In facility layout problems, a major concern is the optimal design or remodeling of the facilities of an organization. The decision maker's objective is to arrange the facility in an optimal way, so that the interaction among functions (i.e. machines, inventories, persons) and places (i.e....

In this paper we study Markov Decision Process (MDP) problems with the restriction that at decision epochs only a finite number of given Markovian decision rules may be applied. The elements of the finite set of allowed decision rules should be mixed to improve the performance. The set of...

In this paper we study Markov Decision Process (MDP) problems with the restriction that at decision epochs only a finite number of given Markovian decision rules may be applied. The elements of the finite set of allowed decision rules should be mixed to improve the performance. The set of...

In facility layout problems, a major concern is the optimal design or remodeling of the facilities of an organization. The decision maker s objective is to arrange the facility in an optimal way, so that the interaction among functions (i.e. machines, inventories, persons) and places (i.e....

In this paper we study Markov Decision Process (MDP) problems with the restriction that at decision epochs only a finite number of given Markovian decision rules may be applied. The elements of the finite set of allowed decision rules should be mixed to improve the performance. The set of...

In facility layout problems, a major concern is the optimal design or remodeling of the facilities of an organization. The decision maker’s objective is to arrange the facility in an optimal way, so that the interaction among functions (i.e. machines, inventories, persons) and places (i.e....

In this paper we study Markov Decision Process (MDP) problems with the restriction that at decision epochs only a finite number of given Markovian decision rules may be applied. The elements of the finite set of allowed decision rules should be mixed to improve the performance. The set of...

We prove a relationship between the bordered Hessian in an equality constrained extremum problem and the Hessian of the equivalent lower-dimension unconstrained problem. This relationship can be used to derive principal minor conditions for the former from the relatively simple and accessible...

I extend Myersonʼs [R. Myerson, Optimal auction design, Math. Oper. Res. 6 (1981) 58–73] ironing technique to more general objective functions. The approach is based on a generalized notion of virtual surplus which can be maximized pointwise even when the monotonicity constraint implied by...