An examination of the present and future usefulness of systems analysis as an approach to policy planning, particularly in matters of national security. The study considers the basic concepts of systems analysis, including the problem of selecting operationally useful objectives, measures of their attainment, and criteria; the treatment of uncertainty; the place and function of technological considerations in planning or evaluating advanced systems; the character and role of resource and cost-sensitivity analysis; and the nature and value of models in systems analysis, especially the models provided by mathematical game theory, simulation, scenario writing, political analysis, and gaming. Earlier conclusions are reexamined in the light of the successes and failures of systems analysis during the past decade. Newer methods of analysis are discussed.

In September 1980, the Special Programme Panel on Systems Sciences of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) sponsored an Advanced Research Institute (ARI) on "Systems Analysis in Urban Policy-Making and Planning" which was held at New College, Univer sity of Oxford, from 21st to 27th September. This week-long meeting brought together 35 invited delegates from most countries of the NATO Alliance to discuss the impact which syst~ms analysis has had and is likely to have on urban affairs. The manuscript was submitted to the publisher in June of 1982. Although the goal of the ARI was to assess the impact of urban systems analysis as seen through the eyes of those closely involved in such work, the meeting also addressed opportunities for future research and development, and therefore in this book we have attempted to synthesize discussions at the meeting with this in mind. But before we describe the structure of this book, it is worth recounting in a little more detail the intentions and organi zation of the meeting, for this has had an important effect on the type of papers produced here, the way they have been written, and the issues they address.

Systems analysis, which is also called cost/benefit analysis, the planning-programming-budgeting system, risk analysis, and technology assessment, has become the major planning and policy tool of government at all levels. Indeed, it is still gathering momentum in addressing the uncertainties associated with everything from the safety of nuclear energy to the effects of microelectronics. Examining this phenomenon critically, Ida R. Hoos reviews systems analytic techniques in their own circumscribed, simulated world and in the real one, drawing on a wide range of studies in health, education, welfare, crime, and many other areas of public concern, and giving special attention to information systems and databanks. In a new introduction and a new final chapter, Hoos expands her 1972 discussion to consider the ways in which systems analysis, now dominant, governs our present and determines our future. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1972.

The report examines the present and future usefulness of systems analysis as an approach to policy planning, particularly in matters of national security. The study considers the basic concepts of systems analysis, including the problem of selecting operationally useful objectives, measures of their attainment, and criteria; the treatment of uncertainty; the place and function of technological considerations in planning or evaluating advanced systems; the character and role of resource and cost-sensitivity analysis; and the nature and value of models in systems analysis, especially the models provided by mathematical game theory, simulation, scenario writing, political analysis, and gaming. Earlier conclusions are reexamined in the light of the successes and failures of systems analysis during the past decade. Newer method of analysis are discussed.

Monograph on the philosophy and ideology of mao tse-tung on communism in China contrasting contemporary maoism both with classical Chinese historical thinking, and with the western sources of Marxism - includes references.