This is the first comprehensive book to present, in English, the multicriteria methodology for decision aiding. In the foreword the distinctive features and main ideas of the European School of MCDA are outlined. The twelve chapters are essentially expository in nature, but scholarly in treatment. Some questions, which are too often neglected in the literature on decision theory, such as how is a decision made, who are the actors, what is a decision aiding model, how to define the set of alternatives, are discussed. Examples are used throughout the book to illustrate the various concepts. Ways to model the consequences of each alternative and building criteria taking into account the inevitable imprecisions, uncertainties and indeterminations are described and illustrated. The three classical operational approaches of MCDA: synthesis in one criterion (including MAUT), synthesis by outranking relations, interactive local judgements, are studied. This methodology tries to be a theoretical or intellectual framework directed towards formulating recommendations for action. The book is addressed to graduate students, postgraduates and researchers in management sciences, or operations research or decision analysis, as well as all scientists who use models and methods for guiding decisions. In addition all those who, in business and administration, wish to take part in decision-making through scientific reasoning will be interested.

This book develops and applies an analytical approach to deriving the probability laws of science in general. It is called 'extreme physical information' or EPI. EPI is an expression of the imperfection of observation: Owing to random interaction of a subject with its observer and other possible disturbances, its measurement contains less Fisher information than does the subject per se. Moreover, the information loss is an extreme value. An EPI output may alternatively be viewed as the payoff of a zero-sum game of information acquisition between the observer and a 'demon' in subject space. EPI derives, Escher-like, the very probability law that gave rise to the measurement. In applications, EPI is used to derive both existing and new analytical relations governing probability laws of physics, genetics, cancer growth, ecology and economics. This unified approach will be fascinating to students and those who seek a new mathematical tool of research.

This book studies interpreting between languages as a discourse process and as about managing ccommunication between two people who do not speak a common language. Roy examines the turn exchanges of a face-to-face interpreted event in order to offer a definition of interpreted events, describe the process of taking turns with an interpreter, and account for the role of the interpreter in terms of the performance in interaction.

"Combinatorial Programming" are two words whose juxtaposition still strike us as unusual, nevertheless their association in recent years adequately reflects the preoccupations underlying differing work fields, and their importance will increase both from methodology and application view points. To those who like definitions and consider the function of this book to furnish one for combinatorial programming, I will simply say that it is precise ly this which is exclusively treated here and which in the eyes of the autors is the heart of this branch of applied mathematics. Such was the initial intention of those who in the spring of 1973 gathered tog ther in Paris to state the work of the Advanced Study Institute from which this book arises. As young as combinatorial programming is, it was easy to see that a two week school was insufficient to cover the subject in an exhaustive manner. Finally the decision had to be taken to reduce to book form, and to organise within this particular means of expression, the essential syntheses and communications. Unfortunately the discussions, the round tables, and the majority of the case studies could not be included in this book which is more of a hand-book on the subject. XIV PREFACE The choice and orientation of the surveys has been guided by two criteria: the importance of already accomplished work, and the originality of the survey to be undertaken."

This book develops and applies an analytical approach to deriving the probability laws of science in general. It is called 'extreme physical information' or EPI. EPI is an expression of the imperfection of observation: Owing to random interaction of a subject with its observer and other possible disturbances, its measurement contains less Fisher information than does the subject per se. Moreover, the information loss is an extreme value. An EPI output may alternatively be viewed as the payoff of a zero-sum game of information acquisition between the observer and a 'demon' in subject space. EPI derives, Escher-like, the very probability law that gave rise to the measurement. In applications, EPI is used to derive both existing and new analytical relations governing probability laws of physics, genetics, cancer growth, ecology and economics. This unified approach will be fascinating to students and those who seek a new mathematical tool of research.