Explaining the EU's Policy Portfolio: Applying a Federal Integration Approach to EU Cohesion Policy. Bruges Political Research Paper No. 20, December 2011

This paper engages with the debate about why the nature of the EU's policy portfolio is as it is. It does so by taking cohesion policy and asking the question, why has it come to occupy so important a position in the EU‟s policy portfolio? It is argued that the two most common conceptually-based approaches applied to cohesion policy – intergovernmentalism and multilevel governance – do not adequately explain either the timing or the dynamic of cohesion policy. A model that combines economic integration approaches and federal approaches is developed in the paper to provide a basis for a new explanatory framework for the prominent position of cohesion in the portfolio. We suggest that our approach – which we call a federal integration approach – has the potential to be applied to other policy areas

Global supply chains of high value low volume products

Imperial Users onl

Spatial optimization for land use allocation: accounting for sustainability concerns

Land-use allocation has long been an important area of research in regional science. Land-use patterns are fundamental to the functions of the biosphere, creating interactions that have substantial impacts on the environment. The spatial arrangement of land uses therefore has implications for activity and travel within a region. Balancing development, economic growth, social interaction, and the protection of the natural environment is at the heart of long-term sustainability. Since land-use patterns are spatially explicit in nature, planning and management necessarily must integrate geographical information system and spatial optimization in meaningful ways if efficiency goals and objectives are to be achieved. This article reviews spatial optimization approaches that have been relied upon to support land-use planning. Characteristics of sustainable land use, particularly compactness, contiguity, and compatibility, are discussed and how spatial optimization techniques have addressed these characteristics are detailed. In particular, objectives and constraints in spatial optimization approaches are examined

Revisiting the Evolution and Application of Assignment Problem: A Brief Overview

The assignment problem (AP) is incredibly challenging that can model many real-life problems. This paper provides a limited review of the recent developments that have appeared in the literature, meaning of assignment problem as well as solving techniques and will provide a review on   a lot of research studies on different types of assignment problem taking place in present day real life situation in order to capture the variations in different types of assignment techniques. Keywords: Assignment problem, Quadratic Assignment, Vehicle Routing, Exact Algorithm, Bound, Heuristic etc

Operative Planning with Exchangeable and Mandatory Tasks : Applications to Lot Size Planning and Transportation Planning

Lot-sizing problems of manufacturers and transportation planning problems of forwarders are presented and analyzed in this thesis. These problems represent crucial planning tasks in supply chain management. Due to high fluctuations and competitive markets, companies within supply chains use internal and external resources for the fulfillment of tasks. The thesis claims to contribute to the following topics: (1) introducing mandatory tasks for the DULR, IOTPP, CTPP, and CIOTPP as well as (2) presenting computational studies that demonstrate how much the costs of companies increase due to mandatory tasks. Mandatory tasks are tasks, which have to be fulfilled by appointed resources due to contractual obligations. A lack of research is identified in terms of this topic. It is usually assumed that a task can be fulfilled by any internal or external resources. The thesis describes how these planning tasks with mandatory tasks can be solved by using operations research. Therefore, existing mathematical models and solution approaches have to be extended. The thesis focuses on the determination of the impact of mandatory tasks based on computational studies

Automation transparency: Implications of uncertainty communication for human-automation interaction and interfaces

Operators of highly automated driving systems may exhibit behaviour characteristic for overtrust issues due to an insufficient awareness of automation fallibility. Consequently, situation awareness in critical situations is reduced and safe driving performance following emergency takeovers is impeded. A driving simulator study was used to assess the impact of dynamically communicating system uncertainties on monitoring, trust, workload, takeovers, and physiological responses. The uncertainty information was conveyed visually using a stylised heart beat combined with a numerical display and users were engaged in a visual search task. Multilevel analysis results suggest that uncertainty communication helps operators calibrate their trust and gain situation awareness prior to critical situations, resulting in safer takeovers. Additionally, eye tracking data indicate that operators can adjust their gaze behaviour in correspondence with the level of uncertainty. However, conveying uncertainties using a visual display significantly increases operator workload and impedes users in the execution of non-driving related tasks

MASDScheGATS - Scheduling System for Dynamic Manufacturing Environmemts

This chapter addresses the resolution of scheduling in manufacturing systems subject to perturbations. The planning of Manufacturing Systems involves frequently the resolution of a huge amount and variety of combinatorial optimisation problems with an important impact on the performance of manufacturing organisations. Examples of those problems are the sequencing and scheduling problems in manufacturing management, routing and transportation, layout design and timetabling problems