We show that if performance measures in a stochastic scheduling problem satisfy a set of so-called partial conservation laws (PCL), which extend previously studied generalized conservation laws (GCL), then the problem is solved optimally by a priority-index policy for an appropriate range of...

We consider a sensor scheduling model where a set of identical sensors are used to hunt a larger set of heterogeneous targets, each of which is located at a corresponding site. Target states change randomly over discrete time slots between “exposed” and ‘hidden,” according to Markovian...

This paper designs, evaluates, and tests a tractable priority-index policy for scheduling target updates in a discrete-time multitarget tracking model, which aims to be close to optimal relative to a discounted or average performance objective accounting for tracking-error variance and...

This paper introduces the knapsack problem for perishable items (KPPI), which concerns the optimal dynamic allocation of a limited promotion space to a collection of perishable items. Such a problem is motivated by applications in a variety of industries, where products have an associated...

In this paper we consider the problem of admission control of Bernoulli arrivals to a buffer with geometric server, in which the controller’s actions take effect one period after the actual change in the queue length. An optimal policy in terms of marginal productivity indices (MPI) is derived...

This paper addresses the multi-armed bandit problem with switching penalties including both costs and delays, extending results of the companion paper [J. Niño-Mora. "Two-Stage Index Computation for Bandits with Switching Penalties I: Switching Costs". Conditionally accepted at INFORMS J....

The Whittle index [P. Whittle (1988). Restless bandits: Activity allocation in a changing world. J. Appl. Probab. 25A, 287-298] yields a practical scheduling rule for the versatile yet intractable multi-armed restless bandit problem, involving the optimal dynamic priority allocation to multiple...

This paper addresses the multi-armed bandit problem with switching costs. Asawa and Teneketzis (1996) introduced an index that partly characterizes optimal policies, attaching to each bandit state a "continuation index" (its Gittins index) and a "switching index". They proposed to jointly...