Mathematical Analysis Of Decision Problems In Ecology

The contents of this volume involve selection, emendation and up-dating of papers presented at the NATO Conference "Mathe matical Analysis of Decision problems in Ecology" in Istanbul, Turkey, July 9-13, 1973. It was sponsored by the System Sciences Division of NATO directed by Dr. B. Bayraktar with local arrange ments administered by Dr. Ilhami Karayalcin, professor of the Department of Industrial Engineering at the Technical University of Istanbul. It was organized by A. Charnes, University professor across the University of Texas System, and Walter R.Lynn, Di rector of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell Unjversity. The objective of the conference was to bring together a group of leading researchers from the major sciences involved in eco logical problems and to present the current state of progress in research of a mathematical nature which might assist in the solu tion of these problems. Although their presentations are not herein recorded, the key note address of Dr. John A. Logan, president, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and the presentation of Dr. Michael J. L. Kirby, then Assistant principal Secretary to the premier of Nova Scotia, Canada, greatly influenced the discussion of papers and their subsequent emendations and revisions.

This book is intended for the GIS Science and Decision Science communities. It is primarily targeted at postgraduate students and practitioners in GIS and urban, regional and environmental planning as well as applied decision analysis. It is also suitable for those studying and working with spatial decision support systems. The main objectives of this book are to effectivley integrate Multicriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) into Geographic Information Science (GIScience), to provide a comprehensive account of theories, methods, technologies and tools for tackling spatial decision problems and to demonstrate how the GIS-MCDA approaches can be used in a wide range of planning and management situations.

Increasingly, mathematical methods are being used to advantage in addressing the problems facing humanity in managing its environment. Problems in resource management and epidemiology especially have demonstrated the utility of quantitative modeling. To explore these approaches, the Center of Applied Mathematics at Cornell University organized a conference in Fall, 1987, with the objective of surveying and assessing the state of the art. This volume records the proceedings of that conference. Underlying virtually all of these studies are models of population growth, from individual cells to large vertebrates. Cell population growth presents the simplest of systems for study, and is of fundamental importance in its own right for a variety of medical and environmental applications. In Part I of this volume, Michael Shuler describes computer models of individual cells and cell populations, and Frank Hoppensteadt discusses the synchronization of bacterial culture growth. Together, these provide a valuable introduction to mathematical cell biology.

This book develops a whole strategy for decision-making, with the full participation of the decision-maker and utilizing continuous feedback. It introduces the use of the very well-known and proven methodology, linear programming, but specially adapted for this purpose. For this, it incorporates a method to include subjective concepts, as well as the possibility of working with many different and even contradictory objectives. The book is liberally populated with diverse case studies to illustrate the concepts. This practical guide will be of interest to anyone undertaking analysis and decision-making, on both simple and complex projects, and who is looking for a strategy to organize, classify, and evaluate the large amount of information required to make an informed decision. The strategy includes methods to analyze the results and extract conclusions from them.