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 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....

A version of the classical secretary problem is studied, in which one is interested in selecting one of the b best out of a group of n differently ranked persons who are presented one by one in a random order. It is assumed that b is bigger than or equal to 1 is a preassigned number. It is...

If civil war is a contest for popular support, why would a government ever embark on a policy of disproportionate force and mass killing? The logic of civilian defection expects such an approach to easily backfire, as civilians respond to massive losses by opposing the side that inflicted them....

A seller sets up an advertising policy so as to maximize a flow of discounted utility over time in a scenario characterized by two essential issues. First, the seller is ignorant from the outset of the prospective customers' willingness to buy and runs a Bayesian learning process in parallel to...

This paper develops tools for analyzing properties of stochastic objective functions which take the form (formula). The paper analyzes the relationship between properties of the primitive functions, such as utility functions u and probability distributions F, and properties of the stochastic...