In this paper we analyze the evolution of output decisions of adaptive firms in an environment of oligopolistic competition. The firm might either choose to produce one of several existing product variants or try to establish a new product variant on the market....

In this paper we propose an ACO approach, where two colonies of ants aim to optimize total costs in a transportation network. This main objective consists of two sub goals, namely fleet size minimization and minimization of the vehicle movement costs, which are conflicting for some regions of...

In this paper we propose an ACO algorithm to optimize the total costs associated with the pickup and delivery of full truckloads under time window constraints in a hub network.(...)

We propose the use of robust optimization, a powerful tool that has already proven itself in several application areas, to the problem of finding optimal values for quantity exible commitment contracts between suppliers and retailers...

In order to maximize a piecewise affine concave function one can basically use the simplex method or an interior point method. As an alternative, we propose the face simplex method. The vertex to vertex scheme of the simplex method is replaced by a more general face to face scheme in the face...

This paper derives a universal approximation result for theminimum fuzzy implication rule as well as a differentiable substitute function that allows fast optimization and function approximation with neuro-fuzzy networks.

The market for the new provisioning type Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) has reached a significantsize and still shows enormous growth rates. By varying size of SaaS products, providerscan improve their market position and profits by successfully acting in the tension area ofcustomer acquisition,...

We develop a shrinkage theory based framework for determining optimal port-folio weight constraints for minimum-variance portfolios in presence of parameteruncertainty. We propose to impose the set of constraints that yields the opti-mal trade-o between sampling error reduction and bias for the...

A production system which consists of a number of parallel assembly lines is considered. Oneach line a certain product is manufactured observing a common cycle time. By arranging thelines in a favourable manner, it is possible to increase efficiency of the production system bycombining stations...

Assembly line balancing problems (ALBP) arise whenever an assembly line is configured,redesigned or adjusted. An ALBP consists of distributing the total workload for manufacturingany unit of the products to be assembled among the work stations along the line subjectto a strict or average cycle...