Annika Lenz develops an interactive preference measurement method, which provides dynamic preference adjustment, to assess alternatives in terms of utility for an individual decision maker throughout the requirements negotiation process. Consequently, interactive dynamic decision support is designed, which can handle changes related to requirements dynamically. An empirical study shows that the newly developed method is both objectively and subjectively more efficient than a static alternative. Thus, it is argued that efficient preference adjustment enables decision support based on up-to-date preferences. The designed support component is compared to two state-of-the-art approaches for decision support in requirements negotiations.

Decision support systems are developed for integrated pest and disease management and nutrition management using open-source technologies as java, android, and low-cost hardware devices like Arduino micro controller. This text discusses the techniques to convert agricultural knowledge in the context of ontology and assist grape growers by providing this knowledge through decision support system. The key features of the book are: Presents the design & development of an ontology-based decision support system for integrated crop management. Discusses the techniques to convert agricultural knowledge in text to ontology. Focuses on an extensive study of various e-Negotiation protocols for automated negotiations Provides an architecture for predicting the opponent’s behaviour and various factors which affect the process of negotiation. The text is primarily written for graduate students, professionals, and academic researchers working in the fields of computer science and engineering, agricultural science, and information technology.

BASYS conferences were initially organized to promote the development of balanced automation systems. The first BASYS conference was successfully launched in Victoria, Brazil, in 1995. BASYS'06 is the 7th edition in this series. This book comprises three invited keynote papers and forty-nine regular papers accepted for presentation at the conference. All together, these papers will make significant contributions to the literature of Intelligent Technology for Balanced Manufacturing Systems.

This book explores the dynamics of international negotiations from the perspectives of researchers and practical negotiators. Reinforcing the idea that the study of negotiation is not merely an academic endeavor, the essays reflect the author’s lifetime experiences as a negotiation researcher and provider of analytical support to international negotiation teams. Addressing a wide range of critical issues, such as creativity and experimentation, psychological dynamics, avoiding incomplete agreements, engineering the negotiation context, reframing negotiations for development conflicts, understanding what matters when implementing agreements, utilizing decision support systems, engaging new actors, and expanding core values, each chapter opens new doors on our conceptual and practical understanding of international negotiations. The author introduces new ways of understanding and explaining the negotiation process from different intellectual perspectives. The goal of this book is to resolve many critical unanswered questions by stimulating new research on these dynamics and developing new approaches that can help negotiation practitioners be more effective. The book will be used in university courses on international negotiation and conflict resolution, and provide a useful resource for researchers, policymakers, practitioners, NGOs, donor organizations, and grant-giving organizations.

Virtual environments (VE) are human-computer interfaces in which the computer creates a sensory-immersing environment that interactively responds to and is controlled by the behaviour of the user. Since these technologies will continue to become more reliable, more resolute and more affordable, it's important to consider the advantages that VEs may offer to support business processes. The term 'synthetic world' refers to a subset of VEs, having a large virtual landscape and a set of rules that govern the interactions among participants. Currently, the primary motivators for participation in these synthetic worlds appear to be fun and novelty. As the novelty wears off, synthetic worlds will need to demonstrate a favourable value proposition if they are to survive. In particular, non-game-oriented worlds will need to facilitate business processes to a degree that exceeds their substantial costs for development and maintenance. Working Through Synthetic Worlds explores a variety of different tasks that might benefit by being performed within a synthetic world. The editors use a distinctive format for the book, consisting of a set of chapters composed of three parts: ¢ a story or vignette that describes work conducted within a synthetic world based loosely on the question, 'what will work be like in the year 2025?', founded on the expert authors' expectations of plausible future technologies ¢ a scholarly review of the technologies described by the stories and the current theories related to those technologies ¢ a prescription for future research required to bridge the current state-of-the-art with the notional worlds described in the stories. The book will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students, professors, scientists and engineers, managers in high-tech industries and software developers.

This book constitutes revised selected papers from the 16th International Conference on Group Decision and Negotiation, GDN 2016, held in Bellingham, WA, USA, in June 2016. The GDN meetings aim to bring together researchers and practitioners from a wide spectrum of fields, including economics, management, computer science, engineering, and decision science. The 12 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 70 submissions. They deal with the fundamental part of all decision processes and individual preferences; the situations of group decision making; the collective decision making in situations characterized by a higher level of conflict; and the group processes and negotiations in different subject areas.