newsletter ewg dss nr.11 - year 2012 -final
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No. 11, Year 2012
EWG-DSS Newsletter Newsletter of the EURO Working Group on Decision Support System
In this Issue Editorial........................................ 1
EWG-DSS Members .................... 2
EWG-DSS Channels.................... 2
Interview ...................................... 2
EWG-DSS Award ........................ 5
Publications................................. 5
EWG-DSS Annual Workshops ... 7
EWG-DSS Projects...................... 7
EWG-DSS Meetings .................... 8
Upcoming Events...................... 10
Call for Papers........................... 12
EURO&Other Announcements. 13
Projects Reports ....................... 14
Editorial Board The Newsletter of the EURO WG on Decision Support Systems is currently edited by: Fátima Dargam, Pascale Zaraté, Rita Ribeiro, Shaofeng Liu, Jorge E. Hernández & Boris Delibašić. Comments and announcements to next issues of the EWG-DSS Newsletter should be sent to the email address below with the subject: “Newsletter”. Email: [email protected]
Editorial by Fátima Dargam, Pascale Zaraté, Rita Ribeiro, Shaofeng Liu, Jorge Hernández and Boris Delibašić (Members of the EURO Working Group on DSS Coordination Board)
Dear Euro Working Group Members! Dear Friends!
In 2012 our group has been as productive as ever! Over the past year the EWG-DSS organized two important events with wide participation from society members and colleagues outside the group. They are the EWG-DSS Annual Workshop held in April in Liverpool, UK and the DSS stream of EUROXXV Conference on Operational Research held in July in Vilnius, Lithuania.
The group has been extremely productive in publication this year. We successfully edited 4 journal Special Issues, one Springer book and one workshop proceedings. These are: two Special Issues in International Journal of Decision Support Systems Technology, one Special Issue in International Journal of Information and Decision Science, one Special Issue in Production Planning and Control, one Springer book in the Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing series, and Liverpool Workshop Proceedings.
During the year, EWG-DSS has also launched some significant new initiatives. We have gladly awarded the 1st EWG-DSS Young Researcher Award (launched in 2011 - yearly). The group has also, for the first time, approved its official publications, including two journals (i.e. International Journal of Decision Support Systems Technology and Journal of Decision Systems) and one proceedings series – Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing. We have submitted research proposals to various research councils including the P-EoL project for EU FP7 and a COST Action proposal.
Looking ahead, for 2013, we have planned more exciting events and publications. Three important events are on the way: (1) EWG-DSS 2013 Annual Workshop to be held in Thessaloniki, Greece, in May; (2) DSS stream in EURO XXVI-INFORMS joint international conference in Rome in July; (3) Mini Euro Conference in September in Graz, Austria. Publication plan includes Special Issues with International Journal of Decision Support Systems, Journal of Decision Systems, and International Journal of Decision Support Systems, one book with Springer for the Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, and of course proceedings for the EWG-DSS Annual Workshop and for the Mini-Conference.
Looking back 2012, we feel very happy with what we, as a group, have achieved and the positive impact that we have made to wider communities and international societies. Of course, none of these would have been achievable without the consistent support from all of our members and other sister societies. Therefore, please accept our sincere thanks for all of your contribution. We hope you enjoy the 2012-Newsletter, specially its interview with our long-term colleague and co-founder of the EWG-DSS: Alexis Tsoukias! We wish you a wonderful Christmas and New Year! We look forward to working with you more closely in 2013 for continuous success!
Best wishes from the EWG-DSS Coordination Board!
Boris Delibašić, Shaofeng Liu, Pascale Zaraté, Rita Ribeiro, Fátima Dargam & Jorge Hernández.
Photo: Liverpool 2012 & London, 2011
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EWG-DSS Members “We grow consistently and selectively both in membership as well as in quality!”
The EWG-DSS has currently 163 registered members and counts with an evergrowing number of more than 150 members in its Linked-In Group of Interest.
Since 1999, the group membership has grown substantially, as can be observed in the graphics.
An updated list of registered members with their respective email-addresses can be sent to you, by request. (mailto: [email protected]).
EWG-DSS Channels “Efficient communication helps you to better cooperate, innovate, add and multiply!”
Below you find a description of all the available communication channels of the EWG-DSS. Use them to get in touch with the group Coordination Board Members and with its current 163 registered members.
EWG-DSS Mailing-List:
[email protected] This mailing-list is devoted only to
the registered EWG-DSS members to announcements and projects information, as well as research events, calls for publications, etc.
EWG-DSS Web-Links:
• EWG-DSS – Blog
http://ewgdss.wordpress.com/ The EWG-DSS blog is maintained by the Coordination Board. There you find up-to-date information about the group’s activities, links to the organized Workshops, projects proposals descriptions, publications and news about research collaborations.
• EWG-DSS – EURO Homepage http://www.euro-online.org/web/ewg/10/ewg-decision-support-systems The EWG-DSS page at the EURO online site is the group’s official homepage. There you find a summary of the detailed information you find in the blog and the links to EWG-DSS’s organised Streams in EURO K Conferences, Annual Workshops; Mini-Conferences; Awards, etc.
• EWG-DSS – IRIT Server
https://wwwsecu.irit.fr/listes/info/ewg-dss
The EWG-DSS Server is hosted by IRIT. It contains all the EWG-DSS shared files. Via the option “Review Members”, one is able to check the e-mail addresses of each member. To access the server you need to be a registered member of the group.
• EWG-DSS – LinkedIn Group
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=1961459&trk=anet_ug_grppro
The Linked-In EWG-DSS Group has currently 157 members (status of 27.11.2012). This group is open to all Linked-In users and there you find briefings of the EWG-DSS’s activities, discussions of related topics, job announcements, Conference calls for participation, Journals CfP, etc. If you like networking, you should take advantage of this plataform! To read and interact with the Linked-In EWG-DSS Group, you have to log in the Linked-In network.
• EWG-DSS – Slideshare Account
http://www.slideshare.net/ewgdss
In the EWG-DSS Slideshare account you find all the digital versions of previous Newsletters, as well as the online EWG-DSS presentations. If you wish to share some of your research presentations with us, you are welcome to use this account. Please contact us for more details.
Interview
Alexis Tsoukiàs Director of LAMSADE, CNRS – LAMSADE Université Paris Dauphine, Paris, France http://www.lamsade.dauphine.fr/~tsoukias
“Having a look back 30 years, I can say that the appearance of the area of Decision Support Systems allowed me to
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find my place within the broad community of decision scientists and analysts.”
This year the EWG-DSS had the pleasure to interview our long-time colleague and also a founding member of the EWG-DSS in Madeira, 1989: Alexis Tsoukiàs. Alexis has always kept strong links with the EWG-DSS group and has been present in many of its meetings, organised conference streams and workshops. In 2005, Alexis Tsoukias was one of the keynote speakers of the Joint-Workshop in Graz; more recently in December 2011, he supported the EWG-DSS by organising in the University Paris-Dauphine, the Joint-Workshop Paris-2011 between DASIG and CNRS-LAMSADE; and to our great honor he has accepted to be one of the keynote speakers in the EWG-DSS 2013 Workshop in Thessaloniki.
It is always a pleasure to meet Alexis and share with him thoughts about various subjects, inclusive research! In this interview, Alexis Tsoukias describes his involvement with DSS; and his academic career. We congratulate our colleague Alexis Tsoukias on all his so far important career achievements and we wish him many more to come! We are also grateful for having the opportunity of producing this exciting interview for the EWG-DSS Newsletter! EWG-DSS: Alexis, how did it happen to you to be involved with Decision Support Systems? AT: At the end of the 70s, I was studying Transportation Engineering at the Technical University of Torino (Politecnico di Torino, in Italy) where I moved from Athens after high school. The more I was studying, the more I was becoming convinced that I did not care about engineering. The only classes I followed with interest were mathematics as well as some rudimental computer science (at that time we were still using cards in order to write our software which was run in batch processing computers’ archeology and this gives us an idea of the time passed since ). I was seriously considering moving to the Faculty of Mathematics. However, on the one hand, mathematics in Torino at that time was extremely theoretical and not that appealing. On the other hand, I had to withdraw many of the exams I had already done meaning losing a lot of time in order to catch up.. While I was hesitating I started to follow the class of Operational Research given by Anna Ostanello. Anna was an extraordinary teacher! Not only the regular class was an amazing journey
in decision sciences, but she was organising seminars and open discussion forums. To be brief, I loved it! Mathematical language, but in an applicable format, rigour, but also creative thinking, real world aiding people to make decisions. I decided to finish my engineering studies, but to specialise in OR and Decision Theory. It was the beginning of the 80s when I met OR. I graduated as engineer in 1983 and started working in private and public companies in Torino as a consultant (In these years I also met a beautiful Italian girl. I was strongly motivated in remaining at Torino). However, I was not satisfied by just applying. In 1985 there was an opening in the Department of Computer Science at Politecnico di Torino for a PhD and pushed by Anna I applied. I was successful. I started my PhD soon after and defended it in April 1989. Doing a PhD with Anna Ostanello has been a great experience. Anna had a very personal approach to Operational Research, completely unconventional, at least at that time. Her vision was on the methodology and not methods. She was strongly committed in defending the “applied dimension” of decision sciences. The result was a broad vision of the field and a strong opening to new contributions from “near disciplines”. Combining the fact that we were in a Computer Science Department I was soon oriented in getting interested to Artificial Intelligence and indeed my PhD has been one of the first to try an integration between OR and AI. I developed both a logical model for preference modeling purposes, but also a broad approach aiming at combining AI and OR techniques as instruments in decision aiding processes. These issues are now current research subjects, but at that time we appeared quite strange to our mainstream colleagues in OR. In 1989 there was the call for the EURO Summer Institute in DSS and I thought it would have been the right place to show the interest in this research area. I was accepted and to be sincere it has been a major contribution in legitimating my vision of this field. The rest is my career. I entered the CNRS in France in 1993 getting a position at the LAMSADE (at that time directed by Bernard Roy who was very interested in my approach) and here I am still today. Having a look back to these 30 years I can say that the appearance of the area of Decision Support Systems allowed me to find my place within the broad community of decision scientists and analysts. Although my research today is not oriented in creating such systems I still feel part of the community established with the EURO
Summer Institute, a community which contributed in widening the scope and vision of OR and Decision Analysis. EWG-DSS: In the past you had several important responsibilities: you have been vice president of ROADEF (the French OR society), secretary and then president of EURO, you coordinated a COST Action, you are now director of the LAMSADE... How did all this influence your vision of our research area? AT: I always thought that a narrow interpretation of Operational Research could lead our field in an “impasse”. With narrow interpretation I mean considering as Operational Research only mathematical optimization, mathematical programming etc.. Consider that I have always been fascinated by optimisation (as well as by mathematics), for its elegance, structure and rigour. The problem is that we need to start consider our discipline not just as a research area, but as a profession. Just to make the point: the aggregate membership of the OR societies worldwide are about 30000. The engineers who practice decision support in their everyday job are millions worldwide. What do we have to say to these people? And just to add one further thought: is the training we offer in our Universities appropriate for somebody who wants to enter the profession of decision analyst? These thoughts lead me to two basic considerations. The first one implies the necessity to create a broad scientific area of what I call “Decision Sciences and Technologies”, putting together all different areas within Decision Sciences (such as Game Theory, Social Choice, Decision Analysis, Optimisation, Combinatorics, Discrete Mathematics etc.), but also neighbours such as Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science, Analytics, Cognitive Sciences, Organisation Studies etc.. The COST Action “Algorithmic Decision Theory” I have coordinated between 2007 and 2011 has had exactly this purpose and there are many other similar initiatives around us. Not surprising the relation between Analytics and OR and Decision Analysis is dominating our institutional debates since some years now (see for instance the discussions within INFORMS or in the UK ORS). As EURO president I am proud I worked in that direction and indeed in the last year the audience of the EURO conferences has been enormously increased. The second consideration implies the necessity to reason in terms of methodology and not just of methods. Very often our area is viewed
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as a “toolkit” of methods and many among us are viewed as specialists in one among the tools within that toolkit. This could be fine if we see ourselves as researchers (where we need to be specialists), but is far less interesting from a professional point of view. A professional need to know when, how, why and under which constraints different tools make sense with respect to a problem situation: this is what I call a methodology. A methodology enabling to understand what the problem is, to structure it, to model it, to discuss it, to represent it, to revise it, to solve it etc.. For that we also need to make a shift in perspective: besides thinking on how it is “better to decide”, we need to consider how it is “better to aid somebody to decide”. Our profession is exactly that second perspective, characterised by the use of formal models and rationality hypotheses. Other professions who help people to make better decisions (such as lawyers, psychologists, doctors etc.) have already thought on how to train their young colleagues in the profession more than in the research. Just to give an example: every lawyer knows how to defend himself in case the client is unsatisfied there is by the way an independent body which can assess where the professional conduct of the lawyer was correct. Well, we have nothing similar in our profession. Establishing a profession of Decision Analyst is a crucial challenge for the years coming. EWG-DSS: It looks as you are concentrating your attention to training and professionalising decision analysts. Isn’t it strange for somebody who is full time researcher at the CNRS (one of the few institutions in Europe where they still hire such profiles)? AT: Well! Of course being at the CNRS is a privilege. Indeed I will always recognise that without the trust they gave me (hiring me immediately at tenure) it would have been difficult to go ahead in exploring and creating all subjects I did in the past years. But, be sure! I did not forget my research passions. I just compromise between the pleasure of demonstrating a new theorem and the consciousness of having to take care of the whole set of issues concerning Decision Analysis: research, training and profession. That said I need to be sincere. The time and (most important) the energy I can dedicate to my research passions is just a fraction of what I would like to do. Being now head of the LAMSADE is a strong responsibility. We are known worldwide as one of the historical research centers in
Operational Research and Decision Analysis, leaders in many subjects (MCDA to mention just one …) and we want to keep our position also in the future. But this could be a subject of another interview … To come back to your question, I try to concentrate my research interests in two topics. The first topic consists in contributing in the “Algorithmic Decision Theory” long term challenge. More specifically we try (I am not alone in such an effort) to construct an integrated framework allowing establishing what a “decision problem” is (from an algorithmic point of view, not a philosophical one …). The idea is to show that using a model and a method (any model or method), under one or more criteria, in presence or not of uncertainty, with one or more stakeholders, can be seen as a particular instance of such a framework and that choosing a family of methods or models depends from few parameters with finite options. This is not a tentative to “close” our area … I am sure creative researchers will more or less soon falsify my framework and expand it. It helps to concentrate to that few options that “really matter”! Of the type shown by my colleagues and friends working in conjoint measurement theory: what “really matters” is how differences of preferences are modeled. The second topic consists in showing that our toolkit and, most important, our general methodology needs to be specialised as far as supporting “public decision processes” is concerned. My experience taught me that clients aiding to be supported within a “public policy cycle” have different problems from clients working in business and industry. Not always for sure. And not all the problems are different. At the bottom of the line we may end using as usual some combinatorial optimisation algorithm or some multi-attribute value measurement model. But the decision aiding process is different. We try to focus our attention in specifying what makes the difference in developing a new line of research we call: Policy Analytics. You noted a call for papers in Annals of OR around this topic. The new EURO Journal in Decision Process is also strongly interested in this topic. I try to contribute … We also plan to make some special sessions at the next EURO/INFORMS conference in Rome in July 2013. We try to mobilise research resources around this topic. My objective is to arrive in the next years to create an international community interested in this area of research. Something broader than “Public Sector OR”; possibly an international interdisciplinary community. It is a new exciting perspective and I am trying to
dedicate as much efforts as I can to that … EWG-DSS: Don’t you feel some times as doing too much? How do you manage to take care of all that? How is private Alexis? AT: I am not going to tell you how private Alexis is … this is a private question… You can ask Emanuela (the beautiful Italian girl I met when I was student … we are since married…) how she managed our life all these years… living in Torino, working in Paris, having the rest of the family at Athens, having international appointments and projects… I am afraid it has been harder for her than for me … I can tell you that having a curious job of the type a researcher has, allows to develop your creative part without necessary inventing a second (or third) life. To some extend this compensates the fact that we dedicate so much time in our work. I suppose the satisfactions you get are of multiple natures… That said, yes, sometimes I feel tired… I suppose is natural … As it is natural that I am now funding myself to feel tired more often than some years ago… Emanuela has been a crucial support in facing that along these years and I will never be able to return the help I received. I just do my best. However, since you insist in knowing more about “private Alexis” you can make the scoop of the interview: I can reveal you that I will soon publish something concerning “Alexis private”… but you need to be patient for some months yet… EWG-DSS: Alexis, thank you very much for this enjoyable extraordinary opportunity to interview you!
Contributing to this Newsletter Every member of the EWG-DSS is very welcome to contribute to this Newsletter.
Subjects can be related to:
• Project Descriptions • Recent Publications • PhD Dissertations • Book Presentations / Reviews • Research Group Presentations • Research Views and Perspectives • Journal Announcements – CfP • Forthcoming Events • General Announcements Contributions should be sent to the email address [email protected] with the subject: “Newsletter”.
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EWG-DSS Award The EWG-DSS launched in 2011 a motivating initiative for young researchers of an annual “EWG-DSS-Award“.
The annual “EWG-DSS-Award” chooses the best and most innovative presented work, among the papers submitted by students or young researchers in the EWG-DSS organised workshops and conference streams of the same year, to be rewarded with a modest prize in money.
How to apply?
To apply for the annual EWG-DSS Award you only need to participate in one of our Workshops or Session Streams organised by the group and allow your work to be part of our selection! More details can be found on http://ewgdss.wordpress.com/awards/ .
Winner of the 2011-Award: The EWG-DSS had the pleasure to grant its first Award in a ceremony that took place during the EWG-DSS Liverpool Workshop, in April, 2012. The EWG-DSS 2011-Award was given to Pierre-Emmanuel Arduin, from LAMSADE Paris Dauphine University, with the paper “From Knowledge Sharing to Collaborative Decision Making”, a joint work with Michel Grundstein and Camille Rosenthal-Sabroux, that was presented in the EWG-DSS London-2011 Workshop on Decision Systems. The awarded paper was published in a special issue on Collaborative Decision Support Systems in the International Journal of Information and Decision Sciences (vol. 5 no. 3, 2013). The EWG-DSS Award prize for 2011 is of € 300.00.
EWG-DSS 2012 Award The Members of the Coordination Board are currently ranking and evaluating the applicable work submitted to the EWG-DSS Liverpool 2012 Workshop in April 2012 and to the EWG-DSS Stream on Decision
Support System at the Vilnius EURO Conference 2012 in July 2012, for the 2012-Award. News about its winner will soon be available on our blog. As in 2011, the prize for the EWG-DSS
2012-Award will be of € 300,00. The winner will be encouraged to take part in one of the group’s 2013 events, where the prize ceremony will take place.
The EWG-DSS hopes to count with sponsorship from research funds and from the
industrial sector to make the future “EWG-DSS-Awards” more financially appealing. You are encouraged to support this initiative by financially sponsoring it if possible, or participating and/or disseminating this information among your students, colleagues, research partners and collaborators.
For 2013, we will select for the EWG-DSS 2013-Award applicable work submitted to the EWG-DSS Thessaloniki-2013 Workshop on “Exploring New Directions for Decisions in the Internet Age” in May 2013; or to the EWG-DSS Stream of the EURO XXVI Informs Conference in Rome in July 2013; or on the EWG-DSS Stream of the EURO Mini-Conference on “Collaborative Decision Systems in Economics and in Complex Societal and Environmental Applications”, in Graz in October 2013. See the Call for Participation for those events in this Newsletter for more details.
The “EWG-DSS Award 2013″ can be yours! Participate!
EWG-DSS Members’ Award 1st. Prize – SIM Paper Awards
The EWG-DSS long-term member, Dr. Claudia Loebbecke, has been awarded with the 1st Prize outstanding research that impacts practice with the Society of Information Management (SIM) 2011 Paper Awards. Together with Bernhard Thomas and Thomas Ullrich (both Continental AG), She won the 'SIM Paper Competition 2011' of the Society for Information Management (Web-Info). The study details a method for supporting the cloud readiness assessment, which was developed with and applied by Continental. We congratulate Claudia Loebbecke and her research partners for this noble achievement.
Professor Dr. Claudia Loebbecke, M.B.A. Director, Dept. of Business, Media and Technology Management University of Cologne, Germany
Publications
EWG-DSS Official Publications: The EWG-DSS has the pleasure to announce that the Society has adopted two international journals as its official publications: International Journal of Decision Support Systems Technology (IJDSST) and Journal of Decision Systems (JDS). The Society has also established close and stable relationship with Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing (LNBIP). EWG-DSS is committed to make valuable contribution to the official publications. The Society will manage
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at least one issue per year for the IJDSST and JDS. With regard to LNBIP, EWG-DSS edit one proceeding every year for the series. In order to thank the consistent support received from the publication editors and publishers, EWG-DSS would also encourage the Society members to submit their work to the IJDSST and JDS on regular basis, and recommend the publications to their organisations (such as university libraries) for subscription. • IJDSST (Print ISSN: 1941-6296,
Online ISSN: 1941-630X) is currently edited by Professor Pascale Zarate and published by IGI Global. The primary objective of the IJDSST is to provide comprehensive coverage for DMSS technology issues. The issues can involve, among other things, new hardware and software for DMSS, new models to deliver decision making support, dialog management between the user and system, data and model base management within the system, output display and presentation, DMSS operations, and DMSS technology management. Since the technology’s purpose is to improve decision making, the articles are expected to link DMSS technology to improvements in the process and outcomes of the decision making process. This link can be established theoretically, mathematically, or empirically in a systematic and scientific manner.
• JDS (Print ISSN 1246-0125, Online ISSN 2116-7052) is currently co-edited by Professor Frédéric Adam and Professor Frada Burstein and published by Taylor and Francis. The JDS publishes original articles in either English or French which extend or consolidate scientific knowledge related to decision making and decision support, in particular decision support systems. Decision support refers to the routine, techniques, support staff and computer-based applications that provide dedicated support or dedicated information to facilitate individuals or groups in their decision-making tasks. The main purpose of the JDS is to be a forum for researchers and practitioners who seek to understand how to best support decision makers, for instance by designing, implementing and evaluating computer-based decision support systems. Therefore, papers on decision
theory, computer science, artificial intelligence and operation research will be considered insofar as they discuss the impact of systems on actual decision situations. In addition to covering concepts, techniques and tools related to computer-based decision systems, the journal will also publish case studies of human decision making, particularly those involved in the management of organisations.
• LNBIP (ISSN: 1865-1348; series editors: van der Aalst, W.M.P., Mylopoulos, J., Rosemann, M., Shaw, M.J., Szyperski, C.) is published by Springer. LNBIP reports state-of-the-art results in areas related to business information systems and industrial application software development – timely, at a high level, and in both printed and electronic form. The type of material published includes: proceedings (published in time for the respective event); post-proceedings (consisting of thoroughly revised and/or extended final papers); other edited monographs (such as, for example, project reports or invited volumes); award-winning or exceptional theses.
Recent Publications: Special Issue in International Journal of Decision Support Systems Technology Topic: Networking Decision Making and Negotiation Volume 4 issues 2 and 3. Guest Editors: Fatima Dargam, Boris Delibašić, Jorge Hernandez, Shaofeng Liu. EWG-DSS Liverpool-2012 Workshop
Proceedings – Book of Abstracts
This Book of Abstracts is available online as pdf file under the link:
http://ewgdssliverpool2012.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/ewg-dss-liverpool2012-full-version.pdf Special Issue in International Journal of Information and Decision Science Topic: Collaborative Decision Making. Volume 5 issue 3. Guest Editors: Jason Papathanasiou, Shaofeng Liu, Pascale Zarate. Special Issue in Journal of Production Planning and Control Topic: Collaborative Decision-Making Trends and Solutions for Industries. Guest Editors: Jorge Hernandez, Andrew Lyon, Pascale Zarate, Fatima Dargam. LNBIP – Springer Book on Decision Support Systems: Collaborative Models and Approaches in Real Environments
This Book of Post-Proceedings of the Springer Series LNBIP – Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, contains extended and revised versions of a set of selected papers from two workshops organized by the Euro Working Group on Decision Support Systems (EWG-DSS), which were held in London and Paris, in June and November 2011, respectively. The workshop themes were “Decision Support Systems” and “Collaborative Decision Making.” The 11 papers were selected from 52 submissions and are representative of the current research in these fields. They address challenges such as conceptual models, software specification and simulation, collaborative requirements specification, as well as multi-objective and multi-criteria decision making. Guest Editors:
Jorge E. Hernández Pascale Zaraté Fátima C.C. Dargam Boris Delibašić Shaofeng Liu Rita Ribeiro
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Content Level » Research Keywords » collaborative systems – decision support systems – mass customization – multi-criteria decision making – supply chain management Related subjects » Business Information Systems – Information Systems and Applications – Operations Research & Decision Theory – Production & Logistics – Theoretical Computer Science
Publications from members of the EWG-DSS:
[1] Andrew C. Lyons, Lucy Everington, Jorge E. Hernandez, Dong Li, Roula Michaelides and Juneho Um, 2012. The application of a knowledge-based reference framework to support the provision of requisite variety and customization across collaborative networks. International Journal of Production Research. doi: 10.1080/00207543.2012.701777
[2] David Carter, Jonathan Moizer and Shaofeng Liu, 2013. Using groups to support judgemental parameter estimation VISCONS: "eyeballing" to capture a qualified group consensus. Expert Systems with Applications 40(2): 715-721. (ABS 3* journal; Impact factor: 2.203; ISSN: 0957-4174; Imprint: Elsevier).
[3] David Perez Perales, Maria del Mar Eva Alemany, Francisco Cruz Lario and Jorge E. Hernandez, 2012. Framework for Modelling the Decision View of the Supply Chains Collaborative Planning Process. International Journal of Decision Support System Technology. doi:10.4018/jdsst.2012040104
[4] Wei Sun, Gang Zhang, John Scott and Shaofeng Liu, 2013. Rural-urban migration decision making process: a whole and personal support network analysis. International Journal of Information and Decision Science 5(3). (ISSN print: 1756-7017, ISSN online: 1756-7025; Publisher: InderScience)
[5] Shaofeng Liu, Mike Leat, Jonathan Moizer, Phil Megicks and Dulekha Kasturiratne, 2012. A decision-focused knowledge management framework to support collaborative decision making for lean supply chain management. International Journal of Production Research,
doi:10.1080/00207543.2012.709646 (ABS 3* journal; Impact factor: 1.115; Print ISSN: 0020-7543, Online ISSN: 1366-588X; Published by Taylor and Francis).
[6] Shaofeng Liu, Dulekha Kasturiratne and Jonathan Moizer, 2012. A hub-and-spoke model for multi-dimensional integration of green marketing and sustainable supply chain management. Journal of Industrial Marketing Management 41(4): 581-588. (ABS 3* journal, Impact factor: 1.530; ISSN: 0019-8501. Publisher: Elsevier).
[7] Iain Boyle, Alex Duffy, Robert Ian Whitfield and Shaofeng Liu, 2012. The impact of resources on decision making. Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing 26(4): 407-423. (Print ISSN: 0890-0604, Online ISSN: 1469-1760; Publisher: Cambridge Press)
Thanks to all group members who contributed to this section.
EWG-DSS Annual Workshops
Since 2011, the EWG-DSS has been organising at least one Workshop per year. The Prezi Presentation linked here makes a summary of the last 3 Workshops (London, Paris, Liverpool) and calls for participation on the next one: the EWG-DSS Thessaloniki 2013. Check it out! (Link: http://prezi.com/sjo1bwe3a6ys/ewg-dss-thessaloniki-2013/ . For a better view of the Prezi Presentation, choose “Full Screen” and “Autoplay”.) With the workshops our group has made a step forwards within its main purpose of establishing a platform for encouraging state-of-the-art high quality research and collaboration work within the DSS community. Other aims of the EWG-DSS group are to: • Encourage the exchange of
information among practitioners, end-users, and researchers in the area of Decision Systems. • Enforce the networking among the DSS communities available and facilitate activities that are essential for the start-up of international cooperation research and projects. • Facilitate professional academic and industrial opportunities for its members. • Favour the development of innovative models, methods and tools in the field Decision Support and related areas. • Actively promote the interest on Decision Systems in the scientific community by organizing dedicated workshops, seminars, mini-conferences and conference streams in major conferences, as well as editing special and contributed issues in relevant scientific journals.
EWG-DSS Projects PEoL – e-Platform for End of Life products
7th Framework Programme for Research, technological Development and
Demonstration This project proposal was submitted to the work programme: ENV.2013.6.3-1 Turning waste into a resource through innovative technologies, processes and services, a) Valorisation of urban solid waste. The project’s main challenge concerns the promotion of a radical change in collection of EoL products, where all stakeholders interact with each other and how to make urban mining efficient and cost-effective through traceability are the main challenges for P-EoL. The innovative way to do so is through the development of a closed loop supply chain collaborative e-platform that allows all stakeholders - like public and private consumers (commercial and business), dismantlers/ recyclers and/or to manufacturers (to close the cycle) - to participate, trade and negotiate, while establishing the traceability across the life cycle of products. The participants of this project proposal are: UNINOVA (Portugal), University of Plymouth (UK), University of Liverpool (UK), University of Toulouse (France), SimTech Simulation Technology (Austria),
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Centro de Estudos, Informação e Formação para o Ambiente (Portugal), University of Macedonia (Greece), University of Brasília (Brazil), STENUM (Austria), MicroPro (Ireland), Secure IT (UK), Recielectric (Portugal), AutoVFV (Portugal), and Setco (UK). Please note that this proposal is still under evaluation.
EWG-DSS Members’ Projects C2i - COLLABORATE TO INNOVATE The Collaborate to Innovate (C2i) Project is a novel, ERDF-funded partnership that has been formed between the University of Liverpool Management School and Agile Business Solutions in order to provide assistance to SMEs in the North West region.
The basic premise of the C2i Project is that the process of innovation is not undertaken solely internally within an SME, but is best performed in a co-operative fashion with other external organisations. The primary activities associated with C2i are based on this premise and will provide eligible NW SMEs with the mentoring and organisational support to engage in collaborative alliances and the technical support to develop collaborative ICT platforms in order to facilitate both product and process-related initiatives and innovations. C2i will develop networks of within-sector and cross-sector, high-growth industrial NW SMEs and will facilitate the design and implementation of productive collaborative projects within and across these networks. This will be done with a view to increase competitive advantage through improved performance.
Many SMEs have insufficient resources and expertise to innovate beyond repeating previous, short-term successes. The nature of innovation is increasingly recognised as a collaborative one and new innovations that lead to step changes in performance increasingly require that SMEs co-operate and share their ideas.
C2i concerns the facilitation of collaboration within the horizontal and vertical networks of customers, suppliers, competitors and the supporting agencies of NW SMEs. In simple terms, inter-organisational collaboration can be classified as vertical or horizontal. Vertical
collaboration is concerned with partnerships formed along a linear, upstream-downstream supply chain. Conventional customer-supplier relationships are vertical in nature.
Horizontal collaboration is a growing trend in contemporary supply chain design. It concerns collaboration between organisational entities providing the same or similar service. Horizontal collaboration can be “co-opetitive” – collaboration between competitors.
The primary activities associated with C2i will be to provide eligible NW SMEs with the mentoring and organisational support to engage in collaborative alliances and the technical support to develop collaborative ICT platforms. Specific SME applications will concern:
• customer relationship management,
• supplier relationship management, • collaborative planning &
scheduling, • collaborative product design, • collaborative manufacturing, • shared services, and • aggregated procurement.
Collaborative practices concerning supplier relationship management (SRM) and customer relationship management (CRM) are necessary in order to improve managerial capability and support the sustainability of the new and/or enhanced collaborative alliances. The implementation of these applications will allow participating SMEs to overcome a lack of internal capabilities and expertise, to share scarce resources, to dramatically improve productivity and to reduce risk.
Sixty-four eligible companies will be targeted for intensive support and their selection will be based on the most beneficial impact to the North West – potential jobs created / safeguarded, new business opportunities and strategic development of NW manufacturing capability. Intensively supported SMEs will be assessed based on their strategic alignment to the high-growth engineering networks, operational / financial performance and business culture and drive for change. Opportunities for reduced-carbon enhancing initiatives will also be explored. 40% of the companies will be based in Merseyside and the remaining 60% will be evenly spread across Cheshire, Cumbria, Lancashire and Manchester.
For more information contact: Andrew Lyons [email protected]
EWG-DSS Meetings List of all EWG-DSS Meetings, Workshops & Mini-Conferences:
. Fontainebleau (France) – 1990;
. Bruges (Belgium) – 1991;
. Nagycenk (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;
. Lisbon (Portugal) – 2010;
. London (UK) – 2011;
. Paris (France) – 2011.
. Liverpool (UK) – 2012;
. Vilnius (Lithuania) – 2012.
Meetings in 2012 In 2012, the EWG-DSS organise
one Workshop and one DSS Stream within the EURO XXV Conference in Vilnius. Those two events allowed the group to promote two official annual meetings!
The EWG-DSS Liverpool-2012 Workshop on Decision Support Systems & Operations Management Trends and Solutions in Industries The first meeting of the EWG-DSS in
2012 took place in Liverpool, UK, within the EWG-DSS Liverpool-2012 Workshop on “Decision Support Systems & Operations Management Trends and Solutions in Industries”. It was organized in cooperation with Jorge Hernandez, EWG-DSS Co-
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Coordinator and Lecturer in Operations & Supply Chain Management at the University of Liverpool Management School, where the EWG-DSS Workshop took place. We are deeply grateful to the support received from Jorge Hernandez and the Management School events coordinators, Katie Neary and Artemis Mermigki, in the Liverpool Workshop. Key-note speakers:
In this opportunity the 2012 EWG-DSS Liverpool’s workshop counted with six invited key note speakers:
• Dr. Paul Drake Title: The Management School in the 21st century • Prof. Pascale Zaraté Title: Cooperative Decision Support Systems. • Mr. Tony Waller Title: WITNESS Simulation and its role in Decision Support. • Dr. Steve Childe Title: Decision Support and Operations Management – viewpoint from an editor. • Prof. Peter McBurney Title: What are models for? • Dr. Zenon Michaelides Title: Using Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) systems to support Decision Support activities in Operations & Supply Chain Management: The Introduction of SAP into Universities taught Curriculum. The rich diversity of topics and approaches of Decision Support Systems & Operations Management presented by the key note speakers were an invaluable source of
inspiration for further investigations in the area. We are extremely proud from our invited key note speakers because of their time and effort in giving to all the participants clear and real insights to their subject aligned with the Decision-Making and Decision Support System area. Their presentations were extremely motivating for all the attendances. We can certainly say that the Liverpool-2012 Workshop was a great success! There were 35 registered participants and 26 presentations. All presentations were very interesting and there was a high level of information exchange for further cooperation among the participants. Details about the Workshop Program, Special Talks, electronic Proceedings, Special Issues and photo gallery can be found at its Homepage: http://ewgdssliverpool2012.wordpress.com.
EURO XXV Vilnius, Lithuania July 8-11th, 2012
EWG-DSS Stream: Decision Support System As usual, the EWG-DSS Coordination Board, under the representation of Pascale Zaraté; Fátima Dargam; and Rita Ribeiro, organized in the EUROXXV Conference a Decision Support Systems Stream. The DSS Stream was composed of four sessions and each of them counted with 3 presentations. DSS Stream Sessions: 1. Decision Support Systems (chair:
Pascale Zarate). Presented work: • Decisions, processes, and decision
processes for enabling risk sharing and performance creation at the buyer-supplier interface, Kristian Rotaru, Carla Wilkin, Leonid Churilov
• Modelling to generate alternatives using biologically-inspired algorithms Julian Scott Yeomans, Raha Imanirad;
• The Role of product factors, sellers' factors and attitude toward risk on e-store purchasing , Arik Sadeh.
2. Web-based Spatial-temporal
Collaborative Decision Support Systems (chair: Fatima Dargam). Presented work:
• Scalarising methods in DSS Weboptim, Vassil Guliashki, Leoneed
Kirilov, Krassimira Genova, Boris Staykov;
• Hope: a web-based SDSS for urban management, Joao Coutinho-Rodrigues;
• Criteria weighting considering the interaction with institution’s goals, Sheu-Hua Chen, Hong Tau Lee.
3. Knowledge Management & Decision
Systems (chair: Shaofeng Liu). Presented work:
• Extending the analysis of the EURO Working Group on DSS Research Collaboration Network (EWG-DSS Collab-Net V.2); Pascale Zaraté, Fatima Dargam, David Dadenne, Isabelle Linden, Shaofeng Liu, Rita Ribeiro, Wei Sun;
• Applying ontology in the analysis of a DSS Research Collaboration Network; Fatima Dargam, Antonio C. S. Branco, Alexandre Rademaker, Renato Rocha Souza;
• Ranking the seawater desalination methods by using multi criteria decision making approaches Amin Esmaeeli, Hooman Baghban Asghari nejad, Mahdi Zarghami.
4. Applications in Decision Making &
Decision Analysis (Chair: Pascale Zarate). Presented work:
• A decision making framework for a Colombian business group, Julián Benavides, Felipe henao;
• Development of a territorial vulnerability indicator framework for cross-border risk analysis, Tina Comes, Marjorie Vannieuwenhuyse, Frank Schultmann;
• Requirements analysis and conceptual design of data warehouse, Dragana Becejski-Vujaklija, Milena Panovic.
Photo from the EUROXXV - DSS Stream:
From left to right: Isabelle Linden, Shaofeng Liu, Fatima Dargam, Pascale Zaraté. Following our Stream on the EUROXXV, the edition of a dedicated Special Issue of the IJDSST Internation Journal of Decision Support Systems Technology is currently being processed. It consists of thoroughly revised and extended final papers selected the DSS Stream Sessions WA-27; WB-27; WC-27; WD-27;
Dr. Paul Drake Head of Marketing and Operations Management Group, Management School University of Liverpool, UK.
Prof. Pascale Zarate Universite Toulouse 1 Capitole (UT1C). France. EWG-DSS Coordintator. Editor -chief Journal IJDSST Mr. Tony Waller Lanner Group UK.
Dr. Steve Childe Senior lecturer School of Engineering, Computing & Mathematics University of Exeter, UK. Editor in-chief Journal PPC Production Planning Control Prof. Peter McBurney Agents-Intelligent Systems Group Department of Informatics King’s College London, UK.
Dr. Zenon Michaelides Management School University of Liverpool UK.
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among other submitted work of members of the EWG-DSS. Guest editors of this issue are: Fatima Dargam, Shaofeng Liu, and Isabelle Linden.
Upcoming Events: EWG-DSS Thessaloniki-2013
Workshop on Exploring New Directions for Decisions in the Internet Age May 29th-31st, 2013
The EWG-DSS Thessaloniki-2013 Workshop on “Exploring New Directions for Decisions in the Internet Age” will particularly focus on the advances on research in the field of Decision Sciences, for meeting the challenges of paradigm shift in decision making and decision support brought by recent developments of Web 2.0 and 3.0 technologies. Specifically, the workshop will develop a research agenda that identifies the key issues and challenges, and explores new approaches and tools for future collaborative decision making, including the use of social networks and Web resources, dynamic spatial-temporal decision making, and technical and social aspects of web-based decision processes.
The workshop will develop a research agenda for the new directions in decisions in Internet age and will be an enabling platform for decision scientists, computer scientists, applied mathematicians, and social scientists to devise a roadmap encouraging interdisciplinary research for the development of Web-based DSS, as well as architectures and methodologies that can specify dynamic and collaborative DSS for the Web 2.0 and 3.0.
Contributions (Call for Papers) Link: http://ewgdssthessaloniki2013.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/cfp-ewg-dss-thessaloniki-2013.pdf
We encourage the submission of papers addressing topics in research and application of Decision Systems. Authors are requested to submit extended abstracts (~6 A4 pages) in electronic form (MS-Word or PDF) (template here) up to 30/03/2013. Submissions may include, among others, the following topics:
- Decision Systems in the Mobile Era of Web 3.0
- Decision-making using Social Networks
- Spatial-temporal Web-based Decision Making
- Technical, Legal & Social Aspects of Web-based Decision Making
- Group Support Systems / Distributed / Collaborative Decision Making
- Methods, Languages and Tools to support Decision Making
- Web 2.0/ 3.0 Systems for Decision Support & Globalisation Context
- Spatial-temporal Decision Support Systems
- Knowledge Management & Decision Support Systems
- Knowledge and Resource Discovery & Decision Making
- Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing
- Negotiation Support Systems within the paradigm for the Internet Age
The EWG-DSS Coordination Board is very grateful to the support received by Dr. Jason Papathanasiou, member of the EWG-DSS and Lecturer at the Dept. of Marketing and Operations Management of the University of Macedonia, in organizing this meeting in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Members of the EWG-DSS working group are expected to participate and to encourage the participation of other related professionals in this Workshop on “Exploring New Directions for Decisions in the Internet Age”, so that further collaboration can be promoted on a larger scale.
The workshop publications will be composed of the Book of Abstracts; a Special Issue on the Journal of Decision Systems and a Springer Book of Post-Proceedings, Series LNBIP. The last two editions will be produced with selected and revised full papers presented in the workshop.
Springer Book Series LNBIP
JDS Special Issue
Further details about the Workshop Program and Publications, Special Talks, Venue, Registration and Accommodation will be available at: http://ewgdssthessaloniki2013.wordpress.com/
The EWG-DSS Coordinators are looking forward to welcoming you in Greece next year!
EURO XXVI - 2013
The 26th European Conference on Operational Research EURO-INFORMS Joint International Meeting 2013, Rome, Italy. July 1-4th, 2013. Conference Venue: University of Sapienza, in Rome, Italy http://euro2013.org/
EWG-DSS Stream on: “Decision Support System” Organisers: Pascale Zaraté, Fátima Dargam, Rita Ribeiro, Jorge Hernández, Boris Deliašić, Shaofeng Liu The DSS Stream Sessions: - Applications in Decision Making & Decision Analysis - Knowledge Management & Decision Systems - DSS supported by simulation and optmization approaches - Decision Making using Social Networks and Web Resources - Collaborative Decision Making Call for Papers can be found in the EWG-DSS Blog. Check the link:
http://ewgdss.wordpress.com/
We hope to see you in Rome! ♦
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EURO Mini-Conference Graz – 2013 October 17th – 19th, 2012 Joint-Streams of the EWGs: DSS; E-CUBE; MCSP & ORAFM Local Organising Committee Prof. Ulrike Leopold‐Wildburger / Univ. Graz ‐ Austria Dr. Fatima Dargam / ILTC – Brazil / SimTech – Austria Mag. Arleta Ramußen / Univ. Graz ‐ Austria
The interdisciplinary flavour of this event joins the interests of the Working Groups on Decision Support Systems (EWG-DSS); Experimental Economics (EWG E-CUBE), the EURO Working Group on Methodology for Complex Societal Problems (MCSP) and the EURO Working Group on OR in Agriculture and Forest Management (ORAFM). Particular focus will be given to recent developments in all related fields, their methodologies, concepts and implementation details. Members of the working groups are expected to participate and to encourage the participation of other related professionals, so that further collaboration can be promoted on a larger scale. This EURO Mini Conference promises to offer a pleasant working environment for all participants, within the beautiful fall time of Graz. Information about the on-line registration will be available on the web-page of the Mini-Conference, as well as on http://www.uni-graz.at/sor and on the EWG-DSS site http://ewgdss.wordpress.com/. Participation is open to all researchers within the related areas!
Call for Papers
EURO XXVI, Rome, Italy. July 1st - 4th, 2013.
EWG-DSS Stream at the EUROXXVI in Rome, Italy in 2013.
The 26th European Conference on Operational Research "EURO XXVi", with the special subject "OR - Connecting Sciences" will take place in Vilnius, organized by the Lithuanian OR Society, during the period of July
8th-11th, 2012. More information about it can be found the Conference Homepage: www.euro-2012.lt. DSS Stream As usual, the EWG-DSS Coordination Board will organize in this Conference a Decision Support Systems Stream, to which you are all welcome to participate and submit your research work.
The DSS Stream at EURO XXV is composed of five sessions: - Applications in Decision Making & Decision Analysis: 88d4c0bc - Knowledge Management & Decision Systems: cea335f9 - DSS supported by simulation and optmization approaches: 09dc289d - Decision Making using Social Networks and Web Resources: c1c11a66 - Collaborative Decision Making: 2366ccc0
In order to submit your abstract to one of those sessions, you need to login in the conference site, select the “Abstract submission” menu option and then enter the session code (see above) to which you wish to place your submission. Contributors are requested to submit their Abstracts (no more than 600 characters) in English. The Call for Papers for the EURO XXV – DSS Stream can be downloaded via the link: http://ewgdss.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/cfp-euro-xxv-vilnius2012-dss-stream.pdf
Important Dates
Deadlines for Abstracts: March 1st, 2012 Acceptance notification
March 31st, 2012
Deadline for early registration
April 1st, 2012 Deadline for author
registration May1st, 2012
EURO XXV Conference dates July 8th-11th, 2012
In order to ease the organisation of the DSS Stream sessions, please keep us informed about your contributions to the DSS Stream, by sending a copy of your submitted papers to [email protected]. Thanks! A dedicated Special Issue of the JDS Journal of Decision Systems will be organized after the EUROXXVI with a selection of presented papers in the DSS Stream. Guest editors of this issue will be: Shaofeng Liu, Pascale Zaraté and Rita Ribeiro. We thank you in advance for your participation and dissemination!
EURO Mini-Conference EURO Mini-Conference Graz-2013 on “Collaborative Decision Systems in Economics and in Complex Societal and Environmental Applications” Graz, Austria.
October 17th to 19th, 2013. This EURO Mini Conference is jointly organised by the EURO Working Groups on Decision Support Systems (EWG-DSS); Experimental Economics (EWG E-CUBE), the EURO Working Group on Methodology for Complex Societal Problems (MCSP) and the EURO Working Group on OR in Agriculture and Forest Management (ORAFM). Each group will run and chair its Stream in parallel.
It will take place in the Institute of Statistics and Operations Research of the Karl-Franzens Universität Graz, Austria, from October 17th to 19th, 2013.
Due to its interdisciplinary flavour, this conference brings together researchers of the areas of Decision Sciences, Operations Research, Economics, Societal Complexity, Environmental Management and their respective fields of applications. Collaborative Decision Systems in the areas of Economics, Societal and Environmental Applications are very much encouraged to be submitted to this EURO Mini-Conference.
Papers addressing topics in research and application areas of the EURO Working Groups on DSS; E-CUBE; MSC and ORAFM are currently being invited for this Joint Mini-Conference. Contributors are requested to submit either Abstracts (1 page) or Short Papers (4/6 pages) in electronic form (MS-Word or PDF) by 30/06/2013. Presentations of Projects, Software Tools and Demos are also welcome. More details about the Mini-Conference Programme will be available at the Conference site. There will be parallel sessions for EWG-DSS, EWG E-CUBE, EWG-MSC and EWG-ORAFM.
The 2013 EURO Mini-Conference will publish a book of Abstracts with the presented work. Full Papers accepted for the conference can be submitted (refereed separately) for publication in special issues of the Journals: CEJOR Central European Journal of Operations Research (Physica-Verlag/
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Springer-Verlag Co. http://www.springeronline.com/journal/10100); IJDSST International Journal of Decision Support Systems Technology; and the IJDSS International Journal of Decision Support Systems. Authors will be requested to hand-in their final full papers in electronic media to their respective Conference Contact Person up to 15/11/2013. Proposals for panels or demo presentations in special sessions are very welcome.
This EURO Mini Conference promises to offer a pleasant working environment for all participants, within the beautiful fall time of Graz.
Participation is open to all researchers within the related areas!
The members of the Coordination Boards of the joint-organising EURO Working Groups of DSS, E-CUBE, MCSP and ORAFM are very grateful to the support received by the Karl-Franzens University of Graz, specially to Univ.-Prof. Dr. Ulrike Leopold-Wildburger, from the Institute of Statistics and Operations Research, for the opportunity of organising this Conference in Graz, Austria.
Details about the Participation, Program and Registration for this Conference will be soon available in: http://eurominiconferencegraz2013.wordpress.com/ We hope to see you in Graz!
Journal Call for Papers IJDSST - Special Issue of the EWG-DSS
This Special Issue is organised by the EURO Working Group on Decision Support Systems. Guest Editors:
Fatima Dargam Shaofeng Liu Isabelle Linden
It will consist of thoroughly revised papers devoted to the development of new approaches to decision-making and decision support. Submissions may include, among others, the following topics:
• Decision-Making using Social
Networks and Web Resources • Spatial-temporal Web-based
Decision-Making • Technical, Legal & Social Aspects
of Web-based Decision-Making • Group Support Systems /
Distributed / Collaborative Decision-Making
• Methods, Languages and Tools to support Collaborative Decision Making
• Web 2.0 Systems for Decision Support & Globalisation Context
• Spatial-temporal Decision Support Systems
• Knowledge Management & Decision Support Systems
• Knowledge and Resource Discovery & Decision making
• Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing
• Negotiation Support Systems Submissions details can be found via the link: http://ewgdss.wordpress.com/ewg-dss-academic-production/
Other Calls ISCRAM 2013 Integrative and Analytical Approaches to Crisis Response and Emergency Management Information Systems
Baden-Baden, Germany May 12th-15th, 2013 ISCRAM 2013 Homepage: http://iscram2013.org/ Minitracks: • Decision Support Methods and Tools for Holistic Emergency Management
Call for Papers ‐ Link: http://www.iip.kit.edu/downloads/ISCRAM2013_Holistic_Decision_Support.pdf • Efficient Planning and Decision Support for Robust Critical Infrastructure Systems Call for Papers ‐ Link: http://www.iip.kit.edu/downloads/ISCRAM2013_CI_Decision_Support.pdf
GDN2013 Special Sessions Automated Facilitation in Group Support Systems Organizers: Guy Camilleri & Pascale Zaraté The purpose of this session is to investigate recent advances about automated facilitation of meetings in which Group Support Systems (GSS) or Group Decision Support systems (GDSS) are used. Facilitation was for a long time recognized as a key success factor for meetings. When GDSS tools are used or when e-meetings take place, the need to facilitate meetings is even more visible. Unfortunately, due to their specific skills, professional facilitators are expensive and scarce. The automated facilitation appears as a promising way of supporting the facilitation activity, in order to make it more accessible to facilitators with less expertise; and therefore for improving the meetings efficiency and the promotion of GSS in organization. Issues for e-Governance. Organizers: Pascale Zaraté & Guy Camilleri Nowadays, virtually every industry or business, as well as any political or personal activity has to deal with vast amount of data and information that travel via the Internet. The internet has substantial impact on our decisions, affecting e.g. consumers through the way it informs and connects them. There is an increasing prospect of the Internet influencing multi-actor decision-making and particularly in the e-Governance area. E-governance offers new opportunities for Group Decision Making, which might even go as far as changing its nature. New concepts emerge from this application like for example e-Democracy and the concept of Netizens which is a contraction between Internet and Citizens. The idea of this session is to measure the new issues of the E-Governance. GDN2013 website: http://gdn2013.blogs.dsv.su.se/call-for-papers/
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DGSS 2013 Workshop on Data-Driven Decision Guidance and Support Systems In conjunction with the 29th IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE 2013), to be held in Brisbane, Australia on 8 April 2013.
Organisers: Kathryn Laskey and Alexander Brodsky.
DGSS2013 Website: http://dgss.vse.gmu.edu/
IJCAI-2013 Workshop on Context and Cloud Computing for Workflows (C&C4WF) Place: Beijing, China, held with IJCAI-2013. Dates: August 3-4, 2013 More information on website: http://grid.lzu.edu.cn/psrl/cc4wf
ICORES 2013 International Conference on Operations Research and Enterprise Systems ICORES2013 will be held in Barcelona, Spain between February 16th – 18th, 2013. More details on the conference website http://www.icores.org/
Annals of Operations Research. Special Volume: Policy Analytics The Annals of Operations Research seeks submissions for a special volume on Policy Analytics. The deadline for submission is 31 October 2012. The guest editors are: Katherine Daniell (Australian National University), Alec Morton (London School of Economics) and David Rios Insua (Royal Academy of Sciences, Spain ). The background to the special issue is as follows. The last few decades have seen rapid growth in the capacity of businesses to exploit IT, OR and statistical modelling to collect and process operational and market data in order to support decisions. As a result, business analytics has become a flourishing field for consulting and business education. In contrast, while government decisions are often supported by traditional policy analysis, few government departments and
agencies have yet managed to make the systematic use of data, evidence, OR methods and cutting-edge modeling. In this call, we therefore invite papers which deal with the application of the methods and ideas of "analytics" to problems arising in the operational management of public services and in policy making. This special issue seeks papers presenting both conceptual advances and innovative applications, recognising that public sector applications must balance the need for robust and convincing analysis with legitimate public expectations about transparency and opportunities for participation. Papers may deal with contributions through different phases of the policy cycle: from issue identification; policy testing and analysis; to policy implementation and evaluation. More details of the scope of the SI and submission procedures and deadlines are available at http://rutcor.rutgers.edu/POLICY_ANALYTICS.pdf Call for Chapter Proposals Evaluating Websites and Web Services: interdisciplinary Perspectives on User Satisfaction A book edited by Denis Yannacopoulos1, Panagiotis Manolitzas2 , Nikolaos Matsatsinis2, Evangelos Grigoroudis2. 1Technological Education Institute of Piraeus, Greece. 2Technical University of Crete, Greece. To be published by IGI Global: http://www.igi-global.com/publish/call-for-papers/call-details/863
EURO Announcements EURO Awards The EURO Doctoral Dissertation Award (EDDA) http://www.euro-online.org/web/pages/210/doctoral-dissertation-award-edda The deadline for submitting applications is 15 January 2013. The jury chair and contact is Silvano Martello Editor-in-Chief, 4OR: A Quarterly Journal of Operations Research, Professor of Operations Research, DEIS, University of Bologna , Viale Risorgimento 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy
The EURO Excellence in Practice Award (EEPA) http://www.euro-online.org/web/pages/209/excellence-in-practice-award-eepa The deadline for submitting material online is 31 January 2013. http://transp-or.epfl.ch/eepa2013/registration.php The EURO Distinguished Service Medal Award (EDSM) http://www.euro-online.org/web/pages/255/distinguished-service-medal-award-edsm The deadline for nominations is January 31, 2013. The jury chair and contact is Prof. Zilla Sinuany-Stern, Ph.D. [email protected] Dept. of Ind. Eng.& Mgmt. Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel The EURO Gold Medal (EGM) http://www.euro-online.org/web/pages/212/gold-medal-egm The deadline for nominations is 31st March, 2013. The jury chair and contact is Rüdiger Schultz Faculty of Mathematics University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg Campus, Forsthausweg 2, D-47057 Duisburg, Germany [email protected] Finally, the approved guidelines for the Award for the Best EJOR Paper (EABEP) are now available on the EURO web pages: http://www.euro-online.org/web/pages/1536/guidelines. Although the finalists are determined by papers already published in EJOR, please advertise this new award.
Other Announcements International Journal of Multicriteria Decision Making
2012 Vol. 2 No. 4
Special Issue on Recent Applications of Multi Objective Programming and Goal Programming
Guest Editor: Professor Fouad Ben Abdelaziz
IJMCDM vol 2 issue 4 http://www.inderscience.com/info/inarticletoc.php?jcode=ijmcdm&year=2012&vol=2&issue=4
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Projects’ Reports Report on Well-Being in Ireland Conference by Michael Hogan This conference, held on 8 June 2012 in NUI, Ireland, brought together scientists, community organizations and policy-makers to discuss the latest advances in well-being research and policy. In advance of the workshop, we asked conference participants to reflect on the broad issue of well-being in Ireland and generate a list of barriers to well-being in Ireland. Interactive Management was used to structure interrelationships between barriers. Interactive Management (IM) is a software supported collaborative design process that allows a group of individuals with a vested interest in solving a problem to design problematiques (i.e., graphical influence structures) that describe causal relationships between a large set of problems in a problem field. IM draws upon a long history of development in the fields of mathematics and systems science and is neutral as regards its scientific and social applications (http://warfield.gmu.edu/im). Participants were presented with a series of questions in the form: Does Barrier A significantly aggravate Barrier B? After a period of deliberation and discussion, the majority vote of the group was entered either as a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in the decision matrix and the matrix was converted into a problematique. The problematique is presented in figure 1. The figure can be read from left to right. Arrows indicate that the barrier on the left significantly aggravates barriers to the right. Two or more items appearing together in one box can be interpreted as reciprocally aggravating one another. In response to critical drivers of negative influence in the system (i.e., the barriers to the left of figure 1), including Lack of trust/dissatisfaction with the system, government, and decision-makers in general, and A national sense of gloom due to emphasis on austerity, conference participants suggest that high-impact, feasible options that could help to overcome these barriers include (a) Focus on what can be done despite the economic environment, (b) Lead by example, (c) Encourage people to get involved in/take control of well-being initiatives, (d) Promote well-being as a positive step forward for the current economy, (e) Building on community spirit through organising support groups and local initiative, and (f)
Focus on local positives and achievements.
In response to the absence of a holistic approach to health-care some of the highly ranked options participants generated and selected included: (a) Change the way physical education is taught in primary schools to include a more holistic approach to health and well-being, (b) Encourage mental health promotion initiatives in schools and workplaces, (c) Promote help-seeking as a skill (amongst young people in particular), (d) Implement evident-based education and behaviour change interventions to improve health and well-being. In response to the Lack of education about the importance of well-being in schools participants proposed (a) Implement well-being modules across the education system, from primary to third level, (b) Create a national well-being committee responsible for policies, training and sustaining interventions etc. (c) Set up a website that educates people about well-being, (d) Define what well-being is from a national perspective, (e) Develop evidence- based solutions, (f) Link in with groups that already indirectly promote well-being. In response to the leadership barrier (including no charismatic leader to advance the well-being of the nation) participants proposed (a) promote awareness of the importance of well-being in one’s own community and be a leader on a small scale first, (b) Encourage more youth involvement in public office, which may give rise to many new leaders, (c) more focused awareness raising of mental health and well-being from the minister for health. There has been a strong positive response to the conference and the interactive management methodology and there is significant interest in hosting similar workshops in local communities and across a variety of different sectors (e.g., education, health, policy design) to facilitate more dialogue and debate and systems thinking in relation to barriers to well-being in Ireland and how to overcome them. Michael Hogan, School of Psychology, NUI, Galway, Ireland Email: [email protected] .
Decision Support System for Fire Operations by Hamidreza Soltani Increasingly frequent emergency incidents (such as fire, floods and
earthquakes) during the last few decades pose a significant threat towards human life and economies, impacting directly on society and the environment. The impacts of these phenomena upon society is amplified due to the weakness of existent responsive systems, and the disorganised decision making structure of relevant authorities, which is reflected in the inadequate provision of aids from the emergency rescue services. Therefore, in consideration of the inefficient systems in place to address such emergencies when they arise, there is a recognised need for the development of decision support systems to better cope with the potential costs and consequences of the decision maker actions. Aims: The project aims to develop and assess a real-time decision support system (DSS) for decision making in fire emergency and rescue operations. The main idea is to develop a decision analysis tool that can analyse different alternatives and find the best and optimal solution for emergency incidents. In fact, the aim is to highlight to decision makers the potential costs and consequences of their field actions rather than to take decisions and responsibilities. Therefore, the three main reasons for considering more about decision analysis other than decision help/support are: A robust tool of decision analysis
does not exist for fire emergency and rescue operations. Decision makers are often poor at
analysing the risk associated with their decisions. Relying wholly on decision help has
a high risk for decision makers. Hence, the decision analytic tool assists decision makers to understand objectives systematically and analytically, to alleviate the stress associated with decision making in emergencies, to institutionalised human-machine interaction and learning for fire emergencies, and to quantitatively model crucial aspects of the problem. Methodology: Based on the epistemological paradigms with reference to the aims of this project, probabilistic model is used. In probabilistic model, two main aspects is concerned, the outcome values and also the amount of risk of each decision alternative. Based on probabilistic model, different steps of decision analysing are: 1) Making decision structure
(deterministic structuring) 2) Utilising model to approach the
solutions • Representing the real situation
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• Focusing on the most vital factors • Understanding and analysing
different alternatives. 3) Testing the model/ structure
According to the probabilistic process model, different techniques and methods are used in each step. Graph theory is used for modelling and conceptualising the decision problems (level 1). Conceptualising decision problems helps decision makers to understand different possible alternatives for specific problems. Statistical decision theory is used for analysing different uncertainties and their consequences. Uncertainties arise when an emergency incident leaves several alternatives available; in such cases there may be disagreement among decision makers in selecting from those alternatives. Therefore, uncertainty plays the most important role in decision analysis. For solving uncertainties issues, support Vector Machine (SVM) and fuzzy logic techniques are used. A comprehensive research report about this study, entailing details about the methodology and implementation can be obtained from Hamidreza Soltani. [email protected] . Thanks to all group members who contributed to this section!
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EWG-DSS Coordinator Board: Pascale Zaraté (Coordinator) IRIT / Toulouse University , France Fátima Dargam (Coordinator) SimTech Simulation Technology, Austria; ILTC, Brazil Rita Ribeiro (Board Chair) UNINOVA ‐ CA3, Portugal Jorge Hernández (Board Assistant) University of Liverpool, UK Boris Delibašić (Board Assistant) University of Belgrade, Serbia Shaofeng Liu (Board Assistant) University of Plymouth, UK EWG‐DSS EURO Homepage ‐ EWG‐DSS Blog ‐ EWG‐DSS LinkedIn ‐ EWG‐DSS IRIT Server
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