We formally investigate the idea of processing off-line part of the input data in order to speed up on-line computing. In particular, we focus on off-line processing for intractable decision problems. To this end, we define new complexity classes and reductions, and find complete problems.

Given a set of products, where each is characterized by a set of attribute values, an online catalog is an organization of a set of product pages on the web through which users can access their required product information. A good online catalog is crucial to the success of an e-commerce web site. Traditionally, an online catalog is mainly built by hand. To what extent this can be automated is ...

Optimization is the task of finding an optimum solution to a given problem. When the decision variables are discrete we speak of a combinatorial optimization problem. Such a problem is online when decisions have to be made before all data of the problem are known. And we speak of a real-time online problem when online decisions have to be computed within very tight time bounds. This paper surve...

BACKGROUND The increasing utilization of the internet has provided a better opportunity for people to search online for health information, which was not easily available to them in the past. Studies reported that searching on the internet for health information may potentially influence an individual's decision making to change her health-seeking behaviors. OBJECTIVE The objectives of this s...

This paper attempts to describe and clarify the meaning of the term Decision Support (DS). Based on a survey of DSrelated WWW documents, and taking a broad view of DS, a classification of DS and related disciplines is presented. DS is put in the context of Decision Making, and some most important disciplines of DS are overviewed: Operations Research, Decision Analysis, Decision Support Systems,...

This commentary discusses pertinent issues from Hyosun Kim’s paper on online prescription drug promotion. The study is well-designed and the findings highlight some of the consequences of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) decision to deregulate online advertising of prescription drugs. While Kim’s findings confirm some of the early concerns, they also provide a perspective of implement...

Over the last 10 years, pervasive computing environments and mobile networks have become extremely popular. Despite the many end user benefits of pervasive computing, the intrinsic instability and context ambiguities of these environments pose impediments to data-oriented decision support systems. In pervasive computing environments where users, systems, and computing resources are distributed ...

Given a sequence of independent random variables with a common continuous distribution, we consider the online decision problem where one seeks to minimize the expected value of the time that is needed to complete the selection of a monotone increasing subsequence of a prespecified length n. This problem is dual to some online decision problems that have been considered earlier, and this dual p...

background: today’s nursing graduates value ability to creatively solve problems and make decisions, as these skills assist hem with recognizing and evaluating situations that require prompt attention. this study aimed to determine and compare nursing student’s perceived levels of own problem solving skills in various years of their 4-year program. methods: this is a cross-sectional study. all ...