An Approximate Nonmyopic Computation for Value of Information
  Value-of-information analyses provide a straightforward means for selecting
the best next observation to make, and for determining whether it is better to
gather additional information or to act immediately. Determining the next best
test to perform, given a state of uncertainty about the world, requires a
consideration of the value of making all possible sequences of observations. In
practice, decision analysts and expert-system designers have avoided the
intractability of exact computation of the value of information by relying on a
myopic approximation. Myopic analyses are based on the assumption that only one
additional test will be performed, even when there is an opportunity to make a
large number of observations. We present a nonmyopic approximation for value of
information that bypasses the traditional myopic analyses by exploiting the
statistical properties of large samples.
