Advances in Optimization and Decision Science for Society, Services and Enterprises


Book Description

The contributions included in the volume are drawn from presentations at ODS2019 – International Conference on Optimization and Decision Science, which was the 49th annual meeting of the Italian Operations Research Society (AIRO) held at Genoa, Italy, on 4-7 September 2019. This book presents very recent results in the field of Optimization and Decision Science. While the book is addressed primarily to the Operations Research (OR) community, the interdisciplinary contents ensure that it will also be of very high interest for scholars and researchers from many scientific disciplines, including computer sciences, economics, mathematics, and engineering. Operations Research is known as the discipline of optimization applied to real-world problems and to complex decision-making fields. The focus is on mathematical and quantitative methods aimed at determining optimal or near-optimal solutions in acceptable computation times. This volume not only presents theoretical results but also covers real industrial applications, making it interesting for practitioners facing decision problems in logistics, manufacturing production, and services. Readers will accordingly find innovative ideas from both a methodological and an applied perspective.




Optimization and Decision Science


Book Description

This book collects selected contributions from the international conference “Optimization and Decision Science” (ODS2020), which was held online on November 19, 2020, and organized by AIRO, the Italian Operations Research Society. The book offers new and original contributions on optimization, decisions science and prescriptive analytics from both a methodological and applied perspective, using models and methods based on continuous and discrete optimization, graph theory and network optimization, analytics, multiple criteria decision making, heuristics, metaheuristics, and exact methods. In addition to more theoretical contributions, the book chapters describe models and methods for addressing a wide diversity of real-world applications, spanning health, transportation, logistics, public sector, manufacturing, and emergency management. Although the book is aimed primarily at researchers and PhD students in the Operations Research community, the interdisciplinary content makes it interesting for practitioners facing complex decision-making problems in the afore-mentioned areas, as well as for scholars and researchers from other disciplines, including artificial intelligence, computer sciences, economics, mathematics, and engineering.




Optimization and Decision Science: Operations Research, Inclusion and Equity


Book Description

This volume collects peer-reviewed short papers presented at the Optimization and Decision Science conference (ODS 2022) held in Florence (Italy) from August 30th to September 2nd, 2022, organized by the Global Optimization Laboratory within the University of Florence and AIRO (the Italian Association for Operations Research). The book includes contributions in the fields of operations research, optimization, problem solving, decision making and their applications in the most diverse domains. Moreover, a special focus is set on the challenging theme Operations Research: inclusion and equity. The work offers 30 contributions, covering a wide spectrum of methodologies and applications. Specifically, they feature the following topics: (i) Variational Inequalities, Equilibria and Games, (ii) Optimization and Machine Learning, (iii) Global Optimization, (iv) Optimization under Uncertainty, (v) Combinatorial Optimization, (vi) Transportation and Mobility, (vii) Health Care Management, and (viii) Applications. This book is primarily addressed to researchers and PhD students of the operations research community. However, due to its interdisciplinary content, it will be of high interest for other closely related research communities.







From Shortest Paths to Reinforcement Learning


Book Description

Dynamic programming (DP) has a relevant history as a powerful and flexible optimization principle, but has a bad reputation as a computationally impractical tool. This book fills a gap between the statement of DP principles and their actual software implementation. Using MATLAB throughout, this tutorial gently gets the reader acquainted with DP and its potential applications, offering the possibility of actual experimentation and hands-on experience. The book assumes basic familiarity with probability and optimization, and is suitable to both practitioners and graduate students in engineering, applied mathematics, management, finance and economics.




Industrial Engineering in the Internet-of-Things World


Book Description

This book gathers extended versions of the best papers presented at the Global Joint Conference on Industrial Engineering and Its Application Areas (GJCIE), organized virtually on August 14–15, 2020, by Istanbul Technical University. It covers a wide range of topics, including decision analysis, supply chain management, systems modelling and quality control. Further, special emphasis is placed on cutting-edge applications of industrial Internet-of-Things. Technological, economic and business challenges are discussed in detail, presenting effective strategies that can be used to modernize current structures, eliminating the barriers that are keeping industries from taking full advantage of IoT technologies. The book offers an important link between technological research and industry best practices, and covers various disciplinary areas such as manufacturing, healthcare and service engineering, among others.




Performance Modeling and Analysis of Communication Networks


Book Description

This textbook provides an introduction to common methods of performance modeling and analysis of communication systems. These methods form the basis of traffic engineering, teletraffic theory, and analytical system dimensioning. The fundamentals of probability theory, stochastic processes, Markov processes, and embedded Markov chains are presented. Basic queueing models are described with applications in communication networks. Advanced methods are presented that have been frequently used in recent practice, especially discrete-time analysis algorithms, or which go beyond classical performance measures such as Quality of Experience or energy efficiency. Recent examples of modern communication networks include Software Defined Networking and the Internet of Things. Throughout the book, illustrative examples are used to provide practical experience in performance modeling and analysis. Target group: The book is aimed at students and scientists in computer science and technical computer science, operations research, electrical engineering and economics.




Optimization and Decision Science


Book Description

This book collects selected contributions from the international conference “Optimization and Decision Science” (ODS2020), which was held online on November 19, 2020, and organized by AIRO, the Italian Operations Research Society. The book offers new and original contributions on optimization, decisions science and prescriptive analytics from both a methodological and applied perspective, using models and methods based on continuous and discrete optimization, graph theory and network optimization, analytics, multiple criteria decision making, heuristics, metaheuristics, and exact methods. In addition to more theoretical contributions, the book chapters describe models and methods for addressing a wide diversity of real-world applications, spanning health, transportation, logistics, public sector, manufacturing, and emergency management. Although the book is aimed primarily at researchers and PhD students in the Operations Research community, the interdisciplinary content makes it interesting for practitioners facing complex decision-making problems in the afore-mentioned areas, as well as for scholars and researchers from other disciplines, including artificial intelligence, computer sciences, economics, mathematics, and engineering.




Supply Chain Optimization, Design, and Management: Advances and Intelligent Methods


Book Description

Computational Intelligence (CI) is a term corresponding to a new generation of algorithmic methodologies in artificial intelligence, which combines elements of learning, adaptation, evolution and approximate (fuzzy) reasoning to create programs that can be considered intelligent. Supply Chain Optimization, Design, and Management: Advances and Intelligent Methods presents computational intelligence methods for addressing supply chain issues. Emphasis is given to techniques that provide effective solutions to complex supply chain problems and exhibit superior performance to other methods of operations research.




Optimization and Decision Science: Methodologies and Applications


Book Description

This proceedings volume highlights the state-of-the-art knowledge related to optimization, decisions science and problem solving methods, as well as their application in industrial and territorial systems. It includes contributions tackling these themes using models and methods based on continuous and discrete optimization, network optimization, simulation and system dynamics, heuristics, metaheuristics, artificial intelligence, analytics, and also multiple-criteria decision making. The number and the increasing size of the problems arising in real life require mathematical models and solution methods adequate to their complexity. There has also been increasing research interest in Big Data and related challenges. These challenges can be recognized in many fields and systems which have a significant impact on our way of living: design, management and control of industrial production of goods and services; transportation planning and traffic management in urban and regional areas; energy production and exploitation; natural resources and environment protection; homeland security and critical infrastructure protection; development of advanced information and communication technologies. The chapters in this book examine how to deal with new and emerging practical problems arising in these different fields through the presented methodologies and their applications. The chapter topics are applicable for researchers and practitioners working in these areas, but also for the operations research community. The contributions were presented during the international conference “Optimization and Decision Science” (ODS2017), held at Hilton Sorrento Palace Conference Center, Sorrento, Italy, September 4 – 7, 2017. ODS 2017, was organized by AIRO, Italian Operations Research Society, in cooperation with DIETI (Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology) of University “Federico II” of Naples.