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This book constructs a model of the knowledge value chain in the university and analyzes the university knowledge value-added mechanism in the process of Industry-University Collaborative Innovation.

This book begins with a review of basic results in optimal search for a stationary target. Next it develops methods for computing optimal search plans involving multiple targets and multiple searchers with realistic operational constraints on search movement.

This book deals with complex problems in the fields of logistics and supply chain management and discusses advanced methods, especially from the field of computational intelligence (CI), for solving them.

This book presents classical Markov Decision Processes (MDP) for real-life applications and optimization. MDP allows users to develop and formally support approximate and simple decision rules, and this book showcases state-of-the-art applications in which MDP was key to the solution approach.

This book grows from a conference on the state of the art and recent advances in Efficiency and Productivity. Papers were commissioned from leading researchers in the field, and include eight explorations into the analytical foundations of efficiency and productivity analysis. Chapters on modeling advances include reverse directional distance function, a new method for estimating technological production possibilities, a new distance function called a loss distance function, an analysis of productivity and price recovery indices, the relation of technical efficiency measures to productivity measures, the implications for benchmarking and target setting of imposing weight restrictions on DEA models, weight restrictions in a regulatory setting, and the Principle of Least Action.Chapters on empirical applications include a study of innovative firms that use innovation inputs to produce innovation outputs, a study of the impact of potential ¿coopetition¿ or cooperation among competitors on the financial performance of European automobile plants, using SFA to estimate the eco-efficiency of dairy farms in Spain, a DEA bankruptcy prediction model, a combined stochastic cost frontier analysis model/mixture hazard model, the evolution of energy intensity in nine Spanish manufacturing industries, and the productivity of US farmers as they age.

This book pulls together robust practices in Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) from other disciplines and shows how they can be used in the area of Banking and Finance.

This book is an expository introduction to the methodology of sensitivity analysis of model output.

This book focuses on optimal control and systems engineering in the big data era. Part I offers reviews on optimization and control theories, and Part II examines the optimization and control applications.

This handbook includes contributions related to optimization, pricing and valuation problems, risk modeling and decision making problems arising in global financial and commodity markets from the perspective of Operations Research and Management Science. The book is structured in three parts, emphasizing common methodological approaches arising in the areas of interest: -          Part I: Optimization techniques -          Part II: Pricing and Valuation -          Part III: Risk Modeling The book presents to a wide community of Academics and Practitioners a selection of theoretical and applied contributions on topics that have recently attracted increasing interest in commodity and financial markets. Within a structure based on the three parts, it presents recent state-of-the-art and original works related to: -          The adoption of multi-criteria and dynamic optimization approaches in financial and insurance markets in presence of market stress and growing systemic risk; -          Decision paradigms, based on behavioral finance or factor-based, or more classical stochastic optimization techniques, applied to portfolio selection problems including new asset classes such as alternative investments; -          Risk measurement methodologies, including model risk assessment, recently applied to energy spot and future markets and new risk measures recently proposed to evaluate risk-reward trade-offs in global financial and commodity markets; and derivatives portfolio hedging and pricing methods recently put forward in the financial community in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.

This book offers a comprehensive reference guide to operations research theory and applications in health care systems.

This book presents the methodology and applications of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) in measuring productivity, efficiency and effectiveness in Financial Services firms such as banks, bank branches, stock markets, pension funds, mutual funds, insurance firms, credit unions, risk tolerance, and corporate failure prediction.

This book pulls together robust practices in Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) from other disciplines and shows how they can be used in the area of Banking and Finance.

These three clusters are further subdivided into five parts which correspond to the main phases of the railway network planning process: network assessment, capacity planning, timetabling, resource planning, and operational planning.

This book offers new transparent views and step-by-step methods for performance evaluation of a set of units using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The book has twelve practical chapters. Elementary concepts and definitions are gradually built in Chapters 1-6 based upon four examples of one input and one output factors, two input factors, two output factors, and four input and three output factors. Simultaneously, the mathematical foundations using linear programming are also introduced without any prerequisites. A reader with basic knowledge of mathematics and computers is able to understand the contents of the book. In addition, to prevent pre-judgment about the available concepts and definitions in the DEA literature, some new phrases are introduced and, after elucidating each phrase in detail in Chapters 1-6, they are reintroduced for industry-wide accuracy in Chapter 7. After that, some of the more advanced DEA topics are illustrated in Chapters 8-12, such as: production-planning problems, output-input ratio analysis, efficiency over different time periods, Malmquist efficiency indexes, and a delta neighborhood model.A clear overview of many of the elementary and advanced concepts of DEA is provided, including Technical Efficiency, Relative Efficiency, Cost/Revenue/Profit Efficiency, Price/Overall Efficiency, the DEA axioms, the mathematical background to measure technical efficiency and overall efficiency, the multiplier/envelopment form of basic DEA models in input/output-orientation, the multiplier/envelopment of Additive DEA model, the multiplier/envelopment of slacks-based models, and others. The book also covers a variety of DEA techniques, input-output ratio analysis, the natural relationships between DEA frontier and the ratio of output to input factors, production-planning problems, planning ideas with a centralized decision-making unit, context-dependent DEA, Malmquist efficiency index, efficiency over different time periods, and others. End-of-chapter exercises are provided for each chapter.

This book is focused on the impact of ocean transport logistics on global supply chains. Finally Part III explores at shippers and global supply chain management, with chapters on transportation service procurement, hinterland transportation, green corridors, as well as competition and co-operation in maritime logistics operations.

Causal analytics methods can revolutionize the use of data to make effective decisions by revealing how different choices affect probabilities of various outcomes. This book presents and illustrates models, algorithms, principles, and software for deriving causal models from data and for using them to optimize decisions with uncertain outcomes. It discusses how to describe and summarize situations; detect changes; evaluate effects of policies or interventions; learn what works best under different conditions; predict values of as-yet unobserved quantities from available data; and identify the most likely explanations for observed outcomes, including surprises and anomalies. The book resents practical techniques for causal modeling and analytics that practitioners can apply to improve understanding of how choices affect probabilities of consequences and, based on this understanding, to recommend choices that are more likely to accomplish their intended objectives.The book begins with a survey of modern analytics methods, focusing mainly on techniques useful for decision, risk, and policy analysis. Chapter 2 introduces free in-browser software, including the Causal Analytics Toolkit (CAT) software, to enable readers to perform the analyses described and to apply modern analytics methods easily to their own data sets. Chapters 3 through 11 show how to apply causal analytics and risk analytics to practical risk analysis challenges, mainly related to public and occupational health risks from pathogens in food or from pollutants in air. Chapters 12 through 15 turn to broader questions of how to improve risk management decision-making by individuals, groups, organizations, institutions, and multi-generation societies with different cultures and norms for cooperation. These chapters examine organizational learning, community resilience, societal risk management, and intergenerational collaboration and justice in managing risks.

This book analyzes the security of critical infrastructures such as road, rail, water, health, and electricity networks that are vital for a nation's society and economy, and assesses the resilience of these networks to intentional attacks.

This includes the concept of nondominance, Simon's bounded rationality, Tversky and Kahneman's prospect theory, and the concepts of behavioral vs. The book concludes with a non-technical review of many popular decision algorithms, including the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), VIMDA, and a number of classic interactive man-machine algorithms.

This book offers new transparent views and step-by-step methods for performance evaluation of a set of units using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The book has twelve practical chapters. Elementary concepts and definitions are gradually built in Chapters 1-6 based upon four examples of one input and one output factors, two input factors, two output factors, and four input and three output factors. Simultaneously, the mathematical foundations using linear programming are also introduced without any prerequisites. A reader with basic knowledge of mathematics and computers is able to understand the contents of the book. In addition, to prevent pre-judgment about the available concepts and definitions in the DEA literature, some new phrases are introduced and, after elucidating each phrase in detail in Chapters 1-6, they are reintroduced for industry-wide accuracy in Chapter 7. After that, some of the more advanced DEA topics are illustrated in Chapters 8-12, such as: production-planning problems, output-input ratio analysis, efficiency over different time periods, Malmquist efficiency indexes, and a delta neighborhood model.A clear overview of many of the elementary and advanced concepts of DEA is provided, including Technical Efficiency, Relative Efficiency, Cost/Revenue/Profit Efficiency, Price/Overall Efficiency, the DEA axioms, the mathematical background to measure technical efficiency and overall efficiency, the multiplier/envelopment form of basic DEA models in input/output-orientation, the multiplier/envelopment of Additive DEA model, the multiplier/envelopment of slacks-based models, and others. The book also covers a variety of DEA techniques, input-output ratio analysis, the natural relationships between DEA frontier and the ratio of output to input factors, production-planning problems, planning ideas with a centralized decision-making unit, context-dependent DEA, Malmquist efficiency index, efficiency over different time periods, and others. End-of-chapter exercises are provided for each chapter.

This book constructs a model of the knowledge value chain in the university and analyzes the university knowledge value-added mechanism in the process of Industry-University Collaborative Innovation.

This book includes a spectrum of concepts, such as performance, productivity, operations research, econometrics, and data science, for the practically and theoretically important areas of ¿productivity analysis/data envelopment analysis¿ and ¿data science/big datä. Data science is defined as the collection of scientific methods, processes, and systems dedicated to extracting knowledge or insights from data and it develops on concepts from various domains, containing mathematics and statistical methods, operations research, machine learning, computer programming, pattern recognition, and data visualisation, among others.Examples of data science techniques include linear and logistic regressions, decision trees, Naïve Bayesian classifier, principal component analysis, neural networks, predictive modelling, deep learning, text analysis, survival analysis, and so on, all of which allow using the data to make more intelligent decisions. On the other hand, it is without a doubt that nowadays the amount of data is exponentially increasing, and analysing large data sets has become a key basis of competition and innovation, underpinning new waves of productivity growth. This book aims to bring a fresh look onto the various ways that data science techniques could unleash value and drive productivity from these mountains of data.Researchers working in productivity analysis/data envelopment analysis will benefit from learning about the tools available in data science/big data that can be used in their current research analyses and endeavours. The data scientists, on the other hand, will also get benefit from learning about the plethora of applications available in productivity analysis/data envelopment analysis.

1.1 AN OVERVIEW OF MARKOV DECISION PROCESSES The theory of Markov Decision Processes-also known under several other names including sequential stochastic optimization, discrete-time stochastic control, and stochastic dynamic programming-studiessequential optimization ofdiscrete time stochastic systems.

This book offers complete coverage of logistics, examining modes, general issues, logistics in specific regions, free-trade zones, innovations in international logistics, case studies and a look at the future.

This is a systematic, state-of-the-art treatment of military operations research (MOR). It examines issues that relate to both tactical and strategic levels. Several examples have been solved in each chapter to illustrate the application of the techniques of MOR to military systems.

The Handbook is a comprehensive research reference that is essential for anyone interested in conducting research in supply chain.

It unifies the field, drawing from industry sources as well as relevant research from disparate disciplines, as well as documenting industry practices and implementation details. Successful hardcover version published in April 2004.

Problems with multiple objectives and criteria are generally known as multiple criteria optimization or multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) problems.

The generalized area of multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) can be defined as the body of methods and procedures by which the concern for multiple conflicting criteria can be formally incorporated into the analytical process.