Conditions of uncertainty

There is therefore an as-yet unmet need for helping management intuitions about the best way to invest and use R D capacity to optimize value added, under conditions of uncertainty. 

Behavior related to food crises is based on risk perceptions and on risk attitudes related to the crisis (Wildavsky and Dake, 1990). This section focuses on how these can be combined to influence behavior. When examining how people form attitudes, it is useful to examine biotechnology. It can best illustrate how attitudes are formed under conditions of uncertainty (Tait, 1988). 

The greatest obstacle to planning arises from the lack of reliable theories of society. What we have is a toolbox of mechanisms, not a set of laws. We cannot predict how rational people behave under conditions of uncertainty or multiple equilibria, nor whether their behavior will be governed by rationality or by social norms. Even more fundamentally, we cannot predict how preferences and norms might themselves come to change as a result of policy reforms. We cannot predict technical change. As... 

More than ever before, an industrial gases company needs to learn to develop a competitive investment strategy under conditions of uncertainty. It must identify these uncertainties, assess future market scenarios and their implications, and explicitly consider the roles it might play in influencing these scenarios. The company then must create a strategic portfolio that involves a combination of actions that, collectively, are robust enough to respond to the uncertainty in the marketplace and actively manage this portfolio as uncertainties resolve themselves and the marketplace evolves. 

The statistical method making decisions under conditions of uncertainty... 

Unfortunately, it is impossible to design an experiment that will totally disprove a theory based on random phenomena. Various outcomes may occur, some of which may be unlikely but not impossible. Thus Popper s falsifiability condition does not apply. The statistical method advocated by Fisher (1956) attempts to overcome this problem by substituting unlikely for impossible but otherwise follows the principles of the scientific method. With this substitution, Fisher and others proposed conceptual structures for testing theories and scientific hypotheses under conditions of uncertainty that are analogous to the scientific method. However, these approaches, although being very useful in practice, have raised a host of conceptual issues that are the subject of ongoing debates. 

Under current conditions of uncertainty, the choice of a risk assessment model becomes a mixed scientific and policy issue. Where science does not uniquely dictate the choice, agencies must select the... 

THE STATISTICAL METHOD MAKING DECISIONS UNDER CONDITIONS OF UNCERTAINTY... 

For both the Challenger and Columbia accidents, as well as most other major accidents where decision making was flawed, the decision makers saw their actions as rational. Understanding and preventing poor decision making under conditions of uncertainty requires providing environments and tools that help to stretch our belief systems and to see patterns that we do not necessarily want to see. 

The next requirement, tolerance for uncertainty, does not require any additional explanation for future inventive engineers who have already learned about da Vinci s principle of sfumato, which addresses the issue of feeling comfortable while working under conditions of uncertainty. Finally, the last requirement, irrepressible resilience, means an exceptional ability to survive periods of crisis, periods of criticism, troubles, resistance, and so on. 

LindeU s work discussed the fact that people do not take information from expert sources at face value and introduced a need to consider both information about earthquake risk and preparedness and the qualify of the (communication) relationship between the sources and recipients of earthquake risk information. An important contextual element of this relationship is that it occurs under conditions of uncertainty. People may have no or limited experience of earthquakes, and the infrequent nature of earthquake activity makes it impossible for them to independently test the validity of the information about risk and preparedness. Under these circumstances, an important aspect of the relationship between source of information and its recipients is the degree to which recipients trust sources of information. Levels of risk acceptance and people s willingness to take responsibility for their own safety is increased, and decisions to take steps to actively manage their risk more likely, if people believe that their relationship with risk management agencies is fair and empowering (e.g., agencies are perceived as trustworthy, as... 

Spatial statistics, often called geostatistics and sometimes property modelling is concerned with problems of interpolation under conditions of uncertainty. 

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