Group Verbal Decision Analysis: Theory and Applications

This book describes an original approach to solving tasks of individual
and collective choice: classification, ranking, and selection of
multi-attribute objects. Object representation with multisets allows
considering simultaneously numerical and symbolic variables. In group
verbal decision analysis, judgments of all participants are taken into
account without a compromise between contradictory. Natural language is
used to describe problems and objects, formalize knowledge of experts
and preferences of decision makers, and explain results. Verbal methods
and technologies are more transparent, less laborious for a person, and
weakly sensitive to measurement errors. The book also includes examples
of applying new tools in real ill-structured high-dimensional choice
tasks. It is intended for researchers, managers, consultants, analysts,
and developers as well as for teachers and students of applied
mathematics, computer science, information processing, engineering,
economics, and management.