Abstract:
Many tasks involve decision making under uncertainty. For example, in diagnosis and troubleshooting, often one must decide whether to treat a suspected disease or malfunction or to perform a diagnostic test to reduce uncertainty about the cause of observed symptoms. In planning, one must decide how best to achieve desired goals. Selection tasks such as selecting the most appropriate applicant for a job, or the best product from a catalog, or the most relevant document on the world-wide web, also involve decision making.