Advanced systems for program appraisal: prospects for General Systems Decision Support centres in the USA

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Abstract
Advances in information technology and systems science are opening up new opportunities for improved decision support systems at the highest levels of the US government. Federal agencies already make extensive use of computer-based decision support, including spreadsheet software, decision analysis models, forecasting techniques and (sometimes) decision conferences and computer conferences. Federal agencies are also increasingly using electronic data bases, remote-sensing data from satellites, advanced computational capability and advanced computer graphics and displays. These developments are rarely integrated together and applied in direct support of top-level agency and government-wide decision-making. Realization of improved top-level decision support could be achieved through a synthesis of technical, informational, and analytical advances utilizing general systems and cybernetics concepts to create what might be called general systems decision support centres or systems (GSDSS). GSDSS could help the government cope with increasingly complex national and world problems, and to anticipate better the impacts of proposed programs and projects.

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