Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to built the city. (Genesis 11.7-8) 1.1 Static Focal Points 1.1.1 Coordination In real life, people quite often face situations in which they prefer to act in the same way, but they are not particular about the concrete way of acting. Some examples are given below: Credit cards: Buyers want to possess the credit cards potential sellers do accept. Also, sellers wish to have contracted the...

Production Management is a large field concerned with all the aspects related to production, from the very bottom decisions at the machine level, to the top-level strategic decisicns. In this book, we are concerned with production planning and scheduling aspects. Traditional production planning methodologies are based on a now widely ac cepted hierarchical decom?osition into several planning decision levels. The higher in the hierarchy, the more aggregate are the models and the more important are the decisions. In this book, we only consider the last two decision levels in the hierarchy,...

Consists of papers presented at an International Workshop on Computer Aided Scheduling of Public Transport, held in Massachusetts in 1997. It reflects the greater roles played by computers in the full spectrum of scheduling problems, and societal demand for greater access to public transport.

This text describes analytical methods that can be used to evaluate flow lines much faster than with simulation techniques. Based on these fast analytical techniques, it is possible to determine a flow line design that maximizes the net present value of the flow line investment.

After an overview of different models of project scheduling, this work deals with exact and heuristic scheduling algorithms and the development of new algorithms. Finally, it shows how the models and methods can be applied to projects in research and development as well as market research.

This text covers the main problems of distribution logistics: network design and location problems, tactical and operational planning of transport, internal logistics, and inventory management. It contains a rigorous methodological approach with an emphasis on practical problems.

This text provides an analysis of scheduling problems that arise in a flexible manufacturing environment with scarce resource supply. As a basic and common technique for solving these problems constraint propagation is applied in various solution methods.

Including an overview of game and network theory and the history of the liberalization of telecom markets in the 1980s and 90s, this volume elucidates a game theoretic model of business interaction between VoIP operators relating to levels of cooperation.

Artificial economics is a computational approach aiming to explain economic systems by modeling them as 'societies of intelligent software agents'. This book presents peer-reviewed papers on recent developments in this hybrid of economics and computer science.

The determinants of yield curve dynamics have been thoroughly discussed in finance models. However, little can be said about the macroeconomic factors behind the movements of short- and long-term interest rates as well as the risk compensation demanded by financial investors. By taking on a macro-finance perspective, the book s approach explicitly acknowledges the close feedback between monetary policy, the macroeconomy and financial conditions. Both theoretical and empirical models are applied in order to get a profound understanding of the interlinkages between economic activity, the...