IF - IG
International Interdisciplinary Center For Information and Fact Checking about Info-Gap Decision Theory
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The rise and rise of voodoo decision making

Reviews

The new campaign will continue to review publications on IGDT with a view to raise awareness of the fact that many publications on this theory completely ignore major fundamental flaws in the theory and depict a distorted view of the state of the art in decision making under severe uncertainty.

These reviews will focus on the following issues:

• The Radius of Stability connection.
  Does the publication mention the fact that IGDT robustness is a reinvention of the good old Radius of stability?
• The Wald's Maximin Paradigm connection.
  Does the publication mention the fact that IGDT's two core robustness related models are simple Wald-Type maximin models?
• The distinction between Local and Global robustness.
  Does the publication discuss the fact that IGDT robustness model is a model of local robustness, and thus is incompatible with the severe uncertainty postulated by the theory, whose robustness analysis requires a model of global robustness?
• Treatment of valid criticism.
  How does the publication deal with the valid, well-documented criticism, that has been directed at IGDT over the years?

Unfortunately, these questions must be raised quite often, so you will find essentially the same commentary on these issues in a number of reviews.

The following reviews have been completed. I recommend that Review 1-2022 be read by all visitors, and that Review 2-2022 be read by all visitors who are interested to know why IGDT is fundamentally flawed. Since I try to make each review as self-contained as possible, there are recurring themes in these reviews.

Your comments on these reviews will be greatly appreciated.

Check Your Browser

The rendering of mathematical symbols/expressions/equations (by LaTeX) in these reviews require your browser to support a recent version of JavaScript (see https://www.mathjax.org/ for details). Most of the popular browsers are fine on desktop computers. So make sure that JavaScript is enabled on you browser. I am testing the reviews on a mac desktop with Firefox, Chrome, Edge, and Safari. I have not checked how things work on mobile phones. You can check your browser right here and now. It should display below the famous LaTex logo at the center of the next line.

$\huge \color{darkgreen}\LaTeX$ Your comments on this issue will be greatly appreciated.

• Review 1-2022: Vincent A. W. J. Marchau, Warren E. Walker, Pieter J. T. M. Bloemen, Steven W. Popper, Editors. (2019) Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty.Springer.
• Review 2-2022: Yakov Ben-Haim. (2019) Info-Gap Decision Theory. Chapter 5 in Vincent A. W. J. Marchau, Warren E. Walker, Pieter J. T. M. Bloemen, Steven W. Popper, Editors.Editors. (2019) Decision making Under Deep Uncertainty. Springer.
• Review 3-2022: C. McPhail , H. R. Maier , J. H. Kwakkel , M. Giuliani , A. Castelletti , and S. Westra. (2018) Robustness Metrics: How Are They Calculated, When Should They Be Used and Why Do They Give Different Results? Earth's Future,6,169-191. doi.org/10.1002/2017EF000649.
• Review 4-2022: Muriel C. Bonjean Stanton and Katy Roelich. (2021) Decision making under deep uncertainties: A review of the applicability of methods in practice.Technological Forecasting and Social Change. 171, 120939.
• Review 5-2022: David R. Johnson and Nathan B. Geldner. Contemporary Decision Methods for Agricultural, Environmental, and Resource Management and Policy. Annual Review of Resource Economics, 11:19-41.
• Review 6-2022: Yang Liu, Penghao Wang, Melissa L. Thomas, Dan Zheng & Simon J. McKirdy. (2021) Cost-effective surveillance of invasive species using info-gap theory. Scientific Reports, 11:22828. doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-02299-8.
• Review 7-2022: Jim W. Hall,Robert J. Lempert, Klaus Keller, Andrew Hackbarth, Christophe Mijere, and David J. McInerney. (2012) Robust Climate Policies Under Uncertainty: A Comparison of Robust Decision Making and Info-Gap Methods. Risk Analysis, 32(10):1657- 1672. DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2012.01802.x
• Review 8-2023: Marc Ciligot-Travain. Sur une notion de robustesse. Annales de l'ISUP, 2012, 56(2-3):37-48. hal-01334825
• Review 9-2023: Yang Liu, Melissa L. Thomas, Grey T. Coupland, Penghao Wang, Dan Zheng & Simon J. McKirdy Info‐gap theory to determine cost‐effective eradication of invasive species Scientific Reports 13: 2744. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-29571-3

Under preparation is a list of publications to be reviewed soon. Note that, as always, we are particularly interested in peer-reviewed articles and books. Here is a partial list of candidates.

• Jan Willem Van den End, and Yakov Ben-Haim (2021). Robust Policy in Times of Pandemic. Intereconomics 56:108-112. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10272-021-0961-1
• Yakov Ben-Haim and Jan Willem Van den End (2022). Assessing uncertainty in the natural rate of interest: Info-gap as guide for monetary policy in the euro area. Int J Fin Econ. 27:3228-3245.https://doi.org/10.1002/ijfe.2318
• Yakov Ben-Haim. (2018) THE DILEMMAS OF WONDERLAND Decisions in the Age of Innovation. Oxford University Press.
• R. J. Lempert. (2019) Chapter 2 Robust Decision Making (RDM), in Vincent A. W. J. Marchau, Warren E. Walker, Pieter J. T. M. Bloemen, Steven W. Popper, Editors. (2019) Decision making Under Deep Uncertainty. Springer.
• François M. Hemez and Kendra L. Van Buren. (2019) Info-Gap (IG): Robust Design of a Mechanical Latch. Chapter 10 in in Vincent A. W. J. Marchau, Warren E. Walker, Pieter J. T. M. Bloemen, Steven W. Popper, Editors. (2019) Decision making Under Deep Uncertainty. Springer.
• Jan H. Kwakkel and Marjolijn Haasnoot. (2019) Chapter 15 Supporting DMDU: A Taxonomy of Approaches and Tools, in Vincent A. W. J. Marchau, Warren E. Walker, Pieter J. T. M. Bloemen, Steven W. Popper, Editors. (2019) Decision making Under Deep Uncertainty. Springer.
• Mostafa Kafaei, Davoud Sedighizadeh, Mostafa Sedighizadeh, Alireza Sheikhi Fini. (2022) An IGDT/Scenario based stochastic model for an energy hub considering hydrogen energy and electric vehicles: A case study of Qeshm Island, Iran. International Journal of Electrical Power & Energy Systems, 135, 107477.
• Housh, M., Aharon, T. (2021) Info-gap models for optimal multi-year management of regional water resources systems under uncertainty. Sustainability, 13, 3152.
• Rahim Fathi, Behrouz Tousi, and Sadjad Galvani. (2021) A new approach for optimal allocation of photovoltaic and wind clean energy resources in distribution networks with reconfiguration considering uncertainty based on info-gap decision theory with risk aversion strategy,ournal of Cleaner Production, 295, 125984.
• Xuguang Yu, Gang Li, Yapeng Li, Chuntian Cheng. (2021) Robust short-term scheduling based on information-gap decision theory for cascade reservoirs considering bilateral contract fulfillment and day-ahead market bidding in source systems. Environmental Research Letters. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abe6c3.
• Yakov Ben-Haim. (2021) Feedback for energy conservation: An info-gap approach. Energy, 223, 119957.
• Mostafa Kafaei, Davoud Sedighizadeh, Mostafa Sedighizadeh, Alireza Sheikhi Fini. (2021) A two-stage IGDT/TPEM model for optimal operation of a smart building: A case study of Gheshm Island, Iran. Thermal Science and Engineering Progress, 24, 1, 100955.
• Nikolaos I. Ioakimidis. (2021) Quantifier elimination and quantifier-free formulae for universally-existentially (AE) quantified formulae in Ben-Haim's info-gap model of uncertainty, Technical Report No. TR-2021-Q18. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.32057.70246.
• Nikolaos I. Ioakimidis. (2021) Robust reliability under uncertainty conditions by using modified info-gap models with two to four horizons of uncertainty and quantifier elimination. Technical Report number: TR-2021-Q17. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.35922.27844.
• Nikolaos I. Ioakimidis. (2021) Application of quantifier elimination to robust reliability under severe uncertainty conditions by using the info-gap decision theory (IGDT). Technical Report No. TR-2021-Q16. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.22065.51041.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-02299-8
• Yacov Ben-Haim. (2019) Assessing 'beyond a reasonable doubt' without probability: an info-gap perspective. Law, Probability and Risk, 18, 77-95.

I shall be pleased to consider other publications. Feel free to send us your candidates.

You might also wish to take a quick look at old reviews. Keep in mind that these reviews are quite old and therefore don't be surprised to find some (hopefully very few) broken links. Please report to us of such links.