Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) is all about making choices in the presence of multiple conflicting criteria. MCDM has become one of the most important and fastest growing subfields of Operations Research/Management Science. As modern MCDM started to emerge about 50 years ago, it is now a good time to take stock of developments. This book aims to present an informal, nontechnical history of MCDM, supplemented with many pictures. It covers the major developments in MCDM, from early history until now. It also covers fascinating discoveries by Nobel Laureates and other prominent scholars. The book begins with the early history of MCDM, which covers the roots of MCDM through the 1960s. It proceeds to give a decade-by-decade account of major developments in the field starting from the 1970s until now. Written in a simple and accessible manner, this book will be of interest to students, academics, and professionals in the field of decision sciences.

Drawn from a conference honoring Gerald L. Thompson, the pioneer of operations research, this volume brings together some of the latest writings of major figures in the field. The volume is divided into four parts: the first part reviews the career and significance of Thompson, the second concentrates on linear and nonlinear optimization, the third looks at network and integer programming, and the fourth provides examples of applications-oriented research in manufacturing.

This volume will be an invaluable resource for all scholars and researchers involved in theory and methodology in operations research and management science.

This volume is based on lectures held at the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Multiple Criteria Decision Making and Risk Analysis Using Microcomputers that took place in Istanbul, Turkey from June 28 to July 8, 1987. The book considers aspects of multiple criteria decision making and risk analysis, with numerous methods and applications using microcomputers. The methodology included is fairly representative of the field. It covers the Analytical Hierarchy Process of Saaty, the approaches of Zionts and Wallenius and their colleagues, and the work of Dyer, Steuer, and Yu. Important behavioral considerations in decision making, psychological aspects of judgement and choice, and preference elicitation are discussed, followed by a number of applications of methods in various fields including hospital diagnostics systems and production planning. Special emphasis is placed on the growing importance of computer graphics in multiple criteria models. The approach of Korhonen and Wallenius in "A Pareto Race" is presented as a decision support system. The "Trimap" approach by Climaco, an approach that has some potential for end users, is of particular interest to MCDM researchers.

Ambitious as the enterprise was, and as demanding as the planning effort promised to be, we set out to organize the IX International Conference on Multiple criteria Decision Making (MCDM) which took place in Fairfax, Virginia, on August 5-8, 1990. We knew it was ambitious because the number of participants expected to attend the conference would approach 160, larger than that of earlier conferences, and because it would include a sizable contingent of 39 participants from the soviet union and Eastern Europe, possibly the largest yet. In many ways, it may be appropriate to say, this international conference presented a microcosm of peoples and new ideas that reflected the extraordinary events that were to take place in Europe and other parts of the world during that summer of 1990. with the theme: "Multiple criteria Decision Making and support at the Interface of Industry, Business and Government" we wanted to focus on new analytical methodologies and management tools, quantitative and qualitative evaluation of decision techniques, the design of experiments to test existing and proposed methods, and the experience gained in the application of these MCDM methods and tools to real-world problems during the last 10-15 years. Many analytical, behavioral, and technological advances are to be made, we feel, at the interface of MCDM Theory, the Behavioral Sciences, operations Research, Systems Engineering, Decision Theory, Mathematical Sciences, and Information Technology. viii The current proliferation of computer-based decision tools offers new challenges and opportunities.

The volume contains 43 (out of 185) papers that were presented at the 15th International Conference on Multiple Criteria Decision Making held in Ankara, Turkey July 10-14, 2000. The conference was one of the regular conferences of the International Society on Multiple Criteria Decision Making, which are held at approximately two-year intervals. The Ankara conference had 195 participants from 38 countries. The volume covers all relevant aspects of the field and presents the latest research results on MCDM.

During the Spring of 1979 one of us (Zionts) was invited to visit Erasmus University in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. It was there that Zionts met another of us (Telgen) who was then in the process of completing a dissertation on redundancy in linear programming. At that time, Telgen proposed an extended visit to Buffalo, during which time he and Zionts would do an extensive study on redundancy. Redundancy, hardly an exciting or new topic, does have numerous applications. Telgen and Zionts planned the project for the Summer of 1980, and enlisted the support of all the contributors as well as the other two members of our team (Karwan and Lotfi). Lotfi was then a Ph. D. student in Industrial Engineering searching for a thesis topic. Redundancy became his topic. Karwan and Zionts served as his thesis co-chairmen, with Telgen serving as an outside reader of the thesis. We initially had hoped to complete the study during Telgen's stay in Buffalo, but that was far too optimistic. Lotfi completed his dissertation during the late Spring-early Summer of 1981. As the project took shape, we decided that we had more than enough for an article, or even several articles. Accordingly, not wanting to produce redundant papers, we decided to produce this volume --- a state-of-the-art review of methods for handling redundancy and comprehensive tests of the various methods, together with extensions and further developments of the most promising methods.

The objective of this conference was to foster a healthy exchange of ideas and experience in the domain of multiple criteria problem solving. This conference was an outgrowth of an earlier conference I organized with Herve Thiriez at CESA, Jouy-en-Josas, France in 1975 during my stay at the European Institute in Brussels. When I re joined the State University of New York at Buffalo that year, I be gan to search for potential sponsors for this conference. Approxi mately one year later when the prospects began to look promising, I contacted several individuals to act as an informal coordinating committee for the conference. I wanted to avoid biasing the con ference completely to my way of thinking The members of this committee were Jim Dyer, Peter Fishburn, Ralph Kee. ney, Bernard Roy (Universite de Paris IX Dauphine who was unable to participate in the conference), and Milan Zeleny. Though the committee did not meet, per se, their inputs regarding format, possible participants, number of participants, length of the conference, and so on were of great value to me in planning and organizing the conference. I wish to acknowledge the contributions of this group. We were most fortunate in obtaining the financial support of the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management, Brussels .(one of the sponsors of the Jouy-en-Josas conference), the Office of Naval Research, and the State University of New York at Buffalo."

The conference was organized in order to assemble a group of researchers and practitioners in the area of Multiple Criteria Decision Making. The purpose was to discuss the current state of the art with respect to both theory and practice. This conference considered such points as recent t_heoretical developments in terms of models, the behavioral aspects of multiple criteria decision making, as well as practical applications already realized and 1n progress. In addition, there was interest in the problems of implementation of multiple-criteria methods, and the interface between theory and practice, Approximately 78 participants from 15 different countries attended the conference - both theorists and practitioners. A list of participants and their addresses is found on page 411 Because of the relatively large number of papers presented, large morning sessions followed by smaller parallel afternoon sessions were employed'. In general a discussant commented on each paper. In addition, considerable time was reserved for small-group discussion and interaction. In addition to expressing our gratitude to the participants for their enthusiastic reception and participation in the conference, we want. to thank particularly the speakers, session chairmen and discussants. We also wish to thank the C.E.S.A. and the European Institute for their support, as well as Mrs. Randee Pomerantz and Miss Dina Nagler. oth of the E.I.A.S.M., for their active role in the organization and arrangements for the conference, and Mrs. Jessie Goveas, E.I.A.S.M. for typing the conference proceedings."

Drawn from a conference honoring Gerald L. Thompson, the pioneer of operations research, this volume brings together some of the latest writings of major figures in the field. The volume is divided into four parts: the first part reviews the career and significance of Thompson, the second concentrates on linear and nonlinear optimization, the third looks at network and integer programming, and the fourth provides examples of applications-oriented research in manufacturing. This volume will be an invaluable resource for all scholars and researchers involved in theory and methodology in operations research and management science.