This book constitutes the proceedings of the Joint INFORMS-GDN and EWG-DSS International Conference on Group Decision and Negotiation (GDN), held in Toulouse, France, during June 10–13, 2014. 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 contributions report on research on individual and group decision support, negotiation and auction support and the design of systems and agents supporting such processes. From a total of 88 submissions, 31 papers were accepted for publication in this volume. The papers are organized into topical sections on collaborative decision making, auctions, knowledge decision support systems, multi-criteria decision making, multi-agent systems, negotiation analysis, preference analysis, data analysis, DSS / GDSS use, network analysis and semantic tools for group decision making.

Publication of the Handbook of Group Decision and Negotiation marks a milestone in the evolution of the group decision and negotiation (GDN) eld. On this occasion, editors Colin Eden and Marc Kilgour asked me to write a brief history of the eld to provide background and context for the volume. They said that I am in a good position to do so: Actively involved in creating the GDN Section and serving as its chair; founding and leading the GDN journal, Group Decision and Negotiation as editor-in-chief, and the book series, “Advances in Group Decision and Negotiation” as editor; and serving as general chair of the GDN annual meetings. I accepted their invitation to write a brief history. In 1989 what is now the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) established its Section on Group Decision and Negotiation. The journal Group Decision and Negotiation was founded in 1992, published by Springer in cooperation with INFORMS and the GDN Section. In 2003, as an ext- sion of the journal, the Springer book series, “Advances in Group Decision and Negotiation” was inaugurated.

Software is an essential enabler for science and the new economy, but current software methodologies, tools, and techniques are often still not sufficiently robust or reliable for the constantly changing and evolving market, and many promising approaches have proved to be no more than case-oriented methods that are not fully automated. This book presents the proceedings of SoMeT_23, the 22nd International Conference on New Trends in Intelligent Software Methodology, Tools, and Techniques, held from 20–22 September 2023 in Naples, Italy. The conference brings together researchers and practitioners to share original research and practical development experience in software science and related new technologies, and is an opportunity for the software-science community to take stock of where they are today and consider future directions. The 25 papers included here were carefully selected from the many high-quality submissions received after a rigorous review process, with each paper typically being reviewed by 3 or 4 reviewers. Topics covered range from research practices, techniques and methodologies to the solutions required by global business. SoMeT_23 focused in particular on intelligent software, the application of artificial intelligence techniques in software development, and tackling human interaction in the development process for better high-level interface, with an emphasis on human-centric software methodologies, end-user development techniques, and emotional reasoning for an optimum performance between design tool and user. Exploring trends, theories, and challenges in the integration of software and science for tomorrow’s global information society, the book captures a new state-of-the-art in software science and its supporting technology and will be of interest to all those working in the field.

The volume offers an exploration of methods for analysis of emotion in negotiation, such as cognitive modeling, discourse analysis, all testing, subsequent multidimensional scaling, impression rating, and graph modeling for conflict resolution, reasonable and unreasonable disagreement. It covers activities, such as business negotiation, conflict solving, bargaining, task management meetings, discussions, and elaborates on different kinds of emotions. Some emotions stimulate negotiation (e.g. empathy), others -hinder it (e.g. disgust). However, all emotions open a door to uncertainty in relations and negotiation, which in turn provides an opportunity. The volume views language in negotiation not only as a vehicle for transmission of thought but also as a manifestation of emotion and the ethical.

This book recapitulates the major developments in Decision Support Systems (DSS) over the last 30 years in order to evaluate the research areas of decision making and in which direction the field should proceed. As it attempts to find a consensus about the next steps for the future of DSS research, the book also enforces the trends and new technologies currently in use. The book examines topics such as decision analysis for enterprise systems and non-hierarchical networks, integrated solutions for decision support and knowledge management in distributed environments, decision support system evaluation and analysis through social networks, and e-learning and its application to real environments. It clearly presents the evidence to support their cases and attempts to promote an extensive and objective discussion. In addition, the book also reflects on approaches to dead-end ideas and failures in DSS to better understand the lessons learned. The contributions for this book have been written by thought leaders and influential researchers from the EURO Working Group of Decision Support Systems (EWG-DSS).