Toward Interactive and Intelligent Decision Support Systems Volume 1 Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Multiple Criteria Decision Making, Held at Kyoto, Japan, August 18–22, 1986

These proceedings include papers presented at the VII-th Internatio nal Conference on Multiple Criteria Decision Making which was held in Kyoto/Japan on August 18-22, 1986. Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) has been a greatly import ant subject in many practical fields, for example, in planning, design, control and management in both private and public sectors. After remark able developments of theory, methodology and pilot case studies in rec ent years, it is now facing the stage of real applications and develop ment of more sophisticated methodology as interactive intelligent decision support systems. The conference aimed to provide a significant contribu tion to the future of MCDM as one of total systems including human factors: Substantial emphasis was given to knowledge engineering and cognitive sci ence. The conference inherits the tradition and the style of the previous conferences: (1) Jouy-en-Josas/France (1975), (2) Buffalo/U.S.A. (1977), (3) Konigswinter/FRG (1978), (4) Delaware/U.S.A. (1980), (5) Mons/Belgium (1982), (6) Cleveland/U.S.A. (1984). This time a great many Japanese com panies provided grants for the conference. As a result, the total number of participants was over 120, and a computer demonstration could be reali zed on an extensive scale as well as the conference sessions. Throughout the conference, it was observed that MCDM is making steady progress not only in theory but also as a tool for decision support.