BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

DECISION TREE 2)4)

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The ordered sequence of the decisions taken or to be taken.

"A decision tree is essentially a branched list of questions in which the answer to one question determines the next question asked"

The decision tree is generally represented by a branching graph.

Each question is called a "node" on the tree, and each answer leads to a separate "branch". At the end of each branch lies a "leaf node", where the decision tree assigns a classification to the data" (C.E. BRODLEY et al, 1999, p.57).

Of course, each node represents a hypothesis with different conjectures, formulated in accordance with some assumption about the process under study.

M. TODA describes the decision tree as follows: "Several alternatives courses of action, which I shall call plans…, are neatly organized into the form of a decision tree. All the alternative plans branch out from the node representing the current decision situation. Then each of the plans-branches fans out at a chance node over which is assigned a probability distribution. Then, at the end of each finger of the fan one will find another subdecision node from which subplans branch out further. After repeating these branchings several times, each route will end up at a certain terminal state. Utilities are assigned to various locations all over the tree, and also to all the terminal states.

"Given the fully worked out decision tree, it is a simple matter of computation to determine which plan produces the highest expected utility, and the end of computation is followed immediately by the moment of deciding" (1976, p.79).

Such a neat – and quite formal – ordering does not however insure in itself the good fit of the plan: it merely defines the correct sequence to be followed, once a general – and supposedly satisfactory - decision has been taken about the global plan.

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]

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