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....

Linear Methods are often used to compute approximate solutions to dynamic models, as these models often cannot be solved analytically. Linear methods are very popular, as they can easily be implemented. Also, they provide a useful starting point for understanding more elaborate numerical...

We investigate the optimal investment problem when the interest rate is stochastic and the investor must pay proportional transaction costs when buying and selling the risky assets. We first consider a portfolio of bonds and transaction costs.We then add a stock to the portfolio, and analyze the...

We introduce a new approach to model the market smile for inflation-linked derivatives by defining the Quadratic Gaussian Year-on-Year inflation model -- the QGY model. We directly define the model in terms of a year-on-year ratio of the inflation index on a discrete tenor structure, which,...

We consider a tractable affine stochastic volatility model that generalizes the seminal Heston (1993) model by augmenting it with jumps in the instantaneous variance process. In this framework, we consider options written on the realized variance, and we examine the impact of the distribution of...

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...

We study a model for scheduling 'n' classes of stochastic jobs on a single machine, with the objective of minimizing the total expected holding cost (discounted or undiscounted). We allow general holding cost rates that are separable, nondecreasing and convex on the number of jobs in each class....

Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods have an important role in solving high dimensionality stochastic problems characterized by computational complexity. Given their critical importance, there is need for network and security risk management research to relate the MCMC quantitative...