Callable products for an implicit time model with dependent demands

Capacity providers such as airlines and hotels have traditionally increased revenues by practicing market segmentation and revenue management, enabling them to sell the same capacity pool to different consumers at different prices. Callable products can enhance profits and improve consumers' welfare by allowing the firm to broker capacity between consumers with different willingness to pay. A consumer who buys a callable product gives the capacity provider the right to recall capacity at a prespecified recall price. This article studies callable products in the context of the model most commonly used in industry, which handles time implicitly imposing fewer restrictions on the nature of randomness compared to the Poisson arrival process favored in academia. In the implicit time model, capacity providers set booking limits to protect capacity for future high-fare demand. Our numerical study identifies conditions where callable products result in significant gains in profits.     

基于随机冲击的相关竞争失效可靠性评估

针对电子产品在工程实践中受随机冲击应力的影响及多失效模式的问题,以累积冲击和极限冲击来描述产品的冲击过程,考虑失效模式相关性并建立了随机冲击下产品竞争失效模型。以具有自然耗损和突发耗损特点金属化膜脉冲电容器为对象,进行了可靠性对比分析,验证了模型的合理性和有效性,为遭受复合应力影响的电子产品的可靠性评估提供了一种新方法。     

编辑与选题策划

选题策划作为出版工作的基础,对编辑素质和编辑工作,包括专业知识造诣、准确的市场定位、计算机运用、成本核算、市场策划在内的整个出版过程的策划等多方面的能力素质都有很高的要求。一名出色的编辑应该在进行选题策划时科学地把握相关的原则和要求,不断提高自身素质,不断为选题策划引入新思想、新方法。     

面向未来作战需求的装备保障训练问题研究

未来作战对新时期装备保障训练提出了新要求。以信息化战争为参照系,探讨了适应未来作战需要的装备保障训练思路、内容体系、方式方法、效果评估、训练保障等关键环节问题,为促进装备保障训练发展提供理论支持,增强装备保障训练工作实践的有效性和针对性。     

Scheduling jobs with piecewise linear decreasing processing times

We study the problems of scheduling a set of nonpreemptive jobs on a single or multiple machines without idle times where the processing time of a job is a piecewise linear nonincreasing function of its start time. The objectives are the minimization of makespan and minimization of total job completion time. The single machine problems are proved to be NP‐hard, and some properties of their optimal solutions are established. A pseudopolynomial time algorithm is constructed for makespan minimization. Several heuristics are derived for both total completion time and makespan minimization. Computational experiments are conducted to evaluate their efficiency. NP‐hardness proofs and polynomial time algorithms are presented for some special cases of the parallel machine problems. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 50: 531–554, 2003     

A selective newsvendor approach to order management

Consider a supplier offering a product to several potential demand sources, each with a unique revenue, size, and probability that it will materialize. Given a long procurement lead time, the supplier must choose the orders to pursue and the total quantity to procure prior to the selling season. We model this as a selective newsvendor problem of maximizing profits where the total (random) demand is given by the set of pursued orders. Given that the dimensionality of a mixed‐integer linear programming formulation of the problem increases exponentially with the number of potential orders, we develop both a tailored exact algorithm based on the L‐shaped method for two‐stage stochastic programming as well as a heuristic method. We also extend our solution approach to account for piecewise‐linear cost and revenue functions as well as a multiperiod setting. Extensive experimentation indicates that our exact approach rapidly finds optimal solutions with three times as many orders as a state‐of‐the‐art commercial solver. In addition, our heuristic approach provides average gaps of less than 1% for the largest problems that can be solved exactly. Observing that the gaps decrease as problem size grows, we expect the heuristic approach to work well for large problem instances. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 2008     

Steady‐state diffusion approximations for discrete‐time queue in hospital inpatient flow management

In this article, we analyze a discrete‐time queue that is motivated from studying hospital inpatient flow management, where the customer count process captures the midnight inpatient census. The stationary distribution of the customer count has no explicit form and is difficult to compute in certain parameter regimes. Using the Stein's method framework, we identify a continuous random variable to approximate the steady‐state customer count. The continuous random variable corresponds to the stationary distribution of a diffusion process with state‐dependent diffusion coefficients. We characterize the error bounds of this approximation under a variety of system load conditions—from lightly loaded to heavily loaded. We also identify the critical role that the service rate plays in the convergence rate of the error bounds. We perform extensive numerical experiments to support the theoretical findings and to demonstrate the approximation quality. In particular, we show that our approximation performs better than those based on constant diffusion coefficients when the number of servers is small, which is relevant to decision making in a single hospital ward.     

考虑多性能参数的引信弹簧可靠性评估

弹簧作为引信中常用的储能源,是影响引信可靠性的重要零件,而引信失效会形成重大安全隐患。为了准确预估某引信弹簧贮存期间的可靠度变化,提出了一种基于修正Arrhenius模型的多元正态可靠性评估方法。以应力损失率和永久变形率作为性能参数,设计了恒定应力加速退化试验,获取弹簧在120℃、130℃、150℃和160℃下的退化数据,并采用Anderson-Darling统计量验证退化量的最优分布为正态分布。根据修正的Arrhenius方程,得到弹簧在贮存温度下的退化轨迹曲线。基于多元正态分布建立弹簧贮存可靠度模型,分析弹簧贮存期间的可靠度变化特点。通过与其他可靠度模型对比,该模型预估结果更准确,可为引信的视情维修提供依据。     

Inequality‐based reliability estimates for complex systems

Full‐system testing for large‐scale systems is often infeasible or very costly. Thus, when estimating system reliability, it is desirable to use a method that uses subsystem tests, which are often less expensive and more feasible. This article presents a method for bounding full‐system reliabilities based on subsystem tests and, if available, full‐system tests. The method does not require that subsystems be independent. It accounts for dependencies through the use of certain probability inequalities. The inequalities provide the basis for valid reliability calculations while not requiring independent subsystems or full‐system tests. The inequalities allow for test information on pairwise subsystem failure modes to be incorporated, thereby improving the bound on system reliability. We illustrate some of the properties of the estimates via an example application. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2013     

改进党的作风是实践“三个代表”的必然要求

党的作风问题 ,也是党的形象问题 ,作风不正 ,形象好不了 ,必然脱离群众 ,脱离实际 ,就会严重影响人心向背 ,影响群众的信任 ,影响党的工作和事业 ,这是十分危险的。综观国际国内形势 ,进入新世纪 ,我们党面临的形势、任务、环境正发生深刻而复杂的变化 ,机遇与挑战同在 ,希望与困难并存 ,需要我们党站在时代的高度统揽全局 ,与时俱进 ,按照“三个代表”的要求 ,全面加强党的建设。而改进党的作风 ,既是新时期党的建设的根本 ,也是实践“三个代表”的必然要求