This book presents a consistent methodology for making decisions under uncertain conditions, as is almost always the case. Tools such as value of information and value of flexibility are explored as a means to make more complex and nuanced decisions. The book develops the complete formalism for assessing the value of acquiring information with two novel approaches. Firstly, it integrates the fuzzy characteristics of data, and secondly develops a methodology for assessing data acquisition actions that optimize the value of projects from a holistic perspective. The book also discusses the formalism for including flexibility in the project decision assessment. Practical examples of oil- and gas-related decision problems are included and discussed to facilitate the learning process. This book provides valuable advice and case studies applicable to engineers, researchers, and graduate students, particularly in the oil and gas industry and pharmaceutic industry.

Operations Research Management Science approaches have helped people for the last 40 years to understand the complex functioning of the systems based upon natural resources, as well as to manage natural resources in the most efficient manner. The areas usually viewed within the natural resources field are: agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and mining and water resources. All of these areas share the common problem of optimally allocating scarcity over a period of time. The scale of time or length of the planning horizon differs from one area to another. We have almost a continuous renewal in the case of the fisheries, periodic cycles in the case of agriculture and forestry and enormous periods of time much beyond the human perception in the case of mining resources. But in all the cases, the critical issue is to obtain an efficient use of the resource along its planned time horizon.

Another element of connection among the different natural resources is due to the interaction between the use of the resource and the environmental impact caused by its extraction or harvest. This type of interaction implies additional complexities in the underlying decision-making process, making the use of OR/MS tools especially relevant.

HANDBOOK OF OPERATIONS RESEARCH IN NATURAL RESOURCES will be the first systematic handbook treatment of quantitative modeling natural resource problems, their allocated efficient use, and societal and economic impact. AndrA(c)s Weintraub is the very top person in Natural Resource research. Moreover, he has an international reputation in OR and a former president of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS). He has selectedco-editors who are at the top of the sub-fields in natural resources: agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and mining. The book will cover these areas in terms with contributions from researchers on modeling natural research problems, quantifying data, developing algorithms, and discussing the benefits of research implementations. The handbook will include tutorial contributions when necessary. Throughout the book, technological advances and algorithmic developments that have been driven by natural resource problems will be called out and discussed.

This book aims at providing cases with inspiring findings for global researchers in capacity allocation and reservation. Capacity allocation mechanisms are introduced in the book, as well as the measures to build models and the ways to achieve supply chain coordination. In addition, it illustrates the capacity reservation contract and quantity flexible contract with comparisons and some numerical studies. The book is divided into 7 chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the background and the latest development of the research. Chapter 2 introduces how to manage downstream competition through capacity allocation in symmetric market, including proportional mechanism and lexicographic mechanism. Demand competition is introduced in Chapter 3 as well as the uniform allocation mechanism and the comparisons among three different mechanisms. In Chapter 4, we give information about demand competition with fixed factor allocation, and the comparison with other allocations. Chapter 5 provides the optimal strategies under fixed allocation with multiple retailers and the impacts of fixed proportions. Chapter 6 illustrates how to achieve supply chain coordination through capacity reservation contract and its comparison with the quantity flexibility contract, and in Chapter 7 we describe outsourcing decisions and order policies in different systems with some numerical studies. We sincerely hope that this book can provide some useful suggestions and inspirations for scholars around the world who have the same interests in this field.

Using numerical examples to illustrate their concepts and results, this book examines recently developed fuzzy multi-criteria methods, such as Intuitionistic Fuzzy TOPSIS, Intuitionistic Fuzzy TOPSIS & DEA-AHP, Intuitionistic VIKOR, Pythagorean WASPAS, Pythagorean ENTROPI, Hesitant CBD, Hesitant MABAC, Triangular EDAS, Triangular PROMETHEE, q-Rung Orthopair COPRAS, and Fuzzy Type - 2 ELECTRE. Each chapter covers practical applications in addition to fresh developments and results. Given its structure and scope, the book can be used as a textbook in graduate courses on operations research and industrial engineering. It also offers a valuable resource for scientists working in a range of disciplines that require multi-criteria decision making.

Businesses in the Asia-Pacific communities provide enormous opportunities for local entrepreneurs to develop and collectively collaborate with other economies. However, several challenges and success factors exist for effective business operations in the region. Innovative Management and Business Practices in Asia is a collection of innovative research that enhances understanding and collaboration in business, management, and technology in Asia for the present and in the future. While highlighting topics including corporate culture, international trade, and business administration, this book is ideally designed for managers, executives, CEOs, board members, corporate professionals, managing directors, deans, decision makers, professors, researchers, policymakers, industry practitioners, and students.

Services requiring parts has become a $1.5 trillion business annually worldwide, creating a tremendous incentive to manage the logistics of these parts efficiently by making planning and operational decisions in a rational and rigorous manner. This book provides a broad overview of modeling approaches and solution methodologies for addressing service parts inventory problems found in high-powered technology and aerospace applications. The focus in this work is on the management of high cost, low demand rate service parts found in multi-echelon settings.

This unique book, with its breadth of topics and mathematical treatment, begins by first demonstrating the optimality of an order-up-to policy [or (s-1, s)] in certain environments. This policy is used in the real world and studied throughout the text. The fundamental mathematical building blocks for modeling and solving applications of stochastic process and optimization techniques to service parts management problems are summarized extensively. A wide range of exact and approximate mathematical models of multi-echelon systems is developed and used in practice to estimate future inventory investment and part repair requirements.

The text may be used in a variety of courses for first-year graduate students or senior undergraduates, as well as for practitioners, requiring only a background in stochastic processes and optimization. It will serve as an excellent reference for key mathematical concepts and a guide to modeling a variety of multi-echelon service parts planning and operational problems.

This book aims to stimulate debate in the growing and highly controversial area of measuring scholarly work. The authors examine key aspects of this topic through the lens of the latest theoretical developments in service science and associated fields. It includes chapters explaining the theoretical developments and methodological aspects of measuring the quality of academic teaching and research, while other chapters provide a review and analysis of various types of scholarly work metrics and processes with examples from several countries, cultures, and educational systems. The current growing concern about higher education (HE) quality has prompted institutions to divide university teachers' work into different areas and to design methods aimed at measuring the productivity of these areas. It is widely accepted that the need to evaluate HE service quality is a relevant issue for any society. However, the authors argue that most of the current practices used in the pursuit of this objective are jeopardizing the future of the university as a place of knowledge generation, science evolution and professional education.

This graduate-level textbook covers modelling, programming and analysis of stochastic computer simulation experiments, including the mathematical and statistical foundations of simulation and why it works. The book is rigorous and complete, but concise and accessible, providing all necessary background material. Object-oriented programming of simulations is illustrated in Python, while the majority of the book is programming language independent. In addition to covering the foundations of simulation and simulation programming for applications, the text prepares readers to use simulation in their research. A solutions manual for end-of-chapter exercises is available for instructors.

Risk management has become an essential issue in supply chain management, from the modeling of the decision maker's risk preference, and the studies on uncertain elements such as demand, supply, price, lead time, etc., to the consideration of more practical background including cash flow constraints, inventory financing and delayed cash payment. In this new volume, the authors provide a framework to study the interaction of various factors related to risk and their influence on supply chain management. The scope of areas covered includes operations management, decision analysis, and business administration. This book focuses on several key issues of risk management in supply chains. Specifically, an analysis framework is presented for studying the supplier selection problem and identifying the optimal sourcing strategy in a one-retailer two-suppliers supply chain with random yields. The optimal sourcing strategy of a retailer and the pricing strategies of two suppliers under an environment of supply disruption are investigated. Besides, the authors study the dynamic inventory control problems with cash flow constraints, financing decisions as well as delayed cash payment. In addition, originating from the annual international iron ore price negotiation, the authors model the bargaining process to deal with the risk of wholesale price in the game analysis context. Within the three perspectives of risk management in supply chains, the modeling of decision maker's risk preference has been extensively studied and many results have been obtained to guide the practice. However, the analysis on the other two kinds of topics is still in its infancy, and needs more efforts from academia. It is thus the ambition and innovation for this book to contribute on risk management in supply chains in the following ways: (1) characterizing the explicit sourcing strategy (i.e., single sourcing or dual sourcing) to deal with supply disruption risk; (2) introducing the concepts of financial risk measurement by incorporating cash flow constraints, inventory financing and delayed cash payment into inventory management models; and (3) providing insights for the iron ore price negotiation to help steel manufacturers handle the risk of price increase.

This book introduces the advances in synchromodal logistics and provides a framework to classify various optimisation problems in this field. It explores the application of this framework to solve a broad range of problems, such as problems with and without a central decision-maker, problems with and without full information, deterministic problems, problems coping with uncertainty, optimisation of a full network design problem. It covers theoretical constructs, such as discrete optimisation, robust optimisation, optimisation under uncertainty, multi-objective optimisation and agent based equilibrium models. Moreover, practical elaborated use cases are presented to deepen understanding. The book gives both researchers and practitioners a good overview of the field of synchromodal optimisation problems and offers the reader practical methods for modelling and problem-solving.

Although chaos theory refers to the existence of between seemingly random events, it has been gaining the attention of science, technology and managements fields. The shift from traditional procedures to the dynamics of chaos and complexity theory has resulted in a new element of complexity thinking allowing for a greater capability for analysing and understanding key business processes. Chaos and Complexity Theory for Management: Nonlinear Dynamics explores the chaos and complexity theory and its relationship with the understanding of the natural chaos in the business environment. Utilising these theories would aid in comprehending the development of businesses as a complex adaptive system.

This book defines and studies a combinatorial object called the pedigree and develops the theory for optimising a linear function over the convex hull of pedigrees (the Pedigree polytope). A strongly polynomial algorithm implementing the framework given in the book for checking membership in the pedigree polytope is a major contribution. This book challenges the popularly held belief in computer science that a problem included in the NP-complete class may not have a polynomial algorithm to solve. By showing STSP has a polynomial algorithm, this book settles the P vs NP question. This book has illustrative examples, figures, and easily accessible proofs for showing this unexpected result. This book introduces novel constructions and ideas previously not used in the literature. Another interesting feature of this book is it uses basic max-flow and linear multicommodity flow algorithms and concepts in these proofs establishing efficient membership checking for the pedigree polytope. Chapters 3-7 can be adopted to give a course on Efficient Combinatorial Optimization. This book is the culmination of the author's research that started in 1982 through a presentation on a new formulation of STSP at the XIth International Symposium on Mathematical Programming at Bonn.

"Schedule-Based Modeling of Transportation Networks: Theory and Applications" follows the book Schedule-Based Dynamic Transit Modeling, published in this series in 2004, recognizing the critical role that schedules play in transportation systems.

Conceived for the simulation of transit systems, in the last few years the schedule-based approach has been expanded and applied to operational planning of other transportation schedule services besides mass transit, e.g. freight transport. This innovative approach allows forecasting the evolution over time of the on-board loads on the services and their time-varying performance, using credible user behavioral hypotheses. It opens new frontiers in transportation modeling to support network design, timetable setting, and investigation of congestion effects, as well as the assessment of such new technologies, such as users system information (ITS technologies).

In the Administration building at Linkopi ] ng University we have one of Oscar Reutersvard' ] s "Impossible Figures" in three dimensions. I call it "Perspectives of Science." When viewed from a speci c point in space there is order and structure in the 3-dimensional gure. When viewed from other points there is disorder and no structure. If a speci c scienti c paradigm is used, there is order and structure; otherwise there is disorder and no structure. My perspective in Transportation Science has focused on understanding the mathematical structure and the logic underlying the choice probability models in common use. My book with N. F. Stewart on the Gravity model (Erlander and Stewart 1990), was written in this perspective. The present book stems from the same desire to understand underlying assumptions and structure. It investigateshow far a new way of de ning Cost-Minimizing Behavior can take us.Itturnsoutthatall commonlyusedchoiceprobabilitydistributionsoflogittype- log linear probability functions - follow from cost-minimizing behavior de ned in the new way. In addition some new nested models appear."

This book discusses machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) for agricultural economics. It is written with a view towards bringing the benefits of advanced analytics and prognostics capabilities to small scale farmers worldwide. This volume provides data science and software engineering teams with the skills and tools to fully utilize economic models to develop the software capabilities necessary for creating lifesaving applications. The book introduces essential agricultural economic concepts from the perspective of full-scale software development with the emphasis on creating niche blue ocean products. Chapters detail several agricultural economic and AI reference architectures with a focus on data integration, algorithm development, regression, prognostics model development and mathematical optimization. Upgrading traditional AI software development paradigms to function in dynamic agricultural and economic markets, this volume will be of great use to researchers and students in agricultural economics, data science, engineering, and machine learning as well as engineers and industry professionals in the public and private sectors.

This book on Applied Operations Research and Financial Modelling in Energy (AORFME) presents several applications of operations research (OR) and financial modelling. The contributions by a group of OR and Finance researchers focus on a variety of energy decisions, presenting a quantitative perspective, and providing policy implications of the proposed or applied methodologies. The content is divided into three main parts: Applied OR I: Optimization Approaches, Applied OR II: Forecasting Approaches and Financial Modelling: Impacts of Energy Policies and Developments in Energy Markets. The book appeals to scholars in economics, finance and operations research, and to practitioners working in the energy sector. This is the eighth volume in a series of books on energy organized by the Centre for Energy and Value Issues (CEVI). For this volume, CEVI collaborated with Hacettepe University's Energy Markets Research and Application Center. The previous volumes in the series are: Financial Aspects in Energy (2011), Energy Economics and Financial Markets (2012), Perspectives on Energy Risk (2014), Energy Technology and Valuation Issues (2015), Energy and Finance (2016), Energy Economy, Finance and Geostrategy (2018), and Financial Implications of Regulations in the Energy Industry (2020).

In trying to make a satisfactory decision when imprecise and multicriteria situations are involved, a decision maker has to use a fuzzy multicriteria decision making method. "Fuzzy Multi-Criteria Decision Making" (MCDM) presents fuzzy multiattribute and multiobjective decision-making methodologies by distinguished MCDM researchers.

In summarizing the concepts and results of the most popular fuzzy multicriteria methods, using numerical examples, this work examines all the fuzzy multicriteria methods recently developed, such as fuzzy AHP, fuzzy TOPSIS, interactive fuzzy multiobjective stochastic linear programming, fuzzy multiobjective dynamic programming, grey fuzzy multiobjective optimization, fuzzy multiobjective geometric programming, and more. Each of the 22 chapters includes practical applications along with new developments/results.

This book may be used as a textbook in graduate operations research, industrial engineering, and economics courses. It will also be an excellent resource, providing new suggestions and directions for further research, for computer programmers, mathematicians, and scientists in a variety of disciplines where multicriteria decision making is needed.

This book showcases how the latest and most advanced types of analytical modeling and empirical analysis can help to create value in the global supply chain. Focusing on practical relevance, it shares valuable management insights and addresses key issues in operations management (OM), demonstrating how past research has led to various practices and impacts, while also exploring the aspirations of the latest research. It presents current research on various topics such as global supply chain design, service supply chains, product design, responsible supply chains, performance and incentives in operations, data analytics in health services, new business models in the digital age, and new digital technology advances such as blockchain. In addition, it presents practical case studies on the aforementioned topics. Beyond the value of its contents, the book is intended as a tribute to Professor Morris Cohen, who has been a major contributor to advancing the research frontier in operations management and a driving force in shaping the field. Given its scope, the book will appeal to a wide readership, from researchers and PhD students to practitioners and consultants.

The contributions in this volume cover a broad range of topics including maximum cliques, graph coloring, data mining, brain networks, Steiner forest, logistic and supply chain networks. Network algorithms and their applications to market graphs, manufacturing problems, internet networks and social networks are highlighted. The "Fourth International Conference in Network Analysis," held at the Higher School of Economics, Nizhny Novgorod in May 2014, initiated joint research between scientists, engineers and researchers from academia, industry and government; the major results of conference participants have been reviewed and collected in this Work. Researchers and students in mathematics, economics, statistics, computer science and engineering will find this collection a valuable resource filled with the latest research in network analysis.

This book presents a structured approach to develop mathematical optimization formulations for several variants of facility layout. The range of layout problems covered includes row layouts, floor layouts, multi-floor layouts, and dynamic layouts. The optimization techniques used to formulate the problems are primarily mixed-integer linear programming, second-order conic programming, and semidefinite programming. The book also covers important practical considerations for solving the formulations. The breadth of approaches presented help the reader to learn how to formulate a variety of problems using mathematical optimization techniques. The book also illustrates the use of layout formulations in selected engineering applications, including manufacturing, building design, automotive, and hospital layout.

This book examines the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method, its varied uses, as well as its limitations for solving real-world scenarios. While the simplicity of the method compels users to find shortcuts to a real-world problem, it also leads to obtaining wrong results that do not represent reality. By alerting practitioners about the core necessities of a new scenario, this book helps solve this problem, as well as contribute to the field of Multicriteria Decision Making Method (MDCM). The authors use a demonstrative, rather than a theoretical approach, and examine 30 subjects that displays the shortcomings and drawbacks of the AHP. Each one is examined in-depth, discussed, debated and reasoned, using examples, some of them numeric. The book highlights the rationality and common sense of the subjects, and in most cases, validates the criticism by showing through numerical examples, the impossibility of the AHP method to address, let alone solve real-world projects. At the conclusion of each subject, a table is built comparing the similarities and differences between the opinions of the authors and other experts, along with the respective pros and cons.

This monograph introduces a novel multiset-based conceptual, mathematical and knowledge engineering paradigm, called multigrammatical framework (MGF), used for planning and scheduling in resource-consuming, resource-producing (industrial) and resource-distributing (economical) sociotechnological systems (STS). This framework is meant to enable smart operation not only in a "business-as-usual" mode, but also in extraordinary, highly volatile or hazardous environments. It is the result of convergence and deep integration into a unified, flexible and effectively implemented formalism operating on multisets of several well-known paradigms from classical operations research and modern knowledge engineering, such as: mathematical programming, game theory, optimal scheduling, logic programming and constraint programming. The mathematical background needed for MGF, its algorithmics, applications, implementation issues, as well as its nexus with known models from operations research and theoretical computer science areas are considered. The resilience and recovery issues of an STS are studied by applying the MGF toolkit and on paying special attention to the multigrammatical assessment of resilience of energy infrastructures. MGF-represented resource-based games are introduced, and directions for further development are discussed. The author presents multiple applications to business intelligence, critical infrastructure, ecology, economy and industry. This book is addressed to scholars working in the areas of theoretical and applied computer science, artificial intelligence, systems analysis, operations research, mathematical economy and critical infrastructure protection, to engineers developing software-intensive solutions for implementation of the knowledge-based digital economy and Industry 4.0, as well as to students, aspirants and university staff. Foundational knowledge of set theory, mathematical logic and routine operations on data bases is needed to read this book. The content of the monograph is gradually presented, from simple to complex, in a well-understandable step-by-step manner. Multiple examples and accompanying figures are included in order to support the explanation of the various notions, expressions and algorithms.

From Robin Sickles: As I indicated to you some months ago Professor William Horrace and I would like Springer to publish a Festschrift in Honor of Peter Schmidt, our professor. Peter s accomplishments are legendary among his students and the profession. I have a bit of that student perspective in my introductory and closing remarks on the website for the conference we had in his honor this last July. I have attached the conference program from which selected papers will come (as well as from students who were unable to attend). You will also find the names of his students (40) on the website. A top twenty economics department could be started up from those 40 students. Papers from some festschrifts have a thematic link among the papers based on subject material. What I think is unique to this festschrift is that the theme running through the papers will be Peter s remarkable legacy left to his students to frame a problem and then analyze and examine it in depth using rigorous techniques but rarely just for the purpose of showcasing technical refinements per se. I think this would be a book that graduate students would find invaluable in their early research careers and seasoned scholars would find invaluable in both their and their students research."

This book presents a rich collection of studies on the analysis of sustainable development from a multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) perspective, written by some of the most prominent authors in the field of MCDM/A. The book constitutes a unique international reference guide to the analysis, measurement, and management of sustainability in a multidimensional decision analysis context. Chiefly intended for academics and policymakers, it reflects some of the latest methodological advances in decision-making, which are illustrated in real-life applications to sustainability-related topics in both the private and public sector.

This book showcases state-of-the-art advances in service science and related fields of research, education, and practice. It presents emerging technologies and applications in contexts ranging from healthcare, energy, finance, and information technology to transportation, sports, logistics, and public services. Regardless of its size and service, every service organization is a service system. Due to the socio-technical nature of service systems, a systems approach must be adopted in order to design, develop and deliver services aimed at meeting end users' utilitarian and socio-psychological needs alike. Understanding services and service systems often requires combining multiple methods to consider how interactions between people, technologies, organizations and information create value under various conditions. The papers in this volume highlight a host of ways to approach these challenges in service science and are based on submissions to the 2021 INFORMS Conference on Service Science.