Operations Research articles from May 2007

Operations Research archives from May 2007

Simple models of influenza progression within a heterogeneous population.
May 1, 2007... The focus of this "OR framing paper" is to introduce the operations research (OR) community to the need for new mathematical modeling of an influenza pandemic and its control. By reviewing relevant history and literature, one key concern that...

Dynamic pricing strategies with reference effects.
May 1, 2007... We consider the dynamic pricing problem of a monopolist firm in a market with repeated interactions, where demand is sensitive to the firm's pricing history. Consumers have memory and are prone to human decision-making biases and cognitive...

Congestion pricing and noncooperative games in communication networks.
May 1, 2007... We consider congestion pricing as a mechanism for sharing bandwidth in communication networks, and model the interaction among the users as a game. We propose a decentralized algorithm for the users that is based on the history of the price...

Integrated airline fleeting and crew-pairing decisions.
May 1, 2007... The tactical planning process of an airline is typically decomposed into several stages among which fleeting, aircraft routing, and crew pairing form the core. In such a decomposed and sequential approach, the output of fleeting forms the input...

A decomposition-based genetic algorithm for the resource-constrained project-scheduling problem.
May 1, 2007... In the last few decades, the resource-constrained project-scheduling problem has become a popular problem type in operations research. However, due to its strongly NP-hard status, the effectiveness of exact optimisation procedures is restricted...

On the integration of production and financial hedging decisions in global markets.
May 1, 2007... We study the integrated operational and financial hedging decisions faced by a global firm who sells to both home and foreign markets. Production occurs either at a single facility located in one of the markets or at two facilities, one in each...

Progressive interval heuristics for multi-item capacitated lot-sizing problems.
May 1, 2007... We consider a family of N items that are produced in, or obtained from, the same production facility. Demands are deterministic for each item and each period within a given horizon of T periods. If in a given period an order is placed, setup...

Bounds, heuristics, and approximations for distribution systems.
May 1, 2007... This paper develops simple approximate methods to analyze a two-stage distribution system consisting of one warehouse and multiple retailers with stochastic demand. We consider local and central control schemes. The main ideas are based on...

Traffic estimation and capacity assignment in multimedia distribution networks with guaranteed quality of service.
May 1, 2007... This paper considers the provisioning of transmission line bandwidth on a private network with given traffic routing for the purpose of distribution of video-on-demand service with guaranteed end-to-end quality of service. We present an...

Two-moment approximations for maxima.
May 1, 2007... We introduce and investigate approximations for the probability distribution of the maximum of n independent and identically distributed nonnegative random variables, in terms of the number n and the first few moments of the underlying...

A model reference adaptive search method for global optimization.
May 1, 2007... Model reference adaptive search (MRAS) for solving global optimization problems works with a parameterized probabilistic model on the solution space and generates at each iteration a group of candidate solutions. These candidate solutions are...

An exact algorithm for higher-dimensional orthogonal packing.
May 1, 2007... Higher-dimensional orthogonal packing problems have a wide range of practical applications, including packing, cutting, and scheduling. Combining the use of our data structure for characterizing feasible packings with our new classes of lower...

Planning and scheduling by logic-based Benders decomposition.
May 1, 2007... We combine mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) and constraint programming (CP) to solve an important class of planning and scheduling problems. Tasks are allocated to facilities using MILP and scheduled using CP, and the two are linked via...

Note: a separation principle for a class of assemble-to-order systems with expediting.(TECHNICAL NOTE)
May 1, 2007... In an assemble-to-order system, a wide variety of products are rapidly assembled from component inventories in response to customer orders. We assume that orders must be filled within a product-specific target lead time. In the event that some...