Qualitative possibility theory and its applications to constraint satisfaction and decision under uncertainty

This paper provides a brief survey and an introduction to the modeling capa bilities of qualitative possibility theory in decision analysis for the rep resentation and the aggregation of preferences, for the treatment of uncert ainty and for the handling of situations similar to previously encountered ones. "Qualitative" here means that we restrict ourselves to linearly order ed valuation sets (only the ordering of the grades is meaningful) for the a ssessment of preferences, uncertainty and similarity. Moreover, all the eva luations refer to the same valuation set (commensurability assumption). Suc h a qualitative structure is poor but not very demanding from an elicitatio n point of view; however, it is sufficient for giving birth to a valuable s et of modeling tools. (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.