Hierarchical morphological design of immunoassay technology.

The paper describes a hierarchical design approach to an immunoassay. A morphology for an immunoassay technology is considered as a basis to generate system versions. A 5-stage technology is analyzed. The problem is: Find the best composite version for each stage while taking into account requirements (criteria) at each stage and compatibility between selected design alternatives at different stages. Hierarchical solving procedure consists of two parts: (a) multicriteria ranking of alternative versions at each stage (e.g., selection of Pareto-effective local decisions), (b) composition of the selected versions into a parallel-series composite system (technology). A realistic numerical example illustrates the approach.