Alexis Tsoukias – författare

Formal decision and evaluation models are sets of explicit and well-defined rules to collect, assess, and process information in order to be able to make recommendations in decision and/or evaluation processes. They are so widespread that almost no one can pretend not to have used or suffered the consequences of one of them. Our earlier companion volume, Evaluation and Decision Models, heavily criticised formal models but also argued that they could be useful. On the other hand, Evaluation and Decision Models with Multiple Criteria is a guide aimed at helping the analyst to choose a model and use it consistently. We propose a sound analysis of techniques and our presentation can be extended to most decision and evaluation models as a "decision aiding methodology".This volume is intended for the enlightened practitioner, for anyone who uses decision or evaluation models---for research or for applications---and is willing to question his practice, to have a deeper understanding of what he does.

1. 1 Motivations Deciding is a very complex and difficult task. Some people even argue that our ability to make decisions in complex situations is the main feature that distinguishes us from animals (it is also common to say that laughing is the main difference). Nevertheless, when the task is too complex or the interests at stake are too important, it quite often happens that we do not know or we are not sure what to decide and, in many instances, we resort to a decision support technique: an informal one-we toss a coin, we ask an oracle, we visit an astrologer, we consult an expert, we think-or a formal one. Although informal decision support techniques can be of interest, in this book, we will focus on formal ones. Among the latter, we find some well-known decision support techniques: cost-benefit analysis, multiple criteria decision analysis, decision trees, . . . But there are many other ones, sometimes not presented as decision support techniques, that help making decisions. Let us cite but a few examples. • When the director of a school must decide whether a given student will pass or fail, he usually asks each teacher to assess the merits of the student by means of a grade. The director then sums the grades and compares the result to a threshold. • When a bank must decide whether a given client will obtain a credit or not, a technique, called credit scoring, is often used.

Formal decision and evaluation models are sets of explicit and well-defined rules to collect, assess, and process information in order to be able to make recommendations in decision and/or evaluation processes. They are so widespread that almost no one can pretend not to have used or suffered the consequences of one of them. Our earlier companion volume, Evaluation and Decision Models, heavily criticised formal models but also argued that they could be useful. On the other hand, Evaluation and Decision Models with Multiple Criteria is a guide aimed at helping the analyst to choose a model and use it consistently. We propose a sound analysis of techniques and our presentation can be extended to most decision and evaluation models as a "decision aiding methodology".This volume is intended for the enlightened practitioner, for anyone who uses decision or evaluation models---for research or for applications---and is willing to question his practice, to have a deeper understanding of what he does.

1. 1 Motivations Deciding is a very complex and difficult task. Some people even argue that our ability to make decisions in complex situations is the main feature that distinguishes us from animals (it is also common to say that laughing is the main difference). Nevertheless, when the task is too complex or the interests at stake are too important, it quite often happens that we do not know or we are not sure what to decide and, in many instances, we resort to a decision support technique: an informal one-we toss a coin, we ask an oracle, we visit an astrologer, we consult an expert, we think-or a formal one. Although informal decision support techniques can be of interest, in this book, we will focus on formal ones. Among the latter, we find some well-known decision support techniques: cost-benefit analysis, multiple criteria decision analysis, decision trees, . . . But there are many other ones, sometimes not presented as decision support techniques, that help making decisions. Let us cite but a few examples. • When the director of a school must decide whether a given student will pass or fail, he usually asks each teacher to assess the merits of the student by means of a grade. The director then sums the grades and compares the result to a threshold. • When a bank must decide whether a given client will obtain a credit or not, a technique, called credit scoring, is often used.

1. 1 Motivations Deciding is a very complex and difficult task. Some people even argue that our ability to make decisions in complex situations is the main feature that distinguishes us from animals (it is also common to say that laughing is the main difference). Nevertheless, when the task is too complex or the interests at stake are too important, it quite often happens that we do not know or we are not sure what to decide and, in many instances, we resort to a decision support technique: an informal one-we toss a coin, we ask an oracle, we visit an astrologer, we consult an expert, we think-or a formal one. Although informal decision support techniques can be of interest, in this book, we will focus on formal ones. Among the latter, we find some well-known decision support techniques: cost-benefit analysis, multiple criteria decision analysis, decision trees, . . . But there are many other ones, sometimes not presented as decision support techniques, that help making decisions. Let us cite but a few examples. • When the director of a school must decide whether a given student will pass or fail, he usually asks each teacher to assess the merits of the student by means of a grade. The director then sums the grades and compares the result to a threshold. • When a bank must decide whether a given client will obtain a credit or not, a technique, called credit scoring, is often used.

This volume contains the papers presented at ADT 2009, the first International Conference on Algorithmic Decision Theory. The conference was held in San Servolo, a small island of the Venice lagoon, during October 20-23, 2009. The program of the conference included oral presentations, posters, invited talks, and tutorials. The conference received 65 submissions of which 39 papers were accepted (9 papers were posters). The topics of these papers range from computational social choice preference modeling, from uncertainty to preference learning, from multi-criteria decision making to game theory.

This volume contains the papers presented at ADT 2009, the first International Conference on Algorithmic Decision Theory. The conference was held in San Servolo, a small island of the Venice lagoon, during October 20-23, 2009. The program of the conference included oral presentations, posters, invited talks, and tutorials. The conference received 65 submissions of which 39 papers were accepted (9 papers were posters). The topics of these papers range from computational social choice preference modeling, from uncertainty to preference learning, from multi-criteria decision making to game theory.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Algorithmic Decision Theory, ADT 2011, held in Piscataway, NJ, USA, in October 2011.The 24 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 50 submissions.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Algorithmic Decision Theory, ADT 2011, held in Piscataway, NJ, USA, in October 2011.The 24 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 50 submissions.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed conference proceedings of the Third International Conference on Algorithmic Decision Theory, ADT 2013, held in November 2013 in Bruxelles, Belgium. The 33 revised full papers presented were carefully selected from more than 70 submissions, covering preferences in reasoning and decision making, uncertainty and robustness in decision making, multi-criteria decision analysis and optimization, collective decision making, learning and knowledge extraction for decision support.