INTRODUCTION
The term decision analysisidentifies a collection of technologies for assisting individuals and organizations in the performance of difficult inferences and decisions. Probabilistic inference is a natural element of any choice made in the face of uncertainty. No single discipline can lay claim to all advancements made in support of these technologies. Operations research, probability theory, statistics, economics, psychology, artificial intelligence, and other disciplines have contributed valuable ideas now being exploited in various ways by individuals in many governmental, industrial, and military organizations. As the term decision analysis suggests, complex inference and choice tasks are decomposed into smaller and presumably more manageable elements, some of which are probabilistic and others preferential or value-related. The basic strategy employed in decision analysis is “divide and conquer.” The presumption is that individuals or groups find it more difficult to...
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Schum, D.A. (2001). Decision analysis . In: Gass, S.I., Harris, C.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-0611-X_215
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