This title represents an ambitious undertaking, namely a broad view on the nature of intelligent decision making, which is characterized by the use of models and methods in the framework of decision support for management. With this title we want to reflect the scope of our field, but, at the same time, honor our colleague th Paul Stahly on the occasion of his 65 birthday. Paul Stahly has over decades invested his energy in developing the area of Operations Research from such a broad point of view. He has done this not only at his chairs at the HSG / University of St. Gallen and the University of Linz, but also on a broad international level as editor of ITOR and as influential member of all the Operations Research societies in the German speaking countries. He has, in particular, enriched our area by application-oriented research and industrial projects in fields such as logistics, emergency planning, [mance, and others, and he was pivotal in strengthening the cooperation between the national and international OR societies, particular in the German speaking area. VI Consequently, many colleagues who partly cooperated very closely with him, have contributed to this monograph. Some of these contributions have been presented at a colloquium in January 2001 in St. Gallen in honor of Paul Stahly. This colloquium was attended by many colleagues coming from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and even from the United States.

Franz Ferschl is seventy. According to his birth certificate it is true, but it is unbelievable. Two of the three editors remembers very well the Golden Age of Operations Research at Bonn when Franz Ferschl worked together with Wilhelm Krelle, Martin Beckmann and Horst Albach. The importance of this fruitful cooperation is reflected by the fact that half of the contributors to this book were strongly influenced by Franz Ferschl and his colleagues at the University of Bonn. Clearly, Franz Ferschl left his traces at all the other places of his professional activities, in Vienna and Munich. This is demonstrated by the present volume as well. Born in 1929 in the Upper-Austrian Miihlviertel, his scientific education brought him to Vienna where he studied mathematics. In his early years he was attracted by Statistics and Operations Research. During his employment at the Osterreichische Bundeskammer fUr Gewerbliche Wirtschaft in Vienna he prepared his famous book on queueing theory and stochastic processes in economics. This work has been achieved during his scarce time left by his duties at the Bundeskammer, mostly between 6 a.m. and midnight. All those troubles were, however, soon rewarded by the chair of statistics at Bonn University. As a real Austrian, the amenities of the Rhineland could not prevent him from returning to Vienna, where he took the chair of statistics.

This book is written for those seeking a decision theory appropriate for use in serious choices such as insurance. It employs stages of knowledge ahead to track satisfactions and dissatisfactions. From experimental and questionnaire data, people take into account such stages of knowledge ahead satisfactions and dissatisfactions. This means we must go beyond standard decision theories like expected utility or cumulative prospect theory.

This proceedings volume contains a selection of papers presented at the International Conference on Operations Research (SOR 2002).The contributions cover the broad interdisciplinary spectrum of Operations Research and present recent advances in theory, development of methods, and applications in practice. Subjects covered are Production, Logistics and Supply Chain Production, Marketing and Data Analysis, Transportation and Traffic, Scheduling and Project Management, Telecommunication and Information Technology, Energy and Environment, Public Economy, Health, Agriculture, Education, Banking, Finance, Insurance, Risk Management, Continuous Optimization, Discrete and Combinatorial Optimization, Stochastic and Dynamic Programming, Simulation, Control Theory, Systems Dynamics, Dynamic Games, Game Theory, Auctioning and Bidding, Experimental Economics, Econometrics, Statistics and Mathematical Economics, Fuzzy Logic, Multicriteria Decision Making, Decision Theory.

Franz Ferschl is seventy. According to his birth certificate it is true, but it is unbelievable. Two of the three editors remembers very well the Golden Age of Operations Research at Bonn when Franz Ferschl worked together with Wilhelm Krelle, Martin Beckmann and Horst Albach. The importance of this fruitful cooperation is reflected by the fact that half of the contributors to this book were strongly influenced by Franz Ferschl and his colleagues at the University of Bonn. Clearly, Franz Ferschl left his traces at all the other places of his professional activities, in Vienna and Munich. This is demonstrated by the present volume as well. Born in 1929 in the Upper-Austrian Miihlviertel, his scientific education brought him to Vienna where he studied mathematics. In his early years he was attracted by Statistics and Operations Research. During his employment at the Osterreichische Bundeskammer fUr Gewerbliche Wirtschaft in Vienna he prepared his famous book on queueing theory and stochastic processes in economics. This work has been achieved during his scarce time left by his duties at the Bundeskammer, mostly between 6 a.m. and midnight. All those troubles were, however, soon rewarded by the chair of statistics at Bonn University. As a real Austrian, the amenities of the Rhineland could not prevent him from returning to Vienna, where he took the chair of statistics.

The structure of a Silverman game can be explained very quickly: Each of two players independently selects a number out of a prede termined set, not necessarily the same one for both of them. The higher number wins unless it is at least k times as high as the other one; if this is the case the lower number wins. The game ends in a draw if both numbers are equal. k is a constant greater than 1. The simplicity of the rules stimulates the curiosity of the the orist. Admittedly, Silverman games do not seem to have a direct applied significance, but nevertheless much can be learnt from their study. This book succeeds to give an almost complete overview over the structure of optimal strategies and it reveals a surprising wealth of interesting detail. A field like game theory does not only need research on broad questions and fundamental issues, but also specialized work on re stricted topics. Even if not many readers are interested in the subject matter, those who are will appreciate this monograph."

A Silverman game is a two-person zero-sum game defined in terms of two sets S I and S II of positive numbers, and two parameters, the threshold T > 1 and the penalty v > 0. Players I and II independently choose numbers from S I and S II, respectively. The higher number wins 1, unless it is at least T times as large as the other, in which case it loses v. Equal numbers tie. Such a game might be used to model various bidding or spending situations in which within some bounds the higher bidder or bigger spender wins, but loses if it is overdone. Such situations may include spending on armaments, advertising spending or sealed bids in an auction. Previous work has dealt mainly with special cases. In this work recent progress for arbitrary discrete sets S I and S II is presented. Under quite general conditions, these games reduce to finite matrix games. A large class of games are completely determined by the diagonal of the matrix, and it is shown how the great majority of these appear to have unique optimal strategies. The work is accessible to all who are familiar with basic noncooperative game theory.

Die funfte Auflage dieses Lehrbuchs wurde in wesentlichen Punkten uberarbeitet und erganzt und ist somit fast ein neues Buch geworden. Unser Ziel ist es, Studierenden der Wirtschaftswissenschaften jene mathematischen Grundkenntnisse zu vermitteln, die im weiteren Studium benotigt werden. Demgemass werden Lineare Algebra, Analysis und Optimierung sowohl grundsatzlich als auch in der Anwendung auf okonomische Fragestellungen behandelt. Ausgeklammert bleibt dabei die Stochastik. Auf mathematische Prazision wurde durchaus Wert gelegt, ohne diesen Begriff uberzustrapazieren. Beispiele, einige zum Verstandnis der Methodik, andere mit Bezug auf wirtschaftliche Probleme, erganzen den Text. Zum Verstandnis sollten die mathematischen Grundkenntnisse aus der Schule leicht ausreichen. Das Buch ist speziell fur Studienanfanger gestaltet. Abbildungen erganzen den Stoff und sollen die Inhalte leichter verstandlich machen."

Das Buch enthalt ausgewahlte Vortrage, die anlasslich des Symposiums uber Operations Research (SOR'95) in der Zeit vom 13.-15.9.1995 an der Universitat Passau gehalten wurden. Der Leser erhalt einen Einblick in neueste Forschungsergebnisse auf dem Gebiet des Operations Research. Der Sammelband demonstriert eindrucksvoll das weite Spektrum der vom Operations Research heute behandelten Thematiken. Neben primar methodischen Fragestellungen bilden praxisorientierte Themen wie Anwendungsberichte aus der Praxis, im Umweltschutz, der Logistik und Verkehrsplanung einen Schwerpunkt. Deutlich wird auch die Ausstrahlung des Operations Research in andere wissenschaftliche Disziplinen wie Informatik, Okonomie und Wirtschaftsinformatik."

The book presents a broad view on the nature of intelligent decision-making which is characterized by the use of models and methods in the framework of decision support for management. Contributions to this volume dedicated to Paul StAhly on the occasion of his 65th birthday include theoretical research and applications in optimization, operations research as well as decision support and management systems.