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...

Towards the end of the fifties methods for planning, scheduling, and control of proj ects were developed on the basis that the evolution of a project can be associated with a special weighted directed graph, called activity network. In this association, the individual activities of the project correspond to the arcs, the so-called proj ect events (beginning or termination of activities) correspond to the nodes, and the durations of the activities correspond to the weights of the respective arcs of the directed graph. 1) Contiguous arcs are assigned to activities which succeed one another...

Reliability theory has become one of the important areas in Operational Research and Systems Engineering. Any system analysis, in order to be complete, must give due consideration to system reliability and availability. A system deSigner is often faced with the problems of evaluation and improvement of system relia bility and determination of optimum preventive maintenance schedule. In the solution of these problems, he is largely aided by mathematical mOdels. These models have received consi derable attention in the past several years following the satel lite era. The monographs of Gnedenko,...

Die Fragestellungen der Informationstheorieentstammen der Nachrichten technik. Die heutige Nachrichtentechnik kennt die verschiedenartigsten Uebertragungssysteme (Telefon, Fernschreiber, Radio, Fernsehen, usw.). Sie haben aber aIle das folgende allgemeine Schema der Nachrichtentiber tragung gemeinsam: Kodleruno O.kodl.runo Nachrlcht.n- Ueb.rtraounOI- Nachricht- bzw. bzw. - quell. kanal s.nk. odulation O odulatlon Storunoen I.B. Rausch.n Dieses Schema widerspiegelt die yom Standpunkt der Theorie her wesent lichen Bestandteile einer Nachrichtentibertragung. Es bildet den Rahmen der...

The International Summer School on Mathematical Systems Theory and Economics was held at the Villa Monastero in Varenna, Italy, from June 1 through June 12, 1967. The objective of this Summer School was to review the state of the art and the prospects for the application of the mathematical theory of systems to the study and the solution of economic problems. Particular emphasis was given to the use of the mathematical theory of control for the solution of problems in economics. It was felt that the publication of a volume collecting most of the lectures given at the school would show the...

Der betriebliche Alltag wirft immer wieder Fragen auf, denen ein Merkmal gemein ist: sie mussen gelOst werden. Die Unterteilung in die zwei Hauptkate gorien: lOsbare und unlosbare Probleme findet eigentlich erst dort statt, wo der Theoretiker sich mit der Erstellung von streng wissenschaftlichen Hilfs mitteln wie beispielsweise mathematischen Modellen der Systembeziehungen befasst. Hier tut sich die Kluft auf zwischen der zielstrebigen, sachbezogenen Auffassung des Mannes, den wir als Praktiker bezeichnen, und derjenigen seines Gegenparts, der -zwar nicht minder einsatzfreudig - von Kompromis...