Table Of ContentLecture Notes in Economics
and Mathematical Systems 397
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Jaap Wessels Andrzej P. Wierzbicki (Eds.)
User-Oriented Methodology
and Techniques of Decision
Analysis and Support
Proceedings of the International IIASA Workshop
Held in Serock, Poland, September 9-13, 1991
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg GmbH
Editors
Prof. Dr. Jaap Wessels
Technical University Eindhoven
Department of Mathematics and Computing Science
p.a. Box 5/3
5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Prof. Dr. Andrzej Piotr Wierzbicki
Institute of Automatic Control
Warsaw University of Technology
Nowowiejska 15/19
00-665 Warsaw, Poland
ISBN 978-3-540-56382-2 ISBN 978-3-662-22587-5 (eBook)
DOl 10.1007/978-3-662-22587-5
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© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1993
Originally published by International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, LaxenburglAustria in 1993.
Typesetting: Camera ready by author/editor
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Preface:
User-Oriented Decision Support
Over the last 10 years great progress has been made in integrating different types of
decision aids in decision support systems (DSS). In this development the International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) played an important role with its own
research in the System and Decision Sciences program, and particularly, by organizing a
series of meetings on this topic in close cooperation with research institutes in countries
where there is a National Member Organization. A broader public has been informed
about the progress made via the publication of all the proceedings of previous meetings by
Springer-Verlag in the series of Lecture Notes on Economics and Mathematical Systems.
These previous mettings took place in Austria (1983, Lecture Notes volume 229), Hungary
(1984, volume 248), Germany (1985, volume 273), Japan (1986, volume 286), Bulgaria
(1987, volume 337), USSR (1988, volume 351), and Finland (1989, volume 356).
The present volume reports on the proceedings of the next meeting in this sequence
which took place in Serock near Warsaw, Poland, on September 9-13, 1991. For the
organization, IIASA cooperated with the Institute of Automatic Control of Warsaw Uni
versity of Technology and with the Systems Research Institute of the Polish Academy of
Sciences. The meeting was co-sponsored by the Committee of Automatics and Robotics
of the Polish Academy of Sciences. A grant from the Polish Ministry of Education helped
substantially in making the meeting possible.
An important reason for organizing this meeting in Poland was the fact that the
group of Polish researchers working on the theory, methodology, and tools for interactive
decision analysis and support has always been very active. The Polish group contributed
substantially to all previous meetings and, over the years, the group has cooperated
intensively with IIASA. A separate volume in this Lecture Notes Series (volume 331)
documents the Polish activities in decision analysis and support. The meeting in Serock
was also an occasion for reviewing the results of a cooperative research agreement of
IIASA with several Polish research institutes working in this field. Several of these results
are presented in this volume.
The title of the volume (and of the workshop) stresses an important tendency in the
development of decision support tools: the final users are placed more and more in the
center of the deliberations. There might be several types of users of decision support
systems: analysts, policy advisers, operational officers, modellers encoding their expertise
in substantive models, groups of negotiators, and even sometimes actual decision makers.
For all of them it is important that the particular decision support system is customized
to their needs and this in turn requires that the decision support system is developed with
the active participation of the different groups of future users. As a result, compromises
can be made between the demand for flexibility, on the one hand, and easiness of use, on
VI
the other. The resulting decision support system should stress the stages of the decision
process in which the users are most interested and should include in its graphic interface
those symbols and representations with which the user is accustomed to work and which
stimulate his or her creativity. In this respect it is important to remember that decision
support systems have various tasks: not only to help in choosing sensible decisions and in
comparing the effects of different decisions but also to help the user in sharpening his/her
intuition and in searching for new options and approaches.
The above-mentioned postulates are accepted guidelines for development rather than
accomplished goals, which can be seen from the papers from the Workshop; however, the
title of the Workshop was selected to present a challenge and future guidelines. Some
papers presented responded to this challenge, and several fine contributions to this theme
- on constructing user interfaces, on organizing intelligent DSS, on modifying theory and
tools in response to user needs - are included in this volume.
Another major trend indicated by some papers in this volume is an emerging connec
tion between tools and software environments for modelling and for decision support. A
DSS, to be useful, must contain knowledge about substantive aspects of decision situations
encoded in the form of either logical models (as in expert systems) or analytical models;
the latter are more diversified and there exists a highly developed methodology and art
of modelling. However, in order to easily incorporate such models in modern decision
support systems, new collections of tools and more flexible, modular software environ
ments must be developed. This trend was strongly indicated in our papers (the editors of
this volume), as well as several other papers. In order to make the DSS friendly for the
final user, we must also make the model base friendly for modellers and analysts. This
is important since it is the expertise and knowledge of various users (experts, modellers,
analysts, as well as the final user), encoded ultimately in the DSS, which will determine
on the final usefulness of the system.
There were also some other interesting directions indicated by the papers from the
Workshop. This volume contains 26 papers selected from Workshop presentations. The
papers are subdivided in two major parts. The first part is devoted to the methodology
of decision analysis and support and related theoretical developments; the second part
reports on the development of tools - algorithms, software packages - for decision support
as well as on their applications.
The first part starts with the paper by Wessels (one of the editors) on the relations
between the problem specification and further mathematical analysis in decision support
systems, concentrating on an example of a new approach for specifying goods flow sit
uations for decision support. This is followed by five papers on various aspects of DSS
methodology - group and bargaining decision situations, utility-based models in intelli
gent decision support, combining rule-based and analytical approaches, special min/max
graphs useful in the organization of a decision process, and graphical user interfaces.
The next group of papers represents contributions to established areas of decision
analysis: multiple criteria optimization, and decision theory. Three of the papers con-
vu
tribute to such important topics in multi-criteria optimization as parametric approxi
mations of the efficient frontier, dynamic multi-criteria optimization, and quantitative
analysis of properly Pareto-optimal solutions. The next five present contributions to the
study of preference structures in decision theory: the problem of linear approximations of
preference structures, smooth relations in such structures, pairwise comparisons, interval
specification of tradeoffs, and a consistent ordering of the importance of criteria.
The second part begins with a paper by Wierzbicki (one of the editors), reflecting on
the issues of classification of decision support systems, reviewing Polish contributions to
this field, and representing a methodological perspective on the requirements for modern
analytical modelling for decision support. This is followed by two more theoretical papers
on DSS tools: analytic centers in nondifferentiable optimization algorithms for DSS and
methods of classification by rough set theory.
The next five papers concentrate on software tools for decision support. They start
with a difficult problem of representing two-dimensional irregular shapes in a graphic user
interface. This paper is followed by tutorials on two well-developed and useful software
packages: DINAS for interactive multi-criteria network analysis and HYBRID for multi
objective linear and quadratic dynamic modelling and optimization. Two other software
packages are also represented: RZtools for building interactive systems and a collection
of algorithms for multi-objective optimization. The last paper in this group presents the
ICeS package for supporting interactive multi-attribute choice.
The last group of four papers on applications of decision support tools starts with
a presentation of engineering applications of interactive multi-objective programming.
This is followed by a paper on modelling social resource allocations for decision support.
Another one reports in detail on an application of decision support and multi-objective
optimization in the management of meat-processing production. Finally, an important
area of applications is indicated by a report on decision support in competitive selection
of R&D projects.
We would like to thank the authors for their contributions and all participants in the
Workshop in Serock for their part in the discussions. We are grateful for the support of
the organizing and sponsoring institutes. Finally, we hope that this volume not only will
find interest in the growing community of researchers working on decision analysis and
support but also will stimulate new research in this field.
Jaap Wessels
A ndrzej P. Wierzbicki
Table of Contents
Part A: Methodology of Decision Analysis and Support 1
Decision Systems: The Relation Between Problem Specification 2
and Mathematical Analysis
J. Wessels
AI. DSS Methodology
Some New Results in Interactive Approach to Multicriteria Bargaining 21
L. [{ruB and P. Bronisz
A Configuration of Intelligent Decision Support Systems 35
for Strategic Use: Concepts and Demonstrations
for Group Decision Making
F. Seo and I. Nishizaki
Interactive Multicriteria Decision Support: 48
Combining Rule-based and Numerical Approaches
K. Fedra, C. Zhao, and L. Winkelbauer
Application of min/max Graphs in Decision Making 65
E. Nawarecki and G. Dobrowolski
Graphical Interaction in Multi-Criteria Decision Support 79
Some Implementation Issues
R. Veischera and H. Walterscheid
x
A2. Multiple Criteria Optimization and Decision Theory
Parametric Programming Approaches to Local Approximations 88
of the Efficient Frontier
J. Granat
Methods of Dynamic Multi-Criteria Problem Solutions 101
and Their Applications
v.
A. Goreiik
Quantitative Pareto Analysis and the Principle 112
of Background Computations
l. J{a liszewski
Applications of Linear Approximation Structures 121
to the Description of Linear Preference Structures
J. G. Pachon and S. Rios-Insua
Smooth Relations in Multiple Criteria Programming 130
V. I. Borzenko and M. V. Polyashuk
Pairwise Comparisons in Decision Support 137
for Multicriteria Choice Problems
J. Majchrzak
Interval Value Tradeoffs Methodology and Techniques 144
of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis
V. P. Berman, G. Y. Naumow, and V. V. Podinovskii
Problems with Importance-Ordered Criteria 150
V. V. Podinovskii
Xl
Part B: SDS Tools and Applications 157
Types of Decision Support Systems and Polish Contributions 158
to Their Development
A. P. Wierzbicki
Bl. Tools
An Application of the Analytic Centers to a Generic 176
Nondifferentiable Minimization Problem
A. Altman
Classification Support Based on the Rough Sets Theory 185
J. Stefanowski
An Interactive Program for Defining Two-Dimensional 193
Irregular Figures for Decision Support Cutting System
J. Blaiewicz, M. Drozdowski, A. Piechowiak and R. Walkowiak
DIN AS Dynamic Interactive Network Analysis System: 209
A Tutorial Example
W. Ogryczak, I<. Studzinski, and I<. Zorychta
HYBRID: Multicriteria Linear Programming System 223
for Computers under DOS and Unix
M. Makowski and J. Sosnowski
Intelligent Software Tools for Building Interactive Systems 234
R. Kaltinska and Z. Petrov
Software Tools for Multi-Criteria Programming 247
V. Vassilev, A. T. Atanassov, V. Sgurev, M. Kichovich,
A. Deianov, and M. Kirilov
