Denis Bouyssou – 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.

The first part of the book is devoted to basic concepts and techniques for representing and solving decision problems, ranging from operational research to artificial intelligence. Later chapters provide an extensive overview of the decision-making process under conditions of risk and uncertainty. Finally, there are chapters covering various approaches to multi-criteria decision-making. Each chapter is written by experts in the topic concerned, and contains an extensive bibliography for further reading and reference.

The first part of the book is devoted to basic concepts and techniques for representing and solving decision problems, ranging from operational research to artificial intelligence. Later chapters provide an extensive overview of the decision-making process under conditions of risk and uncertainty. Finally, there are chapters covering various approaches to multi-criteria decision-making. Each chapter is written by experts in the topic concerned, and contains an extensive bibliography for further reading and reference.

The utility maximization paradigm forms the basis of many economic, psychological, cognitive and behavioral models. Since it was first devised in the eighteenth century, numerous examples have revealed the deficiencies of the concept. This book makes a contribution to overcome those deficiencies by taking into account insensitivity of measurement threshold and context of choice. It covers classic theory as a special, context-free case and gives a systematic overview of new models of utility maximization within a context-dependent threshold as well as related preference and choice models. The second edition has been updated to include the most recent developments and a new chapter on classic and new results for infinite sets. The presented models will be helpful to scientists in economics, decision making theory, social choice theory, behavioral and cognitive sciences, and related fields.