Subject: New book : Evaluation and Decision Models - a Critical Perspective Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001 11:52:52 +0200 From: Thierry Marchant To: dsinfo@sphinx.gsu.EDU NEW BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT ************************************************************** * * * EVALUATION AND DECISION MODELS : A CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE * * * ************************************************************** By Denis Bouyssou Thierry Marchant Patrice Perny Marc Pirlot Alexis Tsoukias Philippe Vincke Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston International Series In Operations Research And Management Science Vol. 32, Hardbound, ISBN 0-7923-7250-6 November 2000, 288 pp. http://kapis.www.wkap.nl/book.htm/0-7923-7250-6 BRIEF DESCRIPTION ----------------- Deciding is a very complex and difficult task. When the task is too complex or the interests at stake are too important, it quite often happens that we do not know or we are not sure what to decide and, in many instances, we resort to a decision support technique: an informal one (we toss a coin, we ask an oracle, we visit an astrologer, we consult an expert) or a formal one. This book focuses on the latter techniques: cost-benefit analysis, multiple criteria decision analysis, decision trees, etc. Such techniques are now part of our everyday life: · When the director of a school must decide whether a given student will pass or fail, he usually asks each teacher to assess the merits of the student by means of a grade. The director then sums the grades and compares the result to a threshold. · When a bank must decide whether a given client will obtain a credit or not, a technique, called credit scoring, is often used. · When the mayor of a city decides to temporarily forbid car traffic in a city because of air pollution, he probably takes the value of some indicators, e.g. the air quality index, into account. · Groups or committees must also make decisions. In order to do so, they often use voting procedures. These formal techniques so widespread that almost no one can pretend he is not using or suffering the consequences of one of them. Probably because of their formal character, they inspire respect and trust: they look "scientific". But are they really well founded ? Do they perform as well as we want ? Can we safely rely on them when we have to make important decisions ? This is the subject of this book. It aims at showing the power but also the limits of such models and hopefully will give some clues on how to use them properly. CONTENT ------- 1. Introduction. 2. Choosing on the basis of several opinions. 3. Building and aggregating evaluations. 4. Constructing measures. 5. Assessing competing projects. 6. Comparing on several attributes. 7. Deciding automatically. 8. Dealing with uncertainty. 9. Supporting decisions. 10. Conclusion. Bibliography. Index. AUDIENCE -------- No mathematical prerequisite needed. Technical details are kept at a minimum. This book should be of interest to anyone confronted to the use of evaluation and decision models e.g. school teachers, managers, computer scientists, economists, decision analysts, etc. ABOUT THE AUTHORS ----------------- The authors work in six different European universities. Their backgrounds are varied: mathematics, economics, engineering, law, and geology, and they teach in engineering, business, mathematics, computer science, and psychology in their universities. As a group, the authors have particular expertise in a variety of decision models that include preference modelling, fuzzy logic, aggregation techniques, social choice theory, artificial intelligence, problem structuring, measurement theory, operations research, and multiple criteria decision support. In addition to their decision analysis research, all the authors have been involved in a variety of high-impact applications which include software evaluation, location of a nuclear repository, the rehabilitation of a sewer network, and the location of high-voltage lines.