Dr. Amir MOSAVI, Ph.D.

Data Scientist
Technische Universitt Darmstadt

Predictive Decision Making

Amir Mosavi

Abstract. Prediction brings insight into unknown. Accurate predictions can

potentially transform businesses, industries, and almost any organization.
Marketing, financial services, insurance, retail, and healthcare are just a few
industries seeking for accurate predictions to enhance their decisions. Today,
humanity more than ever seeks accurate predictions to better react to the climate
changes. Due to uncertainties, complexity of the prediction functions and high
computation costs, the conventional mathematical modeling approach cannot
provide any reliable prediction model. Instead predictive analytics, emerged from
data science, identifies patterns in big data to build predictive model for
organizations. Although prediction modeling is meant to empower the decision-
support systems, in reality it could not be beneficial without decision-analysis, as
yet identifying the best possible response to the valid prediction is the actual
problem that organizations facing now. In fact optimizing the optimal decisions
and anticipation of every decision and its consequences must be also predicted and
optimized. To scale to the complexity created Dr. Mosavi coins the term
predictive-decision model a novel integration of prediction analytics with
decision modeling, where predictions are optimized and an intelligent agent makes
automated decisions relying on learning algorithms and decision preferences. This
will revolutionize the way decision-support systems function today.
Dr. Amir MOSAVI, Ph.D.
Data Scientist
Technische Universitt Darmstadt

Background
The purpose of decision-support systems is to empower organizations facing
complicated and large-scale problems. Decision-support systems function based on
decision analysis which means evaluating the alternatives' characteristics on a number
of criteria or attributes in order to rank, sort or choose among the alternatives. The
complexity of real-life decision making problems originates from the presence of
multiple decision criteria. Typically, there does not exist a unique optimal solution for
the real-life problems. Thus it is necessary to use preferences to differentiate between
solutions. Structuring complex problems in the context of multiple decision criteria
explicitly leads to more informed and better decisions. However there is not a unique
optimal solution to a multiple criteria decision problem that can be obtained without
incorporating preference information. The solution typically requires a series of
mathematical programming models in order to reveal implicitly defined solutions. And
for the mathematical programming models containing integer variables with
substantial computational difficulty multiple objective optimization algorithms are
used. Since the start of the modern multiple-criteria decision-making discipline in the
early 1960s numerous approaches and methods introduced. However among the vast
number of methods introduced none can actually anticipate the consequences of the
decision made. In the other words decision support systems are not equipped with the
tools to predict the consequences associate with a solution. In fact prediction research
and decision-making research communities have been often apart. Integration of
decision-analysis tools with predictive analytics; although it seams to be a powerful
concept for creating the next generation of decision-support systems, it has never been
the case. Nevertheless decision-support systems can highly benefit from the latest
technological advancements of predictive analytics. However it is clear that predictive
Dr. Amir MOSAVI, Ph.D.
Data Scientist
Technische Universitt Darmstadt

analytics has not contributed to the decision-analysis systems as it probably should

have. To integrate decision-making and prediction, Dr. Mosavi coins the term
predictive-decision model what he believes in its extensive potential for
transforming latest discoveries into a major innovation in decision science and
prediction.

Details of Research
Prediction brings insight into unknown. However the true purpose of prediction is
about taking an action with more knowledge about the consequences of it. Accurate
predictions can potentially transform businesses, industries, and almost any
organization. Marketing, financial services, insurance, retail, election forecasting
and healthcare are just a few industries seeking for accurate predictions to enhance
their decisions. Today, humanity more than ever seeks accurate predictions to better
react to the climate changes. Due to uncertainties, complexity of the prediction
functions and high computation costs, the conventional mathematical modeling
approach cannot provide any reliable prediction model. Instead predictive analytics,
emerged from data science, identifies patterns in big data to build predictive model
for organizations. Although prediction modeling is meant to empower the decision-
support systems, in reality it could not be beneficial without decision-analysis, as
yet identifying the best possible response to the valid prediction is the actual
problem that organizations facing now. Predictive analytics cannot be beneficial
without existence of decision analysis. In fact a prediction is successful when it
leads to the optimal decision and consequently right action. Taking the right action
is as important as making the accurate prediction. Although predictive analytics
Dr. Amir MOSAVI, Ph.D.
Data Scientist
Technische Universitt Darmstadt

provide powerful tools for prediction, the organizations are left with making
decision without an insight into possible choices. Not knowing that the
consequences of every decision that may be made is not clear. The reality is more
complicated than that. To make an informed decision the consequences of possible
decisions also must be predicted. Organization in addition to the prediction models,
are to be provided with the consequences of every single decision. In fact
optimizing the optimal decisions and anticipation of every decision and its
consequences must be also predicted and optimized. To scale to the complexity
created Dr. Mosavi coins the term predictive-decision model a novel integration
of prediction analytics with decision modeling, where predictions are optimized and
an intelligent agent makes automated decisions relying on learning algorithms and
decision preferences. This will revolutionize the way decision-support systems
function today. Dr. Mosavi will conduct research on the integration of two research
fields of prediction and decision-making applying this concept in a variety of real-
life problems. His vision is to create complete models of predictive-decision to be
able to make informed and automated decisions. He proposes an integrated system
of predictive analyics and decision-analysis where numerous predictions are
analyzed for identifying the optimum decision leading to the right action.

A. MOSAVI
Dr. Amir Mosavi, Ph.D.
Darmstadt 15 December 2015
Dr. Amir MOSAVI, Ph.D.
Data Scientist
Technische Universitt Darmstadt

Dr.Mosavi received numerous research awards, four postdoc fellowships, and

managed more than 15 international research stays at the top research institutes.
He is the Green-talent awardee of 2015 praised by German research minister for
his promising research on predictive models for climate change risk reduction. In
2013 he was among the top five scientists in the world to win the UNESCO-TWAS
for his work of accurate prediction-decision tools for reducing the climate change
impacts. As an expert in both data science and decision science, he consulted
world's largest companies with advancement of their prediction and decision
models to anticipate the consequences of the potential actions in order to make
better decision in an automated manner. Dr.Mosavi coins the term predictive-
decision model what he believes in its extensive potential for transforming latest
discoveries into a major innovation in decision science and prediction.
~ A. MOSAVI. 2015.