Oil-based Group Decision Support Systems Research And Practice

Group Decision Support System(GDSS) is a computer-based interactive system, it use communication,computer and decision technology to support group defining and solving non-structured decision problem. Through removing communication obstacle and providing structured decision analysis technology and systemic guide for content, time and pattern of group discussion, GDSS can improve group decision procedure and increase efficiency and quality of group decision. Latest GDSS development is to suport group decision in any time, any place through LAN, intranet or Internet communication.XML (extensible Markup Language) is next generation Web publishing language which is proposed by W3C(World Wide Web Consortium), it becomes a hotspot little by little. XML inherits extensibility and powerful function of SGML and easy use of HTML, furthermore it combines them well to provide new format platform for Web-based application. RDF(Resource Decription Framework) becomes describing and exchanging metadata framework proposed by W3C, it is foundation of dealing with metadata. RDF provide interoperability among applications, these applications exchange machine-aware web information. Currently new development of Web technology are XML and RDF, they are foundation of Web-based intelligent application domain.RDF(S) is the standard for metadata description of Web and the foundation of building a machine-understandable knowledge system. As a hotspot technology in KE , ontology can support knowledge modeling and description on the applications. Based on current ontology modeling language and RDFS, OIL (Ontology Inference Layer or Ontology Interchange Layer) which is proposed by European OntoKnowledge consortium is a (three layer structural) ontology modeling language aiming at Web-based KE modeling, defined by layer structure. Aiming at machine-understandable semantics expression required by semantics Web, OIL can express knowledge ontology on Web and reason. As a proposition, OIL combines widely used model primitive of framework-based language and reasoning service provided by DL. At the same time, OIL is compatible with RDF and contains precise semantics to describe meaning of terms. By employing the theory and technology of ontology and OIL/RDF(S) in GDSS, it not only facilitate knowledge sharing andreuse but also provide the semantic interoperability for data and knowledge exchange. This adapt to the new development of GDSS in current network.Firstly, in this paper, I introduced importance of using computer to support group decision, character,goals,technology level of GDSS, and development and defect of GDSS; secondly, I discussed background, development, character and application of XML/RDF technology ; and then I introduced Ontology technology , and integration, model method and application of it; what's more, I introduced foundation, layer structure, language description of ontology language OIL; in the end, by employing Ontology/OIL technology in GDSS, I introduced hardware and software structure of GDSS, and through practising in the Natural Gas Scheduling Decision Support System in Emergence, I explained model base and rules base of OIL-based GDSS, furthermore I introduced decision procedure of GDSS.