Operational Research: Methods and Applications

Throughout its history, Operational Research has evolved to include a variety of methods, models and algorithms that have been applied to a diverse and wide range of contexts. This encyclopedic article consists of two main sections: methods and applications. The first aims to summarise the up-to-date knowledge and provide an overview of the state-of-the-art methods and key developments in the various subdomains of the field. The second offers a wide-ranging list of areas where Operational Research has been applied. The article is meant to be read in a nonlinear fashion. It should be used as a point of reference or first-port-of-call for a diverse pool of readers: academics, researchers, students, and practitioners. The entries within the methods and applications sections are presented in alphabetical order. The authors dedicate this paper to the 2023 Turkey/Syria earthquake victims. We sincerely hope that advances in OR will play a role towards minimising the pain and suffering caused by this and future catastrophes

Learning from noisy data through robust feature selection, ensembles and simulation-based optimization

The presence of noise and uncertainty in real scenarios makes machine learning a challenging task. Acquisition errors or missing values can lead to models that do not generalize well on new data. Under-fitting and over-fitting can occur because of feature redundancy in high-dimensional problems as well as data scarcity. In these contexts the learning task can show difficulties in extracting relevant and stable information from noisy features or from a limited set of samples with high variance. In some extreme cases, the presence of only aggregated data instead of individual samples prevents the use of instance-based learning. In these contexts, parametric models can be learned through simulations to take into account the inherent stochastic nature of the processes involved. This dissertation includes contributions to different learning problems characterized by noise and uncertainty. In particular, we propose i) a novel approach for robust feature selection based on the neighborhood entropy, ii) an approach based on ensembles for robust salary prediction in the IT job market, and iii) a parametric simulation-based approach for dynamic pricing and what-if analyses in hotel revenue management when only aggregated data are available

Operational Research: Methods and Applications

Throughout its history, Operational Research has evolved to include a variety of methods, models and algorithms that have been applied to a diverse and wide range of contexts. This encyclopedic article consists of two main sections: methods and applications. The first aims to summarise the up-to-date knowledge and provide an overview of the state-of-the-art methods and key developments in the various subdomains of the field. The second offers a wide-ranging list of areas where Operational Research has been applied. The article is meant to be read in a nonlinear fashion. It should be used as a point of reference or first-port-of-call for a diverse pool of readers: academics, researchers, students, and practitioners. The entries within the methods and applications sections are presented in alphabetical order

Smart Energy and Intelligent Transportation Systems

With the Internet of Things and various information and communication technologies, a city can manage its assets in a smarter way, constituting the urban development vision of a smart city. This facilitates a more efficient use of physical infrastructure and encourages citizen participation. Smart energy and smart mobility are among the key aspects of the smart city, in which the electric vehicle (EV) is believed to take a key role. EVs are powered by various energy sources or the electricity grid. With proper scheduling, a large fleet of EVs can be charged from charging stations and parking infrastructures. Although the battery capacity of a single EV is small, an aggregation of EVs can perform as a significant power source or load, constituting a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) system. Besides acquiring energy from the grid, in V2G, EVs can also support the grid by providing various demand response and auxiliary services. Thanks to this, we can reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and utilize the renewable energy more effectively. This Special Issue “Smart Energy and Intelligent Transportation Systems” addresses existing knowledge gaps and advances smart energy and mobility. It consists of five peer-reviewed papers that cover a range of subjects and applications related to smart energy and transportation

Operational research:methods and applications

Throughout its history, Operational Research has evolved to include a variety of methods, models and algorithms that have been applied to a diverse and wide range of contexts. This encyclopedic article consists of two main sections: methods and applications. The first aims to summarise the up-to-date knowledge and provide an overview of the state-of-the-art methods and key developments in the various subdomains of the field. The second offers a wide-ranging list of areas where Operational Research has been applied. The article is meant to be read in a nonlinear fashion. It should be used as a point of reference or first-port-of-call for a diverse pool of readers: academics, researchers, students, and practitioners. The entries within the methods and applications sections are presented in alphabetical order

Designing An Experiential Web-based Learning Model To Deliver The Acquisition And Application Of Knowledge To Hospitality Event

Most hospitality institutions have increasingly moved classes online but are concerned about migrating classes and instructional content online. The concern is most Web-based models are designed to deliver the acquisition of knowledge but lack the ability to transform that knowledge into applied career skills for practical use in the industry. The purpose of this study was to test a new Web-based instructional model. The model supported delivering both the acquisition and application of knowledge. Educators, researchers, and practitioners can utilize the new model to enhance the application of career skills and enhance organizational objectives by providing just-in-time training. The new Web-based instructional model can be delivered through multiple platforms including computers, electronic devices, wireless devices and mobile devices. The application of knowledge was delivered through experiential role-play exercises delivered live to the comparison group and virtual, inside Second Life, to the treatment group. An Analysis of Co-Variance (ANCOVA) revealed a significant difference between groups with higher application scores for the students who received the role-play live compared to virtual. In addition, an analysis was conducted to explore factors to consider when examining the cost effectiveness of Web-based instructional content. Factors determined to be important were developmental costs, delivery costs, and reusability of the Web-based instruction

COIN@AAMAS2015

COIN@AAMAS2015 is the nineteenth edition of the series and the fourteen papers included in these proceedings demonstrate the vitality of the community and will provide the grounds for a solid workshop program and what we expect will be a most enjoyable and enriching debate.Peer reviewe