UtilityIn economics, utility is a measure of a certain person's satisfaction from a certain state of the world. Over time, the term has been used with at least two meanings. In a normative context, utility refers to a goal or objective that we wish to maximize, i.e., an objective function.
Decision theoryDecision theory or the theory of rational choice is a branch of probability, economics, and analytic philosophy that uses expected utility and probability to model how individuals would behave rationally under uncertainty. It differs from the cognitive and behavioral sciences in that it is mainly prescriptive and concerned with identifying optimal decisions for a rational agent, rather than describing how people actually make decisions.
Mathematical optimizationMathematical optimization (alternatively spelled optimisation) or mathematical programming is the selection of a best element, with regard to some criteria, from some set of available alternatives. It is generally divided into two subfields: discrete optimization and continuous optimization.
Fitness functionA fitness function is a particular type of objective or cost function that is used to summarize, as a single figure of merit, how close a given candidate solution is to achieving the set aims. It is an important component of evolutionary algorithms (EA), such as genetic programming, evolution strategies or genetic algorithms.
Event (probability theory)In probability theory, an event is a subset of outcomes of an experiment (a subset of the sample space) to which a probability is assigned. A single outcome may be an element of many different events, and different events in an experiment are usually not equally likely, since they may include very different groups of outcomes. An event consisting of only a single outcome is called an elementary event or an atomic event; that is, it is a singleton set.
Estimation theoryThe probabilistic approach (described in this article) assumes that the measured data is random with a probability distribution dependent on the parameters of interestThe set-membership approach assumes that the measured data vector belongs to a set which depends on the parameter vector.ExamplesFor example, it is desired to estimate the proportion of a population of voters who will vote for a particular candidate.Optimization problemIn mathematics, engineering, computer science and economics, an optimization problem is the problem of finding the best solution from all feasible solutions. Optimization problems can be divided into two categories, depending on whether the variables are continuous or discrete: An optimization problem with discrete variables is known as a discrete optimization, in which an object such as an integer, permutation or graph must be found from a countable set.
Real numberIn mathematics, a real number is a number that can be used to measure a continuous one-dimensionalquantity such as a length, duration or temperature. Here, continuous means that pairs of values can have arbitrarily small differences. Every real number can be almost uniquely represented by an infinite decimal expansion.
Reinforcement learningIn machine learning and optimal control, reinforcement learning (RL) (also known as approximate dynamic programming) is concerned with how an intelligent agent should take actions in a dynamic environment in order to maximize a reward signal. Reinforcement learning is one of the three basic machine learning paradigms, alongside supervised learning and unsupervised learning.
Abraham WaldAbraham Wald (; German: [valt]; Hungarian: Wald Ábrahám, Yiddish: אברהם וואַלד; (1902-10-31)31 October 1902 – (1950-12-13)13 December 1950) was a Hungarian-American mathematician and statistician who contributed to decision theory, geometry and econometrics, and founded the field of sequential analysis.
Pierre-Simon LaplacePierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace (; French: [pjɛʁ simɔ̃ laplas]; 23 March 1749 – 5 March 1827) was a French polymath, a scholar whose work has been instrumental in the fields of physics, astronomy, mathematics, engineering, statistics, and philosophy. He summarized and extended the work of his predecessors in his five-volume Mécanique céleste (Celestial Mechanics) (1799–1825).Profit maximizationIn economics, profit maximization is the short run or long run process by which a firm may determine the price, input and output levels that will lead to the highest possible total profit (or just profit in short).*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.