JERUSALEM, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Israeli scientists developed a mathematical model that improves decision making based on expert information, the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) published Wednesday.
Many of the decisions people make are under conditions of uncertainty and based on forecasts by experts in the field.
For example, there are different weather forecasts for the same date, so it is sometimes difficult to decide how to dress or whether to take an umbrella.
Another example is whether to go for surgery when one doctor presents high chances of spontaneous recovery, but another thinks surgery is essential.
Decision makers in large organizations, such as members of the board of directors and cabinet ministers, also rely on experts' assessments.
If the experts agree, the decision is easy, but in many cases, they disagree, and their predictions are contradictory.
The new model weighs experts' forecasts on certain questions and presents an operative solution to some situations.
The model makes it possible to objectively examine the quality of decision making and build a forecast based on some expert forecasts based on an assessment of the quality of the aggregate forecast in the worst situation.
For some scenarios, the model also proposes a concrete solution to the problem, which provides a very good aggregate forecast.
Such a prediction would have been taken by a person exposed to all knowledge and data held by all experts.
