The International Conference on Health Care Systems Engineering (HCSE) provided a timely opportunity to discuss statistical analysis and operations management issues in health care delivery systems. The conference took place in Milan between May 22nd and 24th, 2013. Scientists and practitioners discussed new ideas, methods and technologies for improving the operation of health care organizations. The event and this resulting volume emphasize research in the field of health care systems engineering developed in close collaboration with clinicians. Topics applicable to researchers and practitioners include: hospital drug logistics, operating theatres, modelling and simulation in patient care and healthcare organizations, home care services.

This book opens new avenues in understanding mathematical models within the context of a transition economy. The exposition lays out the methods for combining different mathematical structures and tools to effectively build the next model that will accurately reflect real world economic processes. Mathematical modeling of weather phenomena allows us to forecast certain essential weather parameters without any possibility of changing them. By contrast, modeling of transition economies gives us the freedom to not only predict changes in important indexes of all types of economies, but also to influence them more effectively in the desired direction. Simply put: any economy, including a transitional one, can be controlled. This book is useful to anyone who wants to increase profits within their business, or improve the quality of their family life and the economic area they live in. It is beneficial for undergraduate and graduate students specializing in the fields of Economic Informatics, Economic Cybernetics, Applied Mathematics and Large Information Systems, as well as for professional economists, and employees of state planning and statistical organizations.

In the paper we propose a model of tax incentives optimization for inve- ment projects with a help of the mechanism of accelerated depreciation. Unlike the tax holidays which influence on effective income tax rate, accelerated - preciation affects on taxable income. In modern economic practice the state actively use for an attraction of - vestment into the creation of new enterprises such mechanisms as accelerated depreciation and tax holidays. The problem under our consideration is the following. Assume that the state (region) is interested in realization of a certain investment project, for ex- ple, the creation of a new enterprise. In order to attract a potential investor the state decides to use a mechanism of accelerated tax depreciation. The foll- ing question arise. What is a reasonable principle for choosing depreciation rate? From the state's point of view the future investor's behavior will be rat- nal. It means that while looking at economic environment the investor choose such a moment for investment which maximizes his expected net present value (NPV) from the given project. For this case both criteria and "investment rule" depend on proposed (by the state) depreciation policy. For the simplicity we will suppose that the purpose of the state for a given project is a maximi- tion of a discounted tax payments into the budget from the enterprise after its creation. Of course, these payments depend on the moment of investor's entry and, therefore, on the depreciation policy established by the state.

This is the fourth edition of a book that, after circulating in the form of l- ture notes at the universities of Rome (now La Sapienza University of Rome) and Siena in the late 1960s, was originally published in 1971 under the titleMat- maticalMethodsandModelsinEconomicDynamics. Inthosefortyoddyearstwo main developments have occurred in economic dynamics. The ?rst is the much greater amount of advanced mathematics that is being used today with respect to the past. The second is the increasing importance of non-linear modelling as contrastedwiththelinearapproach(which, however, hasnotgoneoutoffashion). This fourth edition re?ects both developments. It contains additional advanced mathematical tools, and a larger amount of non-linear mathematics and appli- tions. These developments are re?ected especially in Part III, that now accounts forwellover50%ofthebook. ItgoeswithoutsayingthatIhavemadeeverye?ort topreservetheuser-friendlyfeatureofthepreviouseditions: thespiritofthebook hasremainedthesame, namelytogiveacomprehensive, butsimple, treatmentof the mathematical methods commonly used in dynamical economics, and to show how they are applied to build and analyse economic models. Accordingly, the focus is on methods, and every mathematical technique - troduced is followed by its application to selected economic models that serve as examples. Theunifyingprincipleintheexpositionofthedi?erenteconomicm- els is then seen to be the common mathematical technique. This process will enable the readers not only to understand the basic literature, but also to build and analyse their own model

Along with the traditional material concerning linear programming (the simplex method, the theory of duality, the dual simplex method), In-Depth Analysis of Linear Programming contains new results of research carried out by the authors. For the first time, the criteria of stability (in the geometrical and algebraic forms) of the general linear programming problem are formulated and proved. New regularization methods based on the idea of extension of an admissible set are proposed for solving unstable (ill-posed) linear programming problems. In contrast to the well-known regularization methods, in the methods proposed in this book the initial unstable problem is replaced by a new stable auxiliary problem. This is also a linear programming problem, which can be solved by standard finite methods. In addition, the authors indicate the conditions imposed on the parameters of the auxiliary problem which guarantee its stability, and this circumstance advantageously distinguishes the regularization methods proposed in this book from the existing methods. In these existing methods, the stability of the auxiliary problem is usually only presupposed but is not explicitly investigated. In this book, the traditional material contained in the first three chapters is expounded in much simpler terms than in the majority of books on linear programming, which makes it accessible to beginners as well as those more familiar with the area.

Researchers working with nonlinear programming often claim "the word is non linear" indicating that real applications require nonlinear modeling. The same is true for other areas such as multi-objective programming (there are always several goals in a real application), stochastic programming (all data is uncer tain and therefore stochastic models should be used), and so forth. In this spirit we claim: The word is multilevel. In many decision processes there is a hierarchy of decision makers, and decisions are made at different levels in this hierarchy. One way to handle such hierar chies is to focus on one level and include other levels' behaviors as assumptions. Multilevel programming is the research area that focuses on the whole hierar chy structure. In terms of modeling, the constraint domain associated with a multilevel programming problem is implicitly determined by a series of opti mization problems which must be solved in a predetermined sequence. If only two levels are considered, we have one leader (associated with the upper level) and one follower (associated with the lower level)."

Our everyday life is in?uenced by many unexpected (dif?cult to predict) events usually referred as a chance. Probably, we all are as we are due to the accumulation point of a multitude of chance events. Gambling games that have been known to human beings nearly from the beginning of our civilization are based on chance events. These chance events have created the dream that everybody can easily become rich. This pursuit made gambling so popular. This book is devoted to the dynamics of the mechanical randomizers and we try to solve the problem why mechanical device (roulette) or a rigid body (a coin or a die) operating in the way described by the laws of classical mechanics can behave in such a way and produce a pseudorandom outcome. During mathematical lessons in primary school we are taught that the outcome of the coin tossing experiment is random and that the probability that the tossed coin lands heads (tails) up is equal to 1/2. Approximately, at the same time during physics lessons we are told that the motion of the rigid body (coin is an example of suchabody)isfullydeterministic. Typically,studentsarenotgiventheanswertothe question Why this duality in the interpretation of the simple mechanical experiment is possible? Trying to answer this question we describe the dynamics of the gambling games based on the coin toss, the throw of the die, and the roulette run.

This is a comprehensive overview of the basics of fuzzy control, which also brings together some recent research results in soft computing, in particular fuzzy logic using genetic algorithms and neural networks.

This book offers researchers not only a solid background but also a snapshot of the current state of the art in this field.

On August 1997 a conference titled "From Local to Global Optimiza- tion" was held at Storgarden in Rimfor.sa near the Linkoping Institute of Technology, Sweden. The conference gave us the opportunity to cel- ebrate Hoang Thy's achievements in Optimization during his 70 years of life. This book consists of a collection of research papers based on results presented during the conference and are dedicated to Professor Hoang Thy on the occasion of his 70th birthday. The papers cover a wide range of recent results in Mathematical Pro- gramming. The work of Hoang Thy, in particular in Global Optimiza- tion, has provided directions for new algorithmic developments in the field. We are indebted to the Kluwer Academic Publishers for inviting us to publish this volume, and the Center for Industrial Information Transfer (CENIIT) for financial support. We wish to thank the referees for their help and the authors for their papers. We also wish to join all contributors of this book in expressing birthday wishes and gratitude to Hoang Thy for his inspiration, support, and friendship to all of us. Athanasios Migdalas, Panos M. Pardalos, and Peter Varbrand November 1998 xv Hoang Tuy: An Appreciation Its a pleasure for me as colleague and friend to take this opportunity to celebrate Hoang 'I\lY'S numerous contributions to the field of mathemat- ical programming.

This monograph presents a collection of results, observations, and examples related to dynamical systems described by linear and nonlinear ordinary differential and difference equations. In particular, dynamical systems that are susceptible to analysis by the Liapunov approach are considered. The naive observation that certain "diagonal-type" Liapunov functions are ubiquitous in the literature attracted the attention of the authors and led to some natural questions. Why does this happen so often? What are the spe cial virtues of these functions in this context? Do they occur so frequently merely because they belong to the simplest class of Liapunov functions and are thus more convenient, or are there any more specific reasons? This monograph constitutes the authors' synthesis of the work on this subject that has been jointly developed by them, among others, producing and compiling results, properties, and examples for many years, aiming to answer these questions and also to formalize some of the folklore or "cul ture" that has grown around diagonal stability and diagonal-type Liapunov functions. A natural answer to these questions would be that the use of diagonal type Liapunov functions is frequent because of their simplicity within the class of all possible Liapunov functions. This monograph shows that, although this obvious interpretation is often adequate, there are many in stances in which the Liapunov approach is best taken advantage of using diagonal-type Liapunov functions. In fact, they yield necessary and suffi cient stability conditions for some classes of nonlinear dynamical systems."

Wim van der Linden was just given a lifetime achievement award by the National Council on Measurement in Education. There is no one more prominent in the area of educational testing.

There are hundreds of computer-based credentialing exams in areas such as accounting, real estate, nursing, and securities, as well as the well-known admissions exams for college, graduate school, medical school, and law school - there is great need on the theory of testing.

This book presents the statistical theory and practice behind constructing good tests e.g., how is the first test item selected, how are the next items selected, and when do you have enough items.

This book explores the theoretical foundations of co-utility as well as its application to a number of areas, including distributed reputation management, anonymous keyword search, collaborative data anonymization, digital oblivion, peer-to-peer (P2P) content distribution, ridesharing for sustainable mobility, environmental economy, business model design and the collaborative economy. It evolved from presentations at the 1st Co-Utility Workshop, "held in Tarragona, Spain, on March 10-11, 2016." How can we guarantee that a global society without a common legal framework operates smoothly? If generosity, honesty and helpfulness do not arise spontaneously, one approach would be to design transactions so that helping others remains the best rational option. This is precisely the goal of co-utility, which can be defined in game-theoretic terms as any interaction between peers in which the best option for a player to maximize her or his utility is to make sure the other players also enjoy a fair share of utility (for example, functionality, security or privacy). Therefore, a protocol or mechanism designed using the co-utility principle ensures that helping others is the best rational option, even if players are selfish.

In this book, the author considers separable programming and, in particular, one of its important cases - convex separable programming. Some general results are presented, techniques of approximating the separable problem by linear programming and dynamic programming are considered. Convex separable programs subject to inequality/ equality constraint(s) and bounds on variables are also studied and iterative algorithms of polynomial complexity are proposed. As an application, these algorithms are used in the implementation of stochastic quasigradient methods to some separable stochastic programs. Numerical approximation with respect to I1 and I4 norms, as a convex separable nonsmooth unconstrained minimization problem, is considered as well. Audience: Advanced undergraduate and graduate students, mathematical programming/ operations research specialists.

'Optimization Day' (OD) has been a series of annual mini-conferences in Aus tralia since 1994. The purpose of this series of events is to gather researchers in optimization and its related areas from Australia and their collaborators, in order to exchange new developments of optimization theories, methods and their applications. The first four OD mini-conferences were held in The Uni versity of Ballarat (1994), The University of New South Wales (1995), The University of Melbourne (1996) and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (1997), respectively. They were all on the eastern coast of Australia. The fifth mini-conference Optimization Days was held at the Centre for Ap plied Dynamics and Optimization (CADO), Department of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Western Australia, Perth, from 29 to 30 June 1998. This is the first time the OD mini-conference has been held at the west ern coast of Australia. This fifth OD preceded the International Conference on Optimization: Techniques and Applications (ICOTA) held at Curtin Uni versity of Technology. Many participants attended both events. There were 28 participants in this year's mini-conference and 22 presentations in the mini conference. The presentations in this volume are refereed contributions based on papers presented at the fifth Optimization Days mini-conference. The volume is di vided into the following parts: Global Optimization, Nonsmooth Optimization, Optimization Methods and Applications."

Networks and Network Analysis for Defence and Security discusses relevant theoretical frameworks and applications of network analysis in support of the defence and security domains. This book details real world applications of network analysis to support defence and security. Shocks to regional, national and global systems stemming from natural hazards, acts of armed violence, terrorism and serious and organized crime have significant defence and security implications. Today, nations face an uncertain and complex security landscape in which threats impact/target the physical, social, economic and cyber domains. Threats to national security, such as that against critical infrastructures not only stem from man-made acts but also from natural hazards. Katrina (2005), Fukushima (2011) and Hurricane Sandy (2012) are examples highlighting the vulnerability of critical infrastructures to natural hazards and the crippling effect they have on the social and economic well-being of a community and a nation. With this dynamic and complex threat landscape, network analysis has emerged as a key enabler in supporting defence and security. With the advent of big data and increasing processing power, network analysis can reveal insights with regards to structural and dynamic properties thereby facilitating greater understanding of complex networks, their entities, interdependencies, vulnerabilities to produce insights for creative solutions. This book will be well positioned to inform defence, security and intelligence professionals and researchers with regards to leading methodologies and approaches."

This contributed volume contains fourteen papers based on selected presentations from the European Conference on Game Theory SING11-GTM 2015, held at Saint Petersburg State University in July 2015, and the Networking Games and Management workshop, held at the Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Petrozvavodsk, Russia, also in July 2015. These papers cover a wide range of topics in game theory, including recent advances in areas with high potential for future work, as well as new developments on classical results. Some of these include A new approach to journal ranking using methods from social choice theory; A differential game of a duopoly in which two firms are competing for market share in an industry with network externalities; The impact of information propagation in the model of tax audits; A voting model in which the results of previous votes can affect the process of coalition formation in a decision-making body; The Selten-Szidarovsky technique for the analysis of Nash equilibria of games with an aggregative structure; Generalized nucleoli and generalized bargaining sets for games with restricted cooperation; Bayesian networks and games of deterrence; and A new look at the study of solutions for games in partition function form. The maturity and vitality of modern-day game theory are reflected in the new ideas, novel applications, and contributions of young researchers represented in this collection. It will be of interest to anyone doing theoretical research in game theory or working on one its numerous applications.

Optimization is a rich and thriving mathematical discipline. The theory underlying current computational optimization techniques grows ever more sophisticated. The powerful and elegant language of convex analysis unifies much of this theory. The aim of this book is to provide a concise, accessible account of convex analysis and its applications and extensions, for a broad audience. It can serve as a teaching text, at roughly the level of first year graduate students. While the main body of the text is self-contained, each section concludes with an often extensive set of optional exercises. The new edition adds material on semismooth optimization, as well as several new proofs that will make this book even more self-contained.

Strategic Interaction and Markets explores the theoretical richness of economic contexts such as product differentiation, strategic barriers to entry, and imperfect information, where economic agents act strategically taking into account the impact of their behaviour on competitors' behaviour and prices. This non-ideal form of competition is the standard result when competition is amongst a small number of agents. Designed as an ancillary text for graduate students, this book is an accessible introduction to the applications of a complex area of mathematical economics.

Nonsmooth energy functions govern phenomena which occur frequently in nature and in all areas of life. They constitute a fascinating subject in mathematics and permit the rational understanding of yet unsolved or partially solved questions in mechanics, engineering and economics. This is the first book to provide a complete and rigorous presentation of the quasidifferentiability approach to nonconvex, possibly nonsmooth, energy functions, of the derivation and study of the corresponding variational expressions in mechanics, engineering and economics, and of their numerical treatment. The new variational formulations derived are illustrated by many interesting numerical problems. The techniques presented will permit the reader to check any solution obtained by other heuristic techniques for nonconvex, nonsmooth energy problems. A civil, mechanical or aeronautical engineer can find in the book the only existing mathematically sound technique for the formulation and study of nonconvex, nonsmooth energy problems. Audience: The book will be of interest to pure and applied mathematicians, physicists, researchers in mechanics, civil, mechanical and aeronautical engineers, structural analysts and software developers. It is also suitable for graduate courses in nonlinear mechanics, nonsmooth analysis, applied optimization, control, calculus of variations and computational mechanics.

This superb new book is one of the first publications in recent years to provide a broad overview of this interdisciplinary field. Most of the book is written in a self contained manner, assuming only a general knowledge of statistical mechanics and basic probabilty theory . It provides the reader with a sound introduction to the field and to the analytical techniques necessary to follow its most recent developments

In this book a general topological construction of extension is proposed for problems of attainability in topological spaces under perturbation of a system of constraints. This construction is realized in a special class of generalized elements defined as finitely additive measures. A version of the method of programmed iterations is constructed. This version realizes multi-valued control quasistrategies, which guarantees the solution of the control problem that consists in guidance to a given set under observation of phase constraints.

Audience: The book will be of interest to researchers, and graduate students in the field of optimal control, mathematical systems theory, measure and integration, functional analysis, and general topology.

This book demonstrates how to apply modern approaches to complex system control in practical applications involving knowledge-based systems. The dimensions of knowledge-based systems are extended by incorporating new perspectives from control theory, multimodal systems and simulation methods. The book is divided into three parts: theory, production system and information system applications. One of its main focuses is on an agent-based approach to complex system analysis. Moreover, specialised forms of knowledge-based systems (like e-learning, social network, and production systems) are introduced with a new formal approach to knowledge system modelling. The book, which offers a valuable resource for researchers engaged in complex system analysis, is the result of a unique cooperation between scientists from applied computer science (mainly from Poland) and leading system control theory researchers from the Russian Academy of Sciences' Trapeznikov Institute of Control Sciences.

Invexity and Optimization presents results on invex function and their properties in smooth and nonsmooth cases, pseudolinearity and eta-pseudolinearity. Results on optimality and duality for a nonlinear scalar programming problem are presented, second and higher order duality results are given for a nonlinear scalar programming problem, and saddle point results are also presented. Invexity in multiobjective programming problems and Kuhn-Tucker optimality conditions are given for a multiobjecive programming problem, Wolfe and Mond-Weir type dual models are given for a multiobjective programming problem and usual duality results are presented in presence of invex functions. Continuous-time multiobjective problems are also discussed. Quadratic and fractional programming problems are given for invex functions. Symmetric duality results are also given for scalar and vector cases.

This collection of papers investigates the most recent debates about individualism and holism in the philosophy of social science. The debates revolve mainly around two issues: firstly, whether social phenomena exist "sui generis" and how they relate to individuals. This is the focus of discussions between ontological individualists and ontological holists. Secondly, to what extent social scientific explanations may and should, focus on individuals and social phenomena respectively. This issue is debated amongst methodological holists and methodological individualists.

In social science and philosophy, both issues have been intensively discussed and new versions of the dispute have appeared just as new arguments have been advanced. At present, the individualism/holism debate is extremely lively and this book reflects the major positions and perspectives within the debate. This volume is also relevant to debates about two closely related issues in social science: the micro-macro debate and the agency-structure debate.

This book presents contributions from key figures in both social science and philosophy, in the first such collection on this topic to be published since the 1970s.

This book introduces methods for uncertain multi-attribute decision making including uncertain multi-attribute group decision making and their applications to supply chain management, investment decision making, personnel assessment, redesigning products, maintenance services, military system efficiency evaluation. Multi-attribute decision making, also known as multi-objective decision making with finite alternatives, is an important component of modern decision science. The theory and methods of multi-attribute decision making have been extensively applied in engineering, economics, management and military contexts, such as venture capital project evaluation, facility location, bidding, development ranking of industrial sectors and so on. Over the last few decades, great attention has been paid to research on multi-attribute decision making in uncertain settings, due to the increasing complexity and uncertainty of supposedly objective aspects and the fuzziness of human thought. This book can be used as a reference guide for researchers and practitioners working in e.g. the fields of operations research, information science, management science and engineering. It can also be used as a textbook for postgraduate and senior undergraduate students.