A unified perspective on decision making and decision support systems

The lack of consensus on the meaning and role of decision support systems (DSSs), in the market and in academia, indicates that DSS as a field is not maturely defined and modeled. Moreover, an integrated view of the field is necessary to assess the role and value of DSS products and services. Such a view is also a prerequisite for understanding the issues of integration, as well as the potential contributions of artificial intelligence (AI) and expert systems (ES). This paper presents a unified and dynamic model showing the relationships of knowledge, information, decision, and action in the decision process. DSS modeling is viewed as a logical deduction of the utility (goal) structure. Using the framework of the model, the sequence and phases of decision making are revised. The concept of situation model is introduced. Four categories of information are addressed: instruction, historical, predicted value of alternatives, and patterns. The role of existing and potential support systems and their evolution toward utilization of ES and AI are discussed.     

A taxonomy for decision support capabilities of enterprise content management systems

Enterprise content management (ECM) systems are implemented in many organizations to deal with the complexity of the structured and unstructured organizational data. The little available ECM literature shows that many organizations using ECM focus on short-term benefits while strategic decision-making benefits are rarely considered. Although the relationship between the use of ECM and decision support (DS) is investigated recently, there is scarcity in research that investigates the categories of DS capabilities that ECM systems may have. The objective of this paper is to determine whether ECM systems can have the DS capabilities of four categories of decision support systems, namely classic decision support systems (DSS), executive information systems (EIS), expert systems (ES), and group decision support systems (GDSS). The findings indicate that ECM systems can have all decision support capabilities of classic DSS, EIS, and ES. However, ECM systems can have only a portion of decision support capabilities of GDSS.     

Using decision support systems to facilitate the social process of knowledge management

The social processes involved in engaging small groups of 3–15 managers in their sharing, organising, acquiring, creating and using knowledge can be supported with software and facilitator assistance. This paper introduces three such systems that we have used as facilitators to support groups of managers in their social process of decision-making by managing knowledge during face-to-face meetings. The systems include Compendium, Group Explorer (with Decision Explorer) and V*I*S*A. We review these systems for group knowledge management where the aim is for better decision-making, and discuss the principles of deploying each in a group meeting.     

人员测评群体决策支持系统的开发与设计

针对企业人员测评过程中如锣建立群体决策支持系统这一问题,提出了由进程库、信息库与决策支持系统的三库结构组成的人员测评群体决策支持系统。该决策支持系统是在计算机提供的“测评动态环境”的基础上,使群体决策者能够通过人机对话的形式进行测评的分析和决策。     

Engaging rational discrimination: exploring reasons for placing regulatory constraints on decision support systems

In the future systems of ambient intelligence will include decision support systems that will automate the process of discrimination among people that seek entry into environments and to engage in search of the opportunities that are available there. This article argues that these systems must be subject to active and continuous assessment and regulation because of the ways in which they are likely to contribute to economic and social inequality. This regulatory constraint must involve limitations on the collection and use of information about individuals and groups. The article explores a variety of rationales or justifications for establishing these limits. It emphasizes the unintended consequences that flow from the use of these systems as the most compelling rationale.     

Multi-person decision analysis in large scale systems—group decision making

This paper treats the problem of amalgamating the preference orderings of individuals into an overall preference ordering for the society comprised of those individuals. A mathematical rule for doing this is known as a “social welfare function”. The imposition of five seemingly desirable conditions on the social welfare function leads to Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, which states that there is no function which satisfies these five conditions. To circumvent this problem, several proposed restrictions on the social welfare function are discussed. The concept of decentralized group decision making, in which the members of the group are arranged in a hierarchical structure, is described. Here decision making takes place within subgroups and then the subgroups are treated as individuals in the decision making process for the group as a whole. Conditions under which decentralized decision making leads to the same results as centralized decision making are stated and proved.     

大型工程投资中的协商决策支持

文章通过对大型工程投资决策中的冲突问题的分析,研究了交互式多目标协商模型在解决大型工程投资冲突问题中的应用;并以大型调水工程投资为例,利用交互式多目标协商模型进行协商决策,表明交互式多目标协商模型对大型工程冲突问题能够提供有效的决策支持。     

On stabilization for systems with two additive time-varying input delays arising from networked control systems

This paper is concerned with the stability and stabilization for systems with two additive time-varying input delays arising from networked control systems. A new Lyapunov functional is constructed and a tighter upper bound of the derivative of the Lyapunov functional is derived by applying a convex polyhedron method. The resulting stability criteria are of fewer matrix variables and less conservative than some existing ones. Based on the stability criteria, a state feedback controller is designed such that the closed-loop system is asymptotically stable. Numerical examples are given to show the less conservatism of the stability criteria and the effectiveness of the designed method.     

The role of computer systems in organizational decision making

Decision making is regarded as a key feature of managerial activity. As a result, a considerable amount of research activity has been undertaken that aims to enhance understanding and to improve on the decision‐making process within organizational settings. This research has been paralleled by a technological response in the development of information and communication technology that is heralded by many for its significant potential for improving decision making in terms of both efficiency and effectiveness. This paper examines the complex nature of decision making within organizations and examines the extent to which computer systems may provide effective managerial support in the face of increasing organizational complexity.     

An information system for decision support in national information policy-making and planning

It is widely recognized that national information policies and plans severely suffer from the lack of timely and relevant data which could support decision-making. Through a pilot project sponsored by UNESCO/PGI and a subsequent application project at the Brazilian Institute for Information in Science and Technology (IBICT), an information system is being developed in order tentatively to overcome this obstacle. It consists of several related modules for the control of the internal production at the national agency and of the development projects and their related contracts, and for the monitoring of the information scene, both national and international. The two first modules are based upon the items of standardized work plans. The third one consists of a coherent series of data bases which contain basic information about the actors and components of the information scene, further transformed into single and aggregated numerical values. The latter are themselves aggregated and standardized according to a comprehensive list of variables, which are calculated on an international basis for the upper levels of the system. The system has been designed in order to cater to various perspectives of the information sector and the calculation of specific or composite indicators. It is linked with a bibliographic information system which controls the documents from which part of the data have been extracted, and with a referral system. The principles and examples of practical applications of the system are presented. The prospects and requirements for its full-scale implementation are discussed.     

On domain expertise-based roles in collaborative information retrieval

Collaborative information retrieval involves retrieval settings in which a group of users collaborates to satisfy the same underlying need. One core issue of collaborative IR models involves either supporting collaboration with adapted tools or developing IR models for a multiple-user context and providing a ranked list of documents adapted for each collaborator. In this paper, we introduce the first document-ranking model supporting collaboration between two users characterized by roles relying on different domain expertise levels. Specifically, we propose a two-step ranking model: we first compute a document-relevance score, taking into consideration domain expertise-based roles. We introduce specificity and novelty factors into language-model smoothing, and then we assign, via an Expectation–Maximization algorithm, documents to the best-suited collaborator. Our experiments employ a simulation-based framework of collaborative information retrieval and show the significant effectiveness of our model at different search levels.     

FDM中支撑设计规则研究

熔融沉积(FDM)快速成型制造中,支撑设计是一项关键性技术.支撑设计的优劣会直接影响零件的成型精度与成型质量.根据FDM工艺制作过程及变形机理,利用有限元软件分析具有广义特征的层截面变形并以此总结出FDM工艺支撑设计规则;同时根据实际制作中只有层间悬臂量达到某临界值时才会导致变形的事实,建立了悬臂量与变形量关系的几何模型,再次进行有限元分析,依据结果数据拟合出两者之间规律的函数关系,可作为该类工艺实际制作支撑设计的参考.     

技术系统中概念决策的内在冲突浅析

文章研究产品开发早期阶段中技术解决方案的决策,即概念决策。文章实证研究我国的一家汽车生产企业。研究结果显示,概念决策中一个主要的挑战是在系统解决方案完全成熟之前,产品各系统需要实现兼容。管理者与产品开发人员应当了解,即使缺乏详细的分析,概念解决方案也能发展成为详尽的产品开发方案。在概念决策过程中,一些内在冲突要加以确认。文章认为应提高管理者与产品开发人员对心理偏差的认识。为引导每个人的判断与权衡,大家应对产品及其开发过程具有清楚的认识。     

企业在知识创新中的作用——以Sony公司为例

在知识的创新过程中,企业作为"知识场",不再仅仅是"处理信息的机器",它的功能随着时代的发展也逐渐多样化--为各种知识创新活动提供场所;展示企业的意图,引导知识创新;企业家的创新精神的榜样示范作用,带动企业各成员的知识创新;发现人才、整合并利用知识资源;提出组织的共同愿景,形成知识创新的一股合力;为知识创新营造一种创新文化氛围;设置各种有利于创新的奖惩制度,激励创新等等.     

Decision support systems in academic planning: Important considerations and issues

Academic planning is becoming a very complex problem due to a variety of changes that have impacted the availability of funds for education. Some of these changes such as demographic shifts, social pressures and technological advances are external to the academic institution affected. These factors make planning increasingly important. This paper describes the use of technologically available tools to combat the problems faced in the planning activities at universities. It proposes the use of mathematical models and forecasting techniques to predict and therefore plan for change with enough leadtime so as to make these changes effective. This paper describes how administrators can allocate limited resources to where they are most effective. A model-based decision support system which is used by the decision-maker in planning and responding quickly to changes is presented. The system includes a number of alternative quantitative techniques that vary in complexity to suit the decision-maker's needs of forecasting change before it happens so as to plan for it. The changes insure the requisite quality of graduates. The system also identifies popular software packages referred to as spreadsheets to evaluate “what if” scenarios of budgets and enrollments.     

An ethical framework in information systems decision making using normative theories of business ethics

As business environments become more complex and reliant on information systems, the decisions made by managers affect a growing number of stakeholders. This paper proposes a framework based on the application of normative theories in business ethics to facilitate the evaluation of IS related ethical dilemmas and arrive at fair and consistent decisions. The framework is applied in the context of an information privacy dilemma to demonstrate the decision making process. The ethical dilemma is analyzed using each one of the three normative theories—the stockholder theory, stakeholder theory, and social contract theory. The challenges associated with the application of these theories are also discussed.     

Pregnant women's coping strategies,participation roles and social support in the online community during the COVID-19

Pregnant women are experiencing enormous physical changes and suffering pregnancy-related losses, which may lead to depression symptoms during pregnancy. Given that the onslaught of COVID-19 had exacerbated pregnant women's anxiety because of disruptions in antenatal care and concerns regarding safe delivery, it is worth exploring how they obtain social support to cope with stress during COVID-19. Although many works have explored the impact of coping resources that people have on coping strategies, few studies have been done on the relationship between people's coping strategies and their acquisition of coping resources such as social support. To fill this gap, based on the stress and coping theory (SCT) and social penetration theory (SPT), this study investigates the impacts of pregnant women's different coping strategies on the acquisition of social support and the moderating role of the adverse impacts of COVID-19 and their online participation roles (support providers vs. support seekers) using the data of 814 pregnant women's online behavior from a parenting community in China¹. Our study indicates that both women's superficial level disclosure and personal level disclosure positively affect online social support received. Moreover, self-disclosure about the adverse impacts of COVID-19 negatively moderates the relationship between personal level disclosure and social support received. Participation role positively moderates the relationship between personal level disclosure and social support received, but negatively moderates the relationship between superficial level disclosure and social support received. This paper makes theoretical contributions to the literature of SCT, SPT and the literature about social support in online communities.     

浅谈工会在基层水利工程管理单位中应发挥的作用

根据基层水利工程管理单位的现实状况,提出工会组织在培训、教育、宣传工作中应发挥引领示范和激励的重要作用,以促进水利工程管理模式的“三个转变”,使民生水利的理念深入人心。