These proceedings consist of 30 selected research papers based on results presented at the 10th Balkan Conference & 1st International Symposium on Operational Research (BALCOR 2011) held in Thessaloniki, Greece, September 22-24, 2011. BALCOR is an established biennial conference attended by a large number of faculty, researchers and students from the Balkan countries but also from other European and Mediterranean countries as well. Over the past decade, the BALCOR conference has facilitated the exchange of scientific and technical information on the subject of Operations Research and related fields such as Mathematical Programming, Game Theory, Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis, Information Systems, Data Mining and more, in order to promote international scientific cooperation. The carefully selected and refereed papers present important recent developments and modern applications and will serve as excellent reference for students, researchers and practitioners in these disciplines. ​

For first courses in operations research, operations management Optimization in Operations Research, Second Edition covers a broad range of optimization techniques, including linear programming, network flows, integer/combinational optimization, and nonlinear programming. This dynamic text emphasizes the importance of modeling and problem formulation andhow to apply algorithms to real-world problems to arrive at optimal solutions. Use a program that presents a better teaching and learning experience-for you and your students. Prepare students for real-world problems: Students learn how to apply algorithms to problems that get them ready for their field. Use strong pedagogy tools to teach: Key concepts are easy to follow with the text's clear and continually reinforced learning path. Enjoy the text's flexibility: The text features varying amounts of coverage, so that instructors can choose how in-depth they want to go into different topics.

This book examines optimization problems that in practice involve random model parameters. It details the computation of robust optimal solutions, i.e., optimal solutions that are insensitive with respect to random parameter variations, where appropriate deterministic substitute problems are needed. Based on the probability distribution of the random data and using decision theoretical concepts, optimization problems under stochastic uncertainty are converted into appropriate deterministic substitute problems. Due to the probabilities and expectations involved, the book also shows how to apply approximative solution techniques. Several deterministic and stochastic approximation methods are provided: Taylor expansion methods, regression and response surface methods (RSM), probability inequalities, multiple linearization of survival/failure domains, discretization methods, convex approximation/deterministic descent directions/efficient points, stochastic approximation and gradient procedures and differentiation formulas for probabilities and expectations. In the third edition, this book further develops stochastic optimization methods. In particular, it now shows how to apply stochastic optimization methods to the approximate solution of important concrete problems arising in engineering, economics and operations research.

This textbook is comprised of detailed case studies covering challenging real world applications of OR techniques. Among the overall goals of the book is to provide readers with descriptions of the history and other background information on a variety of industries, service or other organizations in which decision making is an important component of their daily operations. The book considers all methods of optimum decision making in order to improve performances. It also compares possible solutions obtained by different approaches, concluding with a recommendation of the best among them for implementation. By exposing students to a variety of applications in a variety of areas and explaining how they can be modeled and solved, the book helps students develop the skills needed for modeling and solving problems that they may face in the workplace. Each chapter of "Case Studies in Operations Research: Applications of Optimal Decision Making" also includes additional data provided on the book’s website on Springer.com. These files contain a brief description of the area of application, the problem and the required outputs. Also provided are links to access all the data in the problem. Finally there are project exercises for students to practice what they have learnt in the chapter, which can also be used by instructors as project assignments in their courses.

This book takes a unique approach to linear optimization by focusing on the underlying principles and business applications of a topic more often taught from a mathematical and computational perspective. By shifting the perspective away from heavy math, students learn how optimization can be used to drive decision making in real world business settings. The book does not shy away from the theory underlying linear optimization but rather focuses on ensuring students understand the logic without getting caught up in proving theorems. Plenty of examples, applications and case studies are included to help bridge the gap between the theory and the way it plays out in practice. The author has also included several Excel spreadsheets, showing worked-out models of linear optimization that have been used to drive decisions ranging from configuring a police force to purchasing crude oil and media planning. How can the routes and pricing structures of airlines be optimized? How much should be invested in the prevention and punishment of crimes? These are everyday problems that can be solved using linear optimization, and this book shows students just how to do that. It will prove a useful, math-free resource for all students of management science and operations research.

This book deals with decision making in environments of significant data un certainty, with particular emphasis on operations and production management applications. For such environments, we suggest the use of the robustness ap proach to decision making, which assumes inadequate knowledge of the decision maker about the random state of nature and develops a decision that hedges against the worst contingency that may arise. The main motivating factors for a decision maker to use the robustness approach are: • It does not ignore uncertainty and takes a proactive step in response to the fact that forecasted values of uncertain parameters will not occur in most environments; • It applies to decisions of unique, non-repetitive nature, which are common in many fast and dynamically changing environments; • It accounts for the risk averse nature of decision makers; and • It recognizes that even though decision environments are fraught with data uncertainties, decisions are evaluated ex post with the realized data. For all of the above reasons, robust decisions are dear to the heart of opera tional decision makers. This book takes a giant first step in presenting decision support tools and solution methods for generating robust decisions in a variety of interesting application environments. Robust Discrete Optimization is a comprehensive mathematical programming framework for robust decision making.

This book discusses recent developments in the vast domain of optimization. Featuring papers presented at the 1st International Conference on Frontiers in Optimization: Theory and Applications (FOTA 2016), held at the Heritage Institute of Technology, Kolkata, on 24–26 December 2016, it opens new avenues of research in all topics related to optimization, such as linear and nonlinear optimization; combinatorial-, stochastic-, dynamic-, fuzzy-, and uncertain optimization; optimal control theory; as well as multi-objective, evolutionary and convex optimization and their applications in intelligent information and technology, systems science, knowledge management, information and communication, supply chain and inventory control, scheduling, networks, transportation and logistics and finance. The book is a valuable resource for researchers, scientists and engineers from both academia and industry.

Decision making is the process of selecting a possible course of action from all the available alternatives. In almost all such problems the multiplicity of criteria for judging the alternatives is pervasive. That is, for many such problems, the decision maker (OM) wants to attain more than one objective or goal in selecting the course of action while satisfying the constraints dictated by environment, processes, and resources. Another characteristic of these problems is that the objectives are apparently non commensurable. Mathematically, these problems can be represented as: (1. 1 ) subject to: gi(~) ~ 0, ,', . . . ,. ! where ~ is an n dimensional decision variable vector. The problem consists of n decision variables, m constraints and k objectives. Any or all of the functions may be nonlinear. In literature this problem is often referred to as a vector maximum problem (VMP). Traditionally there are two approaches for solving the VMP. One of them is to optimize one of the objectives while appending the other objectives to a constraint set so that the optimal solution would satisfy these objectives at least up to a predetermined level. The problem is given as: Max f. ~) 1 (1. 2) subject to: where at is any acceptable predetermined level for objective t. The other approach is to optimize a super-objective function created by multiplying each 2 objective function with a suitable weight and then by adding them together.

Uniquely blends mathematical theory and algorithm design for understanding and modeling real-world problems Optimization modeling and algorithms are key components to problem-solving across various fields of research, from operations research and mathematics to computer science and engineering. Addressing the importance of the algorithm design process. Deterministic Operations Research focuses on the design of solution methods for both continuous and discrete linear optimization problems. The result is a clear-cut resource for understanding three cornerstones of deterministic operations research: modeling real-world problems as linear optimization problem; designing the necessary algorithms to solve these problems; and using mathematical theory to justify algorithmic development. Treating real-world examples as mathematical problems, the author begins with an introduction to operations research and optimization modeling that includes applications form sports scheduling an the airline industry. Subsequent chapters discuss algorithm design for continuous linear optimization problems, covering topics such as convexity. Farkas’ Lemma, and the study of polyhedral before culminating in a discussion of the Simplex Method. The book also addresses linear programming duality theory and its use in algorithm design as well as the Dual Simplex Method. Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition, and a primal-dual interior point algorithm. The final chapters present network optimization and integer programming problems, highlighting various specialized topics including label-correcting algorithms for the shortest path problem, preprocessing and probing in integer programming, lifting of valid inequalities, and branch and cut algorithms. Concepts and approaches are introduced by outlining examples that demonstrate and motivate theoretical concepts. The accessible presentation of advanced ideas makes core aspects easy to understand and encourages readers to understand how to think about the problem, not just what to think. Relevant historical summaries can be found throughout the book, and each chapter is designed as the continuation of the “story” of how to both model and solve optimization problems by using the specific problems-linear and integer programs-as guides. The book’s various examples are accompanied by the appropriate models and calculations, and a related Web site features these models along with MapleTM and MATLAB® content for the discussed calculations. Thoroughly class-tested to ensure a straightforward, hands-on approach, Deterministic Operations Research is an excellent book for operations research of linear optimization courses at the upper-undergraduate and graduate levels. It also serves as an insightful reference for individuals working in the fields of mathematics, engineering, computer science, and operations research who use and design algorithms to solve problem in their everyday work.

The book is a benefit for graduate and postgraduate students in the areas of operations research, decision theory, optimization theory, linear algebra, interval analysis and fuzzy sets. The book will also be useful for the researchers in the respective areas. The first part of the book deals with decision making problems and procedures that have been established to combine opinions about alternatives related to different points of view. Procedures based on pairwise comparisons are thoroughly investigated. In the second part we investigate optimization problems where objective functions and constraints are characterized by extremal operators such as maximum, minimum or various triangular norms (t-norms). Matrices in max-min algebra are useful in applications such as automata theory, design of switching circuits, logic of binary relations, medical diagnosis, Markov chains, social choice, models of organizations, information systems, political systems and clustering. The input data in real problems are usually not exact and can be characterized by interval values.