Operations Research articles from May 2001

Operations Research archives from May 2001

Reconsidering the Philosophical Basis of OR/MS.(Operations Research/Management Science should reject realist philosophy and embrace relativism)
May 1, 2001... Many in Operations Research/Management Science (OR/MS) have long predicted a major contraction in the field. Given the recent trends in OR/MS hiring, this contraction may have finally arrived, both in academia, as well as in industry. This...

Stocking Retail Assortments Under Dynamic Consumer Substitution.(a stochastic inventory model is analyzed in which diverse customers dynamically substitute among product substitutes until inventory is depleted)
May 1, 2001... We analyze a single-period, stochastic inventory model (newsboy-like model) in which a sequence of heterogeneous customers dynamically substitute among product variants within a retail assortment when inventory is depleted. The customer choice...

Optimal Dynamic Allocation of Treatment and Enforcement in Illicit Drug Control.(society's choice between illicit drug treatment vs enforcement is formulated as an optimal control problem)
May 1, 2001... There has been considerable debate about what share of drug control resources should be allocated to treatment vs. enforcement. Most of the debate has presumed that there is one answer to that question, but it seems plausible that the mix of...

Aggregation and Mixed Integer Rounding to Solve MIPS.(the use of mixed integer rounding inequalities to solve mixed integer programs [MIPS])
May 1, 2001... In this paper, we discuss the use of mixed integer rounding (MIR) inequalities to solve mixed integer programs. MIR inequalities are essentially Gomory mixed integer cuts. However, as we wish to use problem structure, we insist that MIR...

Hedging Derivative Securities and Incomplete Markets: An Approximation Error-Arbitrage Approach.(derivative securities portfolios can be make dynamically self-financing by use of an optimal-replication strategy)
May 1, 2001... Given a European derivative security with an arbitrary payoff function and a corresponding set of underlying securities on which the derivative security is based, we solve the optimal-replication problem: Find a self-financing dynamic portfolio...

Improved Dynamic Programming Methods for Optimal Control of Lumped-Parameter Stochastic Systems.(stochastic control problems with a large number of state variables can be solved using new dynamic programming techniques)
May 1, 2001... New dynamic programming methods are developed to solve stochastic control problems with a larger number of state variables than previously possible. These methods apply accurate interpolation to numerical approximation of continuous cost-to-go...

Multivariate Standardized Time Series for Steady-State Simulation Output Analysis.(more than one steady-state mean can be estimated simultaneously by extending the theory of standardized time series)
May 1, 2001... The theory of standardized time series, initially proposed to estimate a single steady-state mean from the output of a simulation, is extended to the case where more than one steady-state mean is to be estimated simultaneously. Under mild...

A Class of Label-Correcting Methods for the K Shortest Paths Problem.(the K shortest paths problem is best solved using the most efficient node selection strategies)
May 1, 2001... In this paper we deal with the problem of finding the first K shortest paths from a single origin node to all other nodes of a directed graph. In particular, we define the necessary and sufficient conditions for a set of distance label vectors,...

SMAA-2: Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis for Group Decision Making.(SMAA is a multicriteria decision support method for groups which makes implicit or explicit expression of preferences unnecessary)
May 1, 2001... Stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis (SMAA) is a multicriteria decision support method for multiple decision makers in discrete problems. In SMAA, the decision makers need not express their preferences explicitly or implicitly....

Pathwise Properties and Performance Bounds for a Perishable Inventory System.(several key sample-path relations can be derived regarding perishable inventory systems using an appropriate transformation of the state vector)
May 1, 2001... We study a perishable inventory system under a fixed-critical number order policy. By using an appropriate transformation of the state vector, we derive several key sample-path relations. We obtain bounds on the limiting distribution of the...