DECISION MAKING, DECISION PROCESSES AND DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

We start with a brief introduction to modern approaches to decision making. We concentrate mainly on a formal, mathematical approach and analyze various models. We discuss the main elements of those models, notably issues related to preferences, utilities and rationality. We consider specifics of the basic setting with one quality criterion, one decision maker and a static setting. Then, we proceed to the analysis of multiple criteria, multiple decision makers, and dynamics. Some other approaches, notably in the behavioral and cognitive direction will also be briefly mentioned, and some inspirations from neuroeconomics will be mentioned. Then, we proceed to the analysis of modern approaches to the analysis and solution of complex real world decision making problems which are heavily human centered in the sense of both a crucial importance of human related aspects, judgments, assessment, and of a key role played by a human decision maker(s). We advocate the use of modern tools and techniques emphasizing the need for involving more factors and aspects like: the use of explicit and tacit knowledge, intuition, analysis of emotions, individual habitual domains, non-trivial rationality, different paradigms, etc. We also mention some relations to behavioral and cognitive approaches, and some new ideas in this respect coming from neuroeconomics and related areas. We stress the need for intelligent computer based decision support systems that should exhibit some intelligence and human consistency. We survey various views on how intelligence may be meant, both from a human and machine perspective. In addition to more traditional views from an individual perspective, we mention new concepts related to collective intelligence which are more and more important for the present increasingly complicated decision situations, involvement of multiple actors/agents, and also some personal computational devices, exemplified by smart phones, attained better courses of actions using some "intelligent" tools. We give an overview of main types of modern decision support systems. We present some new so-called computing paradigms that try to attain a synergy, and bridge the gap between the human user and computer systems that is mainly caused by the fact that natural language is the only fully natural means of communication and articulation for a human being but it is "strange" to the computer. We mainly present: human centric computing, human centered computing, human computing, collaborative intelligence, etc. that can help bridge this gap. We mention a need for appropriate tools to implement these concepts of new human centric/centered computing paradigms, and human consistency, and suggest that Zadeh's paradigm of computing with words (and perceptions) may be such a tool that may help bring computing closer to the human being by an explicit use of (quasi)natural language in many phases of computing, problem solving, etc. We show some implementations of the line of though proposed by using linguistic data summaries and some tools of natural language generation (NLG) and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) in a business context for supporting decisions in a computer retailer.