Optimal service rates of a service facility with perishable inventory items

In this paper we optimally control service rates for an inventory system of service facilities with perishable products. We consider a finite capacity system where arrivals are Poisson‐distributed, lifetime of items have exponential distribution, and replenishment is instantaneous. We determine the service rates to be employed at each instant of time so that the long‐run expected cost rate is minimized for fixed maximum inventory level and capacity. The problem is modelled as a semi‐Markov decision problem. We establish the existence of a stationary optimal policy and we solve it by employing linear programming. Several numerical examples which provide insight to the behavior of the system are presented. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 49: 464–482, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/nav.10021     

Algorithms for the minimax transportation problem

In this paper, we consider a variant of the classical transportation problem as well as of the bottleneck transportation problem, which we call the minimax transportation problem. The problem considered is to determine a feasible flow x_ij from a set of origins I to a set of destinations J for which max_(i,j)εIxJ{c_ijx_ij} is minimum. In this paper, we develop a parametric algorithm and a primal-dual algorithm to solve this problem. The parametric algorithm solves a transportation problem with parametric upper bounds and the primal-dual algorithm solves a sequence of related maximum flow problems. The primal-dual algorithm is shown to be polynomially bounded. Numerical investigations with both the algorithms are described in detail. The primal-dual algorithm is found to be computationally superior to the parametric algorithm and it can solve problems up to 1000 origins, 1000 destinations and 10,000 arcs in less than 1 minute on a DEC 10 computer system. The optimum solution of the minimax transportation problem may be noninteger. We also suggest a polynomial algorithm to convert this solution into an integer optimum solution.     

超精密铣削的三维微加工工艺

本研究旨在对用于获取有雕刻表面金属工件的超精密微加工工艺进行探讨。研究中使用的是车床型的超精密铣床,由分辨率为1nm的X和Z向运动工作台及分辨率为0.0001度的可定位的C轴组成。作为一种铣削工具,一种改进型的由一颗水晶钻构成的“仿球尖铣刀”被放置在X轴的高速气浮轴承之上。这样一来,X轴和C轴的协调运动就可产生三维铣削的效果。为提高表面粗糙度,通过模拟我们研究的刀具边沿和工件表面的接触情况,结果发现,刀具低速进给时切削比较有效。作为三维微加工工艺的一个例子,运用数字仪提供的扫描数据在一个直径为3mm的铜表面上制作一个传统的NOH面罩。经证明,超精密铣床有潜力加工出表面粗糙度为69nm(P—V值)的工件。     

Exact first and second order moments of order statistics from the truncated exponential distribution

Exact expressions for the first and second order moments of order statistics from the truncated exponential distribution, when the proportion 1–P of truncation is known in advance, are presented in this paper. Tables of expected values and variances-covariances are given for P = 0.5 (0.1) 0.9 and n = 1 (1) 10.     

A proportional defense model

This paper considers the problem of defending a set of point targets of differing values. The defense is proportional in that it forces the offense to pay a price, in terms of reentry vehicles expended, that is proportional to the value of the target. The objective of the defense is to balance its resources so that no matter what attack is launched, the offense will have to pay a price greater than or equal to some fixed value for every unit of damage inflicted. The analysis determines which targets should be defended and determines the optimal firing doctrine for interceptors at defended targets. A numerical example is included showing the relationship between the total target damage and the size of the interceptor force for different values of p, the interceptor single shot kill probability. Some generalizations are discussed.     

Scheduling jobs,with exponentially distributed processing times,on two machines of a flow shop

This paper treats the problem of sequencing n jobs on two machines in a “flow shop.” (That is, each job in the shop is required to flow through the same sequence of the machines.) The processing time of a given job on a given machine is assumed to be distributed exponentially, with a known mean. The objective is to minimize the expected job completion time. This paper proves an optimal ordering rule, previously conjectured by Talwar [10]. A formula is also derived through Markov Chain analysis, which evaluates the expected job completion time for any given sequence of the jobs. In addition, the performance of a heuristic rule is discussed in the light of the optimal solution.     

Numerical treatment of a class of semi-infinite programming problems

Many optimization problems occur in both theory and practice when one has to optimize an objective function while an infinite number of constraints must be satisfied. The aim of this paper in to describe methods of handling such problems numerically in an effective manner. We also indicate a number of applications.