Decision Making with Imperfect Decision Makers

Decision Making with Imperfect Decision Makers
Author: Tatiana Valentine Guy
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 207
Release: 2011-11-13
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3642246478

Prescriptive Bayesian decision making has reached a high level of maturity and is well-supported algorithmically. However, experimental data shows that real decision makers choose such Bayes-optimal decisions surprisingly infrequently, often making decisions that are badly sub-optimal. So prevalent is such imperfect decision-making that it should be accepted as an inherent feature of real decision makers living within interacting societies. To date such societies have been investigated from an economic and gametheoretic perspective, and even to a degree from a physics perspective. However, little research has been done from the perspective of computer science and associated disciplines like machine learning, information theory and neuroscience. This book is a major contribution to such research. Some of the particular topics addressed include: How should we formalise rational decision making of a single imperfect decision maker? Does the answer change for a system of imperfect decision makers? Can we extend existing prescriptive theories for perfect decision makers to make them useful for imperfect ones? How can we exploit the relation of these problems to the control under varying and uncertain resources constraints as well as to the problem of the computational decision making? What can we learn from natural, engineered, and social systems to help us address these issues?

Decision Making and Imperfection

Decision Making and Imperfection
Author: Tatiana V Guy
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2013-02-01
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3642364063

Decision making (DM) is ubiquitous in both natural and artificial systems. The decisions made often differ from those recommended by the axiomatically well-grounded normative Bayesian decision theory, in a large part due to limited cognitive and computational resources of decision makers (either artificial units or humans). This state of a airs is often described by saying that decision makers are imperfect and exhibit bounded rationality. The neglected influence of emotional state and personality traits is an additional reason why normative theory fails to model human DM process. The book is a joint effort of the top researchers from different disciplines to identify sources of imperfection and ways how to decrease discrepancies between the prescriptive theory and real-life DM. The contributions consider: · how a crowd of imperfect decision makers outperforms experts' decisions; · how to decrease decision makers' imperfection by reducing knowledge available; · how to decrease imperfection via automated elicitation of DM preferences; · a human's limited willingness to master the available decision-support tools as an additional source of imperfection; · how the decision maker's emotional state influences the rationality; a DM support of edutainment robot based on its system of values and respecting emotions. The book will appeal to anyone interested in the challenging topic of DM theory and its applications.

Decision Making in Action

Decision Making in Action
Author: Gary A. Klein
Publisher: Ablex Publishing Corporation
Total Pages: 480
Release: 1992-08-01
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780893919436

This book describes the new perspective of naturalistic decision making. The point of departure is how people make decisions in complex, time-pressured, ambiguous, and changing environments. The purpose of this book is to present and elaborate on past models developed to explain this type of decision making. The central philosophy of the book is that classical decision theory has been unproductive since it is so heavily grounded in economics and mathematics. The contributors believe there is little to be learned from laboratory studies about how people actually handle difficult and interesting tasks; therefore, the book presents a critique of classical decision theory. The models of naturalistic decision making described by the contributors were derived to explain the behavior of firefighters, business people, jurors, nuclear power plant operators, and command-and-control officers. The models are unique in that they address the way people use experience to frame situations and adopt courses of action. The models explain the strengths of skilled decision makers. Naturalistic decision research requires the examination of field settings, and a section of the book covers methods for conducting meaningful research outside the laboratory. In addition, since his approach has applied value, the book covers issues of training and decision support systems.

Framing Decisions

Framing Decisions
Author: J. Davidson Frame
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2012-10-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1118235649

The economic crisis of 2008–2009 was a transformational event: it demonstrated that smart people aren't as smart as they and the public think. The crisis arose because a lot of highly educated people in high-impact positions— political power brokers, business leaders, and large segments of the general public—made a lot of bad decisions despite unprecedented access to data, highly sophisticated decision support systems, methodological advances in the decision sciences, and guidance from highly experienced experts. How could we get things so wrong? The answer, says J. Davidson Frame in Framing Decisions: Decision Making That Accounts for Irrationality, People, and Constraints, is that traditional processes do not account for the three critical immeasurable elements highlighted in the book's subtitle— irrationality, people, and constraints. Frame argues that decision-makers need to move beyond their single-minded focus on rational and optimal solutions as preached by the traditional paradigm. They must accommodate a decision's social space and address the realities of dissimulation, incompetence, legacy, greed, peer pressure, and conflict. In the final analysis, when making decisions of consequence, they should focus on people – both as individuals and in groups. Framing Decisions offers a new approach to decision making that gets decision-makers to put people and social context at the heart of the decision process. It offers guidance on how to make decisions in a real world filled with real people seeking real solutions to their problems.

Decision Making: Uncertainty, Imperfection, Deliberation and Scalability

Decision Making: Uncertainty, Imperfection, Deliberation and Scalability
Author: Tatiana V. Guy
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2015-02-09
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3319151444

This volume focuses on uncovering the fundamental forces underlying dynamic decision making among multiple interacting, imperfect and selfish decision makers. The chapters are written by leading experts from different disciplines, all considering the many sources of imperfection in decision making, and always with an eye to decreasing the myriad discrepancies between theory and real world human decision making. Topics addressed include uncertainty, deliberation cost and the complexity arising from the inherent large computational scale of decision making in these systems. In particular, analyses and experiments are presented which concern: • task allocation to maximize “the wisdom of the crowd”; • design of a society of “edutainment” robots who account for one anothers’ emotional states; • recognizing and counteracting seemingly non-rational human decision making; • coping with extreme scale when learning causality in networks; • efficiently incorporating expert knowledge in personalized medicine; • the effects of personality on risky decision making. The volume is a valuable source for researchers, graduate students and practitioners in machine learning, stochastic control, robotics, and economics, among other fields.

The Lion House

The Lion House
Author: Christopher de Bellaigue
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2022-11-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 0374720452

“Christopher de Bellaigue has a magic talent for writing history. It is as if we are there as the era of Suleyman the Magnificent unfolds.” —Orhan Pamuk, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature Narrated through the eyes of the intimates of Suleyman the Magnificent, the sixteenth-century sultan of the Ottoman Empire, The Lion House animates with stunning immediacy the fears and stratagems of those brought into orbit around him: the Greek slave who becomes his Grand Vizier, the Venetian jewel dealer who acts as his go-between, the Russian consort who becomes his most beloved wife. Within a decade and a half, Suleyman held dominion over twenty-five million souls, from Baghdad to the walls of Vienna, and with the help of his brilliant pirate commander, Barbarossa, placed more Christians than ever before or since under Muslim rule. And yet the real drama takes place in close-up: in small rooms and whispered conversations, behind the curtain of power, where the sultan sleeps head-to-toe with his best friend and eats from wooden spoons with his baby boy. In The Lion House, Christopher de Bellaigue tells the story not just of rival superpowers in an existential duel, nor of one of the most consequential lives in human history, but of what it means to live in a time when a few men get to decide the fate of the world.

Decision Leadership

Decision Leadership
Author: Don A. Moore
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2022-01-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0300259697

A fresh, research-driven playbook for how successful leaders can maximize the potential of others When we think of leaders, we often imagine lone, inspirational figures lauded for their behaviors, attributes, and personal decisions--a perception that is reinforced by many leadership books. However, this approach ignores the expectations of modern work cultures centered on equity and inclusion, where a leader's true mission is to empower others. Applying decades of behavioral science research, Don A. Moore and Max H. Bazerman offer a passionate corrective to this view, casting today's organizations as decision factories in which effective leaders are decision architects, enabling those around them to make wise, ethical choices consistent with their own interests and the organization's highest values. As a result, a leader's impact grows because it ripples out instead of relying on one individual to play the part of heroic figure. Filled with real-life stories and examples of the structures, incentives, and systems that successful leaders have used, this playbook equips each of us to facilitate wise decisions.

Derivatives for Decision Makers

Derivatives for Decision Makers
Author: George Crawford
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 260
Release: 1996-08-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780471129943

"A brilliantly conceived and lucidly written exposition of the most important topic on the frontier of modern finance. This book takes the mystery out of derivatives. Bravo!"—John H. Langbein, Professor, Yale Law School "Derivatives for Decision Makers is a first in explaining derivatives to those who need to understand them. It explains what derivatives are, how they can be used as risk management tools, and what managers and decision makers need to know about the subject. Not only is the technical substance superb, but the form is accessible to all decision makers."—Afsaneh Mashayekhi Beschloss, Director, The World Bank Group "Derivatives for Decision Makers is an excellent resource for both users and providers of derivative products, regardless of the reader's level of sophistication. The recent highly publicized derivatives problems are objectively reviewed by the authors who contribute important and sensible recommendations to avoid similar situations in the future."—Dipak K. Rastogi, Executive Vice President and former Head of Global Derivatives, Citibank, N. A. "Derivatives can play a critical role in achieving corporate financing and investment strategies. Whether you are a novice or a seasoned practitioner, Crawford and Sen present a superb roadmap with well-chosen, real-world illustrations. Their vivid insights make this book a 'must-read' for corporate and pension fund managers."—Sandra S. Wijnberg, Vice President & Assistant Treasurer, PepsiCo, Inc. "Crawford and Sen have done a fine job of making derivatives comprehensible for managers who need to understand the basic features and uses of these instruments. This coverage, together with the book's unique emphasis on senior management's fiduciary obligations to the firm's shareholders, sets this book apart from other attempts to make derivatives accessible to senior management. This book is an important read."—John F. Marshall, Executive Director, International Association of Financial Engineers and Professor of Financial Engineering, Polytechnic University Derivatives are the power tools that enable users to analyze components of risk and return inherent in an investment or a business. The popularity of derivative use in the marketplace has surged in recent years, spurring financial innovation and better risk management. Yet this popular instrument is double-edged: derivatives are as risky as they are beneficial. In light of recent, highly publicized disasters—the Orange County bankruptcy and the Barings fiasco—it is imperative that business and finance professionals have a current and basic knowledge of this complicated and venturesome field. If you are a shareholder, director, or other decision maker in a company utilizing derivatives, it is important that you know how to maximize the benefits of derivatives and minimize the damage that they can cause. Now, two leading financial experts provide the solid principles you need to understand and properly use derivative products and structured financing. Starting upwards from the ground floor, this straightforward, no-nonsense resource is replete with tables, graphs, and common examples and common sense, offering invaluable information on: The three major types of derivatives-options, futures, and swaps Leverage—what it is, why it is so important, how it is used to increase returns, and how it multiplies risk Hedging a stock portfolio and hedging industry risk with synthetic futures Business risks—core and secondary risks; which business risks to hedge with derivatives Investment strategies using derivatives Derivative risks—market, credit, legal, and systemic Fiduciary duties—the duties of loyalty and care, exceptions, the prudent investor rule, business judgment, rule and disclosure requirements Delegating management functions—selecting, instructing, and monitoring experts Whether you're a manager, director, attorney, accountant, corporate executive, or corporate shareholder, this comprehensive book will prove to be an invaluable guide on utilizing and handling derivatives wisely, resourcefully, and successfully.

Fundamentals of the Fuzzy Logic-Based Generalized Theory of Decisions

Fundamentals of the Fuzzy Logic-Based Generalized Theory of Decisions
Author: Rafik Aziz Aliev
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2013-01-12
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3642348955

Every day decision making and decision making in complex human-centric systems are characterized by imperfect decision-relevant information. Main drawback of the existing decision theories is namely incapability to deal with imperfect information and modeling vague preferences. Actually, a paradigm of non-numerical probabilities in decision making has a long history and arose also in Keynes’s analysis of uncertainty. There is a need for further generalization – a move to decision theories with perception-based imperfect information described in NL. The languages of new decision models for human-centric systems should be not languages based on binary logic but human-centric computational schemes able to operate on NL-described information. Development of new theories is now possible due to an increased computational power of information processing systems which allows for computations with imperfect information, particularly, imprecise and partially true information, which are much more complex than computations over numbers and probabilities. The monograph exposes the foundations of a new decision theory with imperfect decision-relevant information on environment and a decision maker’s behavior. This theory is based on the synthesis of the fuzzy sets theory with perception-based information and the probability theory. The book is self containing and represents in a systematic way the decision theory with imperfect information into the educational systems. The book will be helpful for teachers and students of universities and colleges, for managers and specialists from various fields of business and economics, production and social sphere.

Environmental Decisions in the Face of Uncertainty

Environmental Decisions in the Face of Uncertainty
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2013-05-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0309290236

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is one of several federal agencies responsible for protecting Americans against significant risks to human health and the environment. As part of that mission, EPA estimates the nature, magnitude, and likelihood of risks to human health and the environment; identifies the potential regulatory actions that will mitigate those risks and protect public health1 and the environment; and uses that information to decide on appropriate regulatory action. Uncertainties, both qualitative and quantitative, in the data and analyses on which these decisions are based enter into the process at each step. As a result, the informed identification and use of the uncertainties inherent in the process is an essential feature of environmental decision making. EPA requested that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) convene a committee to provide guidance to its decision makers and their partners in states and localities on approaches to managing risk in different contexts when uncertainty is present. It also sought guidance on how information on uncertainty should be presented to help risk managers make sound decisions and to increase transparency in its communications with the public about those decisions. Given that its charge is not limited to human health risk assessment and includes broad questions about managing risks and decision making, in this report the committee examines the analysis of uncertainty in those other areas in addition to human health risks. Environmental Decisions in the Face of Uncertainty explains the statement of task and summarizes the findings of the committee.