John N. Warfield, Professor Emeritus with the School of Public Policy, published The Mathematics of Structure this year. In a 1976 book titled Societal Systems: Planning, Policy, and Complexity (Wiley Interscience Systems Engineering Series), Warfield presented an integrated sequence of chapters on what he now refers to as mathematics of structure, and introduced a computer-assisted group process called "Interpretive Structural Modeling." Because the mathematics resided within the larger text and seemed camouflaged, Warfield decided to publish The Mathematics of Structure (Ajar Publishing Company) as a separate text.

The book covers such topics as Boolean algebra, sets and binary relations, binary matrices and matrix models, digraphs, digraph maps, and digraph models, structure and complexity, transitive embedding, cycles and interpretive structural modeling (ISM).

The foundational mathematics of structure are presented in the first three chapters and the middle chapter, "Structure and Complexity" explains how applications of the mathematics of structure enables the development of insights about problematic situations—insights that will not be found using less scientific methods. The last three chapters show how model construction can be done with computer assistance to take advantage of the aggregated and integrated beliefs of well-informed (and partially-informed) groups of actors.

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