In this book binary functions and their representation by implicants or implicates are described. In particular minimal representations by prime implicants or prime implicates are given. Such representations generalize the minimal representations of the usual Boolean functions. It is shown that implicants (implicates) of discrete functions may be constructed with the help of implicants (implicates) of binary functions. One substantial application is the description of the reliability structure of technical systems, another is the use of binary respectively discrete functions to classify...

This volume deals with Stochastic tools with specialreference to applications in the areas of Physics, Biologyand Operations Research. Quitea few of the papers deal withthe applications of the rich theory of point processes inPhysics and Operations Research. A few of the papers dealwith the problems of Inference and Stochastic theory. Inaddition papers of some leading specialists are included.These papers reflect the latest trends in these areas andwill, therefore, be of value and interest to researchers inthese fields.

This volume contains selected papers presented at a UK-Japanese Workshop held at Churchill College, Cambridge, July 1995. The first group of papers looks at modelling, and solution techniques that have proved useful in the operational and strategic levels of manufacturing-greedy algorithms, Markov Decision processes and Petri Nets. Further papers concentrate on operational aspects of manufacturing in an uncertain environment. The last group describes interesting problems. The volume shows that the need for stochastic modelling is an important factor in support of decision making, and that...

In auctions, bidders compete with one another in their attempt to 1 purchase the goods that are up for sale But buyer competition may be reduced or disappear when a ring of colluding bidders is present. The purpose of the participants to a ring is to eliminate buyer competition and to realize a gain over vendors. When all participants are members of the ring, this is done by purchasing the item at the reserve price and splitting the spoils (the difference between the item market value and the reserve price) among the participants. "The term ring apparently derives from the fact that in a...

The organizers of the 12th International Conference on Multiple Cri- teria Decision Making (MCDM) held June 19-23, 1995 in Hagen received the second time the opportunity to prepare an international conference on MCDM in Germany; the first opportunity has been the 3rd International Conference on MCDM in Konigswinter, 1979. Quite a time ellapsed since then and therefore it might be interesting to compare some indicators of the development of the International Society on MCDM, which has been founded in Konigswinter. Stanley Zionts has been elected first president and all 44 participants of that...

Network optimization is important in the modeling of problems and processes from such fields as engineering, computer science, operations research, transportation, telecommunication, decision support systems, manufacturing, and airline scheduling. Recent advances in data structures, computer technology, and algorithm development have made it possible to solve classes of network optimization problems that until recently were intractable. The refereed papers in this volume reflect the interdisciplinary efforts of a large group of scientists from academia and industry to model and solve...

Optimization problems arising in practice usually contain several random parameters. Hence, in order to obtain optimal solutions being robust with respect to random parameter variations, the mostly available statistical information about the random parameters should be considered already at the planning phase. The original problem with random parameters must be replaced by an appropriate deterministic substitute problem, and efficient numerical solution or approximation techniques have to be developed for those problems. This proceedings volume contains a selection of papers on modelling...

This book is the culmination of roughly seven years of joint research be tween us. We have both been interested in income inequality measurement for a considerably longer period of time. One author (Ryu) has a back ground in physics. While he was working on his Ph. D. in Physics at M. I. T. he became acquainted with Robert Solow. Professor Solow introduced Ryu to economics. After finishing his Ph. D. in physics, Ryu went on to the Uni versity of Chicago where Arnold Zellner guided him to a dissertation on using orthonormal basis and maximum entropy as estimation methods in econometric...

The first attempts to develop a utility theory for choice situations under risk were undertaken by Cramer (1728) and Bernoulli (1738). Considering the famous St. Petersburg Paradox - a lottery with an infinite expected monetary value -Bernoulli (1738, p. 209) observed that most people would not spend a significant amount of money to engage in that gamble. To account for this observation, Bernoulli (1738, pp. 199-201) proposed that the expected monetary value has to be replaced by the expected utility ("moral expectation") as the relevant criterion for decision making under risk. However,...

For most economic aspects of human behaviour, static deci sion models provide an insufficient description. More specifically, they ignore the fact that preferences may change over time and that at each point of time current preferences depend on aspects which are associated with the past or the future. The neglect of these phenomena may lead to results which have little in com mon with real life. Dynamic decision models were developed in order to cope with these complications. Spurred by the availability of new mathematical tools such as optimal control theory and dynamic programming, dynamic...