This book positions qualitative analysis as an ongoing process occurring over the life cycle of a project. It pays attention to the research proposal and the decisions taken early on in the research design that influence the analysis, such as the use of theory, sampling and data collection.

Optimization is an important tool used in decision science and for the analysis of physical systems used in engineering. It begins with very simple ideas progressing through more complicated concepts, concentrating on methods for both unconstrained and constrained optimization.