The purpose of this paper is to propose models for project scheduling when there is considerable uncertainty in the activity durations, to the extent that the decision maker cannot with confidence associate probabilities with the possible outcomes of a decision.Our modeling techniques stem from...

We consider the problem of deciding whether a given directed graph can be vertex partitioned into two acyclic subgraphs. Applications of this problem include testing rationality of collective consumption behavior, a subject in microeconomics. We prove that the problem is NP-complete, even for...

This paper studies the robust knapsack problem, for which solutions are, up to a certain point, immune to data uncertainty. We complement the works found in the literature where uncertainty affects only the profits or only the weights of the items by studying the complexity and approximation of...

This paper develops an optimization model that captures the annual planning of product-targeting campaigns occurring in fi nancial institutions. The formulation described in this paper extends current product-targeting optimization models found in the literature on two main aspects, namely the...

This article describes a heuristic for scheduling so-called ‘modular' projects. Exact solutions to this NP-hard problem can be obtained with existing branch-and-bound and dynamic-programming algorithms, but only for small to medium-size instances. The proposed heuristic, by contrast, can be...

A k-out-of-n system configuration requires that, for the overall system to be functional, at least k out of the total of n components be working. We consider the problem of sequentially testing the components of a k-out-of-n system in order to learn the state of the system, when the tests are...

This note comments on a paper published by Wagner and Davis (Decision Sciences (2001), 32(4), 557–573). These authors present an integer-programming model for the single-item discrete sequential search problem with group activities. Based on their experiments, they conjecture that the problem...

In this paper, we model a research-and-development project as consisting of several modules, with each module containing one or more activities. We examine how to schedule the activities of such a project in order to maximize the expected profit when the activities have a probability of failure...

This paper presents an optimization model for the selection of sets of clients that will receive an offer for one or more products during a promotion campaign. The complexity of the problem makes it very difficult to produce optimal solutions using standard optimization methods. We propose an...

In this paper, we develop exact and heuristic algorithms for the order acceptance and scheduling problem in a single-machine environment. We consider the case where a pool consisting of firm planned orders as well as potential orders is available from which an over-demanded company can select....