Following along with these academic developments, decision analysis has also evolved into a mature professional discipline. The method has been used to support business and public-policy decision-making since the late 1950s; applications from 1990-2001 were reviewed in the inaugural issue of Decision Analysis. Many of the early practitioners were associated with research institutes or consulting companies, such as SRI International (formerly the Stanford Research Institute), Applied Decision Analysis (acquired by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 1998), Decision Focus, Inc. (active from 1977 through 1998), Strategic Decisions Group, and Innovative Decisions International. Decision analysis has been especially widely adopted in the pharmaceutical industry and the oil and gas industry, since both industries regularly need to make large high-risk decisions (e.g., about investing in development of a new drug or making a major acquisition).