Preference Handling -- An Introductory Tutorial

We present a tutorial introduction to the area of preference handling--one of the core issues in the design of any system that automates or supports decision making. The main goal of this tutorial is to provide a framework, or perspective, within which current work on preference handling--representation, reasoning, and elicitation--can be understood. Our intention is not to provide a technical description of the diverse methods used but rather to provide a general perspective on the problem and its varied solutions and to highlight central ideas and techniques. Hence an understanding of the various aspects of preference handling should be of great relevance to anyone attempting to build systems that act on behalf of users or simply support their decisions. This could be a shopping site that attempts to help us identify the most preferred item, an information search and retrieval engine that attempts to provide us with the most preferred pieces of information, or more sophisticated embedded agents such as robots, personal assistants, and so on.