Understanding Uncertainty

Understanding Uncertainty
Title Understanding Uncertainty PDF eBook
Author Dennis V. Lindley
Publisher John Wiley & Sons
Pages 268
Release 2006-08-28
Genre Mathematics
ISBN 0470055472

Download Understanding Uncertainty Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

A lively and informal introduction to the role of uncertainty and probability in people's lives from an everyday perspective From television game shows and gambling techniques to weather forecasting and the financial markets, virtually every aspect of modern life involves situations in which the outcomes are uncertain and of varying qualities. But as noted statistician Dennis Lindley writes in this distinctive text, "We want you to face up to uncertainty, not hide it away under false concepts, but to understand it and, moreover, to use the recent discoveries so that you can act in the face of uncertainty more sensibly than would have been possible without the skill." Accessibly written at an elementary level, this outstanding text examines uncertainty in various everyday situations and introduces readers to three rules--craftily laid out in the book--that prove uncertainty can be handled with as much confidence as ordinary logic. Combining a concept of utility with probability, the book insightfully demonstrates how uncertainty can be measured and used in everyday life, especially in decision-making and science. With a focus on understanding and using probability calculations, Understanding Uncertainty demystifies probability and: * Explains in straightforward detail the logic of uncertainty, its truths, and its falsehoods * Explores what has been learned in the twentieth century about uncertainty * Provides a logical, sensible method for acting in the face of uncertainty * Presents vignettes of great discoveries made in the twentieth century * Shows readers how to discern if another person--whether a lawyer, politician, scientist, or journalist--is talking sense, posing the right questions, or obtaining sound answers Requiring only a basic understanding of mathematical concepts and operations, Understanding Uncertainty is useful as a text for all students who have probability or statistics as part of their course, even at the most introductory level.

The Uncertainty Mindset

The Uncertainty Mindset
Title The Uncertainty Mindset PDF eBook
Author Vaughn Tan
Publisher Columbia University Press
Pages 296
Release 2020-07-28
Genre Social Science
ISBN 0231551878

Download The Uncertainty Mindset Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Innovation is how businesses stay ahead of the competition and adapt to market conditions that change in unpredictable and uncertain ways. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, high-end cuisine underwent a profound transformation. Once an industry that prioritized consistency and reliability, it turned into one where constant change was a competitive necessity. A top restaurant’s reputation and success have become so closely bound up with its ability to innovate that a new organizational form, the culinary research and development team, has emerged. The best of these R&D teams continually expand the frontiers of food—they invent a constant stream of new dishes, new cooking processes and methods, and even new ways of experiencing food. How do they achieve this nonstop novelty? And what can culinary research and development teach us about how organizations innovate? Vaughn Tan opens up the black box of elite culinary R&D to provide essential insights. Drawing on years of unprecedented access to the best and most influential culinary R&D teams in the world, he reveals how they exemplify what he calls the uncertainty mindset. Such a mindset intentionally incorporates uncertainty into organization design rather than simply trying to reduce risk. It changes how organizations hire, set goals, and motivate team members and leads organizations to work in highly unconventional ways. A revelatory look at the R&D kitchen, The Uncertainty Mindset upends conventional wisdom about how to organize for innovation and offers practical insights for businesses trying to become innovative and adaptable.

Picturing the Uncertain World

Picturing the Uncertain World
Title Picturing the Uncertain World PDF eBook
Author Howard Wainer
Publisher Princeton University Press
Pages 264
Release 2011-10-30
Genre Computers
ISBN 0691152675

Download Picturing the Uncertain World Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

From the publisher. This book explores how graphs can serve as maps to guide us when the information we have is ambiguous or incomplete. Using a visually diverse sampling of graphical display, from heartrending autobiographical displays of genocide in the Kovno ghetto to the "Pie Chart of Mystery" in a New Yorker cartoon, Wainer illustrates the many ways graphs can be used--and misused--as we try to make sense of an uncertain world. Picturing the Uncertain World takes readers on an extraordinary graphical adventure, revealing how the visual communication of data offers answers to vexing questions yet also highlights the measure of uncertainty in almost everything we do. Are cancer rates higher or lower in rural communities? How can you know how much money to sock away for retirement when you don't know when you'll die? And where exactly did nineteenth-century novelists get their ideas? These are some of the fascinating questions Wainer invites readers to consider. Along the way he traces the origins and development of graphical display, from William Playfair, who pioneered the use of graphs in the eighteenth century, to instances today where the public has been misled through poorly designed graphs.

Risk, Uncertainty and Profit

Risk, Uncertainty and Profit
Title Risk, Uncertainty and Profit PDF eBook
Author Frank H. Knight
Publisher Cosimo, Inc.
Pages 401
Release 2006-11-01
Genre Business & Economics
ISBN 1602060053

Download Risk, Uncertainty and Profit Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

A timeless classic of economic theory that remains fascinating and pertinent today, this is Frank Knight's famous explanation of why perfect competition cannot eliminate profits, the important differences between "risk" and "uncertainty," and the vital role of the entrepreneur in profitmaking. Based on Knight's PhD dissertation, this 1921 work, balancing theory with fact to come to stunning insights, is a distinct pleasure to read. FRANK H. KNIGHT (1885-1972) is considered by some the greatest American scholar of economics of the 20th century. An economics professor at the University of Chicago from 1927 until 1955, he was one of the founders of the Chicago school of economics, which influenced Milton Friedman and George Stigler.

Conquering Uncertainty

Conquering Uncertainty
Title Conquering Uncertainty PDF eBook
Author Theodore Modis
Publisher McGraw-Hill Companies
Pages 0
Release 1998
Genre Business cycles
ISBN 9780070434059

Download Conquering Uncertainty Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Theorizing that business people can focus on the "big picture" by studying natural laws, this text evaluates what business leaders can and cannot do in response to the changes of "business seasons". Scientific methods are used in conjunction with the observation of natural laws to solve problems.

Modern Trends in Structural and Solid Mechanics 3

Modern Trends in Structural and Solid Mechanics 3
Title Modern Trends in Structural and Solid Mechanics 3 PDF eBook
Author Noel Challamel
Publisher John Wiley & Sons
Pages 306
Release 2021-06-29
Genre Science
ISBN 1786307189

Download Modern Trends in Structural and Solid Mechanics 3 Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

This book – comprised of three separate volumes – presents the recent developments and research discoveries in structural and solid mechanics; it is dedicated to Professor Isaac Elishakoff. This third volume is devoted to non-deterministic mechanics. Modern Trends in Structural and Solid Mechanics 3 has broad scope, covering topics such: design optimization under uncertainty, interval field approaches, convex analysis, quantum inspired topology optimization and stochastic dynamics. The book is illustrated by many applications in the field of aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, biomedical engineering and automotive engineering. This book is intended for graduate students and researchers in the field of theoretical and applied mechanics.

Uncertainty and Surprise in Complex Systems

Uncertainty and Surprise in Complex Systems
Title Uncertainty and Surprise in Complex Systems PDF eBook
Author Reuben R. McDaniel
Publisher Springer Science & Business Media
Pages 220
Release 2005-03-11
Genre Science
ISBN 9783540237730

Download Uncertainty and Surprise in Complex Systems Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Complexity science has been a source of new insight in physical and social systems and has demonstrated that unpredictability and surprise are fundamental aspects of the world around us. This book is the outcome of a discussion meeting of leading scholars and critical thinkers with expertise in complex systems sciences and leaders from a variety of organizations, sponsored by the Prigogine Center at The University of Texas at Austin and the Plexus Institute, to explore strategies for understanding uncertainty and surprise. Besides contributions to the conference, it includes a key digest by the editors as well as a commentary by the late nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine, "Surprises in half of a century". The book is intended for researchers and scientists in complexity science, as well as for a broad interdisciplinary audience of both practitioners and scholars. It will well serve those interested in the research issues and in the application of complexity science to physical and social systems.