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Decision-Making and Decision Support Systems: Methods and Applications

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Computing and Artificial Intelligence".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 February 2025 | Viewed by 1547

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Informatics and Telematics, School of Digital Technology, Harokopio University, 17778 Athens, Greece
Interests: decision support systems; evaluation of systems and services; multicriteria analysis; operational research

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Informatics and Telematics, School of Digital Technology, Harokopio University, 17778 Athens, Greece
Interests: system technoeconomics and decision support; optical communications

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue seeks innovative research on the applications of decision-making (DM) and decision support systems (DSSs) across diverse domains of applied sciences. We request contributions that explore the development, implementation, and evaluation of DM and DSSs to address complex challenges and optimize decision-making processes. Decision-making is a cognitive process involving the selection of a course of action among several alternatives. It encompasses a wide range of approaches, including rational, intuitive, and behavioral models. Decision support systems are critical tools that assist in data-driven decision-making processes, integrating complex data analysis, modeling, and simulation to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of decisions in diverse applied science fields. This Special Issue requests contributions that explore the theoretical foundations, design, implementation, and practical applications of DM methods and DSSs.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Novel decision-making methodologies and algorithms;
  • Integration of advanced analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and deep learning in decision support;
  • Human-centered design of DSSs;
  • Cognitive science;
  • Multi-criteria decision-making;
  • Evaluation of decision systems;
  • Evaluation of systems and services using decision methods;
  • Operational research and management science;
  • Intelligent systems;
  • Decision-making in risk reduction and incident mitigation;
  • Risk management with DSS;
  • Threat intelligence solutions for the anticipation of systemic risks;
  • Decision using human-explainable AI (XAI);
  • Big data and data analytics;
  • Technoeconomics and decision-making;
  • Decision-making under uncertainty;
  • Real-world applications of DM and DSSs in fields like healthcare, cybersecurity, cyber–physical–human security of critical infrastructures, cloud computing, environment, supply chain management, etc.

This Special Issue aims to foster a comprehensive understanding of the current trends, challenges, and future directions related to decision support systems, ultimately contributing to enhanced decision-making processes in applied sciences.

Dr. Georgia Dede
Prof. Dr. Thomas Kamalakis
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • decision-making
  • decision support systems
  • artificial intelligence
  • uncertain decisions
  • DSS evaluation
  • operational research
  • management science
  • risk management
  • cognitive science

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

26 pages, 994 KiB  
Article
A Causal Inference Methodology to Support Research on Osteopenia for Breast Cancer Patients
by Niki Kiriakidou, Aristotelis Ballas, Cristina Meliá Hernando, Anna Miralles, Teta Stamati, Dimosthenis Anagnostopoulos and Christos Diou
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14(21), 9700; https://doi.org/10.3390/app14219700 - 24 Oct 2024
Viewed by 601
Abstract
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in the world. With a 5-year survival rate of over 90% for patients at the early disease stages, the management of side-effects of breast cancer treatment has become a pressing issue. Observational, real-world data such as [...] Read more.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in the world. With a 5-year survival rate of over 90% for patients at the early disease stages, the management of side-effects of breast cancer treatment has become a pressing issue. Observational, real-world data such as electronic health records, insurance claims, or data from wearable devices have the potential to support research on the quality of life (QoL) of breast cancer patients (BCPs), but care must be taken to avoid errors introduced due to data quality and bias. This paper proposes a causal inference methodology for using observational data to support research on the QoL of BCPs, focusing on the osteopenia of patients undergoing treatment with aromatase inhibitors (AIs). We propose a machine learning-based pipeline to estimate the average and conditional average treatment effects (ATE and CATE). For evaluation, we develop a Structural Causal Model for the osteopenia of BCPs and rely on synthetically generated data to study the effectiveness of the proposed methodology under various data challenges. A set of studies were designed to estimate the effect of high-intensity exercise on bone mineral density loss using synthetic datasets of BCPs under AI treatment. Four observational study scenarios were evaluated, corresponding to synthetically generated data of 1000 BCPs with (a) no bias, (b) sampling bias, (c) hidden confounder bias, and (d) bias due to unobserved mediator. In all cases, evaluations were performed under both complete and missing data scenarios. In particular, machine learning-based models based on tree ensembles and neural networks achieved a lower estimation error by 23.8–51.3% and 32.4–89.3% for ATE and CATE, respectively, compared to direct estimation using sample averages. The proposed approach shows improved effectiveness in treatment effect estimation in the presence of missing values and sampling bias, compared to a “traditional” statistical analysis workflow. This suggests that the application of causal effect estimation methods for the study of BCPs’ quality of life using real-world data is promising and worth pursuing further. Full article
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13 pages, 317 KiB  
Article
Knapsack Balancing via Multiobjectivization
by Ignacy Kaliszewski and Janusz Miroforidis
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14(20), 9236; https://doi.org/10.3390/app14209236 - 11 Oct 2024
Viewed by 462
Abstract
In this paper, we address the aspect of knapsack balancing in the classic knapsack problem. Recognizing that excessive dispersion in the objective function or constraint coefficients of the optimal solution can be undesirable, we propose, when appropriate, to control this effect through problem [...] Read more.
In this paper, we address the aspect of knapsack balancing in the classic knapsack problem. Recognizing that excessive dispersion in the objective function or constraint coefficients of the optimal solution can be undesirable, we propose, when appropriate, to control this effect through problem multiobjectivization. By multiobjectivization, we mean the addition of one or more objective functions that aim to shift the original problem’s optimal solutions towards Pareto optimal solutions of the multiobjectivized problem, reducing the dispersion of the respective coefficients. We detail how the knapsack balance aspect can be incorporated into the standard knapsack problem model and demonstrate the functionality of this enriched model through illustrative examples. Full article
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