Graphical Decision-Theoretic Models on the Web

The principles of decision-analytic decision support, implemented in GeNIe (Graphical Network Interface) and SMILE (Structural Modeling, Inference, and Learning Engine) can be applied in practical decision support systems (DSSs). GeNIe plays the role of a developer's environment and SMILE plays the role of the reasoning engine. A decision support system based on SMILE can be equipped with a dedicated user interface. GeNIe's name and its uncommon capitalization originate from the name Graphical Network Interface, given to the original simple interface to SMILE, the library of functions for graphical probabilistic and decision-theoretic models. GeNIe is an outer shell to SMILE. GeNIe is implemented in Visual C++ and draws heavily on the MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes). GeNIe runs under one of the most popular computing platforms: Windows operating systems so that this makes it not easily portable. GeNIe is platform dependent and runs only on Windows computers. This is one disadvantage of using GeNIe. This paper presents a development environment for building graphical decision-theoretic models working on the website by using an original engine called “SMILE”. Finally, this paper also presents the prototype for using SMILE on the web.