From the Editors - Deterrence, Multiattribute Utility, and Probability and Bayes' Updating

W review the past year in this issue’s “From the Editors” column, which is coauthored with Managing Editor Kelly M. Kophazi, then we preview this issue’s five research articles. Our first article, by Naraphorn Haphuriwat, Vicki M. Bier, and Henry H. Willis, is on “Deterring the Smuggling of Nuclear Weapons in Container Freight Through Detection and Retaliation.” Next, Ali E. Abbas presents a method for “Decomposing the Cross Derivatives of a Multiattribute Utility Function into Risk Attitude and Value.” The next two articles contain methods for determining probabilities. In our third article, Robert F. Bordley develops a method for “Using Bayes’ Rule to Update an Event’s Probabilities Based on the Outcomes of Partially Similar Events.” Next, a method for “Aggregating Large Sets of Probabilistic Forecasts by Weighted Coherent Adjustment” is developed by Guanchun Wang, Sanjeev R. Kulkarni, H. Vincent Poor, and Daniel N. Osherson. The final article is by Xiting Yang, Joseph B. Kadane, Heidi M. Crane, and Mari M. Kitahata on “Whether to Retest the Lipids of HIV-Infected Patients: How Much Does Fasting Bias Matter?”