Bayesian decision analysis : principles and practice / Jim Q. Smith.

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Machine generated contents note: Preface; Part I. Foundations of Decision Modeling: 1. Introduction; 2. Explanations of processes and trees; 3. Utilities and rewards; 4. Subjective probability and its elicitation; 5. Bayesian inference for decision analysis; Part II. Multi-Dimensional Decision Modeling: 6. Multiattribute utility theory; 7. Bayesian networks; 8. Graphs, decisions and causality; 9. Multidimensional learning; 10. Conclusions; Bibliography.

Bayesian decision analysis supports principled decision making in complex domains. This textbook takes the reader from a formal analysis of simple decision problems to a careful analysis of the sometimes very complex and data rich structures confronted by practitioners. The book contains basic material on subjective probability theory and multi-attribute utility theory, event and decision trees, Bayesian networks, influence diagrams and causal Bayesian networks. The author demonstrates when and how the theory can be successfully applied to a given decision problem, how data can be sampled and expert judgements elicited to support this analysis, and when and how an effective Bayesian decision analysis can be implemented. Evolving from a third-year undergraduate course taught by the author over many years, all of the material in this book will be accessible to a student who has completed introductory courses in probability and mathematical statistics.