Abstract: Aiming to augment the quality of decision making in vessel dismantling, this paper presents an innovative decision support system that takes into account the diversity of the associated constraints to aid stakeholders handle issues such as the appropriateness of a disposal methodology or the level of safety in a dismantling yard. Being seamlessly integrated with an advanced simulation environment, the system alsofacilitates the collaborative design of dismantling processes.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the appropriate information and communication technology can act as a catalyst in the development and operations management of lean supply networks; not by automating tasks and procedures, but by providing the enabling infrastructure required for structuring difficult problems and issues arising at inter-organisational boundaries and for taming the social complexity of their resolution processes. Towards this end, we present the design rationale and the functionalities of Co-LEAN, which is an integrated suite of software tools developed by the authors for the design and management of lean supply networks. In addition to providing full operational support in the planning and execution of the lean supply network, Co-LEAN supports internet-based collaboration in the specification of value, the identification and optimisation of value-streams, the alignment of supply-chain strategy with the overall operations strategy, and the supply-chain improvement tasks. The paper discusses the knowledge and information management requirements of lean supply networks, and presents the main components and functionalities of Co-LEAN in the context of a use case in a supply network formed around a stainless steel tanks' manufacturer.
Abstract: The coordinated consideration of diverse perspectives and knowledge sources in medical decision-making contexts is undoubtedly of crucial importance, in that it augments the quality of both the overall process and decisions to be made. Towards this end, this study presents a web-based system that aims at the exploitation of personalized knowledge through a structured process of collaborative and argumentative resolution of issues raised in such settings. By using the system, a consensus emerges through the process of collaboratively considering alternative interpretations of the issue under consideration. Using an illustrative example of collaboration between a group of experts deciding on the most appropriate treatment for a particular case of breast cancer, we present the design rationale, features and functionality of the proposed system. Much attention is also paid to the associated knowledge management issues. The system can be used for distributed, asynchronous collaboration, allowing users to surpass the requirements of working at the same place and time.
Abstract: This paper presents an overall framework for carrying out different types of dialogues between intelligent and autonomous agents acting in an electronic marketplace. Such dialogues take place during various commercial transactions concerning requests and offers of products and services. The proposed dialogue framework has been adopted in the communication and collaboration protocols of an already implemented system, which enables buyers and sellers delegate a variety of tasks to their personal agents. Much attention has been paid to the personalization of collaborative agents, which may permanently live and interact in the market representing their owners' interests. Our overall approach builds on a modular decomposition of the agents involved, and a formal and operational modeling of the associated dialogues. Features of our framework are demonstrated through an illustrative example of dialogues deployed during interagent transactions on the establishment of a combined reservation for dinner and a movie. The main contribution of this work is that the proposed framework is capable to represent disparate dialogues taking place among agents having adopted diverse strategies for carrying out e-commerce transactions.
Abstract: Collaborative decision making problems can be addressed through argumentative discourse and collaboration among the users involved. Consensus is achieved through the process of collaboratively considering alternative understandings of the problem, competing interests, priorities and constraints. The application of formal modeling and analysis tools to solve the related processes is impossible before the problem can be articulated in a concise and agreed upon manner. This paper describes HERMES, a system that augments classical decision making approaches by supporting argumentative discourse among decision makers. It is fully implemented in Java and runs on the Web, thus providing relatively inexpensive access to a broad public. Using an illustrative example, we present the argumentation elements, discourse acts and reasoning mechanisms involved in HERMES. We also describe the integration of advanced features to the system; these enable users to retrieve data stored in remote databases in order to further warrant their arguments, and stimulate them to perform acts that best reflect their interests and intentions.
Abstract: Interaction among actors involved in a Web-based learning environment is widely thought of as a valuable process, in that it stimulates collaborative work and augments the effectiveness of learning itself. This may be extensively achieved by the integration of groupware tools and techniques, originally coming from the Computer-Supported Cooperative Work discipline. This paper reports on MEDIT, a Web-based environment that addresses various pedagogical issues and has been developed in line with the above. Offering complementary support, and not substituting traditional practices, our approach distinguishes three virtual workspaces and provides appropriate services for each of them. The paper focuses on the presentation of the innovative tools MEDIT is composed of. These concern the multiple view representation of a course, the creation and maintenance of student customised courses, several exercise methods, argumentative discourse between teachers and students, and group decision making. MEDIT has already been used in five undergraduate courses demonstrating promising evaluation results.
Abstract: In the last few years, the WWW has frequently been used in a variety of applications, to provide up-to-date and platform-independent access to relevant information. In medicine, building and sharing knowledge about new theories, technologies and discoveries is of major concern. In this respect, there is a real need for physicians to be provided with efficient tools that offer targeted access to information about literature, expert opinions, medical statistics and epidemiology, in order to help them in their decision process. In this paper we describe the design and implementation of a generic Web-based environment that provides physicians with an integrated access to medical information as well as decision making support facilities. The emphasis is given on the design issues and the benefits of combining several approaches: using structured documents and databases to manage information and, argumentation tools to support the communication.
Abstract: Group decision making is usually performed in the presence of conflicting goals and criteria, brought up by spatially dispersed parties with different backgrounds and interests. Recent advances in information technology and computer science may satisfactorily address a variety of related problems, such as communication among the decision makers and efficient elicitation and representation of the domain knowledge. Furthermore, they may significantly automate the decision making process itself. On the other hand, the inherent uncertainty of the problem advocates the use of approximation models, often coming from the fuzzy sets discipline. This paper presents an integrated framework for multiple criteria decision making among groups on the World Wide Web. The agents involved use a fully implemented argumentative discourse system to pursue their criteria and objectives, the aim being the specification of the desired solution to the problem. The system organizes the collective knowledge in a discussion graph with truth maintenance and consistency checking features. Fuzzy similarity measures are then involved in order to assess alternative existing solutions with respect to the desired one. Scope and purpose We view multiple criteria decision making as a collaborative process, where decision makers have to follow a series of communicative actions in order to establish a common belief on the dimensions of the problem. Such dimensions may concern the choice criteria, the existing or desired alternative solutions, or the objective function, to mention some. This paper presents a framework for multiple criteria decision making among groups. Our approach exploits recent advances in information technology and manages to (i) remove the communication impediments among spatially dispersed decision makers, (ii) efficiently represent the domain knowledge, (iii) develop efficient mechanisms to structure and consistently maintain the decision analysis, and (iv) automate the multiple criteria decision making process per se. The framework is based on a fully implemented system, namely Hermes, which enhances decision making by supporting argumentative discourse among decision makers. The system is implemented in Java and runs on the World Wide Web, thus providing relatively inexpensive access to a broad public. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Group decision making is usually performed in the presence of conflicting goals and criteria, brought up by spatially dispersed parties with different backgrounds and interests. Recent advances in information technology and computer science may satisfactorily address a variety of related problems, such as communication among the decision makers and efficient elicitation and representation of the domain knowledge. Furthermore, they may significantly automate the decision making process itself. On the other hand, the inherent uncertainty of the problem advocates the use of approximation models, often coming from the fuzzy sets discipline. This paper presents an integrated framework for multiple criteria decision making among groups on the World Wide Web. The agents involved use a fully implemented argumentative discourse system to pursue their criteria and objectives, the aim being the specification of the desired solution to the problem. The system organizes the collective knowledge in a discussion graph with truth maintenance and consistency checking features. Fuzzy similarity measures are then involved in order to assess alternative existing solutions with respect to the desired one.
Abstract: This paper presents an interactive model based system for the management of production in textile production systems focusing on the Master Production Scheduling problem. Because of the special characteristics of the industry, that is mainly the multi-phase process with multiple units per phase, different planning horizons and different production requirements for each phase, the scheduling of these systems becomes quite complex. Apart from a comprehensive presentation of the set of the modules the system is composed of, together with their interrelationships, the above characteristics are analyzed, and their impact on the production control system is explained. The system is also related to two well-known production control systems, namely MRP-II and Optimised Production Technology. The system's attributes are presented with the aid of data structure diagrams, while the complete algorithm concerning the Master Production Scheduling module, in a pseudo-code form, and the corresponding part of the database are illustrated in Appendix A.
Abstract: The problem of determining optimal schedules for the static, single machine scheduling problem with the aid of CON and SLK due date determination methods is considered. The objective is to minimize the total weighted earliness and tardiness penalty in the case when weights are proportional to the processing times of the respective jobs. For each method, an optimization algorithm has been developed, by means of which the set of all optimal sequences is provided. The numerical example, presented after the theoretical foundation, confirms considerations about the structural similarity of the two methods.
Abstract: The decision support system (DSS) presented here is dealing with the production planning and scheduling in the textile industry. The DSS aims at the efficient management of a mixed production system (job-shop and flow-shop), such as that of the textile industry. Its main feature is the effective combination of a database and a model based management system in order to merge existing expert knowledge. A powerful user interface makes the DSS user-friendly and a multi-module formulation is used for better interpretation and analysis of the production procedures.
Abstract: Diverse recommendation techniques have been already proposed and encapsulated into several e-business systems aiming to perform a more accurate evaluation of the existing alternatives and accordingly augment the assistance provided to the users involved. Extending previous work, this paper focuses on the development of an agent-invoked web service that will be responsible for the coordination of the system's recommendation module. The specific service will be invoked through a correspondent software agent that has been already implemented in our system's platform and will perform the tasks of recommendation policy synthesis, as well as the formulation of the appropriate knowledge rules.
Abstract: Adopting a mass customization strategy, enterprises often enable customers to specify their individual product wishes by using web based configurator tools. With such tools, customers can interactively and virtually create their own instance of a product. However, customers are not usually supported in a comprehensive way during the configuration process, thus facing problems such as complexity, uncertainty, and lack of knowledge. To address the above issue, this paper presents a framework that aids customers in selecting and specifying individualized products by exploiting recommendations. Having first focused on the characteristics of configurator tools and the principles of model-based configuration, we then introduce the concept of masks for product models. The main contribution of this paper is the proposal of an integrated approach for supporting model-based product configurator tools by similarity-based recommendations. Our approach in providing recommendations has been based on the widely accepted theory of Fuzzy Sets and its associated concept of similarity measures, while recommendations provided are based on the processes of stereotype definitions and dynamic customer clustering.
Abstract: Business process modelling is widely considered as the most critical task in the development of enterprise information systems that address the actual needs of a company. As business processes cross functional and sometimes company boundaries, the coordinated inclusion of diverse perspectives and knowledge sources is necessary. Towards this end, this paper presents an information systems framework that aims at the exploitation of personalised knowledge through a structured process of collaborative and argumentative business process model construction. By integrating an argumentation system that is specific to business process modelling with a discrete-event modelling simulation tool, we provide the appropriate infrastructure to increase the productivity and effectiveness of process design and re-engineering efforts. The paper presents the design rationale, the structure and the functionality of the proposed framework through a comprehensive example of collaborative work towards building a model of a typical business process in a manufacturing company.
Abstract: This paper presents a framework for organizational decision making that provides simulation and argumentation features. The over-all approach allows for distributed and asynchronous collaboration and aims at giving an active role to the decision makers involved in the solution of the underlying problems. Its main contribution lies in the seamless integration of a discourse-based decision support tool with an organizational knowledge base, a system dynamics simulation environment and a collection of models for addressing specific strategic issues. The usability of the proposed framework is illustrated through a comprehensive example of collective formulation of manufacturing strategy.
Abstract: A logical framework for modeling of complex dialogues between intelligent and autonomous agents was studied. Definition of conversation protocols and formal frames supporting different dialogue types for agent communication was also discussed. Procedures and rules related to the automation of dialogues were also studied.
Abstract: This paper describes an agent-based artificial market system whose underlying interaction protocols provide advanced features. Using the system, actors (i.e., customers and merchants) can delegate a variety of tasks to personal intelligent agents that act as their artificial employees. Contrary to other approaches, where a new agent is launched when their associated actors intend to perform a buying or selling transaction and "lives" only while this transaction is processed, our approach builds on a personalization of agents that permanently "live" in the market representing their actors.' interests. Beyond just requesting and proposing an offer, agents in our system maintain a profile of their owners, which is updated upon the actor-agent interaction type. Furthermore, they can proactively ask their owners' permission to initiate a transaction (e.g., when a new product, which match one's profile, appears in the market). The system is also enabled with a highly interactive multiple cr iteria decision making tool that can handle ill-structured information during a purchase transaction, and perform a progressive synthesis and comparative evaluation of the existing proposals.
Abstract: Development of systems for computer-mediated Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) attracts increasing interest from various research areas. Although some approaches provide a cognitive argumentation environment and methods to structure the related discussions, they lack consensus seeking and decision making capabilities. In addition, the majority of them is not based on a well defined set of users' communicative actions. Reporting on HERMES, a fully implemented web-based system that enhances group decision making by providing an argumentation framework to the agents involved, this paper discusses theoretical and implementation aspects of an advanced group decision support system. Argumentation in our framework is performed through a set of discourse acts, especially defined for the CDM context following an artificial intelligence perspective. The proposed system provides the appropriate machinery for automating processes such as discussion structure, consistency checking and reasoning for decision making. Moreover, it includes further assistance modules with information retrieval, natural language processing and argument building features.
Abstract: This paper describes HERMES, a system that enhances group decision making by providing an argumentation framework to the agents involved. The system organizes the existing knowledge in a discussion graph, which consists of issues, alternatives, positions and preference relations. Argumentation is performed through a set of discourse acts which trigger appropriate procedures for the propagation of information in the graph. HERMES is able to handle incomplete, qualitative and inconsistent information, and provides mechanisms for weighing arguments.
Abstract: The Zeno Argumentation Framework is a formal model of argumentation based on the informal models of Toulmin and Rittel. Its main feature is a labelling function using arguments to compute heuristic information about the relative quality of the alternative positions proposed as solutions for some practical issue. The Zeno Argumentation Framework was designed to be used in mediation systems, an advanced kind of electronic discussion forum with special support for argumentation, negotiation and other structured forms of group decision-making.
