaboration & Network-based Decision Systems”; “Knowledge Management and DSS”; and “Methodologies for DSS and Distributed DSS”. The research projects presented on the DSS Stream are listed below: 1.Group memory support to collaborative decision making. AbdelKader Adla. 2. Consistency in ahp-collaborative decision making. María Teresa Escobar, José María Moreno-jimenez, Juan Aguarón. 3. Towards a collaboration network for the euro working group on DSS. Fatima Dargam, Rita Ribeiro, Pascale Zaraté. 4.Knowledge extraction in e-cognocracy. José María Moreno-jimenez, Jesús Cardeñosa, Carolina, Gallardo, Juan Aguarón, María Teresa Escobar, Adrian Toncovich, Alberto Turón. 5. A multi-agent framework for a web dss applied to manufacturing system. Taghezout Noria. 6.Academic decisions support systems: a methodology. José G. Hernández R., María J. García. 7. E-government: a comparative study of the g2c online services progress using multi-criteria analysis. Yannis Yannacopoulos, Panagiotis Manolitzas, Athanasios Spyridakos. 8. Applicability of simple additive weighting method with grey relations and comparison with other grey theory techniques. Edmundas Zavadskas, Arturas Kaklauskas, Tatjana Vilutiene. 9. An evidence-adaptive belief rule-based decision support system for clinical risk assessment in emergency care. Guilan Kong, Dong-Ling Xu, Jian-Bo Yang. 10. Patterns as building blocks in decision-tree algorithms. Boris

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Delibasic, Milija Suknovic, Milos Jovanovic. 11. Web-based decision support through kernel density estimation and combination. Antonio Rodrigues. 12. A new way of classifying and comparing systemic methodologies. Kalliopi Peponi, Argyris Arnellos, Thomas Spyrou, John Darzentas. 13. Participating in competitive online games: analyzing competitive and hedonic decision elements. Thomas Weiss, Claudia Loebbecke. 14. Distributed decision making goes multiscale. Christian Wernz The abstracts of the work listed above can be found in the proceedings of the EURO XXIII conference. ♦

Upcoming Events EWG-DSS Meeting in 2010

In 2010, the EWG-DSS annual meeting will take place in Lisbon, Portugal, during the period of July 11th - 14th, within the EUROXXIV, The 24th European Conference on Operational Research, in which our EWG-DSS group will as usual organize a DSS stream devoted to the topic of “Applied and Distributed Decision Making”. The Call for Papers document in pdf format can be downloaded here.

For more details about the EURO XXIV, please visit the conference website: http://www.euro2010lisbon.org/ ♦

Group News 20 Years of the EWG-DSS In 2009 our group completed 20 years of existence! This round anniversary was commemorated with a warm get-together in July 2009, in Bonn, by the occasion of the 23rd EURO Conference. It was great to meet some of our founding group members again, as well as to have a chance to get to know the new ones who also took part at the EURO XXIII in Germany.

This reencounter of the group was registered by a series of informal pictures. Some of them can be seen in the post “EWG-DSS – 20 Years!” (link) of the EWG-DSS Blog. Go there and enjoy the photos! ♦

Contacting the EWG-DSS

The EURO-WG on Decision Support Systems is currently head by the Coordination Board:

Pascale Zaraté, Fátima Dargam & Rita Ribeiro

(Coordination Board of the EURO Working Group on DSS since 2007)

For updates or for joining EWG-DSS, please contact: Pascale Zarate E-mail: zarate@irit.fr IRIT – Equipe CSC INPT – ENSIACET – GI 118 route de Narbonne 31062 Toulouse cedex 4 FRANCE

EWG-DSS Online Links:

EURO Web: http://www.euro.online.org

EWG-DSS Blog: http://ewgdss.wordpress.com/

EWG-DSS LinkedIn Group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=1961459&trk=anet_ug_hm

EWG-DSS Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/ewgdss/

EWG-DSS IRIT Server: https://wwwsecu.irit.fr/listes/info/ewg-dss

EWG-DSS Mailing List: ewg-dss@irit.fr

EWG-DSS Members The EWG-DSS group has now 105 registered members. The updated list of all members of the group is available upon request to Pascale Zaraté. Changes to this list should also be reported to Pascale Zaraté via e-mail: zarate@irit.fr.

Via the EWG-DSS – IRIT Server the registered group members of the EWG-DSS are able to contact directly each other by using the e-mail address list available in this environment (option “Review Members”).

By using our mailing-list addressed as: ewg-dss@irit.fr, the EWG-DSS members are able to send messages to all other members, allowing this way a one-to-one distribution of information about research events and calls for publications.

If you need more information about the group, please contact us or visit our web-site: http://www.euro-online.org or our EWG-DSS Blog: http://ewgdss.wordpress.com/. ♦

Contributing to this Newsletter Every member of the EWG-DSS is very welcome to contribute to this Newsletter.

Subjects can be related to:

• Recent Publications

• PhD Dissertations

• Book Presentations / Reviews

• Research Group Presentations

• Research Views and Perspectives

• Forthcoming Events

• General Announcements

Contributions to the EWG-DSS Newsletter should be sent to one of the email addresses below with the subject: “EWG-DSS Newsletter”. F.Dargam@SimTechnology.com Zarate@irit.fr