Thisvolume starts with the basicconceptsof FuzzyLogic: the membership function, the intersection and the union of fuzzy sets, fuzzy numbers, and the extension principle underlying the algorithmic operations. Several chapters are devoted to applications of FuzzyLogic in various branches of Operations Research: PERT planning with uncertain activity durations, SMART and the AHP for Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) with vague preferential statements, ELECTRE usingthe ideasof the AHP and SMART, and Multi-Objective Optimization (MOO) with weighted degrees of satisfaction. Finally,...

A basic problem for the interconnection of communications media is to design interconnection networks for specific needs. For example, to minimize delay and to maximize reliability, networks are required that have minimum diameter and maximum connectivity under certain conditions. The book provides a recent solution to this problem. The subject of all five chapters is the interconnection problem. The first two chapters deal with Cayley digraphs which are candidates for networks of maximum connectivity with given degree and number of nodes. Chapter 3 addresses Bruijn digraphs, Kautz digraphs,...

Operations research and mathematical programming would not be as advanced today without the many advances in interior point methods during the last decade. These methods can now solve very efficiently and robustly large scale linear, nonlinear and combinatorial optimization problems that arise in various practical applications. The main ideas underlying interior point methods have influenced virtually all areas of mathematical programming including: analyzing and solving linear and nonlinear programming problems, sensitivity analysis, complexity analysis, the analysis of Newton's method,...

Targeted audience Specialists in numerical computations, especially in numerical optimiza tion, who are interested in designing algorithms with automatie result ver ification, and who would therefore be interested in knowing how general their algorithms caIi in principle be. Mathematicians and computer scientists who are interested in the theory 0/ computing and computational complexity, especially computational com plexity of numerical computations. Students in applied mathematics and computer science who are interested in computational complexity of different numerical methods and in...

This book provides a new point of view on the subject of business failure prediction, through the application of multicriteria analysis methods. The aim of the book is to provide a review of the research in the area and to explore the adequacy of these methods to one of the most complex problems in the area of financial management. In addition, the book explores the applications of the methods so that it can become a very useful tool for researchers and practitioners. The analysis of the modeling and the results in these applications provides the background for further employment of the...

Though the volume covers 22 papers by 36 authors from 12 countries, the history in the background is bound to Hungary where, in 1973 Andras Pn kopa started to lay the foundation of a scientific forum, which can be a regular meeting spot for experts of the world in the field. Since then, there has been a constant interest in that forum. Headed at present by Tamas Rapcsak, the Laboratory of Operations Research and Decisions Systems of the Computer and Automation Institute, Hungarian Academy of Sciences followed the tradition in every respect, namely conferences were organized almost in every...

February 27 - March 1, 1997, the conference Optimal Control: The ory, Algorithms, and Applications took place at the University of Florida, hosted by the Center for Applied Optimization. The conference brought together researchers from universities, industry, and government laborato ries in the United States, Germany, Italy, France, Canada, and Sweden. There were forty-five invited talks, including seven talks by students. The conference was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and endorsed by the SIAM Activity Group on Control and Systems Theory, the Mathe matical Programming...

Industries rely more and more on advanced technology. Accelerated computer evolution makes large-scale computation practical. Many enterprises are be ginning to benefit from more efficient allocation of resources and more effective planning, scheduling, manufacturing, and distribution by adopting state-of-the art decision support systems. Academics increasingly emphasize application driven research. All these forces have moved optimization from a pure class room and textbook terminology to an accepted tool in today's business world. This book chronicles and describes applications of...

Formal Design Theory (PDT) is a mathematical theory of design. The main goal of PDT is to develop a domain independent core model of the design process. The book focuses the reader's attention on the process by which ideas originate and are developed into workable products. In developing PDT, we have been striving toward what has been expressed by the distinguished scholar Simon (1969): that "the science of design is possible and some day we will be able to talk in terms of well-established theories and practices. " The book is divided into five interrelated parts. The conceptual approach is...