Aggregation in Decision Problems: Concepts and Applications

This paper discusses the concept of aggregation in decision problems with the Bayesian approach. A variety of examples are provided for illustrative purposes. An aggregation error is said to occur when analyses made at aggregate and disaggregate levels yield different re suits. In the absence of aggregation error, perfect aggregation is said to occur. Perfect aggregation is shown to be almost impossible and consequently aggregation error is practically inevitable. Alternative measures of aggregation error are provided. Also, the impact of aggregation error on the decision to be made is analyzed. Keywords:: Operations research, Decision science, Perfect aggregation, Disaggregation, Aggregation error, Bayesian estimatio

Game Theoretic Risk Analysis of Security Threats

Introduces reliability and risk analysis in the face of threats by intelligent agents. This book covers applications to networks, including problems in both telecommunications and transportation. It provides a set of tools for applying game theory TO reliability problems in the presence of intentional, intelligent threat

Aggregation Error in Bayesian Analysis of Reliability Systems

Perfect aggregation in Bayesian system reliability analysis has been shown to be extremely unlikely. In other words, aggregation error is almost inevitable. Consequently, analysts have to deal with the following dilemma: on one hand, an aggregate analysis (i.e., an analysis at the system level), while relatively inexpensive, may be misleading. On the other hand, a disaggregate analysis (i.e., at the component level) provides more accurate results, but may be costly and impractical. Therefore, simple techniques to estimate the size of aggregation error are necessary to help analysts choose the most appropriate level of detail for an analysis. In this paper, reasonable bounds on the aggregation error are derived for a variety of reliability models. In particular, these bounds will never be more than twice the actual error. Tools to compute these bounds (and in some cases the actual error) are also provided.Bayesian estimation, perfect aggregation, aggregation error