Network design for time‐constrained delivery

To meet customer demand, delivery companies are offering an increasing number of time‐definite services. In this article, we examine the strategic design of delivery networks which can efficiently provide these services. Because of the high cost of direct connections, we focus on tree‐structured networks. As it may not be possible to identify a tree‐structured network that satisfies all of the delivery guarantees, we allow these guarantees to be violated but seek to minimize the sum of the violations. We establish the complexity of the problem and exploit an empirically identified solution structure to create new neighborhoods which improve solution values over more general neighborhood structures. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2008     

The solution to an open problem for a caching game

In a caching game introduced by Alpern et al. (Alpern et al., Lecture notes in computer science (2010) 220–233) a Hider who can dig to a total fixed depth normalized to 1 buries a fixed number of objects among n discrete locations. A Searcher who can dig to a total depth of h searches the locations with the aim of finding all of the hidden objects. If he does so, he wins, otherwise the Hider wins. This zero‐sum game is complicated to analyze even for small values of its parameters, and for the case of 2 hidden objects has been completely solved only when the game is played in up to 3 locations. For some values of h the solution of the game with 2 objects hidden in 4 locations is known, but the solution in the remaining cases was an open question recently highlighted by Fokkink et al. (Fokkink et al., Search theory: A game theoretic perspective (2014) 85–104). Here we solve the remaining cases of the game with 2 objects hidden in 4 locations. We also give some more general results for the game, in particular using a geometrical argument to show that when there are 2 objects hidden in n locations and n→∞, the value of the game is asymptotically equal to h/n for h≥n/2. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 63: 23–31, 2016     

Counterinsurgency and Operational Art

Addressing insurgency requires the same application of operational art as utilized in conventional warfare planning. Counterinsurgency strategy will be driven by the nature of the insurgent movement, with campaigns constructed to use tactics appropriately so that key facets of the insurgent campaign are neutralized. It is especially important to determine whether terror is used as a tactic (a method of action) by an insurgency or as a stand-alone strategy (a logic of action) by a challenger divorced from a mass base. Insurgencies, in turn, will normally emphasize strategically either winning allegiance of the target population or using violence as a substitute for other methods. Each of these approaches requires the weighting of the appropriate campaign elements of the counterinsurgency strategy. Sri Lanka, having faced both approaches, is an especially useful case study.     

Facility location for an extraterrestrial production/distribution system

This paper extends traditional production/distribution system analysis to address raw material, factories, and markets located beyond Earth. It explains the eventual advantages of such operations and discusses likely sites in the solar system. It furnishes a typology for production/distribution systems, assessing the fit of each type to space operations. It briefly reviews the physics of orbits. It develops transportation and inventory cost functions for the simplest case of Hohmann trajectories, and for transportation between circular orbits of similar radii using higher‐energy trajectories. These cost functions are used to derive a model of production/distribution system cost, the minimization of which selects an optimal factory location. The paper suggests potential extensions to this work, and concludes with ideas for location research on the novel reaches of extraterrestrial space. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2005.     

A multi‐objective model for bank ATM networks

In this paper we present an application of the core solution concepts for multi‐objective games to a bank ATM network model. In these games, the worth of a coalition is given by a subset of vectors of the k‐dimensional space rather than by a scalar. The paper investigates how an ATM network model based on multi‐objective cooperative game theory could be used as an alternative way of setting interchange fees paid by the customer's bank to the one that owns the ATM. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2005     

Is Britain a force for good? Investigating British citizens’ narrative understanding of war

It is commonly assumed in the foreign policy literature that narratives are uniquely persuasive and thus integral to obtaining public support for war. Yet, empirical research on “strategic narrative” is often vague on both the concept of narrative and how it persuades. Moreover, the stories publics use to interpret war are rarely examined. This paper offers a novel approach to studying “from the ground up” the war stories of individual British citizens. It examines public interpretations of war through emplotment: the way people select and link events to create a coherent story. Examining the wars people include and those they silence, it illustrates how a diverse range of citizens morally evaluates Britain’s military role, be it as a Force for Good, a Force for Ill or a country Learning from its Mistakes. In doing so, the paper offers an alternative methodological approach to studying how individual citizens understand war.     

Single machine sequencing with random processing times and random due-dates

A single machine scheduling problem in which both the processing times and due-dates of the jobs awaiting servicing are random variables is analyzed. It is proved that the properties of the shortest processing time rule and the due-date rule which are known for the deterministic situation also hold in the probabilistic environment when they are suitably, and reasonably, refined for this context.     

Interchange fees for bank ATM networks

Banks have found it advantageous to connect their Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) in networks so that customers of one bank may use the ATMs of any bank in the network. When this occurs, an interchange fee is paid by the customer's bank to the one that owns the ATM. These have been set by historic interbank negotiation. The paper investigates how a model based on n-player game theory concepts of Shapley value and nucleolus could be used as an alternative way of setting such fees. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 45: 407–417, 1998