Sociological theories of crime include: theories of strain blame crime on personal stressors; theories of social learning blame crime on its social rewards, and see crime more as an institution in conflict with other institutions rather than as in- vidual deviance; and theories of control look at crime as natural and rewarding, and explore the formation of institutions that control crime. Theorists of corruption generally agree that corruption is an expression of the Patron-Client relationship in which a person with access to resources trades resources with kin and members of the community in exchange for loyalty. Some approaches to modeling crime and corruption do not involve an explicit simulation: rule based systems; Bayesian networks; game theoretic approaches, often based on rational choice theory; and Neoclassical Econometrics, a rational choice-based approach. Simulation-based approaches take into account greater complexities of interacting parts of social phenomena. These include fuzzy cognitive maps and fuzzy rule sets that may incorporate feedback; and agent-based simulation, which can go a step farther by computing new social structures not previously identified in theory. The latter include cognitive agent models, in which agents learn how to perceive their en- ronment and act upon the perceptions of their individual experiences; and reactive agent simulation, which, while less capable than cognitive-agent simulation, is adequate for testing a policy's effects with existing societal structures. For example, NNL is a cognitive agent model based on the REPAST Simphony toolkit.

This book examines inventory and production strategies that can reduce unexpected breakdown costs. It highlights different EPQ models to deal with such problems, providing optimal value derivations for decision variables. It provides proofs for concavity or convexity of objective functions. The chapters also include numerical examples for all the developed mathematical models. Imperfect Inventory Systems: Inventory and Production Management and Breakdown should be useful for professionals working on supply chains, but also researchers in operations research and inventory management.

This book presents state-of-the-art research on responsible operations practices. The book identifies the challenges and opportunities arising from the shift towards responsible business operations and examines these issues through the lenses of operations management, emphasizing the supply chain transformations associated with these changes. Developing a responsible business model presents a great opportunity for firms to differentiate in the marketplace through innovative models and insights around responsible operations and supply chain management. To do so, companies in many industries are changing their practices around sourcing materials, supplier compliance around processes and labor, scientific and sustainable approaches to farming in emerging countries, managing counterfeiting risks, and public health management. Responsible Business Operations: Challenges and Opportunities is divided into three sections. Section 1 focuses on environmental responsibility for companies. It also explores alternative energy solutions for both the developed and developing world, as well as worldwide carbon footprint reduction efforts. Section 2 is dedicated to social responsibility, with chapters covering topics including improving agricultural food chains and humanitarian challenges for businesses. Finally Section 3 promotes ethical responsibility, analyzing ways to improve supplier compliance to product, process and ethical standards.

This book offers an introduction to various models and methods for green supplier evaluation and selection (GSES) within different information settings. As such, it provides valuable knowledge, useful GSES methods and practical examples that can be considered by manufacturers in selecting appropriate green suppliers to improve their environmental performance and customer satisfaction. This book is useful for practitioners and researchers working in the fields of supply chain management, operation management, information science, industrial engineering, and management science. It is also useful as a textbook for postgraduate and senior undergraduate students.

This book gives a thorough and systematic introduction to the latest research results about fuzzy decision-making method based on prospect theory. It includes eight chapters: Introduction, Intuitionistic fuzzy MADM based on prospect theory, QUALIFLEX based on prospect theory with probabilistic linguistic information, Group PROMETHEE based on prospect theory with hesitant fuzzy linguistic information, Prospect consensus with probabilistic hesitant fuzzy preference information, Improved TODIM based on prospect theory and the improved TODIM with probabilistic hesitant fuzzy information, etc. This book is suitable for the researchers in the fields of fuzzy mathematics, operations research, behavioral science, management science and engineering, etc. It is also useful as a textbook for postgraduate and senior-year undergraduate students of the relevant professional institutions of higher learning.

This book reports on an operational management approach to improving bike-sharing systems by compensating for fluctuating demand patterns. The aim is to redistribute bikes within the system, allowing it to be "actively" balanced. The book describes a mathematical model, as well as data-driven and simulation-based approaches. Further, it shows how these elements can be combined in a decision-making support system for service providers. In closing, the book uses real-world data to evaluate the method developed and demonstrates that it can successfully anticipate changes in demand, thus supporting efficient scheduling of transport vehicles to manually relocate bikes between stations.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the Joint 2018 National Conferences of the Australian Society for Operations Research (ASOR) and the Defence Operations Research Symposium (DORS). Offering a fascinating insight into the state of the art in Australian operations research, this book is of great interest to academics and other professional researchers working in operations research and analytics, as well as practitioners addressing strategic planning, operations management, and other data-driven decision-making challenges in the domains of commerce, industry, defence, the environment, humanitarianism, and agriculture. The book comprises 21 papers on topics ranging from methodological advances to case studies, and addresses application domains including supply chains, government services, defence, cybersecurity, healthcare, mining and material processing, agriculture, natural hazards, telecommunications and transportation. ASOR is the premier professional organization for Australian academics and practitioners working in optimization and other disciplines related to operations research. The conference was held in Melbourne, Australia, in December 2018.

This book presents the theory and methods of flexible and generalized uncertainty optimization. Particularly, it describes the theory of generalized uncertainty in the context of optimization modeling. The book starts with an overview of flexible and generalized uncertainty optimization. It covers uncertainties that are both associated with lack of information and are more general than stochastic theory, where well-defined distributions are assumed. Starting from families of distributions that are enclosed by upper and lower functions, the book presents construction methods for obtaining flexible and generalized uncertainty input data that can be used in a flexible and generalized uncertainty optimization model. It then describes the development of the associated optimization model in detail. Written for graduate students and professionals in the broad field of optimization and operations research, this second edition has been revised and extended to include more worked examples and a section on interval multi-objective mini-max regret theory along with its solution method.

This book introduces the theory and applications of uncertain optimal control, and establishes two types of models including expected value uncertain optimal control and optimistic value uncertain optimal control. These models, which have continuous-time forms and discrete-time forms, make use of dynamic programming. The uncertain optimal control theory relates to equations of optimality, uncertain bang-bang optimal control, optimal control with switched uncertain system, and optimal control for uncertain system with time-delay. Uncertain optimal control has applications in portfolio selection, engineering, and games. The book is a useful resource for researchers, engineers, and students in the fields of mathematics, cybernetics, operations research, industrial engineering, artificial intelligence, economics, and management science.

The third edition of this highly successful case book has been expanded and updated to reflect the increasing reliance upon comprehensive case material in the teaching of operations management. The text begins with an introduction to analysing operations management cases. Each of the subsequent parts deals with a key area of operations management and begins with an expanded introduction, allowing the book to serve as a stand alone text for introductory operations management courses.

2019 marked the 85th anniversary of Heinrich Freiherr von Stackelberg's habilitation thesis "Marktform und Gleichgewicht," which formed the roots of bilevel optimization. Research on the topic has grown tremendously since its introduction in the field of mathematical optimization. Besides the substantial advances that have been made from the perspective of game theory, many sub-fields of bilevel optimization have emerged concerning optimal control, multiobjective optimization, energy and electricity markets, management science, security and many more. Each chapter of this book covers a specific aspect of bilevel optimization that has grown significantly or holds great potential to grow, and was written by top experts in the corresponding area. In other words, unlike other works on the subject, this book consists of surveys of different topics on bilevel optimization. Hence, it can serve as a point of departure for students and researchers beginning their research journey or pursuing related projects. It also provides a unique opportunity for experienced researchers in the field to learn about the progress made so far and directions that warrant further investigation. All chapters have been peer-reviewed by experts on mathematical optimization.

This indispensable text offers students a high quality treatment of strategic operations management. It provides the reader with a clear understanding of the importance and nature of operations strategy by determining exactly which management activities, core competencies, resources and technologies underpin an operational strategy. The book demonstrates how various operational elements and components can be combined and customised into unique operational strategies. When these strategies are correctly implemented, they provide sustainable competitive advantage and allow firms to provide a diverse range of services and goods in their increasingly demanding, complex and dynamic marketplaces and spaces.
Includes chapters covering customising operational strategies for retail, manufacturing, services and SMEs, and sections on eBusiness and complexity theory in relation to operations theory.
Features include:
*extended case-studies including several from Europe and the USA
*case vignettes
*learning objectives
*key terms
*chapter introduction and 'maps' to aid reader accessibility
*'time out' boxes to prompt the reader to reflect on what has been learnt
*'critical reflection' boxes that analyse theories and models.

Related link: www.routledge.com/textbooks/0415256542

This book examines application and methods to incorporating stochastic parameter variations into the optimization process to decrease expense in corrective measures. Basic types of deterministic substitute problems occurring mostly in practice involve i) minimization of the expected primary costs subject to expected recourse cost constraints (reliability constraints) and remaining deterministic constraints, e.g. box constraints, as well as ii) minimization of the expected total costs (costs of construction, design, recourse costs, etc.) subject to the remaining deterministic constraints. After an introduction into the theory of dynamic control systems with random parameters, the major control laws are described, as open-loop control, closed-loop, feedback control and open-loop feedback control, used for iterative construction of feedback controls. For approximate solution of optimization and control problems with random parameters and involving expected cost/loss-type objective, constraint functions, Taylor expansion procedures, and Homotopy methods are considered, Examples and applications to stochastic optimization of regulators are given. Moreover, for reliability-based analysis and optimal design problems, corresponding optimization-based limit state functions are constructed. Because of the complexity of concrete optimization/control problems and their lack of the mathematical regularity as required of Mathematical Programming (MP) techniques, other optimization techniques, like random search methods (RSM) became increasingly important. Basic results on the convergence and convergence rates of random search methods are presented. Moreover, for the improvement of the - sometimes very low - convergence rate of RSM, search methods based on optimal stochastic decision processes are presented. In order to improve the convergence behavior of RSM, the random search procedure is embedded into a stochastic decision process for an optimal control of the probability distributions of the search variates (mutation random variables).

This book broadly explains the requirement to focus on core components in a business and provides a case study of open-pit mining operations throughout the book to understand the management perspective of large organizations. With globalized approaches of large businesses and the rising requirement of understanding the needs of modern organizations, it is necessary to focus on key areas of businesses to ensure sustainability of operations. Organizations look into achieving a high return on investments and short-term measures in increasing sales or revenue is considered unsuitable. It is a necessity to look for sustainability and continuous methods of innovation to boost efficiency. This book provides a case study based on large organizations and uses qualitative methodologies where data was collected using in-depth interviews of respondents from various mining companies in the top and middle-level management from different parts of the world, detailing the state of the art of information systems currently used in large scale open-pit miming (LSOPM). This book provides a sound knowledge of cutting-edge factors to the reader for managing the business to attain operational excellence and long-term sustainability, and caters to a broad spectrum of management and technical readers.

The volume examines the state-of-the-art of productivity and efficiency analysis. It brings together a selection of the best papers from the 10th North American Productivity Workshop. By analyzing world-wide perspectives on challenges that local economies and institutions may face when changes in productivity are observed, readers can quickly assess the impact of productivity measurement, productivity growth, dynamics of productivity change, measures of labor productivity, measures of technical efficiency in different sectors, frontier analysis, measures of performance, industry instability and spillover effects. The contributions in this volume focus on the theory and application of economics, econometrics, statistics, management science and operational research related to problems in the areas of productivity and efficiency measurement. Popular techniques and methodologies including stochastic frontier analysis and data envelopment analysis are represented. Chapters also cover broader issues related to measuring, understanding, incentivizing and improving the productivity and performance of firms, public services, and industries.

This book presents recent work that analyzes general issues of green transportation. The contributed chapters consider environmental objectives in transportation, including topics such as battery swap stations for electric vehicles, efficient home healthcare routing, waste collection, and various vehicle routing problems. The content will be valuable for researchers and postgraduate students in computer science, operations research, and urban planning.

This book includes selected papers presented at the Indo-French Seminar on Optimization, Variational Analysis and Applications (IFSOVAA-2020), held at the Department of Mathematics, Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India, from 2-4 February 2020. The book discusses current optimization problems and their solutions by using the powerful tool of variational analysis. Topics covered in this volume include set optimization, multiobjective optimization, mathematical programs with complementary, equilibrium, vanishing and switching constraints, copositive optimization, interval-valued optimization, sequential quadratic programming, bound-constrained optimization, variational inequalities, and more. Several applications in different branches of applied mathematics, engineering, economics, finance, and medical sciences have been included. Each chapter not only provides a detailed survey of the topic but also builds systematic theories and suitable algorithms to deduce the most recent findings in literature. This volume appeals to graduate students as well as researchers and practitioners in pure and applied mathematics and related fields that make use of variational analysis in solving optimization problems.

This book covers topics in portfolio management and multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA), presenting a transparent and unified methodology for the portfolio construction process. The most important feature of the book includes the proposed methodological framework that integrates two individual subsystems, the portfolio selection subsystem and the portfolio optimization subsystem. An additional highlight of the book includes the detailed, step-by-step implementation of the proposed multicriteria algorithms in Python. The implementation is presented in detail; each step is elaborately described, from the input of the data to the extraction of the results. Algorithms are organized into small cells of code, accompanied by targeted remarks and comments, in order to help the reader to fully understand their mechanics. Readers are provided with a link to access the source code through GitHub. This Work may also be considered as a reference which presents the state-of-art research on portfolio construction with multiple and complex investment objectives and constraints. The book consists of eight chapters. A brief introduction is provided in Chapter 1. The fundamental issues of modern portfolio theory are discussed in Chapter 2. In Chapter 3, the various multicriteria decision aid methods, either discrete or continuous, are concisely described. In Chapter 4, a comprehensive review of the published literature in the field of multicriteria portfolio management is considered. In Chapter 5, an integrated and original multicriteria portfolio construction methodology is developed. Chapter 6 presents the web-based information system, in which the suggested methodological framework has been implemented. In Chapter 7, the experimental application of the proposed methodology is discussed and in Chapter 8, the authors provide overall conclusions. The readership of the book aims to be a diverse group, including fund managers, risk managers, investment advisors, bankers, private investors, analytics scientists, operations researchers scientists, and computer engineers, to name just several. Portions of the book may be used as instructional for either advanced undergraduate or post-graduate courses in investment analysis, portfolio engineering, decision science, computer science, or financial engineering.

This book gathers selected peer-reviewed papers from the 14th World Congress on Engineering Asset Management (WCEAM), which was held in Singapore on 28-31 July 2019, as well as papers presented during the 1st WCEAMOnline event which focused on the ramifications of Covid-19 on infrastructure systems. This book covers a wide range of topics in engineering asset management, including: asset management services provisioning; servitization; decision-making; asset management systems; industrial Internet of things; and vulnerability and resilience of infrastructure systems. The breadth and depth of these state-of-the-art, comprehensive proceedings make them an excellent resource for asset management practitioners, researchers and academics, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Many decision problems in Operations Research are defined on temporal networks, that is, workflows of time-consuming tasks whose processing order is constrained by precedence relations. For example, temporal networks are used to model projects, computer applications, digital circuits and production processes. Optimization problems arise in temporal networks when a decision maker wishes to determine a temporal arrangement of the tasks and/or a resource assignment that optimizes some network characteristic (e.g. the time required to complete all tasks). The parameters of these optimization problems (e.g. the task durations) are typically unknown at the time the decision problem arises. This monograph investigates solution techniques for optimization problems in temporal networks that explicitly account for this parameter uncertainty. We study several formulations, each of which requires different information about the uncertain problem parameters.

This book explores the methodological and application developments of network design in transportation and logistics. It identifies trends, challenges and research perspectives in network design for these areas. Network design is a major class of problems in operations research where network flow, combinatorial and mixed integer optimization meet. The analysis and planning of transportation and logistics systems continues to be one of the most important application areas of operations research. Networks provide the natural way of depicting such systems, so the optimal design and operation of networks is the main methodological area of operations research that is used for the analysis and planning of these systems. This book defines the current state of the art in the general area of network design, and then turns to its applications to transportation and logistics. New research challenges are addressed. Network Design with Applications to Transportation and Logistics is divided into three parts. Part I examines basic design problems including fixed-cost network design and parallel algorithms. After addressing the basics, Part II focuses on more advanced models. Chapters cover topics such as multi-facility network design, flow-constrained network design, and robust network design. Finally Part III is dedicated entirely to the potential application areas for network design. These areas range from rail networks, to city logistics, to energy transport. All of the chapters are written by leading researchers in the field, which should appeal to analysts and planners.

Planning and management is increasingly problematic in the real-world environment of spiralling change and uncertainty. Knowledge is incomplete, values are in dispute and the decisions of others are often unpredictable.

Problem structuring methods (PSMs) are now widely accepted within Operational Research and the systems movement, and have generated an impressive record of high-profile applications. This new edition provides easier access to PSMs. Each of five methods is presented from both a theoretical and a practical perspective. The justification for each approach is explained, and an illustration of applying each method is given in a practical case study. New topics in line with the many advances in the field of problem structuring methods are explored and multimethodology is introduced for the first time.

This book does not peddle methods for optimum solutions, but instead shows you how to facilitate an enriched and fluid decision-making process. Participatory methods are explained to assist the formulation and re-formulation of problem solving in an uncertain world.

Offering contributions from leading thinkers in the field and building on the success of the first edition, this theoretical guide and practical source will prove invaluable to students of management, systems and OR and to practitioners negotiating real-life problems in today's complex, conflicting and uncertain business climate.

Reviews of the first edition:

'.....probably the most referenced book by JORS authors over the last 10 years.'
J. Ranyard, Journal of Operational Research Society 51 (12), 2001

' . . . a thought provoking collection of articles, delivering a strong message about the way decision analysis is moving.'
Helen Couclelis, University of California at Santa Barbara, USA

' . . .sets out extremely clearly what soft OR is about . . . the editor and authors deserve all credit.'
M.C. Jackson, Systems Practice

This book examines cross-chain control centers (4C), an ambitious concept in supply chain management and logistics that is intended to foster collaboration between different supply chains to increase efficiency. It provides an overview of the main results, insights, and other developments in the academic field of horizontal collaboration. Furthermore, it gives recommendations to governments, commercial companies, and academia on how to proceed with horizontal logistics collaboration in the years to come. To link research with practice, the book takes the Dutch project on cross-chain collaboration centers (4Cs) and identifies a typology of existing patterns for horizontal collaboration in supply chains. Finally, the book zooms in on the Netherlands as a case-study of intense public-private partnerships to develop 4C as a mature logistics value proposition. It provides an overview of the accomplishments in the government supported 4C projects and offers a critical reflection of why some more ambitious and structural solutions have not found solid ground yet. The book is of value to researchers and professionals in the supply chain domain.

These proceedings focus on selected aspects of the current and upcoming trends in transportation, logistics, supply chain management, and decision sciences. In detail the included scientific papers analyze the problem of Decision Making under Uncertainty, Stochastic Optimization, Transportation, Logistics and Intelligent Business. The variety of the papers delivers added value for both scholars and practitioners. This book is the documentation of the symposium "The Seventh International Forum on Decision Sciences", which took place in Windsor, Canada.

This book highlights some of the latest research advances and cutting-edge analyses of real-world case studies on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management from diverse international contexts, while also identifying business applications for the latest findings and innovations in operations management and the decision sciences. It gathers a selection of the best papers presented at the XXII International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Industrial Management, which was promoted by ADINGOR (Asociacion para el Desarrollo de la Ingenieria de Organizacion) and held at the Escola Politecnica Superior of the Universitat de Girona, Spain, on July 12th and 13th, 2018.