Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1983

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Management Science

Major Professor

Richard E. Rosenthal

Committee Members

Donovan C. Forbes, Robert S. Garfinkel, James K. Ho, Robert McLean, John Rennie

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to design, develop, and implement a procedure for forest management planning with multiple objectives. Within the context of this primary objective were the secondary objectives of 1) conducting basic research in mulitobjective optimization, and 2) developing a computer implementation of these results, with a goal of eventual use on microcomputers.

Our research in multiobjective optimization resulted in a new algorithmic approach that links two previously unrelated techniques. We refer to this new technique as an “implicit/explicit” approach to multiobjective decision making. It synergistically combines the implicit utility function method with an iterative devlopment of the decision maker's explicit utility function. This results in a robust. interactive algorithm that requires a relatively light information burden of the decision maker. The discussion of the implicit/explicit algorithm concludes with a collection of results supporting its viability.

We have applied the implicit/explicit algorithm in the development of FORMAN (FORest Management plANning system). FORMAN is a computer package designed specifically for forest management planning with multiple objectives, when the decision maker wishes to optimize an unspecified utility function over a linear constraint set.

We conclude with a description of sample FORMAN use; and discuss directions for future research.

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