Читать книгу A Handbook on Multi-Attribute Decision-Making Methods - Omid Bozorg-Haddad - Страница 6

Multi‐attribute decision‐making (MADM) problems describe a situation in which the decision‐makers evaluate a finite number of pre‐defined alternatives that are explicitly known at the beginning of the solution process with regard to a set of often conflictive evaluating criteria. It would not be an exaggeration to state that almost everyone, whether in their personal or professional life, faces decision‐making problems on a daily basis. Although there are numerous MADM methods at the decision‐makers’ disposal to cope with real‐world decision‐making problems there is still lacking a source that compiles and explains the various MADM methods in a clear and systematic manner that would make their understanding, comparison, and application straightforward for those who require implementing these techniques. Most existing sources that deal with MADM methods are generally focused on results of the applications of these methods, but overlook basic and unifying concepts. Therefore, those who are eager to gain an overview of these methods must endure hardships of searching through various sources which are written in specialized form and are difficult to understand.

The book at hand fills the cited knowledge and educational gap and describes the most important MADM methods, with an assessment of their performance in solving multiple problems encompassing many fields of inquiry and practice in a clear and systematic manner. The proposed book contains 12 chapters plus two appendices. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the decision‐making and its fundamental concepts. Each of chapters 2 through 12 is devoted to a separate MADM method. In total, some 20 MADM methods are presented in the book. Appendix I describes a weight assignment method; Appendix II contains an application of MADM methods. The chapters are arranged based on pedagogical purposes so that the audience can easily engage with the presented materials in each given chapter. Nevertheless, the basic idea is to ensure that each chapter can stand alone by providing the audience with a brief description of the materials and methods required to cover every aspect and mathematical concepts used in each given method. In other words, while a highly engaged audience can go through the entire book to gain a deep understanding of MADM methods and their theoretical foundation, some can aim at a specific chapter without facing any difficulty in understanding the materials presented for the reviewed MADM methods. In essence, each chapter describing a specific MADM method, or in some case a family of methods, starts with a brief literature review of the methods’ development followed by a description of its theoretical origins. The philosophical foundations of each method are discussed and mapped to the mathematical framework of the specified MADM method. Each chapter contains a stepwise description of its pertinent method that serves as the guideline for implementing the method with the purpose of coping with real‐world MADM problems.

February 14, 2021

Iran and USA

Omid Bozorg‐Haddad

Babak Zolghadr‐Asli

Hugo A. Loáiciga