OA3304 Decision Theory

This course provides an introduction to modern theory and methods for decision making in both single and multiple person decision making situations. Bayesian methods are emphasized in the single-person case, including decision trees, Bayesian networks, influence diagrams, and multi-criterion decision making. Multi-person situations covered include two-person-zero-sum games, voting, Nash bargaining, and the Shapley value. Applications mainly to military problems. Prerequisites: None.

Lecture Hours

4

Lab Hours

0

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, you should be able to, among other capabilities, to:

• Understand the concept of utility
• Design and solve decision trees
• Quantify the value of information (or intelligence);
• Distinguish between objective and subjective probabilities
• Recognize when decision analysis techniques are appropriate for a problem (i.e., the uncertainty stems from random events) and when a game theoretic approach is necessary (i.e., the uncertainty stems from a strategic adversary);
• Understand the ideas of game-theory and solve simple zero-sum games;

Construct and solve multi-criteria, multiple-stakeholders’ decision problems