This book outlines a possible future theoretical perspective for systemics, its conceptual morphology and landscape while the Good-Old-Fashioned-Systemics (GOFS) era is still under way. The change from GOFS to future systemics can be represented, as shown in the book title, by the conceptual change from Collective Beings to Quasi-systems. With the current advancements, problems and approaches occurring in contemporary science, systemics are moving beyond the traditional frameworks used in the past. From Collective Beings to Coherent Quasi-Systems outlines a conceptual morphology and landscape for a new theoretical perspective for systemics introducing the concept of Quasi-systems. Advances in domains such as theoretical physics, philosophy of science, cell biology, neuroscience, experimental economics, network science and many others offer new concepts and technical tools to support the creation of a fully transdisciplinary General Theory of Change. This circumstance requires a deep reformulation of systemics, without forgetting the achievements of established conventions. The book is divided into two parts. Part I, examines classic systemic issues from new theoretical perspectives and approaches. A new general unified framework is introduced to help deal with topics such as dynamic structural coherence and Quasi-systems. This new theoretical framework is compared and contrasted with the traditional approaches. Part II focuses on the process of translation into social culture of the theoretical principles, models and approaches introduced in Part I. This translation is urgent in post-industrial societies where emergent processes and problems are still dealt with by using the classical or non-systemic knowledge of the industrial phase.

This book addresses the specialized topic of input-output models for sustainable industrial systems. While these models are well-established tools for economic analysis, their underlying mathematical structure is also applicable to the analysis and optimization of a wide range of systems that are characterized by linear interdependencies among their components. This means that input-output models can be used for diverse networks, such as processes within industrial plants, industrial plants in a supply chain, or departmental units within an organization. The models can also be readily extended to interactions between man-made systems and the environment, e.g. flows of natural resources and/or pollutants. Furthermore, model variants with excess degrees of freedom can be formulated to allow optimization and decision-making to be integrated within the framework. This book examines how input-output models can be applied to sustainable industrial systems. Each major variant is discussed separately in a dedicated chapter, and representative case studies and supporting LINGO code are also included.

The Handbook of Mathematical Economics aims to provide a definitive source, reference, and teaching supplement for the field of mathematical economics. It surveys, as of the late 1970's the state of the art of mathematical economics. This is a constantly developing field and all authors were invited to review and to appraise the current status and recent developments in their presentations. In addition to its use as a reference, it is intended that this Handbook will assist researchers and students working in one branch of mathematical economics to become acquainted with other branches of this field. The emphasis of this fourth volume of the Handbook of Mathematical Economics is on choice under uncertainty, general equilibrium analysis under conditions of uncertainty, economies with an infinite number of consumers or commodities, and dynamical systems. The book thus reflects some of the ideas that have been most influential in mathematical economics since the appearance of the first three volumes of the Handbook.

Researchers, students, economists and mathematicians will all find this Handbook to be an indispensable reference source. It surveys the entire field of mathematical economics, critically reviewing recent developments. The chapters (which can be read independently) are written at an advanced level suitable for professional, teaching and graduate-level use.

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This book presents recently developed intelligent techniques with applications and theory in the area of quality management. The involved applications of intelligence include techniques such as fuzzy sets, neural networks, genetic algorithms, etc. The book consists of classical quality management topics dealing with intelligent techniques for solving the complex quality management problems. The book will serve as an excellent reference for quality managers, researchers, lecturers and postgraduate students in this area. The authors of the chapters are well-known researchers in the area of quality management.

The book provides a thorough treatment of set functions, games and capacities as well as integrals with respect to capacities and games, in a mathematical rigorous presentation and in view of application to decision making. After a short chapter introducing some required basic knowledge (linear programming, polyhedra, ordered sets) and notation, the first part of the book consists of three long chapters developing the mathematical aspects. This part is not related to a particular application field and, by its neutral mathematical style, is useful to the widest audience. It gathers many results and notions which are scattered in the literature of various domains (game theory, decision, combinatorial optimization and operations research). The second part consists of three chapters, applying the previous notions in decision making and modelling: decision under uncertainty, decision with multiple criteria, possibility theory and Dempster-Shafer theory.

This book systematically studies the stochastic non-cooperative differential game theory of generalized linear Markov jump systems and its application in the field of finance and insurance. The book is an in-depth research book of the continuous time and discrete time linear quadratic stochastic differential game, in order to establish a relatively complete framework of dynamic non-cooperative differential game theory. It uses the method of dynamic programming principle and Riccati equation, and derives it into all kinds of existence conditions and calculating method of the equilibrium strategies of dynamic non-cooperative differential game. Based on the game theory method, this book studies the corresponding robust control problem, especially the existence condition and design method of the optimal robust control strategy. The book discusses the theoretical results and its applications in the risk control, option pricing, and the optimal investment problem in the field of finance and insurance, enriching the achievements of differential game research. This book can be used as a reference book for non-cooperative differential game study, for graduate students majored in economic management, science and engineering of institutions of higher learning.

This book highlights what it takes to be successful in identifying and executing environmental responsibility from an operational perspective. It provides cutting-edge research from globally recognized field experts. It is a useful resource for practitioners to explore why and how firms engage in environmentally responsible operations, but also a valuable resource for academics as an introductory reference that provides direct exposure to key environmental operational problems faced by many firms today. This book can also be used as an introductory reading for students with varying educational backgrounds - from business school students interested in environmental issues to environmental scientists interested in obtaining a business perspective - as it provides a broad scope of key issues at the interface of operations management and environmental and social responsibility. Environmentally Responsible Supply Chains is structured in a modular fashion, with each chapter introducing and analyzing a specific timely topic, allowing readers to identify the chapters that relate to their interests. More specifically, the book distinguishes between two key drivers of environmentally responsibility: Profit and Regulatory compliance. The book is divided into five sections. The first three sections of the book explore profit driven environmental responsibility, and provide examples as to where the motives for environmentally responsible business practices come from, where business opportunities are, and what operational perspectives are key to profitability. The last two sections of the book focus on regulation as a driver of environmental responsibility and identify motives, opportunities, or operational perspectives as to effective regulatory compliance. Ultimately the book introduces the reader to the fundamentals of sustainable operations and highlights the latest research on the topic.

Decision-making is an important task no matter the industry. Operations research, as a discipline, helps alleviate decision-making problems through the extraction of reliable information related to the task at hand in order to come to a viable solution. Integrating stochastic processes into operations research and management can further aid in the decision-making process for industrial and management problems. Stochastic Processes and Models in Operations Research emphasizes mathematical tools and equations relevant for solving complex problems within business and industrial settings. This research-based publication aims to assist scholars, researchers, operations managers, and graduate-level students by providing comprehensive exposure to the concepts, trends, and technologies relevant to stochastic process modeling to solve operations research problems.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to nonlinear programming, featuring a broad range of applications and solution methods in the field of continuous optimization. It begins with a summary of classical results on unconstrained optimization, followed by a wealth of applications from a diverse mix of fields, e.g. location analysis, traffic planning, and water quality management, to name but a few. In turn, the book presents a formal description of optimality conditions, followed by an in-depth discussion of the main solution techniques. Each method is formally described, and then fully solved using a numerical example.

This volume provides a complete record of presentations made at Industrial Engineering, Management Science and Applications 2015 (ICIMSA 2015), and provides the reader with a snapshot of current knowledge and state-of-the-art results in industrial engineering, management science and applications. The goal of ICIMSA is to provide an excellent international forum for researchers and practitioners from both academia and industry to share cutting-edge developments in the field and to exchange and distribute the latest research and theories from the international community. The conference is held every year, making it an ideal platform for people to share their views and experiences in industrial engineering, management science and applications related fields.

This book is the seventh volume in a series entitled "Contemporary Logistics in China," authored by researchers from the Logistics Center at Nankai University. In the spirit of the six preceding annual volumes, this book carries on the ideal of providing a systematic exposition on the logistics development in China for the English-speaking community at large. Specially, this volume captures China's logistics development at a crucial turning point. On the one hand, it reflects the new horizon advocated by the Government's One-Belt-One-Road Initiative global cooperation strategy; on the other, it explores the Internet revolution, which has had major impacts on e-commerce and urban logistics in China. Subjects covered in this volume encompass the macro-factors pertaining to logistics development, region-specific plans, industry-wide transformation, globally-oriented moves, and current hot topics. The expositions on and analyses of these subjects are based on the latest available sources and statistical data. As with the previous volumes, the ultimate aim of this book is to present a timely portrait of the rapid growth of China's logistics market and the status quo of its logistics industry. In so doing, the book offers an in-depth analysis of critical issues involved in the ongoing dynamic and multi-faceted development, and provides a valuable reference resource for interested readers in the academic and professional fields.

This book shows how common operation management methods and algorithms can be extended to deal with vague or imprecise information in decision-making problems. It describes how to combine decision trees, clustering, multi-attribute decision-making algorithms and Monte Carlo Simulation with the mathematical description of imprecise or vague information, and how to visualize such information. Moreover, it discusses a broad spectrum of real-life management problems including forecasting the apparent consumption of steel products, planning and scheduling of production processes, project portfolio selection and economic-risk estimation. It is a concise, yet comprehensive, reference source for researchers in decision-making and decision-makers in business organizations alike.

The book gives a systematic and detailed description of a new integrated product and process development approach for sheet metal manufacturing. Special attention is given to manufacturing that unites multidisciplinary competences of product design, material science, and production engineering, as well as mathematical optimization and computer based information technology. The case study of integral sheet metal structures is used by the authors to introduce the results related to the recent manufacturing technologies of linear flow splitting, bend splitting, and corresponding integrated process chains for sheet metal structures.

This book introduces the reader to the field of multiobjective optimization through problems with simple structures, namely those in which the objective function and constraints are linear. Fundamental notions as well as state-of-the-art advances are presented in a comprehensive way and illustrated with the help of numerous examples. Three of the most popular methods for solving multiobjective linear problems are explained, and exercises are provided at the end of each chapter, helping students to grasp and apply key concepts and methods to more complex problems. The book was motivated by the fact that the majority of the practical problems we encounter in management science, engineering or operations research involve conflicting criteria and therefore it is more convenient to formulate them as multicriteria optimization models, the solution concepts and methods of which cannot be treated using traditional mathematical programming approaches.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of quality and quality management. It also explores total quality management, covering its human, technological and analytical imperatives. It also examines quality systems and system standards, highlighting essential features and avoiding a reproduction of the ISO 9000 standard, as well as people-related issues in implementing a quality system. A holistic understanding of quality considerations, which now permeate every aspect of human life, should guide related policies, plans and practices. The book describes the all-pervasive characteristics of quality, putting together diverse definitions of "quality," outlining its different dimensions, and linking it with reliability and innovation. It goes on to assess the quality of measurements in terms of precision, accuracy and uncertainty and discusses managing quality with a focus on business performance. This is followed by a chapter on improving process quality, which is the summum bonum of quality management, and a chapter addressing the crucial problem of measuring customer satisfaction through appropriate models and tools. Further, it covers non-traditional subjects such as quality of life, quality of working life, quality assurance and improvement in education, with special reference to higher education, quality in research and development and characterizes the quality-related policies and practices in Indian industry. The last chapter provides a broad sketch of some recent advances in statistical methods for quality management. Along with the research community, the book's content is also useful for practitioners and industry watchers.

This proceedings volume highlights the role and importance of Operational Research (OR) in the digital era and the underlying ICT challenges. The selected papers cover recent advances in all branches of operational research, mathematical modeling and decision making. It covers a wide range of key areas from digital economy, to supply chain management, and also finance. The book adopts an applied perspective that covers the contributions of OR in the broad field of business and economics linked with the discipline of computer science. The chapters are based on papers presented at the 6th International Symposium & 28th National Conference on Operational Research. Although the conference is organized by the Hellenic Operational Research Society (HELORS), the contributions in this book promotes international co-operation among researchers and practitioners working in the field.

The book presents a broad view on the nature of intelligent decision-making which is characterized by the use of models and methods in the framework of decision support for management. Contributions to this volume dedicated to Paul StAhly on the occasion of his 65th birthday include theoretical research and applications in optimization, operations research as well as decision support and management systems.

This edited book examines the challenges and opportunities arising from today's sharing economy from an operations management perspective. Individual chapter authors present state-of-the-art research that examines the general impact of sharing economy on production and consumption; the intermediary role of a sharing platform; crowdsourcing management; and context-based operational problems. Sharing economy refers to a market model that enables and facilitates the sharing of access to goods and services. For example, Uber allows riders to share a car. Airbnb allows homeowners to share their extra rooms with renters. Groupon crowdsources demands, enabling customers to share the benefit of discounted goods and services, whereas Kickstarter crowdsources funds, enabling backers to fund a project jointly. Unlike the classic supply chain settings in which a firm makes inventory and supply decisions, in sharing economy, supply is crowdsourced and can be modulated by a platform. The matching-supply-with-demand process in a sharing economy requires novel perspectives and tools to address challenges and identify opportunities. The book is comprised of 20 chapters that are divided into four parts. The first part explores the general impact of sharing economy on the production, consumption, and society. The second part explores the intermediary role of a sharing platform that matches crowdsourced supply with demand. The third part investigates the crowdsourcing management on a sharing platform, and the fourth part is dedicated to context-based operational problems of popular sharing economy applications. "While sharing economy is becoming omnipresence, the operations management (OM) research community has begun to explore and examine different business models in the transportation, healthcare, financial, accommodation, and sourcing sectors. This book presents a collection of the state-of-the-art research work conducted by a group of world-leading OM researchers in this area. Not only does this book cover a wide range of business models arising from the sharing economy, but it also showcases different modeling frameworks and research methods that cannot be missed. Ultimately, this book is a tour de force - informative and insightful!" Christopher S. Tang Distinguished Professor and Edward Carter Chair in Business Administration UCLA Anderson School of Management

This book provides theoretical and practical insights for effective decision making in situations that involve various types of conflict cleavages. Embedding historical analysis, negotiation analysis, political scientific analysis and game theoretical analysis in an integrated analytical framework allows a comprehensive perspective on various dilemmas and self-enforcing dynamics that inhibit decision making. The conceptualization of strategic facilitation highlights the value of leadership, chairmanship and the role of threshold states in facilitating decision making as the global climate change negotiations unfolds.

This handbook compiles state-of-the-art empirical studies and applications using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). It includes a collection of 18 chapters written by DEA experts. Chapter 1 examines the performance of CEOs of U.S. banks and thrifts. Chapter 2 describes the network operational structure of transportation organizations and the relative network data envelopment analysis model. Chapter 3 demonstrates how to use different types of DEA models to compute total-factor energy efficiency scores with an application to energy efficiency. In chapter 4, the authors explore the impact of incorporating customers' willingness to pay for service quality in benchmarking models on cost efficiency of distribution networks, and chapter 5 provides a brief review of previous applications of DEA to the professional baseball industry, followed by two detailed applications to Major League Baseball. Chapter 6 examines efficiency and productivity of U.S. property-liability (P-L) insurers using DEA, while chapter 7 presents a two-stage network DEA model that decomposes the overall efficiency of a decision-making unit into two components. Chapter 8 presents a review of the literature of DEA models for the perfoemance assessment of mutual funds, and chapter 9 discusses the management strategies formulation of the international tourist hotel industry in Taiwan. Chapter 10 presents a novel use of the two-stage network DEA to evaluate sustainable product design performances. In chapter 11 authors highlight limitations of some DEA environmental efficiency models, and chapter 12 reviews applications of DEA in secondary and tertiary education. Chapter 13 measures the relative performance of New York State school districts in the 2011-2012 academic year. Chapter 14 provides an introductory prelude to chapters 15 and 16, which both provide detailed applications of DEA in marketing. Chapter 17 then shows how to decompose a new total factor productivity index that satisfies all economically-relevant axioms from index theory with an application to U.S. agriculture. Finally, chapter 18 presents a unique study that conducts a DEA research front analysis, applying a network clustering method to group the DEA literature over the period 2000 to 2014.

To ensure the security and economy of future power system operation in the context of a high degree of renewable energy penetration, this thesis proposes a new distributed algorithm called generalized master-slave-splitting (G-MSS) theory and a new transmission-distribution coordinated energy management (TDCEM) method that is based on the G-MSS theory. The thesis studies the mathematical properties of the G-MSS theory in detail. Based on the G-MSS theory, a distributed TDCEM method - which involves distributed security analysis, distributed voltage stability analysis, distributed economic dispatch and distributed optimal power flow for an integrated transmission-distribution system - is then developed for the first time. The thesis demonstrates that the proposed TDCEM method significantly contributes to more reliable and optimal operation in power systems. The book will benefit researchers, scientists and engineers in the field of power system operation and optimization.

The Handbook of Mathematical Economics aims to provide a definitive source, reference, and teaching supplement for the field of mathematical economics. It surveys, as of the late 1970's the state of the art of mathematical economics. This is a constantly developing field and all authors were invited to review and to appraise the current status and recent developments in their presentations. In addition to its use as a reference, it is intended that this Handbook will assist researchers and students working in one branch of mathematical economics to become acquainted with other branches of this field. Volume I deals with Mathematical Methods in Economics, including reviews of the concepts and techniques that have been most useful for the mathematical development of economic theory. Volume II elaborates on Mathematical Approaches to Microeconomic Theory, including consumer, producer, oligopoly, and duality theory, as well as Mathematical Approaches to Competitive Equilibrium including such aspects of competitive equilibrium as existence, stability, uncertainty, the computation of equilibrium prices, and the core of an economy.

This book is a comprehensive introduction of the reader into the simulation and modelling techniques and their application in the management of organisations. The book is rooted in the thorough understanding of systems theory applied to organisations and focuses on how this theory can apply to econometric models used in the management of organisations. The econometric models in this book employ linear and dynamic programming, graph theory, queuing theory, game theory, etc. and are presented and analysed in various fields of application, such as investment management, stock management, strategic decision making, management of production costs and the lifecycle costs of quality and non-quality products, production quality Management, etc.

This book provides an overview of intelligent decision-making techniques and discusses their application in production and retail operations. Manufacturing and retail enterprises have stringent standards for using advanced and reliable techniques to improve decision-making processes, since these processes have significant effects on the performance of relevant operations and the entire supply chain. In recent years, researchers have been increasingly focusing attention on using intelligent techniques to solve various decision-making problems. The opening chapters provide an introduction to several commonly used intelligent techniques, such as genetic algorithm, harmony search, neural network and extreme learning machine. The book then explores the use of these techniques for handling various production and retail decision-making problems, such as production planning and scheduling, assembly line balancing, and sales forecasting.