Ambient Intelligence
for Managerial
Decision Support
Peter Mikulecký
University of Hradec Králové
Czech Republic
Ambient Intelligence

AmI provides a vision of information
society of the future, in which maximum
emphasis is placed on
 user
friendliness,
 effective and distributed support of services,
 reinforcement of the user’s resources,
 and support for interactive work.
April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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The Vision

This vision anticipates that people will find
themselves in the environment of intelligent,
intuitively usable interfaces incorporated into all
kinds of objects, and in such an environment
which is able to recognize the presence of
different individuals, and react to it in a nondisturbing, and often invisible way, frequently
fully integrated into a particular situation.
April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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The Vision Further On
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The vision of ambient intelligence anticipates a
shift in the usage of information technology from
desk computers to various information devices
integrated into people’s everyday life.
It is anticipated that the prevailing technological
aspect of computing and information technology
shall be moved to the background, while
intelligent interfaces of a particular environment
would become more prominent.
April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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How to Achieve the Vision
The objective of AmI is to broaden the
interaction between human beings and
digital information technology through the
usage of ubiquitous computing devices.
 The three recent technologies: Ubiquitous
Computing, Ubiquitous Communication
and Intelligent User Interfaces – are at the
core of the AmI vision.

April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Ubiquitous Computing
Ubiquitous Computing means integration
of microprocessors into everyday objects
like furniture, clothing, white goods (e.g.
refrigerator, washing machine), toys, etc.
 It is the use of computers everywhere.
Computers are made available by means
of the physical environment, but in an
invisible way for the user.

April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Ubiquitous Communication
Ubiquitous Communication enables the
objects with integrated computers to
communicate each other and the user by
means of ad-hoc and wireless networking.
 Here wireless networking will be the
dominant technology.

April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Intelligent User Interfaces
An Intelligent User Interface enables the
inhabitants of the AmI environment to
control and interact with the environment
in a natural (voice, gestures) and
personalized way (preferences, context).
 These will allow for drastically simplified
and more intuitive use of devices.

April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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AmI Scenarios
A number of so-called scenarios illustrate
the idea of ambient intelligence and its
benefit for society (ISTAG 2001)
 The scenarios are in fact examples of
possible future usage of the ambient
intelligence approach in various areas of
everyday human life.

April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Examples of Scenarios
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Persistent hybrid communities evolving
according to their intrinsic social dynamics.
Mobile mixed reality presence environments
moving freely and interacting in real/augmented
populated surroundings through natural and/or
augmented mediated tools.
Personalized learning and training environments
for skill acquisition and learning.
April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Ambient Intelligence
One of the main themes for research in
the scope of the 6FP.
 Implementation of the AmI vision should
affect the quality of everyday life of every
EU citizen.
 It should also help to solve the problem of
digital divide.

April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Benefits
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The combination of simplified use of devices and
their ability to communicate eventually results in
increased efficiency for the users and, therefore,
creates value, leading to a higher degree of
ubiquity of computing devices.
Examples of such devices range from common
items such as pens, watches, and household
appliances to sophisticated computers and
production equipment.
April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Three Main Dimensions of AmI
Technological – possibilities of the AmI
implementation (new emerging
technologies!)
 Social – ICT for solving global social
problems
 Political – Europe on the way to
knowledge society

April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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The Fourth Dimension
Co-existence of humans with a plenty of
artificial creatures with a certain degree of
(artificial) intelligence.
 Creatures co-operate and communicate
one with another, and all of them have to
co-operate with humans from time to time.
 A new kind of intelligent systems?

April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Some Problems
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A number of other possible scenarios.
Humans as integral parts of such intelligent systems?
Communities of such creatures (virtual as well as nonvirtual), their emergent behaviour.
Their mutual co-existence and collaboration as well as
their co-existence and collaboration with humans.
Possible antagonism of their and human interests?
Is there a danger of any risky evolution of their
communities?
There is a plenty of ethical aspects of these problems,
etc.
April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Similar Concepts
Smart Space
 Smart Space for LearningTM
 Ubiquitous Environments
 Pervasive Computing and Environments

April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Managers’ Needs
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A manager has to have an access to all the necessary
information on which the best decision can be built.
To have as good information as it is possible, and this
information must be supported by knowledge relevant to
the application or exploitation of particular information.
The degree of success of manager’s job is often
measured by the ratio of outputs to inputs.
All managerial activities revolve around and are carried
out through continuous decision making, and are very
much knowledge based, or knowledge rich.
April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Steps of Managerial Decision
Making
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Identifying and defining the problem (a decision
situation: an opportunity or trouble).
Classifying the problem into a standard
category.
Constructing an abstract model that describes
the real-world problem.
Finding potential alternative solutions to the
modelled problem and evaluating them.
Selecting and recommending a good enough
and appropriate solution to the problem.
April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Factors Causing Complexity of
Managerial Decision Making
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More alternatives of managerial decisions because of
growth and advancement in ICT, as well as
advancement and diversity in technology in general.
Larger error cost because of increased competition, as
well as increased structural complexity.
More uncertainty because of increased consumerism,
as well as decreased and fluctuating political stability.
It is a need for quick responses because of decreased
and fluctuating political stability, as well as growing,
complicating and fluctuating market economy.
April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Desirable Characteristics and
Requirements for DS (1)
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Speedy computations - performing large
number of computations very quickly and at a
low cost.
Fast problem identification - the decision
support function should efficiently map the
context of a given problem into an appropriate
solution model, algorithm or technique.
Timely decision making - critical situations
may require fast and in-time response.
April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Desirable Characteristics and
Requirements for DS (2)
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Increased productivity - reducing costs
(saving) of making the decision, while retaining
the decision making output rate and quality.
Decision making quality and reliability - more
alternatives should be considered, provision for
risk analysis should be available, as well as
provision for handling vagueness and
uncertainty, provision for multiple knowledge
sources, and group decision support.
April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Desirable Characteristics and
Requirements for DS (3)
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Technical support - an adequate and efficient ICT is
needed, which enables effective and secure storage and
transmission of data.
Overcoming cognitive limits in processing and
storage - an individual’s problem-solving capability is
limited when diverse information and knowledge are
required. Pooling several individuals is required in this
situation, and group decision making as well as group
decision support systems is a common remedy for this
problem.
April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Smart Space Concept (1)

It is a physical environment equipped with
electronic devices and embedded systems,
which may be in different shapes, sizes, forms,
functions, etc. These devices and embedded
systems are interconnected by wired and/or
wireless networks forming a digital virtual space,
which must be closely integrated with the
physical environment.
April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Smart Space Concept (2)

It must have some kinds or levels of
abilities of perception, cognition, analysis,
reasoning and anticipation about a user’s
existence and surroundings, on which it
can accordingly take proper actions.
These abilities can be regarded as a kind
of intelligence, which is the origin of the
term smart.
April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Smart Space Concept (3)

It aims at truly adapting to humans rather
than the reverse, providing better services
to users in their everyday environments
without limiting to their desktops/laptops,
and providing adequate support for their
various daily activities in the real world via
the merger of spaces and smartness.
April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Intelligent managerial decision
support space
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In a recent research project AmIMaDeS (Ambient
Intelligence for Managerial Decision Support) we try to
deeply analyze the nature of managerial work and
reflecting the results of the analysis to improve
managers’ workplace environment.
Our goal is to create such an intelligent environment that
is capable to support managerial decision making as well
as to fulfil managers’ educational needs simultaneously,
trying to educate them by an unobtrusive and natural
manner, in relation to the area where the core decisions
are made.
April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Goals of the AmIMaDeS Project

One of the practical goals of the project is to
create a collection of sophisticated intelligent
tools for managerial decision support (IMDSS –
an intelligent managerial decision support
space) based on the ambient intelligence (AmI)
approach, taking into account the main features
of the Smart Spaces for LearningTM concept.
April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Main Areas of AmI Principles
Utilization
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user identification and logging,
context-based services, customization, personalization and
omnipresent monitoring,
application of new programming principles and AmI algorithms,
innovated hardware and new types of devices,
intelligent interfaces, processing implicit inputs and interactions,
support of communication inside the community,
involving new types of smart learning objects,
invisible file systems,
affective computing,
privacy issues,
interaction of AmI subsystems.
April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Conclusions
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We described the main ideas of a project devoted to
intelligent support of managerial decision making, based
on a blend of traditional smart space approach
(exploiting ambient intelligence principles) and the Smart
Spaces for LearningTM concept.
The later will cause intelligent learning capabilities to be
pervasively present and supporting managers’
educational needs, enabling their better performance
and higher quality of decision making.
April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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Thank you for your attention.
April 13-14, 2007
LEFIS, Vilnius
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