This paper considers a competing risk (degradation and sudden failure) maintenance situation. A maintenance model and a repair cost model are presented. The degradation state of the units is continuously monitored. When either the degradation level reaches a predetermined threshold or a sudden...

In experiments with mixtures that involve process variables, if the response function is expressed as the sum of a function of mixture components and a function of process variables, then the parameters in the mixture part and in the process part can be estimated independently using orthogonal...

In recent years, many companies have come to recognize the crucial role that purchasing and materials management activities play in determining overall corporate performance. Of main concern in many companies is the supplier development program. To examine the role of supplier development in the...

This paper presents a novel method of multi-objective optimization by learning automata (MOLA) to solve complex multi-objective optimization problems. MOLA consists of multiple automata which perform sequential search in the solution domain. Each automaton undertakes dimensional search in the...

We focus on the impact of migrants' remittances on consumption patterns in China. Using a large homogenous sample of rural households surveyed in 2001 and 2004, we find that remittances are spent on nonhousing consumption expenditures at the margin, virtually dollar-for-dollar, when we...

In this study, an interval-robust nonlinear optimization (IRNO) method is developed for planning energy system and managing CO2 emissions with trading scheme, through incorporating interval-parameter programming (IPP) within a robust optimization (RO) framework. In the modeling formulation, two...

An interval-parameter chanced-constrained full-infinite mixed-integer programming (ICFMP) approach is proposed for planning energy systems under functional interval uncertainties. ICFMP cannot only deal with crisp intervals, functional intervals, and probability distributions, but also support...