Putting forward a unified presentation of the features and possible applications of probabilistic preferences composition, and serving as a methodology for decisions employing multiple criteria, this book maximizes reader insights into the evaluation in probabilistic terms and the development of composition approaches that do not depend on assigning weights to the criteria. With key applications in important areas of management such as failure modes, effects analysis and productivity analysis - together with explanations about the application of the concepts involved -this book makes available numerical examples of probabilistic transformation development and probabilistic composition. Useful not only as a reference source for researchers, but also in teaching classes of graduate courses in Production Engineering and Management Science, the key themes of the book will be of especial interest to researchers in the field of Operational Research.

This book provides an analysis of strategic behavior in international crises. Various aspects of crisis decision and interaction, such as initiation, misperception, deception, learning, and termination, are studied by means of a game model that incorporates psychological variables. This integrative approach is designed to narrow the gap between psychological and game-theoretical studies of crisis, which are generally considered to be incompatible. The utility of the approach is demonstrated by means of an in-depth case study of the 1967 Middle East crisis. This study will be of interest to scholars in political science and international relations and political science, crisis theory, and game theory.

Effective decision making requires a clear methodology, particularly in complex, globally relevant situations. Institutions and companies in all disciplines and sectors are faced with increasingly multi-faceted areas of uncertainty which cannot always be effectively handled by traditional strategies. Complex Strategic Choices provides clear principles and methods which can guide and support strategic decision to face modern challenges. By considering ways in which planning practices can be renewed and exploring the possibilities for acquiring awareness and tools to add value to strategic decision making, Complex Strategic Choices presents a methodology which is further illustrated by a number of case studies and example applications. Dr. Techn. Steen Leleur has adapted previously established research based on feedback and input from various conferences, journals and students resulting in new material stemming from and focusing on practical application of systemic planning. The outcome is a coherent and flexible approach named systemic planning. The inclusion of both the theoretical and practical aspects of systemic planning makes this book a key resource for researchers and students in the field of planning and decision analysis as well as practitioners dealing with strategic analysis and decision making. More broadly, Complex Strategic Choices acts as guide for professionals and students involved in complex planning tasks across several fields such as business and engineering.

Straight Choices provides a fascinating introduction to the psychology of decision making, enhanced by discussion of relevant examples of decision problems faced in everyday life. Thoroughly revised and updated throughout, this edition provides an integrative account of the psychology of decision-making and shows how psychological research can help us understand our uncertain world. The book emphasizes the relationship between learning and decision-making, arguing that the best way to understand how and why decisions are made is in the context of the learning and knowledge acquisition which precedes them, and the feedback which follows. The mechanisms of learning and the structure of environments in which decisions are made are carefully examined to explore their impact on our choices. The authors then consider whether we are all constrained to fall prey to cognitive biases, or whether, with sufficient exposure, we can find optimal decision strategies and improve our decision making. This edition highlights advances made in judgment and decision making research, with additional coverage of behavioral insights, nudging, artificial intelligence, and explanation-based decision making. Written in a non-technical manner, this book is an essential read for all students and researchers in cognitive psychology, behavioral economics, and the decision sciences, as well as anyone interested in the nature of decision making.

This book presents a contemporary view of the role of information quality in information fusion and decision making, and provides a formal foundation and the implementation strategies required for dealing with insufficient information quality in building fusion systems for decision making. Information fusion is the process of gathering, processing, and combining large amounts of information from multiple and diverse sources, including physical sensors to human intelligence reports and social media. That data and information may be unreliable, of low fidelity, insufficient resolution, contradictory, fake and/or redundant. Sources may provide unverified reports obtained from other sources resulting in correlations and biases. The success of the fusion processing depends on how well knowledge produced by the processing chain represents reality, which in turn depends on how adequate data are, how good and adequate are the models used, and how accurate, appropriate or applicable prior and contextual knowledge is. By offering contributions by leading experts, this book provides an unparalleled understanding of the problem of information quality in information fusion and decision-making for researchers and professionals in the field.

The mental well-being of children and adults is shockingly poor. Marc Brackett, author of Permission to Feel, knows why. And he knows what we can do.

Marc Brackett is a professor in Yale University’s Child Study Center and founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. In his 25 years as an emotion scientist, he has developed a remarkably effective plan to improve the lives of children and adults – a blueprint for understanding our emotions and using them wisely so that they help, rather than hinder, our success and well-being. The core of his approach is a legacy from his childhood, from an astute uncle who gave him permission to feel. He was the first adult who managed to see Marc, listen to him, and recognize the suffering, bullying, and abuse he’d endured. And that was the beginning of Marc’s awareness that what he was going through was temporary. He wasn’t alone, he wasn’t stuck on a timeline, and he wasn’t “wrong” to feel scared, isolated, and angry. Now, best of all, he could do something about it.

In the decades since, Marc has led large research teams and raised tens of millions of dollars to investigate the roots of emotional well-being. His prescription for healthy children (and their parents, teachers, and schools) is a system called RULER, a high-impact and fast-effect approach to understanding and mastering emotions that has already transformed the thousands of schools that have adopted it. RULER has been proven to reduce stress and burnout, improve school climate, and enhance academic achievement. This book is the culmination of Marc’s development of RULER and his way to share the strategies and skills with readers around the world. It is tested, and it works.

This book combines rigor, science, passion and inspiration in equal parts. Too many children and adults are suffering; they are ashamed of their feelings and emotionally unskilled, but they don’t have to be. Marc Brackett’s life mission is to reverse this course, and this book can show you how.

Have you ever wondered why you make bad decisions? Or why it's so hard to make a decision in the first place? Through pioneering research into behavioural science, decisions expert Dr Sheheryar Banuri has designed an entirely novel decision-making framework which can be adopted into everyday life to help us better our decision-making skills by understanding and streamlining the process. The result? Simple, effective and efficient techniques to combat indecision. The Decisive Mind will draw on examples from evolutionary psychology, examine our ability (or inability) to prioritise and highlight the scenarios that force decision-making errors, and help us understand our own minds. By unpicking a lifetime's worth of misconceptions about our own decision-making patterns and habits, this book will guide you on your first steps towards optimising your own brain space.

This book contains the keynote papers delivered at the First World Environmental Education Congress (FWEEC) held in Espinho, Portugal in May, 2003. The FWEEC gathered participants from 38 countries, offering an international platform for educators, scientists, researchers, scholars, politicians, technicians, activists, media and teachers to present and debate world wide issues in environmental education. The themes it deals with include environmental policies and education, media and communication, environmental activism and citizenship, local activities, sustainable agriculture and tourism, economics and sustainability, communication, evaluation techniques, teacher training and general aspects of research. The papers offer an up-dated overview of various trends related to international environmental education, including aspects of research, teaching and project based work. Due to its nature and international scope, this publication is of special interest to educators, scientists, researchers, politicians, technicians, environment activists, teachers and others, interested in the ways environmental education is seen and practiced all over the world.

The Art and Science of Making Up Your Mind presents basic decision-making principles and tools to help the reader respond efficiently and wisely to everyday dilemmas. Although most decisions are made informally (whether intuitively without deliberate thought, or based on careful reflection), over the centuries people have tried to develop systematic, scientific and structured ways in which to make decisions. Using qualitative counterparts to quantitative models, Rex Brown takes the reader through the basics, like 'what is a decision' and then considers a wide variety of real-life decisions, explaining how the best judgments can be made using logical principles. Combining multiple evaluations of the same judgment ("hybrid judgment") and exploring innovative analytical concepts (such as "ideal judgment"), this book explores and analyzes the skills needed to master the basics of non-mathematical decision making, and what should be done, using real world illustrations of decision methods. The book is an ideal companion for students of Thinking, Reasoning and Decision-Making, and also for anyone wanting to understand how to make better judgments in their everyday lives.

The concept of fuzziness, inspired by Zadeh (1965), brings us fruitful results when it is applied to problems in decision making. Recently, problems in fuzzy decision making are getting more complex, and one of the most complex fac tors is dynamics in systems. Dynamical approach to fuzzy decision making has been proposed by Bellman and Zadeh's celebrated paper "Decision-making in a fuzzy environment" (1970). The idea has developed into fuzzy mathemati cal programming and has been applied in many fields including management science, operations research, control theory, engineering, systems analysis, computer science, mathematical finance etc. Dynamic programming, advo cated in Bellmans book "Dynamic programming" (1957), is one of the most powerful tools to deal with dynamics in systems, and Bellman and Zadeh has proposed the optimality principle in fuzzy decision making by (1970) introducing fuzzy dynamic programming. Fuzzy dynamic programming and fuzzy mathematical programming has been making remakable progress after they were given life by Bellman and Zadeh's paper (1970). In this volume, various kinds of dynamics, not only time but also structure of systems, are considered. This volume contains ten reviewed papers, which deal with dynamics in theory and applications and whose topics are poten tially related to dynamics and are expected to develope dynamical study in near future. first, fuzzy dynamic programming is reviewed from a viewpoint of its origin and consider its developement in theory and applications."

Decision making is the oil that greases the wheel of social movement organizing. Done poorly, it derails organizations and coalitions; done well, it advances the movement and may model those changes movements seek to effect in society. Despite its importance, movement decision making has been little studied. Section One makes a singular contribution to the study of social movement decision making through seven focused case studies, followed by a critical commentary. The case studies on decision making cut across a wide breadth of social movement contexts, including Peace Brigades International teams, a feminist bakery collective, Earth First, the NGO Forum on Women, Friends of the Earth, the Tlapanec indigenous movement in Mexico, an on-line strategic voting campaign, and Korean labor movements. The section concludes with Jane Mansbridge's synthesis and critical commentary on the papers, wherein she continues to make her own substantive contributions to the literature on consensus decision making. The three papers in Section Two focus on Northern Ireland, where frustration with inter-community conflict resolution spawned a movement promoting intra-community or 'single tradition' programs. Two chapters provide invaluable comparative studies of the benefits and shortcomings of these counter-movements, while the third paper applies constructive conflict and nonviolent action theories to recent developments in the annual parades disputes. The volume closes with two papers on Native American issues. The first examines an initiative to teach conflict history and build conflict analysis and resolution skills among the Seneca Nation. The final case study of two Native American women's organizations demonstrates how socially constructed identities are critical to movement framing processes and collective actions. With this volume, RSMCC continues its long-standing tradition of publishing cutting edge studies in social movements, conflict resolution, and social change.

The Cold War produced a matrix of Canadian/US extra-governmental military and economic relationships which significantly shaped Canadian political decision-making as it related to the defence of the continent under the auspices of the North American Air/Aerospace Defence Agreement (NORAD). In the post-cold War era, these relationships continue to effectively support a traditional security agenda for the Canadian government. The rewritten NORAD Agreement, signed in March 1996, is the vehicle for Canadian participation in US missile defence programs worldwide. Paying particular attention to the decisions to adopt a nuclear weapons role for Canada's continental air defence forces, to test the US air-lunched cruise missile in the Canadian North, and to become increasingly involved in active missile and space-based defence programs, the author examines: * the Cold War construction of Canadian/US military and economic relationships * the effects of these relationships on political decision-making * the public discourse as a site of alternative understandings of Canada's role in the Cold War. Ann Denholm Crosby provides a challenging analysis of Canadian defence decision-making in both its Cold war and post-Cold War contexts.