Resources Repository
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ArticlePublication 2007Making the Right Decision: Benjamin Franklin in 1736
This paper applies a decision analytic approach to a past decision made by Benjamin Franklin with regard to …
This paper applies a decision analytic approach to a past decision made by Benjamin Franklin with regard to inoculating his son against smallpox. Benjamin Franklin in his autobiography said: “In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the smallpox taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of the parents who…
Decision Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Health/Medicine -
ArticlePublication 2007Decision Analysis: A Personal Account of How It Got Started and Evolved
In this chapter, Howard Raiffa discusses the evolution of decision analysis and his personal involvement …
In this chapter, Howard Raiffa discusses the evolution of decision analysis and his personal involvement in its development. He describes the early days of Operations Research (OR) in the late 1940s with its approach to complex, strategic decision making. After reading John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern’s Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (1947) and Abraham Wald’s two books (1947, 1950), he became involved in statistical decision theory. A few years later, after reading Leonard…
Decision Analysis | Decision Theory | Probability/Bayes | Preferences/Values | Operations Research | Business/Industry | Economics/Finance | Energy/Engineering | Health/Medicine