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Elements for a theory of decision in uncertainty. (English) Zbl 0965.91009

Applied Optimization. 32. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. 347 p. (1999).
Throughout this book the author has brought up certain considerations, that are not an attempt at constituting a closed theory, but merely a summary of his thoughts on the profound changes that are occurring in the sphere of the study of the problem of decision in companies and institutions. He has not only attempted to set down the reasons, which he hopes to have fully justified, why a paradigmatic change in the theory of decision is occurring, but also to have drawn up a draft for future research work in this field.
What the author is dealing with are concepts taken by means of subjective estimates that as such, do not allow for the use of operators from deterministic arithmetic, from probabilities and/or from uncertainty. The author hopes that this modest work would allow even just a small ray of light to penetrate into the darkest corner into which economic and management phenomena overlap within a context of uncertainty. All that has been stated should not lead to the false belief of the uselessness of those studied based on concepts arising under cover of classical principles.
What is more, the indubitable advances which in their application have occurred over latter years, has allowed for the perfecting of quantitative studies aimed at the treatment of decisional phenomena, in this way and fortunately on many occasions those schemes resulted as valid. But in a world that is convulsed such as it is in our day and age, it would not appear that uncertainty is going to attenuate and only by living with it will it be easier to accept the new rules. When the scientific community in its immense majority has assumed this fact, the birth of a new theory of decision for the treatment of uncertainty will become reality.

MSC:

91B06 Decision theory
91-02 Research exposition (monographs, survey articles) pertaining to game theory, economics, and finance
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