Modeling and Analysis in Support of Decision Making for Technological Investment

摘要

Engineering design, resource allocation, military operations, and investment strategies share a major common trait, which is, to a large extent, independent of their different origins, specific features, and intended goals. The unifying trait is the fact that, in any of these endeavors, one has to make reasonable choices, at multiple levels of decision making, among various possible and sometimes competing prospective solutions to an important and consequential practical problem. While the specifics of the problem depend on application, context, additional constraints, etc., the ultimate--albeit imprecise--goal in all these activities is to 'optimize performance,' which is to have maximal success/profit/return with minimal time/effort/investment.