Futures literature and futures forecasting--A critical review

This paper presents a personal view of futures forecasting. Beginning with an overall view of the literature in the field with particular attention to the more significant contributions, methodology is then considered. Various general techniques of very long term forecasting are reviewed, followed by consideration of the particular fields of economic, social, technological, energy and politics. The social factor is seen to be all-pervading. A synthesis of futures forecasts is then attempted with particular reference to the British case. Finally, the significance of such forecasting approaches for the OR scientist is considered.

Indifference mapping for multiple criteria decisions

Indifference mapping uses multi dimensional scaling techniques to allocate multi criteria policies to points in a space based on an input which consists of those pairs of policies which are equally attractive. The paper takes sets of policies for each of which a single value has been pre-assigned and maps them in two dimensions by applying a probability law to the assessment of indifferent pairs. The paper shows that the maps can be used both to deduce the original value of each policy and can also deduce the probability law which was applied.