Aggregating courier deliveries

We consider the problem of efficiently scheduling deliveries by an uncapacitated courier from a central location under online arrivals. We consider both adversary‐controlled and Poisson arrival processes. In the adversarial setting we provide a randomized (3βΔ/2δ ? 1) ‐competitive algorithm, where β is the approximation ratio of the traveling salesman problem, δ is the minimum distance between the central location and any customer, and Δ is the length of the optimal traveling salesman tour overall customer locations and the central location. We provide instances showing that this analysis is tight. We also prove a 1 + 0.271Δ/δ lower‐bound on the competitive ratio of any algorithm in this setting. In the Poisson setting, we relax our assumption of deterministic travel times by assuming that travel times are distributed with a mean equal to the excursion length. We prove that optimal policies in this setting follow a threshold structure and describe this structure. For the half‐line metric space we bound the performance of the randomized algorithm in the Poisson setting, and show through numerical experiments that the performance of the algorithm is often much better than this bound.     

动态武器目标分配问题的马尔可夫性

动态武器目标分配(weapon target assignment,WTA)问题是军事运筹学研究的重要理论问题,也是作战指挥决策中迫切需要解决的现实问题。在对动态WTA问题进行描述分析的基础上,运用随机过程理论证明了动态WTA过程的马尔可夫性;给出了该马尔可夫决策过程的状态转移概率的解析表达式,并对其状态特点进行了简要分析。研究结果可以为动态WTA及相关问题的研究提供理论和方法依据。     

用户偏好提取MDP建模研究

将马尔可夫判决过程和智能强化学习算法相结合,给出了异构无线网络环境下用户业务偏好评估模型的技术框架。为动态环境下用户需求的感知、量化和适配特征的研究提供了基本的数学描述,对解决用户体验的评价问题和业务与业务环境的适配问题提供了新的研究思路。仿真结果表明所构建的MDP模型能够在多状态条件下学习用户偏好,根据用户需求智能选择业务。     

Bayesian enhanced decision making for deteriorating repairable systems with preventive maintenance

Since a system and its components usually deteriorate with age, preventive maintenance (PM) is often performed to restore or keep the function of a system in a good state. Furthermore, PM is capable of improving the health condition of the system and thus prolongs its effective age. There has been a vast amount of research to find optimal PM policies for deteriorating repairable systems. However, such decisions involve numerous uncertainties and the analyses are typically difficult to perform because of the scarcity of data. It is therefore important to make use of all information in an efficient way. In this article, a Bayesian decision model is developed to determine the optimal number of PM actions for systems which are maintained according to a periodic PM policy. A non‐homogeneous Poisson process with a power law failure intensity is used to describe the deteriorating behavior of the repairable system. It is assumed that the status of the system after a PM is somewhere between as good as new for a perfect repair and as good as old for a minimal repair, and for failures between two preventive maintenances, the system undergoes minimal repairs. Finally, a numerical example is given and the results of the proposed approach are discussed after performing sensitivity analysis. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2008     

What you should know about simulation and derivatives

Derivatives (or gradients) are important for both sensitivity analysis and optimization, and in simulation models, these can often be estimated efficiently using various methods other than brute‐force finite differences. This article briefly summarizes the main approaches and discusses areas in which the approaches can most fruitfully be applied: queueing, inventory, and finance. In finance, the focus is on derivatives of another sort. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2008     

Investment in production resource flexibility: An empirical investigation of methods for planning under uncertainty

We examine several methods for evaluating resource acquisition decisions under uncertainty. Traditional methods may underestimate equipment benefit when part of this benefit comes from decision flexibility. We develop a new, practical method for resource planning under uncertainty, and show that this approach is more accurate than several commonly used methods. We successfully applied our approach to an investment problem faced by a major firm in the aviation information industry. Our recommendations were accepted and resulted in estimated annual savings in excess of $1 million (US). © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2003     

The stochastic single resource service‐provision problem

The service‐provision problem described in this paper comes from an application of distributed processing in telecommunications networks. The objective is to maximize a service provider's profit from offering computational‐based services to customers. The service provider has limited capacity and must choose which of a set of software applications he would like to offer. This can be done dynamically, taking into consideration that demand for the different services is uncertain. The problem is examined in the framework of stochastic integer programming. Approximations and complexity are examined for the case when demand is described by a discrete probability distribution. For the deterministic counterpart, a fully polynomial approximation scheme is known 2 . We show that introduction of stochasticity makes the problem strongly NP‐hard, implying that the existence of such a scheme for the stochastic problem is highly unlikely. For the general case a heuristic with a worst‐case performance ratio that increases in the number of scenarios is presented. Restricting the class of problem instances in a way that many reasonable practical problem instances satisfy allows for the derivation of a heuristic with a constant worst‐case performance ratio. Worst‐case performance analysis of approximation algorithms is classical in the field of combinatorial optimization, but in stochastic programming the authors are not aware of any previous results in this direction. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2003     

信息网络作战技术

信息战是现代战争中重要作战样式,网络战是信息战的重要组成部分,分布式、网络化的计算机系统是信息作战中实施攻击与防护首要作战目标。根据网络作战的需求,从技术角度出发,首先对网络战的要素组成进行了分析,在此基础上将网络战划分为两个阶段,并对此进行了深入研究,最后提出了实施网络战的方法与步骤。     

AHP及其在潜艇作战指挥上的应用

层次分析法(AHP)是一种简便的、实用的多准则决策分析方法.在对传统的AHP进行概述的基础上,针对其在实际应用中存在的问题,介绍了国内外几种经典的综合及改进的层次分析法,并建立了较为完备的潜艇作战指挥效能的评价体系和模糊综合评价模型,对潜艇的作战指挥效能进行了综合的定量分析和计算.最后展望了AHP在潜艇作战指挥上的应用前景,并对各种AHP进行了比较.     

C4ISR系统信息融合模型研究

首先阐明了信息融合系统中的几个容易混淆的基本概念,介绍并分析了现有的几种信息融合系统模型及其优缺点.然后在分析C4ISR系统中信息融合处理特点的基础上,提出C4ISR系统动态信息融合的概念,并在此基础上提出一种C4ISR动态信息融合模型.最后简要介绍了基于该模型的C4ISR信息融合系统设计.