The COVID-19 pandemic has vividly and dramatically demonstrated the importance of supply chains to the functioning of societies and our economies. The discussion in this timely book explores prominent issues concerning supply chain networks and labor. The readership is aimed to include students, researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers, interested in the wide range of topics presented in these pages. Labor has a particular focus as the driver behind supply chains, whether associated with food products, life-saving medicines and supplies, or high tech products that make innovation possible, just to name a few. The impacts of policy interventions, in the form of wage bounds, and their ramifications, in terms of volume of attracted labor, product prices, product volumes, as well as profits, are explored. Profit-maximizing firms are considered (with relevant associated issues such as waste management in the case of the food sector, for example), but also non-profits, as in blood services, as well as humanitarian organizations engaged in disaster relief. The book is filled with many network figures, graphs, and tables with data, both input and output and includes an appendix that provides the foundations of the underlying mathematical methodologies used. The book offers strong evidence for the need to provide a holistic, system-wide perspective for the modeling, analysis, and solution of supply chain problems with the inclusion of the critical labor resources. A formalism using the prism of supply chain networks, which yields a graphic representation of supply chains, consisting of multiple stakeholders, is constructed. Models that capture the behaviors and interactions of single decision-makers as well as multiple decision-makers engaged in supply chain activities of production, transportation, storage, and distribution, are considered. The models capture many realistic constraints faced by firms today, as they seek to produce and deliver products, while dealing with competition, various constraints on labor, a variety of disruptions, labor shortages, challenges associated with proper wage-determination, plus the computation of optimal investments in labor productivity subject to budget constraints. The book provides prescriptive suggestions in terms of how to ameliorate negative impacts of labor disruptions and demonstrate benefits of appropriate wage determination.

This book is the first comprehensive tutorial on matheuristics. Matheuristics are based on mathematical extensions of previously known heuristics, mainly metaheuristics, and on original, area-specific approaches. This tutorial provides a detailed discussion of both contributions, presenting the pseudocodes of over 40 algorithms, abundant literature references, and for each case a step-by-step description of a sample run on a common Generalized Assignment Problem example. C++ source codes of all algorithms are available in an associated SW repository.

This book collects some recent works on the application of dynamic game and control theory to the analysis of environmental problems. This collec tion of papers is not the outcome of a conference or of a workshop. It is rather the result of a careful screening from among a number of contribu tions that we have solicited across the world. In particular, we have been able to attract the work of some of the most prominent scholars in the field of dynamic analyses of the environment. Engineers, mathematicians and economists provide their views and analytical tools to better interpret the interactions between economic and environmental phenomena, thus achiev ing, through this interdisciplinary effort, new and interesting results. The goal of the book is more normative than descriptive. All papers include careful modelling of the dynamics of the main variables involved in the game between nature and economic agents and among economic agents themselves, as well-described in Vrieze's introductory chapter. Fur thermore, all papers use this careful modelling framework to provide policy prescriptions to the public agencies authorized to regulate emission dy namics. Several diverse problems are addressed: from global issues, such as the greenhouse effect or deforestation, to international ones, such as the management of fisheries, to local ones, for example, the control of effluent discharges. Moreover, pollution problems are not the only concern of this book."

This book is an original-the first-ever treatment of the mathematics of Luck. Setting out from the principle that luck can be measured by the gap between reasonable expectation and eventual realization, the book develops step-by-step a mathematical theory that accommodates the entire range of our pre-systematic understanding of the way in which luck functions in human affairs. In so moving from explanatory exposition to mathematical treatment, the book provides a clear and accessible account of the way in which luck assessment enters into the calculations of rational decision theory.

This book discusses one of the major applications of artificial intelligence: the use of machine learning to extract useful information from multimodal data. It discusses the optimization methods that help minimize the error in developing patterns and classifications, which further helps improve prediction and decision-making. The book also presents formulations of real-world machine learning problems, and discusses AI solution methodologies as standalone or hybrid approaches. Lastly, it proposes novel metaheuristic methods to solve complex machine learning problems. Featuring valuable insights, the book helps readers explore new avenues leading toward multidisciplinary research discussions.

The scientific and technical development of any kind of germplasm is regulated by a vast network of treaties, conventions, international agreements, and national and regional legislation. These regulations govern biotechnological innovations in plants and microorganisms, access to and use of plant genetic resources, and biosafety. This complex mix has made it difficult to arrive at global interpretations, due to overlaps, gaps, ambiguities, contradictions, and lack of consistency. The big picture is even more complex, as a series of scientific developments - gene editing in particular - have in some cases rendered these international regulatory frameworks obsolete. This book puts forward an innovative approach: a "Comprehensive Plant Germplasm System". The System is a cooperative game theory-based proposal for a binding international convention which would supersede all other conventions, treaties, national and regional legislation covering native varieties and traditional developments, heterogeneous plant varieties, microorganisms, biotechnological inventions, plant genetic resources, and biosafety regulation. In short, it offers a comprehensive framework regarding intellectual property, biosafety, and business regulation and covers all types of germplasm. If applied, the system is expected to yield higher productivity rates in crops and improved food biodiversity, as well as a new paradigm based on the promotion of innovation for "Agriculture 4.0."

Robert J Aumann has received numerous prizes, including the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for 2005.With his 1976 paper, 'Agreeing to Disagree', Robert Aumann pioneered the subject of interactive epistemology: the study of what people know, and what they know about what others know. Since then, the discipline has burgeoned enormously. This book documents Aumann's work leading to the 1976 paper and his subsequent contributions to the discipline. The scientific controversies emanating from his work are also included.

This book offers a systematic and rigorous treatment of continuous-time Markov decision processes, covering both theory and possible applications to queueing systems, epidemiology, finance, and other fields. Unlike most books on the subject, much attention is paid to problems with functional constraints and the realizability of strategies. Three major methods of investigations are presented, based on dynamic programming, linear programming, and reduction to discrete-time problems. Although the main focus is on models with total (discounted or undiscounted) cost criteria, models with average cost criteria and with impulsive controls are also discussed in depth. The book is self-contained. A separate chapter is devoted to Markov pure jump processes and the appendices collect the requisite background on real analysis and applied probability. All the statements in the main text are proved in detail. Researchers and graduate students in applied probability, operational research, statistics and engineering will find this monograph interesting, useful and valuable.

For a long time the techniques of solving linear optimization (LP) problems improved only marginally. Fifteen years ago, however, a revolutionary discovery changed everything. A new golden age' for optimization started, which is continuing up to the current time. What is the cause of the excitement? Techniques of linear programming formed previously an isolated body of knowledge. Then suddenly a tunnel was built linking it with a rich and promising land, part of which was already cultivated, part of which was completely unexplored. These revolutionary new techniques are now applied to solve conic linear problems. This makes it possible to model and solve large classes of essentially nonlinear optimization problems as efficiently as LP problems. This volume gives an overview of the latest developments of such High Performance Optimization Techniques'. The first part is a thorough treatment of interior point methods for semidefinite programming problems. The second part reviews today's most exciting research topics and results in the area of convex optimization. Audience: This volume is for graduate students and researchers who are interested in modern optimization techniques.

This book engages in an ongoing topic, such as the implementation of nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithms, with a main concentration on optimization problems in different fields of engineering optimization applications. The chapters of the book provide concise overviews of various nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithms, defining their profits in obtaining the optimal solutions of tiresome engineering design problems that cannot be efficiently resolved via conventional mathematical-based techniques. Thus, the chapters report on advanced studies on the applications of not only the traditional, but also the contemporary certain nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithms to specific engineering optimization problems with single and multi-objectives. Harmony search, artificial bee colony, teaching learning-based optimization, electrostatic discharge, grasshopper, backtracking search, and interactive search are just some of the methods exhibited and consulted step by step in application contexts. The book is a perfect guide for graduate students, researchers, academicians, and professionals willing to use metaheuristic algorithms in engineering optimization applications.

This book contains international perspectives that unifies the themes of strategic management, decision theory, and data science. It contains thought-provoking presentations of case studies backed by adequate analysis adding significance to the discussions. Most of the decision-making models in use do take due advantage of collection and processing of relevant data using appropriate analytics oriented to provide inputs into effective decision-making. The book showcases applications in diverse fields including banking and insurance, portfolio management, inventory analysis, performance assessment of comparable economic agents, managing utilities in a health-care facility, reducing traffic snarls on highways, monitoring achievement of some of the sustainable development goals in a country or state, and similar other areas that showcase policy implications. It holds immense value for researchers as well as professionals responsible for organizational decisions.

There has been a great deal of excitement over the last few years concerning the emergence of new mathematical techniques for the analysis and control of nonlinear systems: witness the emergence of a set of simplified tools for the analysis of bifurcations, chaos and other simplified tools for the analysis of bifurcations, chaos and other complicated dynamical behaviour and the development of a comprehensive theory of nonlinear control. Coupled with this set of analytic advances has been the vast increase in computational power available both for the simulation of nonlinear systems as well as for the implementation in real time of sophisticated, real-time nonlinear control laws. Thus, technological advances have bolstered the impact of analytic advances and produced a tremendous variety of new problems and applications which are nonlinear in an essential way. This book lays out in a concise mathematical framework the tools and methods of analysis which underlie this diversity of applications. The material presented in this book is culled from different 1st year graduate courses that the author has taught at MIT and at Berkeley.

This book presents a survey of the aspects of economic complexity, with a focus on foundational, interdisciplinary ideas. The long-awaited follow up to his 2011 volume Complex Evolutionary Dynamics in Urban-Regional and Ecologic-Economic Systems: From Catastrophe to Chaos and Beyond, this volume draws together the threads of Rosser's earlier work on complexity theory and its wide applications in economics and an expanded list of related disciplines. The book begins with a full account of the broader categories of complexity in economics--dynamic, computational, hierarchical, and structural--before shifting to more detailed analysis. The next two chapters address problems associated with computational complexity, especially those of computability, and discuss the Godel Incompleteness Theorem with a focus on reflexivity. The middle chapters discuss the relationship between entropy, econophysics, evolution, and economic complexity, respectively, with applications in urban and regional dynamics, ecological economics, general equilibrium theory, as well as financial market dynamics. The final chapter works to bring together these themes into a broader framework and expose some of the limits concerning analysis of deeper foundational issues. With applications in all disciplines characterized by interconnected nonlinear adaptive systems, this book is appropriate for graduate students, professors and practitioners in economics and related disciplines such as regional science, mathematics, physics, biology, environmental sciences, philosophy, and psychology.

This contributed volume presents the state-of-the-art of games and dynamic games, featuring several chapters based on plenary sessions at the ISDG-China Chapter Conference on Dynamic Games and Game Theoretic Analysis, which was held from August 3-5, 2017 at the Ningbo campus of the University of Nottingham, China. The chapters in this volume will provide readers with paths to further research, serving as a testimony to the vitality of the field. Experts cover a range of theory and applications related to games and dynamic games, with topics including: Dynamically stable cooperative provision of public goods under non-transferable utility Strongly time-consistent solutions in cooperative dynamic games Incentive Stackelberg games for stochastic systems Static and inverse Stackelberg games in political economy Cournot and Betrand competition on symmetric R&D networks Numerical Nash equilibria using curvilinear multistart algorithm Markov chain approximation numerical scheme for infinite-horizon mean field games Frontiers in Games and Dynamic Games will appeal to an interdisciplinary audience of researchers, practitioners, and graduate students interested in games and dynamic games.

This book presents the results of a European-Chinese collaborative research project, Manipulation of Reynolds Stress for Separation Control and Drag Reduction (MARS), including an analysis and discussion of the effects of a number of active flow control devices on the discrete dynamic components of the turbulent shear layers and Reynolds stress. From an application point of view, it provides a positive and necessary step to control individual structures that are larger in scale and lower in frequency compared to the richness of the temporal and spatial scales in turbulent separated flows.

This book presents the stream-tube method (STM), a method offering computational means of dealing with the two- and three-dimensional properties of numerous incompressible materials in static and dynamic conditions. The authors show that the kinematics and stresses associated with the flow and deformation in such materials can be treated by breaking the system down into simple computational sub-domains in which streamlines are straight and parallel and using one or two mapping functions in steady-state and non-steady-state conditions. The STM is considered for various problems in non-Newtonian fluid mechanics with different geometries. The book makes use of examples and applications to illustrate the use of the STM. It explores the possibilities of computation on simple mapped rectangular domains and three-dimensional parallel-piped domains under different conditions. Complex materials with memory are considered simply without particle tracking problems. Readers, including researchers, engineers and graduate students, with a foundational knowledge of calculus, linear algebra, differential equations and fluid mechanics will benefit most greatly from this book.

This book provides novel concepts and techniques for air traffic management (ATM) and communications, navigation, and surveillance (CNS) systems. The book consists of selected papers from the 6th ENRI International Workshop on ATM/CNS (EIWAC2019) held in Tokyo in October 2019, the theme of which was "Exploring Ideas for World Aviation Challenges". Included are key topics to realize safer and more efficient skies in the future, linked to the integrated conference theme consisting of long-term visions based on presentations from various fields. The book is dedicated not only to researchers, academicians, and university students, but also to engineers in the industry, air navigation service providers (ANSPs), and regulators of aviation.

This book addresses remaining life prediction and predictive maintenance of equipment. It systematically summarizes the key research findings made by the author and his team and focuses on how to create equipment performance degradation and residual life prediction models based on the performance monitoring data produced by currently used and historical equipment. Some of the theoretical results covered here have been used to make remaining life predictions and maintenance-related decisions for aerospace products such as gyros and platforms. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable reference guide for those pursuing theoretical or applied research in the areas of fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant control, remaining life prediction, and maintenance decision-making.

This volume collects papers, based on invited talks given at the IMA workshop in Modeling, Stochastic Control, Optimization, and Related Applications, held at the Institute for Mathematics and Its Applications, University of Minnesota, during May and June, 2018. There were four week-long workshops during the conference. They are (1) stochastic control, computation methods, and applications, (2) queueing theory and networked systems, (3) ecological and biological applications, and (4) finance and economics applications. For broader impacts, researchers from different fields covering both theoretically oriented and application intensive areas were invited to participate in the conference. It brought together researchers from multi-disciplinary communities in applied mathematics, applied probability, engineering, biology, ecology, and networked science, to review, and substantially update most recent progress. As an archive, this volume presents some of the highlights of the workshops, and collect papers covering a broad range of topics.

This compelling book advances utilitarianism as the basis for a viable public philosophy, effectively rebutting the common charge that, as moral doctrine, utilitarian thought permits cruel acts, justifies unfair distribution of wealth, and demands too much of moral agents.
James Wood Bailey defends utilitarianism through novel use of game theory insights regarding feasible equilibria and evolutionary stability, elaborating a sophisticated account of institutions that real-world utilitarians would want to foster. If utilitarianism seems in principle to dictate that we make each and every choice such that it leads to the best consequences overall, game theory emphasizes that no choice has consequences in isolation, but only in conjunction with many other choices of other agents. Viewing institutions as equilibria in complex games, Bailey negotiates the paradox of individual responsibilities, arguing that if individuals within institutions have specific responsibilities they cannot get from the principle of utility alone, the utility principle nevertheless holds great value in that it allows us to identify morally desirable institutions. Far from recommending cruel acts, utilitarianism, understood this way, actually runs congruent to our basic moral intuitions.
A provocative attempt to support the practical use of utilitarian ethics in a world of conflicting interests and competing moral agents, Bailey's book employs the work of social scientists to tackle problems traditionally given abstract philosophical attention. Vividly illustrating its theory with concrete moral dilemmas and taking seriously our moral common sense, Utilitarianism, Institutions, and Justice is an accessible, groundbreaking work that will richly reward students and scholars of political science, political economy, and philosophy.

Deep connections exist between harmonic and applied analysis and the diverse yet connected topics of machine learning, data analysis, and imaging science. This volume explores these rapidly growing areas and features contributions presented at the second and third editions of the Summer Schools on Applied Harmonic Analysis, held at the University of Genova in 2017 and 2019. Each chapter offers an introduction to essential material and then demonstrates connections to more advanced research, with the aim of providing an accessible entrance for students and researchers. Topics covered include ill-posed problems; concentration inequalities; regularization and large-scale machine learning; unitarization of the radon transform on symmetric spaces; and proximal gradient methods for machine learning and imaging.

This proceedings volume contains a selection of papers presented at the Fourth International Conference on High Performance Scientific Computing held at the Hanoi Institute of Mathematics, Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology (VAST), March 2-6, 2009. The conference was organized by the Hanoi Institute of Mathematics, the Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing (IWR), Heidelberg, and its Heidelberg Graduate School of Mathematical and Computational Methods for the Sciences, and Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology. The contributions cover the broad interdisciplinary spectrum of scientific computing and present recent advances in theory, development of methods, and applications in practice. Subjects covered are mathematical modelling, numerical simulation, methods for optimization and control, parallel computing, software development, applications of scientific computing in physics, mechanics, biology and medicine, engineering, hydrology problems, transport, communication networks, production scheduling, industrial and commercial problems.

Game Theoretical Applications to Economics and Operations Research deals with various aspects of game theory and their applications to Economics and OR related problems. It brings together the contributions of a wide spectrum of disciplines such as Statistics, Mathematics, Mathematical Economics and OR. The contributions include decision theory, stochastic games, cooperative and noncooperative games. The papers in the volume are classified under five different sections. The first four sections are devoted to the theory of two-person games, linear complimentarity problems and game theory, cooperative and noncooperative games. The fifth section contains diverse applications of these various theories. Taken together they exhibit a rich versatility of these theories and lively interaction between the mathematical theory of games and significant economic problems.