Epistemic Implications of Engineering Rhetoric

The texts (and talk) of engineers take different forms. In this essay, I present and critique several texts written for different purposes and audiences but all intended to convey to the reader the technical details of whatever they are about - whether a textbook passage describing the fundamental behavior of an electrical component, a journal article about a mathematical technique intended for use in design optimization, a memo to co-work- ers within a firm about a heat transfer analysis of a remotely sited building, or a general introduction to the field of ‘ergonomics’. My aim is to explore how the ways in which engineers describe and document their problems and projects frame what they accept, display and profess as useful knowledge. In this I am particu- larly interested in how engineers envision the 'users' of, or participants in, their productions. Like science, engineering texts are written as if they were timeless and untainted by socio-cultural features. A technical treatise is not devoid of metaphor or creative rendering of events; there is always a narrative within which worldly data and instrumental logic is embedded - but it is a story in which the passive voice prevails, history is irrelevant, and the human actor or agent is painted in quantitative parameters fitting the occasion. Whether this rhetoric can be sustained in the face of challenges to traditional ways of doing engineering is an open question

Interactive Nonlinear Multiobjective Optimization Methods

An overview of interactive methods for solving nonlinear multiobjective optimization problems is given. In interactive methods, the decision maker progressively provides preference information so that the most satisfactory Pareto optimal solution can be found for her or his. The basic features of several methods are introduced and some theoretical results are provided. In addition, references to modifications and applications as well as to other methods are indicated. As the role of the decision maker is very important in interactive methods, methods presented are classified according to the type of preference information that the decision maker is assumed to provide.peerReviewe