This chapter deals with total reward criteria. We discuss the existence and structure of optimal and nearly optimal policies and the convergence of value iteration algorithms under the so-called General Convergence Condition. This condition assumes that, for any initial state and for any policy, the expected sum of positive parts of rewards is nite. Positive, negative, and discounted dynamic pr...

Smart Distribution Logistik, a german research project, wants to extend the usage of battery electric vehicle (BEV) in inner-city logitics. This goes hand in hand with the desire of german population and politics for less CO2 emmision and noise of the traffic. BEV’s have a number of disadvantages like higher acquisition cost than vehicles with combustion engine, limited driving ranges and high ...

We consider a growth medium with an infinite volume and a constant substrate concentration S in which cells are growing. The total biomass of these cells increases exponentially. During balanced growth, in an exponentially growing system, every extensive variable X , like total pools of cellular components, total intracellular volume, total membrane surface etc., increases in time (t) with the ...

The paper considers the problem of the extremely low frequency magnetic field radiation generated by the tablet computers. Accordingly, the measurement of the magnetic field radiation from a set of tablets is carried out. Furthermore, the measurement results are analyzed and clustered according to the K-Medians algorithm to obtain different magnetic field ranges. The obtained cluster ranges are...

We consider new online variants of supply chain management models, where in addition to production decisions, one also has to actively decide on which customers to serve. Specifically, customers arrive sequentially during a selection phase, and one has to decide whether to accept or reject each customer upon arrival. If a customer is rejected, then a lost-sales cost is incurred. Once the select...

The benefits of Marine Managed Areas (MMAs) (i) biodiversity conservation; (ii) protection of habitats attractive to tourism; (iii) increased productivity of fisheries; (iv) increased knowledge of marine science; (v) refuge for intensely exploited fish and invertebrate species, and (vi) protection of cultural diversity e.g. sacred places, wrecks and lighthouses. The study has evaluated the cost...

Dedicated part selection and management groups within large OEMs are responsible for various tasks involved with managing parts or components used in electronic systems. The tasks range from part adoption to obsolescence management and include numerous assembly and support activities that are performed on a regular basis. Long life cycle electronic systems typically utilize commercial “off-the ...

We have examined the cost distribution of locally optimal solutions in certain combinatorial optimisation problems. This distribution is found to be peaked about a value characteristic of the algorithm involved, with a width that decreases with the system size N . I t is shown that the distribution of costs E is of the form exp(Ng(E)) and that g(E) is self-averaging. Consequently, estimation of...

This paper provides two potential explanations for the persistence of zeros in bilateral trade data. The theory predicts that (1) the existence of a fixed entry cost can generate a lower effect of financial development on the creation of new bilateral trade relationships, and that (2) the effect of financial development can be lower in countries with a low initial development of the local finan...