The present book fmds its roots in the International Conference on Methods and Applications of Multiple Criteria Decision Making held in Mons in May 1997. A small number of contributions to that conference were selected via a refereeing procedure and retained authors were requested to include in their final version their more recent results. This explains why some papers differ significantly from the original presentation. The introductory paper of Raynaud addresses the long range forecasts in Multiple Criteria Decision Making on the basis of a Delphi process that was run before and during the congress. In a second part, the French author explains how he and some of his partners could find the proof of an important conjecture : the iteration of a strongly monotonic choice function is not a strongly monotonic ranking function. The second part of the book covers methodological aspects of decision theory. The contribution of Bouyssou and Pirlot concerns the reformulation of classical conjoint measurement models that induce a complete and transitive preference binary relation on the set of alternatives which seem to be unrealistic when decision makers are asked to compare objects evaluated on several attributes. The authors propose to consider non transitive, non complete and non additive decomposable conjoint models. They define properties that characterize such models.

This book presents a unique collection of contributions from some of the foremost scholars in the field of risk and reliability analysis. Combining the most advanced analysis techniques with practical applications, it is one of the most comprehensive and up-to-date books available on risk-based engineering. All the fundamental concepts needed to conduct risk and reliability assessments are covered in detail, providing readers with a sound understanding of the field and making the book a powerful tool for students and researchers alike. This book was prepared in honor of Professor Armen Der Kiureghian, one of the fathers of modern risk and reliability analysis.

The book focuses on applications of belief functions to business decisions. Section I introduces the intuitive, conceptual and historical development of belief functions. Three different interpretations (the marginally correct approximation, the qualitative model, and the quantitative model) of belief functions are investigated, and rough set theory and structured query language (SQL) are used to express belief function semantics. Section II presents applications of belief functions in information systems and auditing. Included are discussions on how a belief-function framework provides a more efficient and effective audit methodology and also the appropriateness of belief functions to represent uncertainties in audit evidence. The third section deals with applications of belief functions to mergers and acquisitions; financial analysis of engineering enterprises; forecast demand for mobile satellite services; modeling financial portfolios; and economics.

Most successful organizations recognize Maintenance Parts and Procurement as a critical success factor to Asset Management Excellence and their fundamental supply chain value proposition. This book works as a guide to all the stakeholders that influence the success of their Maintenance Parts Operation and their enterprise's bottom line. Maintenance Parts Management Excellence: A Holistic Anatomy defines the Maintenance Parts Managements role in Asset Management Excellence and expands on the importance of the Parts Inventory Planner role in an organization. It discusses how to create a unique Maintenance Parts Management Strategy for an organization and offers insights on the multiple strategies needed to create and maintain a Maintenance Parts inventory policy. The book also provides an organized overall approach to creating Maintenance Parts Management Excellence in an enterprise. Executives with an organization responsible for the construction, management, and disposal of all assets classes (plant, equipment, IT assets), consultants responsible for assignments associated with optimizing life cycle decisions for clients, maintenance, and reliability professionals within an organization, will benefit from this professional plus book. Upper-level undergraduate engineering students, as well as graduate students of management who focus on operations management and engineering graduate students addressing issues of maintenance and reliability engineering, may also be interested in this book.

Gallhofer and Saris examine the collective choice processes in different decision-making units leading to World Wars I and II as well as the Cuban Missile Crisis, colonial wars, and to major foreign policy decisions of a European government after World War II. In the unit relating to the European government, they find strong evidence for consensual decision-making. But when disagreements occurred among the participants, alternative procedures were employed, such as postponements in order to search for additional information, shifts from argumentation to find a compromise, and change from consensus to majority decision-making. How quickly these shifts were made depended on the group norms.

This book provides a theoretical framework to understand how different foreign-policy decision-making units or groups arrive at a collective choice. The qualitative and quantitative studies presented here are based on written records and deal with the choice process of four different decision-making units in situations that pertain to important foreign policy decisions. Germany's decision-making process under Hitler to initiate World War II exemplifies a group with a leader who is insensitive to advice, making the decisions himself and using the group only for acclamation. Kennedy's decision-making during the Cuban Missile Crisis is very different, as it shows a leader sensitive to advice where the group has the task of presenting different options and their consequences. The Austro-Hungarian cabinet's decision to initiate World War I exemplifies a homogeneous group with a dissenter, although it arrived at a collective decision quite quickly using persuasion, compromise, and some coercion. The bulk of the study deals with a heterogeneous unit in a great variety of decision situations, because most Western European governments are of this type. Where there is extreme conflict and time pressure, consensual decision-making is abandoned and a majority choice is hammered out.

As the first systematic documented study of collective decision-making, as it pertains to different decision units, this book will be of considerable importance to scholars and researchers investigating the decision-making process in government and international affairs.

That risk communication ranks high on the policymaking agenda is beyond discussion today. The field is a point of intersection of social communication, practical management and policy making. It covers such diverse activities as to inform and educate the public about risk, and risk management in order to influence attitudes and behaviour, to act in situations of emergency or crises, to aid in decision-making and to assist in conflict resolution. Communication has grown into a major concern in current risk governance based on network co-ordinated management of public affairs conducted by authorities and companies and is recognized as a key component in the government of risk. This is especially salient in policy fields relating to environmental planning and resource management, urban planning, chemical and food regulation, or infrastructure planning, development and maintenance. This book explores risk communication research with a focus on new theoretical perspectives, research findings, and applied goals. It reflects on a broad range of innovative theoretical perspectives, methodological approaches and empirical areas. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Risk Research.

The risk process commonly used in the corporate world to deal with risks may be suitable for non-catastrophic events, but not for extreme events. By analyzing a series of past disasters and the relevant 'lessons learned', this books proposes a series of prescriptive measures to cope with future disasters.

The 'Precautionary Principle' has sparked the central controversy over European and U.S. risk regulation. The Reality of Precaution is the most comprehensive study to go beyond precaution as an abstract principle and test its reality in practice. This groundbreaking resource combines detailed case studies of a wide array of risks to health, safety, environment and security; a broad quantitative analysis; and cross-cutting chapters on politics, law, and perceptions. The authors rebut the rhetoric of conflicting European and American approaches to risk, and show that the reality has been the selective application of precaution to particular risks on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as a constructive exchange of policy ideas toward 'better regulation.' The book offers a new view of precaution, regulatory reform, comparative analysis, and transatlantic relations.

Water resources, both in terms of water quality and water quantity, are of critical importance in planning for sustainable development in Central Asia and the Caucasus, as well as in other parts of the world. This NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW), entitled "Risk Assessment as a Tool for Water Resources Decision-Making in Central Asia", was conducted on September 23-25, 2002 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The ARW addressed methods and approaches by which risk assessment methodology that has been developed in the United States, Europe and elsewhere can be applied to environmental and water resource problems in Central Asia. The stated goals of the ARWwere: * to assess the existing state of knowledge in the context of potential applications of risk assessment tools to water resources and other environmental issues in Central Asia; * to identify research gaps and directions for future research in the area of water resources which may be addressed through the application of risk assessment tools; * to promote closer working relationships between the scientists and technical experts from Central Asia and the Caucasus, as well as the scientists and technical experts from the United States and Europe. Based on historical experiences of Central Asian scientists and their colleagues in other parts of the world, there is a demonstrated need in the region to provide education, training and technical assistance on environmental decision-making tools, including risk assessment.

Although interest in Spatial Decision Support Systems (SDSS) continues to grow rapidly in a wide range of disciplines, students, planners, managers, and the research community have lacked a book that covers the fundamentals of SDSS along with the advanced design concepts required for building SDSS. Filling this need, Spatial Decision Support Systems: Principles and Practices provides a comprehensive examination of the various aspects of SDSS evolution, components, architecture, and implementation. It integrates research from a variety of disciplines, including the geosciences, to supply a complete overview of SDSS technologies and their application from an interdisciplinary perspective. This groundbreaking reference provides thorough coverage of the roots of SDSS. It explains the core principles of SDSS, how to use them in various decision making contexts, and how to design and develop them using readily available enabling technologies and commercial tools. The book consists of four major parts, each addressing different topic areas in SDSS: 1. Presents an introduction to SDSS and the evolution of SDSS 2. Covers the essential and optional components of SDSS 3. Focuses on the design and implementation of SDSS 4. Reviews SDSS applications from various domains and disciplines -- investigating current challenges and future directions The text includes numerous detailed case studies, example applications, and methods for tailoring SDSS to your work environment. It also integrates sample code segments throughout. Addressing the technical and organizational challenges that affect the success or failure of SDSS, the book concludes by considering future directions of this rapidly emerging field of study.

The book treats two approaches to decision theory: (1) the normative, purporting to determine how a 'perfectly rational' actor ought to choose among available alternatives; (2) the descriptive, based on observations of how people actually choose in real life and in laboratory experiments. The mathematical tools used in the normative approach range from elementary algebra to matrix and differential equations. Sections on different levels can be studied independently. Special emphasis is made on 'offshoots' of both theories to cognitive psychology, theoretical biology, and philosophy.

Although scientists have effectively employed the concepts of probability to address the complex problem of prediction, modern science still falls short in establishing true predictions with meaningful lead times of zero-probability major disasters. The recent earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, and China are tragic reminders of the critical need for improved methods of predicting natural disasters. Drawing on their vast practical experience and theoretical studies, Dr. Yi Lin and Professor Shoucheng OuYang examine some of the problems that exist in the modern system of science to provide the understanding required to improve our ability to forecast and prepare for such events.

Presenting a series of new understandings, theories, and a new system of methodology, Irregularities and Prediction of Major Disasters simplifies the world-class problem of prediction into a series of tasks that can be learned, mastered, and applied in the analysis and prediction of forthcoming changes in materials or fluids. These internationally respected authors introduce their novel method of digitization for dealing with irregular information, proven effective for predicting transitional changes in events. They also:

• Unveil a new methodology for forecasting zero-probability natural disasters
• Highlight the reasons for common forecasting failures
• Propose a method for resolving the mystery of nonlinearity
• Include numerous real-life case studies that illustrate how to properly digitize available information
• Supply proven methods for forecasting small-probability natural disasters

This authoritative resource provides a systematic discussion of the non-evolutionality of the modern system of science analyzing its capabilities and limitations. By touching on the need for change in some of the fundamentals in basic scientific theories and relevant methodologies, this book provides the scientific community with the understanding and methodology required to forecast zero-probability major disasters with greatly improved accuracy.

Information is precious. It reduces our uncertainty in making decisions. Knowledge about the outcome of an uncertain event gives the possessor an advantage. It changes the course of lives, nations, and history itself. Information is the food of Maxwell's demon. His power comes from know ing which particles are hot and which particles are cold. His existence was paradoxical to classical physics and only the realization that information too was a source of power led to his taming. Information has recently become a commodity, traded and sold like or ange juice or hog bellies. Colleges give degrees in information science and information management. Technology of the computer age has provided access to information in overwhelming quantity. Information has become something worth studying in its own right. The purpose of this volume is to introduce key developments and results in the area of generalized information theory, a theory that deals with uncertainty-based information within mathematical frameworks that are broader than classical set theory and probability theory. The volume is organized as follows."

Risks are everywhere in the business world. "Mastering Risk Modelling" provides the busy financial manager with useful tips andpractical templates for assessing, applying and modelling risk and uncertainty in Excel. The book is designed specifically to be of help to you if you don't have time to start from scratch - it will improve your abilities in Excel and give you a library of basic examples that you can use as a basis for further development.

It covers:

- Review of model design

- Risk and uncertainty

- Credit risk

- Project finance

- Financial analysis

- Valuation

- Options

- Bonds

- Equities

- Value at risk

- Simulation

This second edition contains brand new chapters:

- Revised models

- More material on credit risk modelling e.g. portfolios, bankruptcy models

- Shows dual 2003/2007 Excel key strokes

- More theory especially on statistics in Excel

- Basic statistics in Excel - tools and methods

- Capacity to borrow and repay

- Finding optimum mix of risk and return

- Fixed income risk models

- Visual Basic approach