A heuristic network procedure for the assembly line balancing problem

Proposed is a Heuristic Network (HN) Procedure for balancing assembly lines. The procedure uses simple heuristic rules to generate a network which is then traversed using a shortest route algorithm to obtain a heuristic solution. The advantages of the HN Procedure are: a) it generally yields better solutions than those obtained by application of the heuristics, and b) sensitivity analysis with different values of cycle time is possible without having to regenerate the network. The rationale for its effectiveness and its application to problems with paralleling are presented. Computational experience with the procedure on up to 50 task test problems is provided.     

Optimal location of a facility relative to area demands

This paper deals with the Weber single-facility location problem where the demands are not only points but may be areas as well. It provides an iterative procedure for solving the problem with l^p distances when p > 1 (a method of obtaining the exact solution when p = 1 and distances are thus rectangular already exists). The special case where the weight densities in the areas are uniform and the areas are rectangles or circles results in a modified iterative process that is computationally much faster. This method can be extended to the simultaneous location of several facilities.     

Solving incremental quantity discounted transportation problems by vertex ranking

Logistics managers often encounter incremental quantity discounts when choosing the best transportation mode to use. This could occur when there is a choice of road, rail, or water modes to move freight from a set of supply points to various destinations. The selection of mode depends upon the amount to be moved and the costs, both continuous and fixed, associated with each mode. This can be modeled as a transportation problem with a piecewise-linear objective function. In this paper, we present a vertex ranking algorithm to solve the incremental quantity discounted transportation problem. Computational results for various test problems are presented and discussed.     

Book review

This paper investigates the economic roots of separatist terrorism in Turkey. The political conventional wisdom is that poverty in highly Kurdish‐populated, south‐eastern Turkey is one of the most important causes of separatist terrorism and Turkish–Kurdish conflict in Turkey. Therefore, many economic policies have been implemented to improve the economic conditions in the south‐eastern part of the country. Using the Global Terrorism Database and Vector Autoregression (VAR) methodology, I find that there is no causal relationship between economic conditions in south‐eastern Turkey and separatist terrorism. Therefore policy‐makers should be cautious in using economic measures to prevent separatist terrorism in Turkey.     

U.S. Troops and Foreign Economic Growth

By way of an evolutionary game model we show that mediation in international conflicts might be harmful to the conflicting parties. In fact, under anarchy both parties can be better off than under an international regime if mediation reduces the parties’ reactive capacities (i.e. their abilites to respond to an aggression). This result is applied to issues currently discussed in the literature on international relations such as the role of the United Nations as a mediator of international conflicts.     

SOCIAL PREFERENCES FOR NATIONAL DEFENCE AND POLICE ENFORCEMENT IN WESTERN EUROPE

We study the determinants of social preferences for national defence and for police and law enforcement. For this task, we estimate a bivariate ordered probit model for a set of European countries (France, Finland, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden) in 2006. Determinants of spending decisions for defence and police are found to be linked but are of significantly different magnitudes. Besides, measures against terrorist threats are positively linked to police and defence spending increases, while the subjective perception of fiscal pressure has no influence. Finally, no significant differences are found between Northern and Southern Europe.