EWG-DSS Newsletter Nr. 12, 2013

1. 1
No. 12, Year 2013
EWG-DSS Newsletter
Newsletter of the EURO Working
Group on Decision Support System
In this Issue
Editorial........................................ 1
EWG-DSS Members ................... 2
EWG-DSS Channels................... 2
Interview ..................................... 2
EWG-DSS Award........................ 5
New Board Members.................. 6
Publications................................ 7
EWG-DSS Annual Workshops .. 8
EWG-DSS Meetings ................... 8
Meetings in 2013 ........................ 9
Best Paper Prizes..................... 10
Upcoming Events..................... 10
EWG-DSS Collab-Net Project.. 11
EWG-DSS Survey..................... 11
Other Announcements ............ 12
News about Members .............. 12
Editorial Board
The Newsletter of the EURO WG
on Decision Support Systems is
annually edited by its
Coordination Board Members:
PascaleZaraté; FátimaDargam;
Rita Ribeiro; Jorge Hernández;
Boris Delibasic; Shaofeng Liu
Isabelle Linden; and Jason
Papathanasiou.
Comments and announcements
for the next issues of the EWG-
DSS Newsletter should be sent
to the email address below with
the subject: “Newsletter”.
Email: ewg-dss@fccdp.com
Editorial (by the EURO Working Group on DSS Coordination Board Members)
Dear Euro Working Group members! Dear Friends!
The year of 2013 was a well-managed challenge for the EWG-DSS group, resulting in
many successful achievements and fruitful collaborations. We organized three events with wide
participation from the DSS community, including also researchers/colleagues from other EURO
groups and societies, namely: the EWG-DSS Annual Workshop held in May in Thessaloniki,
Greece; the DSS Stream with seven sessions in the EURO XXVI-INFORMS Joint International
Conference in Rome, in July; and also the Mini-Conference in Graz, Austria in October, which
was a joint-event with the EURO Working Groups E-CUBE, MSCP and ORAFM. From those
events, the EWG-DSS published two proceedings and organized several Journal Special Issues
in IJDSST, JDS, CEJOR, IJDSS, as well as its annual Springer book edition in the Lecture Notes
of Business Information Processing. More information about those editions you will find in the
Publications section of this issue.
Yes, the group has been as productive as ever! To cope with the overhead workload that
all those achievements imply, the EWG-DSS has augmented its board of coordinators. We are
very pleased to announce that the long term and active EWG-DSS members: Isabelle Linden
(Namur University) and Jason Papathanasiou (University of Macedonia) have been invited and
joined the EWG-DSS Coordination Board this year! We are quite happy to have them on-board
and extremely pleased with their high quality cooperation. On behalf of all the group members
we thank them for joining the board and for supporting the group on its continuous successful
way!
The year of 2013 did not only add values on our productive events, publications and
augmented group management, but it was also a year of many successful cooperation initiatives.
One of them was the promotion of the “Best Paper Prize”. This initiative does not compete with
the EWG-DSS Yearly Award, since it happens within each of our organized events. In 2013 it
counted with the cooperation of some sponsor-companies and distributed licenses of simulation
and DSS-area-related software packages as prizes for best presented papers. The products
were: Analytica, sponsored by Lumina; Decision Explorer, sponsored by Banxia; Arena,
sponsored by Rockwell Automation; and Simio Packages, sponsored by Simio. Another
cooperation initiative within the group this year was towards the advances of the EWG-DSS
Collaboration Academic Social Network (Project Collab-Net). We currently count with
development support of researchers from the University of Macedonia - Greece; the University of
Namur – Belgium and from the University of Pernambuco in Recife - Brazil, for bringing the
project forward. We are very grateful to all the involved persons in this project cooperation and
we hope that we will be able to report about its progress soon.
For the coming year of 2014, two important events are on the way: (1) the GDN-2014 Joint
International Conference of the INFORMS GDN Section and the EURO Working Group on DSS,
in Toulouse during June 10
th
-13
th
, with special focus on “Group Decision Making and Web 3.0”;
and (2) the DSS stream in the IFORS-2014, the 20th Conference of the International Federation
of Operational Research Societies on “The Art of Modeling”, which will take place in Barcelona,
Spain during July 13
th
-18
th
. Planned publications covering the 2014 events include the Springer
Proceedings in the LNBIP series, Conference Proceedings (IRIT); Journal Special Issues; and
the EWG-DSS Springer book edition in the Lecture Notes of Business Information Processing,
which will exceptionally have an open call for papers in 2014.
In this Newsletter we summarize the successful achievements of 2013, together with the
information from members, their projects and publications. As a group we have reached far and
we are very happy about it! Moreover, we are completely aware that all the successful impact
that we have made so far within the DSS communities and international societies, would not
have been possible without the consistent support from all of the EWG-DSS members. Hence,
we sincerely thank You All for your contribution. We hope you enjoy the 2013-Newsletter,
specially its honorable interview with the EURO-Legend and co-founder and organizer of the
EWG-DSS: Prof. Jakob Krarup! We wish you all Happy Season Holidays and A Wonderful New
Year! We appreciated your support and collaboration in 2013 and we look forwards to working
even more with you in 2014! Best wishes from the EWG-DSS Coordination Board!
Shaofeng Liu, Rita Ribeiro, Jorge Hernández, Pascale Zaraté, Fátima Dargam, Boris Delibasic,
Isabelle Linden and Jason Papathanasiou. (Photo: Thessaloniki, Greece. May, 2013)

2. 2
EWG-DSS Members
“The members of our group are
responsible for its success!”
In 2012 the EWG-DSS closed the
year with 163 members. In 2013, we
reached the number of 234 registered
members with 210 members in its
Linked-In Group of Interest.
As can be checked above, since
1999, the group membership has
grown substantially and we are proud
to continuously attract the interest of
new members and the participation of
old ones in the organized scientific
events and editions of the group.
An updated list of registered
members with their respective email-
addresses can be sent to you, by
request (mail to: ewg-dss@fccdp.com).
EWG-DSS Channels
“Our communication channels
are our main tools to
cooperate!”
The EWG-DSS communication
channels are described below. Use
them to get in touch with the group
Coordination Board Members and with
its members.
EWG-DSS Mailing-List:
ewg-dss@irit.fr
This mailing-list is devoted only to
the registered EWG-DSS members for
announcements, projects information,
as well as calls for publications, etc.
EWG-DSS Web-Links:
• EWG-DSS – Blog
http://ewgdss.wordpress.com/
The EWG-DSS blog is maintained by
the Coordination Board. There you find
up-to-date information about the
group’s activities, links to the organized
Workshops, projects, publications and
news about research collaborations.
• EWG-DSS – EURO Homepage
http://www.euro-online.org/web/ewg/10/ewg-
decision-support-systems
The EWG-DSS page at the EURO
online site is the group’s official
homepage. There you find a summary
of the detailed information you find in
the blog and the links to EWG-DSS’s
organised Streams in EURO K
Conferences, Annual Workshops; Mini-
Conferences; Awards, etc.
• EWG-DSS – IRIT Server
https://wwwsecu.irit.fr/listes/info/ewg-dss
The EWG-DSS Server is hosted by
IRIT. It contains all the EWG-DSS
shared files. Via the option “Review
Members”, one is able to check the e-
mail addresses of each member. To
access the server you need to be a
registered member of the group.
• EWG-DSS – LinkedIn Group
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gi
d=1961459&trk=anet_ug_grppro
The Linked-In EWG-DSS Group has
currently 210 members (status of
29.12.2013). This group is open to all
Linked-In users. There you find
briefings of the EWG-DSS’s activities,
discussions of related topics, job
announcements, Conference calls for
participation, Journals CfP, etc. If you
like networking, you should take
advantage of this plataform! To read
and interact with the Linked-In EWG-
DSS Group, you have to log in the
Linked-In network.
• EWG-DSS – Slideshare Account
http://www.slideshare.net/ewgdss
In the EWG-DSS Slideshare
account you find all the digital versions
of previous Newsletters, as well as the
online EWG-DSS presentations. If you
wish to share some of your research
presentations with us, you are
welcome to use this account. Please
contact us for more details.
Interview
Jakob Krarup
Professor Emeritus, Department
of Computer Science,
University of Copenhagen,
Denmark
www.kfunigraz.ac.at/sor/Mitarbeiter/Kr
arup.htm
EWG-DSS: Jakob, it is a great
pleasure for the EWG-DSS to interview
you for this Newsletter. We know you
have spent so far more than 50 years
with Operational Research (OR) in one
way or another. How did it all begin?
JK: To those who graduated from
a Danish upper secondary school in
1954, only three options seemed
realistic. The bloodthirsty ones joined
the medical school or became dentists,
others enrolled at the Technical
University, and the remaining few
including myself enjoyed two years of
compulsory military service (air
defence) before deciding what to do
next.
The Krarup-family has for several
centuries been dominated by pious
clergymen including a single bishop,
professional musicians as were both
my parents, teachers and linguists,
notably with a background in German
and Latin. What to do: walk in their
footprints?
A lot can be accomplished via hard
work, diligence, some ideas of the
direction to be taken plus at least a
minimum of talent for something. Well,
a keen interest combined with a
modest talent for music was clearly
inherited and some leisure hours
during my teenage years were spent
accordingly with the clarinet as a
member of an orchestra, actually a

3. 3
kind of an incubator for coming
generations of first-rate musicians, led
by the country’s finest Mozart
conductor at that time. But, unlike
today, I hated to be pushed to perform
so the only rebellion against my
parents was to put the clarinet away
and instead focus on the weekly maths
assignments.
But diligence and talent does not
suffice without unexpected strokes of
luck in crucial moments where luck can
be specific events or meetings with the
right people at the right moments.
In the mid 50s OR and computer
science were still to become academic
disciplines and no courses were on the
curriculum of any Danish university
before the early 60s.To go for pure
maths was indeed a possibility though
not really appealing viewed against
later career prospects.
Upon two years of study at the
Technical University I failed in June
1958 to pass an exam in electrical
engineering; a great luck in retrospect
and no wonder: it was really a
disgusting subject. By that time,
however, Denmark’s first professor of
applied mathematics had recently been
appointed. Besides being an inspiring
teacher, he was also the first Chairman
of the Board of Regnecentralen (RC),
Danish Institute of Computing
Machinery, where Denmark’s first
computer called DASK was built and
officially inaugurated in February 1958.
My inspiring teacher was approached
and arranged for me to join the staff at
RC subject to the condition that the
remaining part of the studies towards
the M.Sc. degree should be completed
concurrently.
The staff at RC comprised an
astronomer, some graduates in
engineering, economics or political
science, and a gathering of
undergraduate students who felt
uncomfortable with what they were
doing. We were about 20 in total, all
curious to find out what DASK – a
construction of monstrous size which
occupied two floors of a spacious villa
– could do. 56,000 basic operations
per second. 2,048 words each of 40
bits. 2 magnetic drums. I wonder
whether the term computer science
actually meant anything to anybody at
that time. It is tempting to say that the
field here was invented ‘on location’
and achievements, including the
development of a full ALGOL-compiler,
were indeed made with far reaching
impact on other researchers in many
corners of the world.
Still with no flair for electrical gadgets
and no professional niche in sight, I
found the climate around DASK and its
users appealing in every conceivable
aspect. As the variety of applications
further broadened new books had to
be purchased for RC’s library. Among
these was Steven Vajda’s
‘Mathematical Programming’. A first
entry to Operational Research, OR, a
magic word! RC established an OR
division. Were we two or three? A new
world opened itself before us. From
conceptually simple scenario analyses
we moved on via linear pro-gramming
and were soon spellbound by the
fascinating computationally ‘intractable’
integers. Actually, this fascination
about zeros and ones – to the
exclusion of almost everything
between these two extremes – has
remained with me ever since and
appeared to be crucial to my later
career.
The prime influence of Steven’s book
cannot be overrated in this context. It
was instrumental when RC’s OR
division was created and, sans
comparaison, our key reference during
these first years of development. Not
only did it introduce the various
families of optimisation problems and
the algorithmic tools employed for their
solution but also the scope and
limitations of mathematical
programming as a means for decision
support were accounted for.
RC: The period later referred to as ‘the
Golden Years’ terminated in 1964
when RC, due to an appalling
incompetence of some individuals in
the Danish government, had to
surrender to IBM. The staff broke up.
Nine full professors could afterwards
be grateful for having been part of a
highly esteemed team.
EWG-DSS: This was not the end, but,
perhaps, only the end of the beginning.
What happened thereafter?
JK: Almost Churchill’s words in
his speech (1942) after El Alamein!
Well, the direction set by the lesson
learnt so far was further pursued in my
Ph.D. work at the Technical University.
I am grateful to my thesis supervisor at
that time, not primarily for his
supervision as such since our
professional interests hardly
intersected, but for his emphasis on
the significance of building a personal
network and his creativity in finding
support for conference participation
and the like. The most important event
of that period was a two-week NATO
Summer School on Contemporary
Methods of Discrete Mathematics
(Varenna, Italy, 1966) directed by two
leading scholars in the field, Frank
Harary (Mr. Graph Theory among
friends!) and Bernard Roy, who later
became the 4
th
President of EURO.
Besides an invited speaker was
awaited with particular anticipation, a
certain Professor S. Vajda ... .
This first meeting with Steven in
person had a considerable impact on
my further Ph.D. work. Feeling unable
to follow my supervisor’s ideas on
statistical equilibrium and the like,
much more fruitful ways were pointed
out by Steven and brought me
eventually out of the wilderness.
Ph.D. in 1967, afterwards affiliated with
the Technical University, then in 1971
co-founder and daily manager of a
consulting firm: day-long meetings,
dark suit, white collar + tie, heavy
lunches. The subjects dealt with
included: highway construction /
dimensioning of dykes / warning
systems / banking (liquidity planning,
foreign exchange) / credit unions
(strategic planning) / distribution
(newspapers, beer, frozen goods) /
locational decisions (high schools,
power plants, warehouses, hospitals,
governmental institutions, air cargo) /
plant lay-out (a German university
hospital) / drug manufacturing / school
timetables / asphalt / archeology
(Babylonian texts) / conference
management. The best side effect of
these endeavours was in courses
taught afterwards to convincingly tell
the students that OR has much more
to offer than mathematical abstraction
and subtleties.
Another consulting company was
established a year or two before ours
by an American who married a Danish
girl and settled in our country. By
definition we were competitors but met
nevertheless frequently for joint
research. Both of us returned to
academia in the mid 70s on a full-time
basis but kept writing together. In total
about 40 joint papers resulted.
EWG-DSS: NATO’s support is
sometimes acknowledged by
organisers of scientific meetings. You
attended a NATO Summer School on
your, shall we say, rather thorny road
towards your Ph.D. degree. Did you
have other good experiences with
NATO?
JK: A key event in identifying
subjects for my Ph.D. thesis and
building the personal network was
indeed the aforementioned NATO
Summer School in 1966. Afterwards
followed the fall term in 1969 spent at
Univ. of California, Berkeley, which,
amongst others, offered a unique
possibility for visiting George Dantzig
and Dick Cottle at nearby Stanford
University. The three of us were shortly
after in charge of the NATO
Conference, ‘Optimization Methods,
Large-Scale Resource Allocation’
(Elsinore, Denmark, 1971) which in
turn led to membership of NATO’s
Systems Science Panel (1974-79), the
main sponsor of a series of
subsequent events, notably the NATO
Advanced Study Institute on
Combinatorial Programming
(Versailles, France, 1974) and the

4. 4
NATO Advanced Research Institute on
Discrete Optimization (Vancouver,
1977). In retrospect one may say that
these meetings were crucial in
propelling combinatorial optimisation
and related areas to prominence.
Moreover, several of those who later
became the central figures in the
further development assembled here
for the first time.
It should be noted that NATO’s role in
this respect was completely
disentangled from NATO’s military
activities. Participation was not
restricted to people from member
countries and the resulting
proceedings volumes were made
accessible to all as part of the open
literature.
EWG-DSS: Dept. of Computer
Science, University of Copenhagen,
has been your main platform for many
years. And is it still?
JK: University of Copenhagen
(UC) was established on 1
st
June 1479
by permission of Pope Sixtus IV.
Although universities should be the
foremost sites for new ideas they
exhibit sometimes a conservatism
which can be hard to beat. Where
should an interdisciplinary bastard like
OR fit in? TTT: Things Take Time. OR
was eventually welcomed at the Dept.
of Economics and, in my case, at
DIKU, Dept. of Computer Science.
DIKU 1969-75: part-time, 1975-2006:
full-time, 2006- : emeritus professor.
Main activity: general OR with
particular emphasis on combinatorial
optimisation and algorithmics. More
recently: history of OR with focus on
some classical problems and on the
pioneers who paved the road before
us. A parallel activity throughout was,
and is still, the international promotion
of OR, notably within the frameworks
of NATO, IFORS, and EURO.
By my official retirement in 2006, I
realised to my surprise that being
promoted to full professor is not the top
of an academic career as there still is a
step on the ladder to be climbed.
Emeritus professor, however, is the top
of the top. Maximum maximorum! Far
away from the absolute limit of
democracy where everybody meets
with everybody else all the time. No
specific duties are imposed upon me
anymore. Among the privileges
granted to professores emeriti is the
freedom of selecting from the menu by
saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to invitations to do
this or that.
Well, honestly I do miss some of my
students, in particular those from
abroad. The 11 years (1991-2001)
spent with my MBA students at Vrije
Universiteit Brussel were a particularly
good experience. All races were
represented in the audience; 1½
weeks in January, 1 week in April, 30
lectures, written exam. I am deeply
grateful to J. Pierre Brans who invited
me to undertake this task.
Also missed are the students at Karl-
Franzens-Universität Graz! Note, by
the way, where my homepage can be
found. The many October-November
visits over the years paid to Graz and
the beautiful Steiermark are among my
fondest memories.
EWG-DSS: Amongst others your CV
reflects some particularly strong
connections with Poland. How come?
JK: Stanislaw Walukiewicz, better
known as Staszek, was among the
participants at the Versailles meeting in
1974. With the main purpose of
providing staff members from
Staszek’s SRI (Systems Research
Institute, Warsaw) and graduate DIKU
students specializing in OR with an
opportunity of addressing an
international audience we organised in
1978 a seminar in Zaborów near
Warsaw. Senior researchers were
invited from Hungary, Sweden, and
(West) Germany.
Thanks to generous grants from
Danish research foundations, the same
group met again a year later in
Denmark, now accompanied by
leading scholars from England, The
Netherlands, Switzerland, and USA.
Furthermore, several practitioners and
virtually all Danish researchers within
the area of discrete optimisation and
combinatorics were here brought
together for the first time. DAPS
Society, European OR Seminars, was
established in 1984 as a formal
framework for this series; the ‘hard
core’ of participants has been
preserved throughout whereas the
target group was gradually expanded
over the years. Almost annual
meetings have been held ever since;
the list of countries visited as of today
includes Austria, The Czech Republic,
Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary,
The Netherlands, and Poland. I cannot
resist the temptation to note that no
fewer than five later presidents of
EURO and four later winners of the
EURO Gold Medal have attended at
least one DAPS meeting!
Poland: Three years (1990-92) have
been spent as a member of a
European consortium sponsored by
the TEMPUS programme of the
European Commission with the purpose
of building the entire curriculum for what
afterwards became Warsaw Business
School having Staszek as its Rector.
Though with a different perspective, a
similar exercise was carried out in 1995-
97 for University of Mining and
Metallurgy, Craców.
Poland ... and Hungary: upon the
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989
some obstetric aid was provided during
my presidency of EURO to facilitate
their national OR societies´ entry in both
IFORS and EURO.
EWG-DSS: Reference is made to
EURO now and then in your answers
to the previous questions. Can you
briefly summarize what EURO in
general has meant to you and, maybe,
still means?
JK: The engagement in DAPS
Society has been a true con amore
activity spanning 35 years so far. I look
forward each year to the annual
January dinner at our Stammtisch in an
Italian down-town Copenhagen
restaurant since the mid 80s offering a
real red carpet treatment to “Il
Generale” (me!) + Co. Then there is
the forthcoming DAPS 2014,
scheduled to be held in Craców in
September.
Notwithstanding the longest single
activity is EURO. I was not present
when EURO was founded in January
1975 at the Hotel Sheraton, Brussels,
in conjunction with the EURO I
conference but ‘joined the party’ on
21
st
June when the first EJOR Editorial
Board Meeting was held in Paris.
Two persons were instrumental when
EURO was born: Hans-Jürgen
Zimmermann and J. Pierre Brans, now
both past presidents of EURO, and, by
the way, both obvious recipients of the
EURO Gold Medal. “Meeting the right
people in the right moments”: I owe a
lot to J. Pierre in whose footprints I
literally have walked during our visits to
every corner of EURO.
You asked for a brief summary? About
20% of my 4-page CV is devoted to
EURO and yet it is nowhere said that
no EURO-k conference after EURO II
has been missed. The list of other
EURO engagements is pretty long
anyway: Council member for 28 years;
EC member for 8 years; PC Chair for
two conferences; PC or OC member
for two others; Organiser or invited
speaker at 8 ESIs; Co-founder and
member of 7 EWGs, of course
including our EWG-DSS; EGM
Chairman of one jury and member of
another; EDSM first recipient (2009)
and jury member in 2013; EJOR
Editorial Board member for 16 years;
Editor or co-editor of 9 special issues.
Furthermore: designer of the ties and
scarves printed in Denmark for EURO
X (Belgrade 1989); 2
nd
printing of same
where 34 kilogrammes constituted the
main part of my luggage en route to
EURO XX (Jerusalem, 1995). The
customs officers at Ben Gurion Airport
were not amused ... .
EURO’s best idea ever? Concern for
the next generation! At the initiative of
J. Pierre the first EURO Summer
Institute (ESI) materialized in 1984 and

5. 5
EURO Summer/Winter Institutes
(ESWI) have been organised regularly
ever since. Each student participant in
any ESWI will afterwards have a
personal network of academic
soulmates representing up to 20
countries. How to preserve it and keep
it further nurtured? By establishing an
EWG on the last day!
Who is heading today’s OR
departments at several European
universities? Who are among today’s
main contributors to our professional
journals? From where might EURO
recruit its coming presidents and EWG
chairpersons? Answer to all three
questions: look at EURO’s best idea
ever. The famous Madeira-ESI in 1989
on DSS is among the most blatant
examples.
What EURO still means to me? Well
the interest in devoting time and
energy to EURO matters did in no way
fade away upon my retirement in 2006.
Most recent EURO activities: 1) to
author a joint paper with Sarah Fores,
Manager of EURO, “On the origins of
OR and its institutions”, Invited Review,
Central European J. OR 21.2 (2013)
265-275, 2) to be a member of the
EDSM Jury who unanimously agreed
on Theo Stewart as the 2013 EDSM
laureate, and 3) to accept the
honourable invitation from EWG-DSS
and three other EWGs to deliver the
Opening Lecture based on 1) at the
recent EURO Mini-Conference (Graz,
Austria, 2013). Finally, 4) to accept the
equally honourable invitation to be
interviewed for this EWG-DSS
Newsletter 2013.
EWG-DSS: Jakob, thank you very
much for this enjoyable Interview!
Contributing to the Newsletter
Every member of the EWG-DSS is
very welcome to contribute to this
Newsletter.
Subjects can be related to:
• Project Descriptions
• Recent Publications
• PhD Dissertations
• Book Presentations / Reviews
• Research Group Presentations
• Research Views and Perspectives
• Journal Announcements – CfP
• Forthcoming Events
• General Announcements
Contributions should be sent to the
email address ewg-dss@fccdp.com
with the subject: “Newsletter”.
EWG-DSS Award
The annual EWG-DSS-Award,
launched in 2011, is a motivating
initiative among researchers. It allows
that PhD students or young
researchers, to have their papers
selected as best and most innovative
presented work, among the papers
submitted to the EWG-DSS organised
scientific events of the same year. The
winner is rewarded with a modest prize
in money, sponsored by the EWG-
DSS.
Winner of the 2012-Award:
In 2012, among
the most innovative
presented work of
young researchers, in
the EWG-DSS
organized workshops
and conference
streams, the EWG-
DSS Coordination
Board is pleased to
announce that
Gwendolin Geier, from
University of Central
Lancashire, was granted with
the “EWG-DSS 2012-Award“,
with the paper “The Benefits of
Enterprise Systems for SMEs”, a joint
work with Marion Schulze, Yahaya
Yusuf and Ahmed Musa, that was
presented in the EWG-DSS Liverpool
2012 Workshop in April 2012. A full
version of Gwendolin’s paper was
published in the Springer LNBIP EWG-
DSS 2012 Edition.
Below you can see Gwendolin
Geier with the EWG-DSS Award
certificate conferred to her in 2012.
The Award prize was of € 300.00.
We sincerely congratulate
Gwendolin Geier and her co-authors
for that achievement!
Winner of the 2013-Award:
In 2013, the EWG-DSS
award has been
granted to Daouda
Kamissoko with the
paper "Decision
Support System for
infrastructure network
disruption manage-
ment", a joint work with:
Pascale Zaraté, and
François Peres, that was presented in
the EWG-DSS Thessaloniki-2013
Workshop, in Greece, in May 2013.
The EWG-DSS Award prize for 2013
is of € 300.00 and will be officially
conferred to Daouda Kamissoko within
the next EWG-DSS meeting in July
2014, in Toulouse, during GDN2014.
We sincerely congratulate
Daouda and his co-authors for their
winning paper of the EWG-DSS 2013
Award!
The “EWG-DSS Award 2014″ can be
yours! Participate!
How to apply?
To apply for the annual EWG-DSS
Award, you only need to participate in
one of our Workshops, Mini-
Conferences or Session Streams
organised by the group and allow your
work to be part of our selection! More
details can be found on
http://ewgdss.wordpress.com/awards/ .
The EWG-DSS hopes to count
with sponsorship from research funds
and from the industrial sector to make
the future “EWG-DSS-Awards” more
financially appealing. You are
encouraged to support this initiative by
financially sponsoring it if possible, or
participating and/or disseminating this
information among your students,
colleagues, research partners and
collaborators.

6. 6
New Board Members
This year we are proud that two
very active EWG-DSS members have
joined the Coordination Board. Isabelle
Linden and Jason Papathanasiou:
welcome aboard! Here you find their
comments on joining the Board, as well
their short CVs.
Isabelle Linden: “Joining the
CollabNet project gave me the
opportunity to interact closer with the
members of the EWG-DSS committee.
I knew that this team is scientifically
dynamic, I had the pleasure to discover
a friendly and enthusiastic
environment. I received the invitation
to get involved in the board as an
honor and a recognition for the quality
of our previous collaboration. I'm
happy to accept and I will offer the best
of myself in serving every member of
the group and in contributing to the
excellence of our scientific life.”
Isabelle Linden is Associate
Professor of Information Management
at the University of Namur in Belgium,
Department of Business
Administration. She obtained her Ph.D.
in Computer Sciences from the
University of Namur (2007) with a
dissertation studying Temporal
Coordination Languages. She also
holds a M.Sc. in Philosophy (1999) and
a M.Sc. in Mathematics (1995) from
the University of Liège, Belgium. She
is member of the CoordiNam
Laboratory and the FoCuS Research
Group. Combining theoretical
computer science and business
administration, Isabelle Linden's main
research domain regards Information,
Knowledge and Artificial Intelligence.
She explores their integration within
systems as Enterprise Information
Systems, Decision Support Systems
and Business Intelligence systems.
She was involved in several research
projects founded by the Walloon
Region where her team was in charge
of the conception of intelligent
modules. The work of Isabelle Linden
can be found in several international
edited journals, books chapters and
conferences. She serves as reviewer
and program committee member in
several international journals,
conferences and workshops.
Jason Papathanasiou: “An
invitation to join the EWG-DSS board
can only be considered as a challenge
and a privilege, as it involves working
with a distinguished and highly
experienced group of researchers in
the DSS field at a European (and not
only) level. It is also an honor to serve
in a board along with excellent
researchers, colleagues and I dare
now say friends as well. The support I
received by the 7 board members was
a key factor to the successful outcome
of the Thessaloniki 2013 Workshop, in
the University of Macedonia, Greece. I
am confident that working with the
other board members, will, among
other things, promote my personal
research agenda and offer me new
opportunities for collaborations. The
team is one of the most active working
groups of EURO with a long history of
organizing successful events and
initiatives and I can only hope to
contribute to a fruitful future as well.”
Jason Papathanasiou is
Assistant Professor at the Department
of Business Administration, University
of Macedonia, Greece. He has a PhD
in Operational Research and a degree
in Physics from the Aristotle University
of Thessaloniki. He has worked for a
number of years at various institutes
and has co-organised and participated
in a number of international scientific
conferences and workshops. He was
the deputy coordinator of the FP6
funded project GEMCONBIO and of
the FP7 project TESS; he has
participated in many other international
research projects in FP6, FP7, Interreg
and COST. He is also a member of the
TDP Panel of COST and has published
a number of papers in various
international scientific peer referred
journals and international conferences.
Publications
In this section you find the list of
recent EWG-DSS editions, as well as
individual publications of members of
the group, who sent their information
for this Newsletter.
We encourage all EWG-DSS
members to send to us their lists of
most recent publications for the next
Newsletter!
EWG-DSS Recent Editions:
Edited Special issues and books
• LNBIP Springer Book: Decision
Support Systems II - Recent
Developments Applied to DSS
Network Environments. Editors:
Jorge E. Hernández, Shaofeng Liu,
Boris Delibašić, Pascale Zaraté,
Fátima Dargam, Rita Ribeiro.
Edition: ISSN: 1865-1348. Volume
164, 2013, Publisher: SPRINGER.
Lecture Notes in Business
Information Processing Springer,
Heidelberg Dordrecht London New
York, Editor: Springer-LNBIP,
ISBN: 978-3-642-41076-5 (Print)
978-3-642-41077-2; DOI:DOI
10.1007/978-3-642-41077-2.
09/2013.
• Proceedings of the EURO Mini-
Conference Graz-2013 on
"Collaborative Decision Systems in
Economics and in Complex
Societal and Environmental
Applications", Editors: F.C.C.
Dargam, U. Leopold-Wildburger, S.
Pickl, D.DeTombe, L.Plá, S.Liu, J.
Hernández, B. Delibasic, R.
Ribeiro, P. Zaraté. 10/2013;
DOI:ISBN: 978-3-943207-06-4 .
Graz, Austria, 2013.
• Proceedings of the EWG-DSS
THESSALONIKI-2013
WORKSHOP on “Exploring New
Directions for Decisions in the
Internet Age “. F.Dargam,
B.Delibasic, J.E.Hernández, S.Liu,
J. Papatanasiou, R.Ribeiro,
P.Zaraté (editors). Thessaloniki,
GREECE, May 29-31, 2013. Digital
Proceedings:
http://ewgdssthessaloniki2013.files.
wordpress.com/2013/05
• Following the Thessaloniki-2013
Workshop and the EURO Informs
Rome-2013 EWG-DSS DSS
Stream, the EWG-DSS organizes a
Springer Book of the Lecture Notes
in Business Information Processing
(LNBIP). This Springer Book of
Post Proceedings on “Impact of the

7. 7
Web of Things in Decision Support
Systems for Global Environments “
edited by F.Dargam,
J.E.Hernández, P.Zaraté, S.Liu,
R.Ribeiro, B.Delibasic, J.
Papatanasiou. Expected book
publication: 2nd Quarter of 2014.
• Following the EURO Mini-
Conference Graz-2013, a Special
Issue on "Advances on Decision
Sciences and its Decision Support
Technologies", with papers of the
DSS Stream DSS, in the
International Journal of Decision
Support System Technology -
IJDSST, is organized. F. Dargam,
J. Hernández, B. Delibasic (Guest
Editors).
• Following the EWG-DSS organized
Stream on DSS within the
EUROXXV in Vilnius in 2012, the
EWG-DSS organized a Special
Issue on "Modelling Decision
Systems for Critical Applications" in
the International Journal of
Decision Support System
Technology - IJDSST. Guest
Editors: Fatima Dargam, Shaofeng
Liu, Isabelle Linden. IJDSST
Volume 5, Issue 2, July 2013.
• Following the EWG-DSS organized
Stream on DSS within the
EUROXXV in Vilnius in 2012, the
EWG-DSS organized a Special
Issue on "Prediction, Simulation
and Optimization Methods for
Decision Making" in the
International Journal of Decision
Support System Technology -
IJDSST. Guest Editors: Fatima
Dargam, Shaofeng Liu, Isabelle
Linden. IJDSST Volume 5, Issue 3,
September 2013.
Authored Book Editions
It is our pleasure to announce the
publication of Pascale Zaraté’s new
book “Tools for Collaborative decision-
Making" John Wiley & Sons, January
2013.
http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitl
e/productCd-1848215169.html
Recent Members’ Publications:
• Arnaud Oglaza, Romain Laborde,
Pascale Zaraté. Authorization
policies: Using Decision Support
System for context-aware
protection of user's private data
(regular paper). Dans / In : IEEE
International Symposium on
UbiSafe Computing, Melbourne
(Australia), 16/07/2013-18/07/2013,
july 2013.
• Claassen, G. D. H. (2014). "Mixed
integer (0–1) fractional
programming for decision support
in paper production industry."
Omega 43: 21-29.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/scien
ce/article/pii/S0305048313000613
• Daouda Kamissoko, François
Pérès, Pascale Zaraté.
Technological networks robustness
and resilience assessment (regular
paper). Dans / In : International
Conference on Industrial
Engineering and Systems
Management (IESM 2013), Rabat,
Morocco, 28/10/2013-30/10/2013,
El Koursi E. M., Khaddour M.,
Hanafi S., Macedo R., Cherkaoui
A. (Eds.), IEEE - Morocco Section ,
2013.
• Daouda Kamissoko, Pascale
Zaraté, François Pérès. Decision
aid problems criteria for
infrastructure networks vulnerability
analysis (regular paper). Dans / In :
International Conference on
Control, Decision and Information
Technologies (CoDIT 2013),
Hammamet, Tunisia, 06/05/2013-
08/05/2013, Giua Alessandro ,
Kacem Imed , Hüllermeier Eyke
(Eds.), IEEE Computer Society,
(support électronique), may 2013.
• Drake P.R., Lee D.M. and Hussain
M (2013) “The lean and agile
purchasing portfolio model”, Supply
Chain Management: An
International Journal, Vol 18, Issue
1, pp 3-20.
• E. Shahamatnia, I. Dorotovic, R.A.
Ribeiro, and J.M. Fonseca “A
PSO/Snake Hybrid Algorithm for
Determining Differential Rotation of
Coronal Bright Points”, In the
proceedings of the 5th International
Joint Conference on Computational
Intelligence (IJCCI-ECTA),
Vilamoura, Portugal, 20-22
September, 2013. (Received the
best Student Paper Award)
• Fatima C.C. Dargam, Isabelle
Linden, Shaofeng Liu, Rita A.
Ribeiro, Pascale Zaraté. “The
Development Roadmap of the
EWG-DSS Collab-Net Project: A
Social Network Perspective of DSS
Research Collaboration in Europe”.
In book: Decision Support Systems
II - Recent Developments Applied
to DSS Network Environments,
Edition: Lecture Notes in Business
Information Processing, Volume
164, 2013, Chapter: I, Publisher:
SPRINGER. Lecture Notes in
Business Information Processing
Springer, Heidelberg Dordrecht
London New York, Editors: Jorge
E. Hernández, Shaofeng Liu, Boris
Delibašić, Pascale Zaraté, Fátima
Dargam, Rita Ribeiro, pp.pp 1-18.
09/2013; DOI:10.1007/978-3-642-
41077-2_1 ISBN: 978-3-642-
41076-5 (Print) 978-3-642-41077-2
• Luís Teixeira, Rita A. Ribeiro,
Gabriel Lopes, António Falcão,
Ricardo Raminhos, “BrainMap - A
Navigation Support System in a
Tourism Case Study”. 4th IFIP WG
5.5/SOCOLNET Doctoral
Conference on Computing,
Electrical and Industrial Systems,
DoCEIS 2013, Technological
Innovation for the Internet of
Things. L.M. Camarinha, S. Tomic,
P. Graça (Eds). Springer, Costa da
Caparica, Portugal, 2013, pp. 99–
106. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-
37291-9_11
• Luís F. S. Teixeira, Gabriel P.
Lopes, Rita A. Ribeiro (2013)
Language Independent Extraction
of Key Terms: An Extensive
Comparison of Metrics. In: Filipe J,
Fred A (eds) Agents and Artificial
Intelligence, vol 358.
Communications in Computer and
Information Science. Springer
Berlin Heidelberg, pp 69-82.
DOI:10.1007/978-3-642-36907-0_5
• Mora, J. M. Fonseca, R. Ribeiro.
Real-time Image Recovery Using
Temporal Image Fusion. IEEE
Proceedings of the International
Conference on Fuzzy Systems,
FUZZIEEE, India, 7-10 July (2013).
• Pinto, A; Ribeiro, R.A.; Nunes, I.L.
(2013) Ensuring the Quality of
Occupational Safety Risk
Assessment, Risk Analysis, Vol.
33(3), pp 409-419, DOI:
10.1111/j.1539-6924.2012.01898.x.
• Pascale Zaraté, Jacqueline Konate,
Guy Camilleri. Collaborative
Decision Making Tools : A
Comparative Study Based on
Functionalities (regular paper).
Dans / In : Group Decision and
Negotiation (GDN 2013),
Stockholm, Sweden, 17/06/2013-
21/06/2013, Bilyana Martinovski
(Eds.), Department of Computer
and Systems Sciences, Stockholm
University, p. 111-122, juin / june
2013.

8. 8
• Philippe Marrast, Pascale Zaraté,
Anne Mayere. How to Support
Coordination Through Annotations?
A Longitudinal Case Study of
Nurses’ Work in an Oncology
Hospital (Poster) (poster). Dans / In
: Computer Supported Cooperative
Work (CSCW) (CSCW 2013), San
Antonio, Texas, USA, 23/02/2013-
27/02/2013, Springer USA,
february 2013.
• R. A. Ribeiro, A. Falcão, A.Mora, J.
M. Fonseca. FIF: A Fuzzy
information fusion algorithm based
on multi-criteria decision making,
Knowledge-Based Systems journal
(2013).URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.knosys.2
013.08.032.
Thanks to all group members who
contributed to this section.
EWG-DSS Annual
Workshops
Since 2011 the EWG-DSS has been
organising at least one Workshop per
year. With the workshops our group
has made a step forwards within its
main purpose of establishing a
platform for encouraging state-of-the-
art high quality research and
collaboration work within the DSS
community.
Other aims of the EWG-DSS group
are:
• Encourage the exchange of
information among practitioners, end-
users, and researchers in the area of
Decision Systems.
• Enforce the networking among the
DSS communities available and
facilitate activities that are essential for
the start-up of international cooperation
research and projects.
• Facilitate professional academic and
industrial opportunities for its
members.
• Favour the development of innovative
models, methods and tools in the field
Decision Support and related areas.
• Actively promote the interest on
Decision Systems in the scientific
community by organizing dedicated
workshops, seminars, mini-
conferences and conference streams
in major conferences, as well as
editing special and contributed issues
in relevant scientific journals.
EWG-DSS Meetings
List of all EWG-DSS Meetings,
Workshops & Mini-Conferences:
. Fontainebleau (France) – 1990;
. Bruges (Belgium) – 1991;
. Nagycenk (Hungary) – 1992;
. Sintra (Portugal) – 1993;
. Turku (Finland) – 1994;
. Samos (Greece) – 1995;
. Ispra (Italy) – 1996;
. Bruges (Belgium) – 1997;
. Granada (Spain) – 1998;
. Turku (Finland) – 1999;
. Toulouse (France) – 2000;
. Caiscas (Portugal) – 2001;
. Bruges (Belgium) – 2002;
. Luxembourg – 2003;
. Istanbul, (Turkey) – 2003;
. Prato, (Italy) – 2004;
. Graz (Austria) – 2005;
. London (UK) – 2006;
. Reykavik (Iceland) – 2006;
. Montreal (Canada) – 2007;
. Prague (Czech Republic) – 2007;
. Toulouse (France) – 2008;
. Bonn (Germany) – 2009;
. Lisbon (Portugal) – 2010;
. London (UK) – 2011;
. Paris (France) – 2011.
. Liverpool (UK) – 2012;
. Vilnius (Lithuania) – 2012.
. Thessaloniki (Greece) – 2013.
. Rome (Italy) – 2013.
. Graz (Austria) – 2013.
Meetings in 2013
In 2013, the EWG-DSS organise
one Workshop, one DSS Stream within
the EURO XXVI Conference in Rome
and one Euro-mini Conference in Graz.
These three events allowed the group
to promote two official annual
meetings!
The EWG-DSS Thessaloniki-
2013 Workshop on
Exploring New Directions for
Decisions in the Internet Age
The first meeting of the EWG-
DSS in 2013 took place in
Thessaloniki, Greece, within the EWG-
DSS Liverpool-2013 Workshop on
“Exploring New Directions for
Decisions in the Internet Age”. It was
organized in cooperation with Jason
Papathanasiou, EWG-DSS member
and Assistant Professor at the Dept. of
Business Administration in the
University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki,
Greece, where the EWG-DSS
Workshop took place. We are
extremely grateful to all the local
arrangements and help received from
him and his Team.
Key-note speakers:
The 2013 EWG-DSS
Thessaloniki’s workshop counted with
seven invited key-note speakers:
• Alexis Tsoukias – University Paris
Dauphine, France
Talk: “What is a Decision Problem?”
• Francesca Toni – Department of
Computing, Imperial College
London, UK
Talk: “Computational Argumentation
for Decision Support on the Web”
• Nikolaos Matsatsinis – Technical
University of Crete, Greece
Talk: “Multi-Criteria Analysis and
Decision Support”
• Petraq Papajorgji – Canadian
Institute of Technology, Tirana,
Albania
Talk: “Model-driven architecture in
designing and developing complex
agricultural and environmental
information systems”
• Robert Kenward – Vice-Chair of
IUCN Sustainable Use and
Livelihoods Specialist Group
Talk: “Concepts, case studies and
design for environmental decision
support: the TESS project”
• Max Henrion – Chief Executive
Officer, Lumina Decision Systems,
Inc.
Talk: “Decision Analytics: From Big
Data to Clear Decisions with Analytica”
• Giuseppe Lugano and Mafalda
Quintas – COST Office Science
Officers, Trans-Domain Proposals
Talk: “COST TDP Pilot: Introducing a
Pilot Evaluation Procedure for Trans-
Disciplinary Proposals”
We can certainly say that the
Thessaloniki-2013 Workshop was a
great success! We had 27 research
contributions/presentations, 5 special
talks and 2 web-seminars.
We would like to acknowledge the
interest and cooperation of all the
authors who submitted their finished
and on-going research work for
presentation in this workshop. All
presentations were very interesting
and there was a high level of
information exchange for further fruitful
cooperation among all participants.
Details about the Workshop Program,
Special Talks, electronic Proceedings,
Special Issues and photo gallery can
be found at its Homepage:
http://ewgdssthessaloniki2013.wordpre
ss.com/ .

9. 9
EURO XXVI Rome, Italy
July 1-4th
, 2013
EWG-DSS Stream on
Decision Support System
As usual, the EWG-DSS
Coordination Board has organized in
the EURO XXVI Conference a
Decision Support Systems Stream,
which was composed of seven
sessions, as follows:
S1. Applications in Decision Making &
Decision Analysis Chair(s): Pascale
Zaraté, Fatima Dargam
A Decision Support System For
Exchange Rates Selection Problem
and An Application In Turkey Aykan
Akincilar, Erol Sahin, Ertan GUNER;
How Supply Competency Affects FDI
Decisions: Some Insights Prabir
Bagchi, Miguel Lejeune, Arshad Alam;
A decision-making support tool for
project manager selection Baruch
Keren, Zohar Laslo, Yossi Hadad;
Application of Multicriteria Models in
Project Portfolio Selection Adiel
Teixeira de Almeida, Rudolf Vetschera.
S2. Knowledge Management &
Decision Systems Chair(s): Shaofeng
Liu, Fatima Dargam
A BI integrated platform to support
dynamic and global resources
allocation decisions Isabelle Linden,
Shaofeng Liu;
Knowledge Network Modelling to
Support Decision Making for Strategic
Intervention in IT Project-Oriented
Change Management Ali ALkhuraiji,
Shaofeng Liu, Fenio Annansingh ,
Jiang Pan;
Knowledge Management: An Empirical
Analysis of Reuse Daniel OLeary;
Optimising Inventory Level of Global
Critical Knowledge for Integrated
Decision Support Jiang Pan, Shaofeng
Liu, Sarah Tuck , Ali ALkhuraiji;
S3. Knowledge Management &
Decision Making Chair(s): Isabelle
Linden, Pascale Zaraté
An integrated approach to budget
allocation in partnership construction
projects based on multiple criteria
decision making Hamidreza Koosha,
samira samizade;
Knowledge Sharing to Support
Decision Making Processes in
Multinational Corporations K. Nadia
Papamichail, Mahmoud Abdelrahman;
A multicriteria model for characterizing
potential crucial knowledge Sahar
Ghrab, Inès SAAD, Gilles Kassel,
Faiez Gargouri;
Machine learning integrated
optimization for decision making
Atiyeh Vaezipour, Amir Mosavi, Ulf
Seigerroth.
S4. Decision Support, Policy-making &
Decision Analysis Chair(s): Fatima
Dargam, Isabelle Linden
A New Fuzzy Multi-criteria Decision
Making Approach for supplier selection
problem Hacer Guner Goren, Osman
Kulak;
Water treatment evaluation for a plant
using a hybrid method based on
DEMATEL and ANP Erdem Aksakal,
Metin Dagdeviren, Ihsan Yüksel;
Using System Dynamics in Exploring
Ecosystem and Policy-making
Mechanism of Taiwan's Digital Content
Industries Pin-Chen Jiang, Ting-Lin
Lee, Chi-Cheng Huang;
Determining direct mailing policy with a
decision support system Rim Boudali.
S5. Collaborative Decision Making
Chair(s): Pascale Zaraté, Jorge E.
Hernández
Robustness Analysis in Multicriteria
Disaggregation – Aggregation
Approaches for Group Decision
Making Denis Yannacopoulos,
Athanasios Spyridakos, Nikos
Tsotsolas;
Strategic decision making during a
disaster Estelle Van Wyk, Venkata
Yadavalli;
Choosing the Best Anti-Virus in the
World by Application of TOPSIS
Method Hesam Naie.
S6. Decision-Making using Social
Networks and Web
Resources Chair(s): Shaofeng Liu,
Jorge E. Hernández
Using Social Network Analysis to
Measure Influence and Rank of
Efficient Ports Byunghak Leem;
Pricing and Order Decisions with
Customer Returns in Online Retailing
Zhong Yao;
A Decision Support System for
TmeTabling in Education: A Web-
Based Exam Scheduling Application
BURCU YILMAZ KAYA, Gökhan
KAYA, Metin Dagdeviren.
S7. Decision Support for Network
Processes & Supply Chain
Management Chair(s): Fatima Dargam,
Jorge E. Hernández
Effect of Wholesale Competition in
Supply Chains: Analysis with Multiple
Decision Makers Yuly Andrea Arboleda
Valencia, Santiago Arango;
Supply chains as mobile
communicating systems; a system and
communication theoretic view Hossein
Sharifi, Hossein Attari, Hossam S.
Ismail, Jorge E. Hernández;
MCDA and Simulation-Optimization
Approach applied to Strategic and
Operational Alignment in Supply Chain
Management Edson Trevisan, Thiago
Brito, Rui Carlos Botter;
A Simulation and Assessment Model
for Product Lifecycle Management
Valentina Boschian, Noemi Augenti,
Maria Pia Fanti, Giorgio Iacobellis,
Giovanni Lucci, Agostino Marcello
Mangini, Walter Ukovich.
Following the EWG-DSS Stream on
the EUROXXV, the edition of a
dedicated Special Issue of the IJDSST
International Journal of Decision
Support Systems Technology and a
Springer LNBIP Book are under
edition, based on selected presented
papers.
EURO-Mini Conference 2013
Graz, Austria October 17-19th
,
2013
The EURO Mini-Conference
Graz-2013 on “Collaborative
Decision Systems in Economics and
in Complex Societal and
Environmental Applications”, was
jointly organized by the EURO Working
Groups on Experimental Economics
(EWG E-CUBE), on Decision Support
Systems (EWG-DSS) on Methodology
for Complex Societal Problems (EWG-
MCSP) and the EURO Working Group
on OR in Agriculture and Forest
Management (EWG-ORAFM).during
the period of October 17-19,2013, in
the Karl-Franzens University of Graz.
Invited Speakers:
• Jakob Krarup - Professor
Emeritus of the Department of
Computer Science of the University
of Copenhagen Denmark
Talk: “On the Origins of OR and its
Institutions”
• Rudolf Vetschera - Professor at
the University of Vienna, Austria,
Department of Business
Administration / Organization and
Planning
Talk: “The multiple dimensions of
negotiations: A unified approach”
• Rita A. Ribeiro - Professor at CA3,
UNINOVA, Portugal
Talk: “Dynamic Multi-criteria Decision
Making (MCDM): A framework”
• Cor van Dijkum - Professor at
Utrecht University, Department of
Methodology and Statistics /
Faculty of Social Sciences &
Sokrates Consultancy and
Engineering, The Netherlands

10. 10
Talk: “Complexity is more than
complicated. Investigating, simulating
and handling complexity: a challenge
for system dynamics”
• Marion Sabine Rauner - Professor
at the University of Vienna, Austria.
School of Business, Economics,
and Statistics, Department of
Business Administration
Talk: “Prevention of Occupational
Injuries at the General Accident
Insurance Institution (AUVA): Design
and Application of Decision Support
Systems for Predicting Subsequent
Costs from 2001 to 2011” *
* Joint research work with Michaela-
Maria Schaffhauser-Linzatti, Johannes
Bauerstätter, Bernhard Schwarz, Paul
Harper, Klaus Wittig and Beate Mayer
• Jusk Ola Eriksson - Professor at
the Department of Forest Resource
Management & Forest Planning of
the Swedish University of
Agricultural Sciences, Sweeden
Talk: “Replicating forest owner
behavior in Decision Support Systems:
2 examples of programming
formulations“
• Hermann Maurer - Professor of
Informatics, Graz University of
Technology, Austria
Talk: “Long range predictions are still
more difficult than is usually assumed“
In general the Euro-Mini
Conference Graz-2013 was a great
success and we wish to express here
our deep gratitude to the Karl-
Franzens University of Graz and the
team of the Institute of Statistics and
Operations Research, head by Prof.
Ulrike Leopold-Wildburger, and the
local Organizing Committee for their
great job in making this event happen
in Graz.
The proceedings of the EURO-Mini-
Conference Graz-2013 is available for
download via the link:
http://eurominiconferencegraz2013.file
s.wordpress.com/2012/11/emc-graz-
2013-proceedings1.pdf
Best Paper Prizes
EWG-DSS Best Papers Prize
During the EWG-DSS 2013
Thessaloniki Workshop and the EURO
Mini-Conference Graz-2013, licenses
of Simulation and DSS-area-related
software packages were sorted among
the participants as prizes for best
presented papers, namely:
• A License of Analytica, sponsored
by Lumina
(http://www.lumina.com/);
• A full academic license of Decision
Explorer, sponsored by Banxia
(http://www.banxia.com/);
• A License of Arena, sponsored by
Rockwell Automation
(http://www.arenasimulation.com/Ar
ena_Home.aspx); and
• Licenses of Simio Packages,
sponsored by Simio
(http://www.simio.com).
This initiative was newly
introduced by the EWG-DSS in 2013. It
does not compete with the EWG-DSS
Yearly Award, since it happens within
each of our organized events. In 2013
it counted with the cooperation of he
above listed sponsor-companies and
distributed licenses of simulation and
DSS-area-related software packages
as prizes for best presented papers.
More details about the winners of
those prizes in the EURO Mini-
Conference Graz-2013 can be read
here:
http://eurominiconferencegraz2013.wor
dpress.com/2013/11/04/best-papers-
prize-winners/)ss.com/
Upcoming Events
GDN-2014 on “Group
Decision Making and Web
3.0”
Joint International Conference
of the EURO Working Group on
DSS and the INFORMS GDN
Section
Toulouse, June 10th-13th 2014
http://www.irit.fr/gdn2014/
Group decision and
negotiation focuses on complex
and self-organizing processes that
constitute multiparticipant,
multicriteria, ill-structured,
dynamic, and often evolutionary
problems. Major approaches
include: (1) applied game theory,
experiment and social choice, (2)
cognitive and behavioral sciences
as applied to group decision and
negotiation, (3) conflict analysis
and resolution (4) software,
specifically group decision support
systems (GDSS), negotiation
support systems (GDNSS) and
more generally decision support
systems (DSS), (5) artificial
intelligence, and (6) management
science as related to group
decision-making. Many research
initiatives combine two or more of
these fields.
Examples of Themes and Areas of
Interest for the GDN-2014:
Technological Foundations:
• Distributed GDN Technologies
• Virtual Worlds and
Environments for GDN
• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Methods in GDN
• Multi-Agent Systems
• E-negotiation Systems
Methodological & Theoretical
Foundations:
• CATNAPS: Connectedness
And Technology for
Negotiation And Problem
Solving
• Game Theory
• Social Choice Theory
• Bargaining Theory
• Collaboration Engineering
• Multi-Criteria Decision Making
• Conflict Analysis and
Resolution
• Design Approaches for
Collaboration and Negotiation
Systems
Social and Behavioral Aspects
of Group Decision &
Negotiation:
• Cross-Cultural and
International Group Decisions
and Negotiations

11. 11
• Impact, Adoption and
Evaluation of GDN
Technologies and Approaches
• Language in GDN
• Emotion in GDN
• Creativity in GDN
• Family conflict resolution
• Facilitation
• Cognitive Psychology and
Neuroscience
• Participatory decision-making
in communities
• E-Democracy
Applications of Group Decision
& Negotiation:
• Environment- Business
• Policy
• Diplomacy and International
Relationship
• Education and Training
• Water and Natural Resources
• Sustainability
Submissions are to be made on
line: http://www.irit.fr/gdn2014 .
Important Dates:
• Submissions of full papers:
December 9th, 2013
• Notification of Acceptance of
full papers: January 10th,
2014
• Revisions of full accepted
papers: February 10th, 2014
• Submissions of late full
papers, short papers and
posters: February 10th,
2014
• Doctoral Consortium: June
10th, 2014
• Conference: June 11th-
13th,2014
IFORS-2014 EWG-DSS
Stream on “Decision Support
Systems”
EWG-DSS - DSS Stream within
the IFORS-2014 Conference.
Barcelona, Spain
July 2014.
www.ifors2014.org
The 20th Conference of the
International Federation of
Operational Research Societies –
IFORS-2014 with the special
subject on “The Art of Modeling”
will take place in Barcelona, Spain
from July 13th to 18th, 2014. The
Programme and Organising
Committee are preparing a high
quality scientific programme of the
Conference. More details about the
Conference and the venue can be
found in the Conference
Homepage: www.ifors2014.org.
The DSS Stream’s is composed of
5 sessions. These sessions define
the main topics of interest in this
stream. In order to submit your
abstract to one of the DSS
Sessions listed below, you need to
login in the conference site, select
“Abstract Submission” and “Submit
an Abstract” and then enter the
session’s code (see below) to
which you wish to place your
submission. The DSS Stream
Session codes are given below:
• Applications in Decision
Making & Decision Analysis
(Code: 3050b044)
• Knowledge Management &
Decision Systems (Code:
c10e2321)
• DSS supported by Simulation
and Optimization Approaches
(Code: 969e80ea)
• Collaborative Decision Making
(Social Networks & Web
Resources) (Code: c56a6943)
• Business Intelligence and
Knowledge-Based Decision
Support (Code: 490f3dd8)
Deadline for Abstracts: January
31st, 2014
Call for Papers:
http://ewgdss.files.wordpress.com/201
3/11/cfp-dss-stream-ifors2014-
barcelona.pdf
EWG-DSS Collab-Net
Project
The the EWG-DSS Collaboration
Academic Social Network Project
(Collab-Net) targets mainly to
disseminate research being conducted
by members of the group. A social
structure for the group, using the group
members as its defined population,
was developed and a social academic
network analysis for identifying the
collaboration relationship that exits
among the EWG-DSS members was
devised. The outcome of this project
provides the group members useful
feedback for further collaboration in
joint research and encourages new
research and academic cooperation
within the group.
For developing the EWG-DSS
Collab-Net project further, apart from
the EWG-DSS board team, we
currently count with development
support of researchers from the
University of Macedonia in Greece,
under the supervision of Jason
Papathanasiou; the University of
Namur in Belgium, under the
supervision of Isabelle Linden; and
from the University of Pernambuco in
Recife, Brazil, under the supervision of
Adiel Almeida and Ana Paula Costa.
We are very grateful to all the involved
persons in this project cooperation.
More details about the Collab-Net
Project can be read in the link below
and in the papers published about it,
listed in the Publications of the EWG-
DSS group. Link:
http://ewgdss.wordpress.com/ewg-dss-
net/ .
EWG-DSS Survey
In order to support the data
acquisition and data update of the
EWG-DSS Collab-Net Project, a
survey was elaborated.
All EWG-DSS members and
collaborators are invited to participate
in the EWG-DSS survey, so that we
can gather some feedback about the
quality of the research initiatives
organized by the EWG-DSS group, as
well as collect some more updated
information about the members’ areas
of research. Link:
http://surveys.questionpro.com/a/t/AKh
6OZQWSw
QR Code: EWG-DSS Survey

12. 12
The EWG-DSS survey will also
help the group to improve its overall
activities and to better search for
adequate reviewers, whenever
necessary, for the frequent EWG-DSS
publication editions.
Your participation in this study is
very important, but completely
voluntary. There are no foreseeable
risks associated with this project.
Thank you very much for your time and
support!
Other Announcements
Call for Papers
IJDSS Special Issue on
“Advances in Decision
Making with Business
Process Management”
Guest Editors:
Pavlos Delias, Eastern Macedonia and
Thrace Institute of Technology, Greece
Kostas Vergidis, University of
Macedonia, Greece
Deadline for full paper
submission: 15 January, 2014
Info:
http://www.inderscience.com/info/in
general/cfp.php?id=2369
Conferences
DSS 2.0
The 16
th
IFIP WG8.3 DSS
Conference 2014 in Paris
The 16th DSS conference will be
held on 2-5 June 2014 in Paris,
France. The call for papers is
announced at the website:
http://www.dssconference.org/
Joint International
Conference on Management
and Society
to be held in Plymouth, UK between
2
nd
and 4
th
July 2014
This joint international event will
bring together three international
conferences (ICSMR 2014; ICFME
2014 and ICSHH 2014) previously held
separately.
The call for papers is announced
at the relevant websites:
www.icsmr.org; www.icfme.org; and
www.icshh.org.
ICSMR 2014
The 4th
International Conference
on Strategic Management and
Research
Conference Homepage:
www.icsmr.org
ICFME 2014
The 4th
International Conference
on Financial Management and
Economics
Conference Homepage:
www.icfme.org
ICSHH 2014
The 3rd
International Conference
on Society, Humanity and
History
Conference Homepage:
www.icshh.org
Call for participations and further
information about this joint
international conference can be
obtained in the websites above.
News about Members
Georg Cantor Award 2013
João Clímaco received "The
Georg Cantor Award"
Prof. João Clímaco, Full
Professor of the University of Coimbra,
received "The Georg Cantor Award"
from the International Society on
Multiple Criteria Decision Making, in
the 22nd
International Conference on
Multiple Criteria Decision Making, 17-
21 June 2013, Málaga, Spain. "The
Georg Cantor Award" is a "highest
form of recognition that the
International Society on Multiple
Criteria Decision Making bestows upon
a researcher who, over his/her
distinguished career, has personified
the spirit of independent inquiry and
whose many innovative ideas and
achievements are decidedly reflected
in the theory, methodology, and current
practices of MCDM". Congratulations!
EWG-DSS Founding
Members meet in 2013
Thessaloniki, May 2013
Jorge Freire de Souza, Fátima Dargam,
Pascale Zaraté, Rita Ribeiro and Alexis
Tsoukiás.
The EWG-DSS 2013 Workshop
in Thessaloniki joined more than 40
researchers in the University of
Macedonia. Among them there were
five founding members of the group,
who first met in the EURO Summer
Institute in Madeira in 1989. Namely:
Alexis Tsoukiás, Fátima Dargam,
Jorge Freire de Souza, Rita Ribeiro
and Pascale Zaraté (see picture). It
was great for them to meet again and
to enjoy the workshop together!
Lisbon, November 2013
Ana Luísa Respício, António Rodrigues,
Fátima Dargam and Rita Ribeiro.
Last November, the EWG-DSS
founding members António Rodrigues,
Rita Ribeiro and Fátima Dargam had
the pleasure of meeting in Lisbon,
during a business trip of the Fátima in
Portugal, and together with our long-
term EWG-DSS member Ana Luisa
Respício they have enjoyed a delicious
Portuguese typical dinner in the old city
part of Lisbon (See picture). Delicious!
The EWG-DSS is
grateful to all group
members who sent
contributions to
this Newsletter!