This book is intended for those in the library community with an understanding of library processes and a desire to actually make use of scientific management techniques. The emphasis is on presenting insights into which tool may be appropriate for particular problems, not on the isolated understanding of theoretical issues. It does not require an extensive mathematical background. It shows well-developed examples of solving library problems and features chapter summaries and questions for further study.

This volume aims to provide a state-of-the-art and the latest advancements in the field of intelligent control and smart energy management. Techniques, combined with technological advances, have enabled the deployment of new operating systems in many engineering applications, especially in the domain of transport and renewable resources. The control and energy management of transportation and renewable resources are shifting towards autonomous reasoning, learning, planning and operating. As a result, these techniques, also referred to as autonomous control and energy management, will become practically ubiquitous soon. The discussions include methods, based on neural control (and others) as well as distributed and intelligent optimization. While the theoretical concepts are detailed and explained, the techniques presented are tailored to transport and renewable resources applications, such as smart grids and automated vehicles. The reader will grasp the most important theoretical concepts as well as to fathom the challenges and needs related to timely practical applications. Additional content includes research perspectives and future direction as well as insight into the devising of techniques that will meet tomorrow's scientific needs. This contributed volume is for researchers, graduate students, engineers and practitioners in the domains of control, energy, and transportation.

This book is focused on quality management, and four different lenses which can be used to explore the phenomenon. It introduces emergence as a paradigm in thinking about quality, and explores conditions which are beneficial to radical innovation. The Emergence Paradigm in Quality Management provides an overview of the existing movements in thinking about quality, and discusses why these movements in fact represent paradigms. Three paradigms, the Empirical Paradigm, the Reference Paradigm and the Reflective Paradigm, are explained followed by a search for the Fourth Paradigm, the so-called Emergence Paradigm, which presents a route to radical innovation in organizations when plans, strategies and models fail. It presents the debates around the paradigms, and explores which is the best approach. This professional text will be ideal for strategy and policy makers wanting to establish a link between their conceived plans and the attention for quality, while finding ways to facilitate innovation. Professionals in a range of for-profit and non-profit organizations, including healthcare, will be able to expand their knowledge on quality management, operations management, and organizational studies.

Optimization in Science and Engineering is dedicated in honor of the 60th birthday of Distinguished Professor Panos M. Pardalos. Pardalos's past and ongoing work has made a significant impact on several theoretical and applied areas in modern optimization. As tribute to the diversity of Dr. Pardalos's work in Optimization, this book comprises a collection of contributions from experts in various fields of this rich and diverse area of science. Topics highlight recent developments and include: * Deterministic global optimization* Variational inequalities and equilibrium problems* Approximation and complexity in numerical optimization* Non-smooth optimization * Statistical models and data mining* Applications of optimization in medicine, energy systems, and complex network analysis This volume will be of great interest to graduate students, researchers, and practitioners, in the fields of optimization and engineering.

The present volume of essays on industrial organization, which are based on conferences held at Nijenrode and Brussels, differs considerably from its predecessor. Even more than in the first volume the essays demonstrate the broad scope of industrial organization analysis. Besides the traditional topics such as economies of scale, monopoly and competition policy, there are essays on methodology, on stagflation, and on the relationship between industrial struc ture and international trade and trade policies. The latter topics are of growing importance. The issue of restructuring industries and the question of whether free trade or some measure of protection is more appropriate are topics of increasing relevance today (and will no doubt continue to be in future years as well). The problem of persistent inflation which other essays address is also of major concern. Apart from being broad in scope and venturing into new fields, this volume is also controversial. Its central feature is a debate about welfare aspects. Here, more than in pure analysis, economists tend to entertain different points of view. One of the participants in the Nijenrode conference, Professor John Blair, who died in December 1976 and whom we honour as having been an active promoter of this kind of meeting, wrote to the editors shortly before his death to say that the first volume had succeeded very well in acquainting the reader with the results of empirical investigations, notably on trends and levels of concentration."

This first book on Maritime Informatics describes the potential for Maritime Informatics to enhance the shipping industry. It examines how decision making in the industry can be improved by digital technology, and introduces the technology required to make Maritime Informatics a distinct and valuable discipline. Based on participating in EU funded research over the last six years to improve the shipping industry, the editors stipulate that there is a need for the new discipline of Maritime Informatics, which studies the application of information systems to increasing the efficiency, safety, and ecological sustainability of the world's shipping industry. This book examines competition and collaboration between shipping companies, and also companies who serve shipping needs, such as ports and terminals. Practical examples from leading experts give the reader real world examples for better understanding.

This proceedings volume convenes peer-reviewed, selected papers presented at the XXVIII International Joint Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management (IJCIEOM) that was held in Mexico City, Mexico, July 17-20, 2022, with a special focus on applications of industrial engineering and operations management for research and practice. Fields covered include operations, manufacturing, industrial and production engineering and management, emphasizing optimization models and data science applications to real-world problems. In this book, the reader will find works on topics as optimization models; stochastic optimization; digital transformation in the supply chain; data science applications in operations management; Industry 4.0: manufacturing planning & control; blockchain; intelligent transportation systems; sustainable and reverse logistics; big data and demand planning; predictive and prescriptive analytics; last-mile delivery optimization; stochastic inventory models; new trends in information technology for operation management; stochastic optimization; optimization models for omnichannel; safety in operation management; and more. This volume includes relevant information for academics, since most of the chapters focus on real-world case studies and systematic reviews, but also for professionals in the industrial sector as it presents solutions to complex industrial challenges. Previous 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 IJCIEOM proceedings can also be found in Springer's catalog.

This book recapitulates the major developments in Decision Support Systems (DSS) over the last 30 years in order to evaluate the research areas of decision making and in which direction the field should proceed. As it attempts to find a consensus about the next steps for the future of DSS research, the book also enforces the trends and new technologies currently in use. The book examines topics such as decision analysis for enterprise systems and non-hierarchical networks, integrated solutions for decision support and knowledge management in distributed environments, decision support system evaluation and analysis through social networks, and e-learning and its application to real environments. It clearly presents the evidence to support their cases and attempts to promote an extensive and objective discussion. In addition, the book also reflects on approaches to dead-end ideas and failures in DSS to better understand the lessons learned. The contributions for this book have been written by thought leaders and influential researchers from the EURO Working Group of Decision Support Systems (EWG-DSS).

This book explains the theoretical structure of particle swarm optimization (PSO) and focuses on the application of PSO to portfolio optimization problems. The general goal of portfolio optimization is to find a solution that provides the highest expected return at each level of portfolio risk. According to H. Markowitz's portfolio selection theory, as new assets are added to an investment portfolio, the total risk of the portfolio's decreases depending on the correlations of asset returns, while the expected return on the portfolio represents the weighted average of the expected returns for each asset. The book explains PSO in detail and demonstrates how to implement Markowitz's portfolio optimization approach using PSO. In addition, it expands on the Markowitz model and seeks to improve the solution-finding process with the aid of various algorithms. In short, the book provides researchers, teachers, engineers, managers and practitioners with many tools they need to apply the PSO technique to portfolio optimization.

This book presents the human, cultural, and scientific contributions of professor Eliano Pessa, who recently passed away. His research interests and activities were varied, some of which included quantum physics, cognitive science and psychology, systems science, artificial intelligence, and alpinism. They were never disciplinary-separated issues, but rather some coherent dimensions of his interests in life. He lived and not only practiced interdisciplinarity and multiple dimensions; he considered it unacceptable to do only one thing in life. The contributors in this volume consider, discuss, interpret, and represent the multiplicity and interdisciplinarity experienced, lived and applied by Pessa. The chapters are inspired by, rebuild, and retrace such networked interests lived by him from the personal, cultural, and scientific points of view of the authors. This is true interdisciplinarity and usage of non-equivalences, honoring the richness of Pessa's contributions.

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.

Written by a leading expert in turnpike phenomenon, this book is devoted to the study of symmetric optimization, variational and optimal control problems in infinite dimensional spaces and turnpike properties of their approximate solutions. The book presents a systematic and comprehensive study of general classes of problems in optimization, calculus of variations, and optimal control with symmetric structures from the viewpoint of the turnpike phenomenon. The author establishes generic existence and well-posedness results for optimization problems and individual (not generic) turnpike results for variational and optimal control problems. Rich in impressive theoretical results, the author presents applications to crystallography and discrete dispersive dynamical systems which have prototypes in economic growth theory. This book will be useful for researchers interested in optimal control, calculus of variations turnpike theory and their applications, such as mathematicians, mathematical economists, and researchers in crystallography, to name just a few.

This book focuses on decision-making problems in engineering. It investigates the ranking aggregation problem and the related features, such as input/output data, simplification hypotheses, importance hierarchy of experts. In addition to a well-structured overview of several interesting, consolidated methodological approaches, it presents innovative approaches that can also be applied profitably in other fields. The fascinating selection of topics included is based on research that has been developed in the past twenty years. The descriptions are supported by figures, tables, flowcharts, diagrams, examples and practical case studies. The book is an ideal resource for engineering academics, practitioners, technicians and students, who do not necessarily have an in-depth knowledge of decision-making. It is also a thought-provoking read for engineers and academics looking for innovative ways to improve engineering processes in a variety of fields, such as conceptual design, quality improvement, reliability engineering. "Today, rankings are exercised in all spheres of life, products are ranked on Amazon and similar platforms; services such as restaurants and hotels on platforms such as TripAdvisor; and other services such as lectures or even medical treatment on different specialized platforms. We often make our daily decisions based on these rankings. The quality of our decisions depends on our ability to select appropriate methods to fit the context and needs. We need to be familiar with the theory and practice of these methods to make them useful. To this purpose, this book is an important addition to the bookshelves of academics and professionals, not only from engineering. The connection between theory and practice is weaved throughout the book, making it useful for practitioners also." Prof. Yoram Reich, Full Professor and Head of Systems Engineering research Initiative at Tel Aviv University (Israel), Editor-in-Chief of "Research in Engineering Design"

This book provides relevant theoretical frameworks and the latest empirical research findings of Operations Research/Management Science applied to Internet of Things. This book identifies and describes ways in which OR and MS have been applied and influenced the development of IoT. Examples are from smart industry; city; transportation; home and smart devices. It discusses future applications, trends, and potential benefits of this new discipline. It is written for professionals who want to improve their understanding of the strategic role of IoT at various levels of the organization, that is, IoT at the global economy level, at networks and organizations level, at teams and work groups, at information systems and, finally, IoT at the level of individuals, as players in the networked environments.

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.

This book gathers selected peer-reviewed papers from the 16th World Congress on Engineering Asset Management (WCEAM), held in Seville from 5-7 October 2022. This book covers a wide range of topics in Engineering Asset Management, including: Asset management and decision support system Industry 4.0 tools and its impact on asset management Monitoring, diagnostics and prognostics for smart maintenance Asset life cycle management Asset management in the industrial sector Human dimensions and asset management performance Infrastructure Asset management Asset condition, risk, resilience, and vulnerability assessments Asset operations and maintenance strategies Reliability and resilience engineering Applications of international and local guidelines and standards The breadth and depth of this state-of-the-art, comprehensive proceedings make it an excellent resource for asset management practitioners, researchers and academics, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students.

From the Foreword by Marshall Fisher, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania: As generation of academics and practitioners follows generation, it is worthwhile to compile long views of the research and practice in the past to shed light on research and practice going forward. This collection of peer-reviewed articles is intended to provide such a long view. This book contains a collection of chapters written by leading scholars/practitioners who have continued their efforts in developing and/or implementing innovative OR/MS tools for solving real world problems. In this book, the contributors share their perspectives about the past, present and future of OR/MS theoretical development, solution tools, modeling approaches, and applications. Specifically, this book collects chapters that offer insights about the following topics: * Survey articles taking a long view over the past two or more decades to arrive at the present state of the art while outlining ideas for future research. Surveys focus on use of a particular OR/MS approach, e.g., mathematical programming (LP, MILP, etc.) and solution methods for particular family of application, e.g., distribution system design, distribution planning system, health care. * Autobiographical or biographical accounts of how particular inventions (e.g., Structured Modeling) were made. These could include personal experiences in early development of OR/MS and an overview of what has happened since. * Development of OR/MS mathematical tools (e.g., stochastic programming, optimization theory). * Development of OR/MS in a particular industry sector such as global supply chain management. * Modeling systems for OR/MS and their development over time as well as speculation on future development (e.g., LINDO, LINGO, and What'sBest!) * New applications of OR/MS models (e.g., happiness) The target audience of this book is young researchers, graduate/advanced undergraduate students from OR/MS and related fields like computer science, engineering, and management as well as practitioners who want to understand how OR/MS modeling came about over the past few decades and what research topics or modeling approaches they could pursue in research or application.

This book offers an introduction to structural dynamics, ripple effect and resilience in supply chain disruption risk management for larger audiences. In the management section, without relying heavily on mathematical derivations, the book offers state-of-the-art concepts and methods to tackle supply chain disruption risks and designing resilient supply chains in a simple, predictable format to make it easy to understand for students and professionals with both management and engineering background. In the technical section, the book constitutes structural dynamics control methods for supply chain management. Real-life problems are modelled and solved with the help of mathematical programming, discrete-event simulation, optimal control theory, and fuzzy logic. The book derives practical recommendations for management decision-making with disruption risk in the following areas: How to estimate the impact of possible disruptions on performance in the pro-active stage? How to generate efficient and effective stabilization and recovery policies? When does one failure trigger an adjacent set of failures? Which supply chain structures are particular sensitive to ripple effect? How to measure the disruption risks in the supply chain?

An Annotated Timeline of Operations Research: An Informal History recounts the evolution of Operations Research (OR) as a new science - the science of decision making. Arising from the urgent operational issues of World War II, the philosophy and methodology of OR has permeated the resolution of decision problems in business, industry, and government. The Timeline chronicles the history of OR in the form of self-contained, expository entries. Each entry presents a concise explanation of the events and people under discussion, and provides key sources where further relevant information can be obtained. In addition, books and papers that have influenced the development of OR or helped to educate the first generations of OR academics and practitioners are cited throughout the book. Starting in 1564 with seminal ideas that form the precursors of OR, the Timeline traces the key ideas and events of OR through 2004.
The Timeline should interest anyone involved in OR - researchers, practitioners, academics, and, especially, students - who wish to learn how OR came into being. Further, the scope and expository style of the Timeline should make it of value to the general reader interested in the development of science and technology in the last half of the twentieth century.

This is the first book on synthetic data for deep learning, and its breadth of coverage may render this book as the default reference on synthetic data for years to come. The book can also serve as an introduction to several other important subfields of machine learning that are seldom touched upon in other books. Machine learning as a discipline would not be possible without the inner workings of optimization at hand. The book includes the necessary sinews of optimization though the crux of the discussion centers on the increasingly popular tool for training deep learning models, namely synthetic data. It is expected that the field of synthetic data will undergo exponential growth in the near future. This book serves as a comprehensive survey of the field. In the simplest case, synthetic data refers to computer-generated graphics used to train computer vision models. There are many more facets of synthetic data to consider. In the section on basic computer vision, the book discusses fundamental computer vision problems, both low-level (e.g., optical flow estimation) and high-level (e.g., object detection and semantic segmentation), synthetic environments and datasets for outdoor and urban scenes (autonomous driving), indoor scenes (indoor navigation), aerial navigation, and simulation environments for robotics. Additionally, it touches upon applications of synthetic data outside computer vision (in neural programming, bioinformatics, NLP, and more). It also surveys the work on improving synthetic data development and alternative ways to produce it such as GANs. The book introduces and reviews several different approaches to synthetic data in various domains of machine learning, most notably the following fields: domain adaptation for making synthetic data more realistic and/or adapting the models to be trained on synthetic data and differential privacy for generating synthetic data with privacy guarantees. This discussion is accompanied by an introduction into generative adversarial networks (GAN) and an introduction to differential privacy.

The book discusses the study and implementation of controlling in the modern enterprise from the perspective of Industry 4.0, which helps ensure the efficient and effective use of organizational resources in order to achieve planned goals. The aim of this book is to provide the most comprehensive and effective exchange of information on current developments in Enterprise Controlling. The authors describe lean/agile approaches that enterprises can use to reach the highest level of competitiveness in a global environment and help establish channels of communication and disseminate knowledge among professionals working in manufacturing and related institutions. The authors aim to help facilitate corporate coordination and help with its planning without deviating from standards. The publication is dedicated to all who want to learn in the field of controlling from researchers and academics to students.

This book presents various multi-criteria analysis methods for sustainability-oriented analysis and decision-making for energy systems, under various different conditions and scenarios. It presents methodologies to answer the questions relating to which of the options are the most sustainable among the alternatives, and how multi-criteria decision analysis methods can be used to select the most sustainable energy systems. A systematic innovative methodological framework is presented, which enables the most appropriate energy system to be selected under different conditions including: Scientific decision support tools for sustainable energy system selection; Fuzzy, grey, and rough sets based multi-criteria decision analysis; Decision-making models under uncertainties; and The combination of life cycle thinking and multi-criteria decision analysis This book is of interest to researchers, engineers, decision makers, and postgraduate students within the field of energy systems, sustainability, and multi-criteria decision analysis.

This volume offers the state-of-the-art research and developments in service science and related research, education and practice areas. It showcases emerging technology and applications in fields including healthcare, energy, finance, information technology, transportation, sports, logistics, and public services. Regardless of size and service, a service organization is a service system. Because of the socio-technical nature of a service system, a systems approach must be adopted to design, develop, and deliver services, aimed at meeting end users' both utilitarian and socio-psychological needs. Effective understanding of service and service systems often requires combining multiple methods to consider how interactions of people, technology, organizations, and information create value under various conditions. Chapters highlight ways to approach such technical challenges in service science and are based on submissions from the 2020 INFORMS International Conference on Service Science.