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

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

The pre-positioning of humanitarian aid: the warehouse location problem

The overarching objective of this thesis is to explore the warehouse location decision problem by considering regional and specific site attributes in the unique context of humanitarian relief organisation. This is to fill the gaps the revealed in the current understanding of location decision problem, particularly the lack of studies attempting to investigate humanitarian pre-positioned location decision problem with qualitative attributes opposed to the many previous studies focused on computerised optimisation model absence of the human judgements. Specifically, this research develops into case studies of the international humanitarian organisations selecting the warehouse attributes and locating the alternative warehouse locations. International humanitarian relief organisation aiding the refugees participated in the case study of the regional location selection problem for pre-positioned warehouse with five major attributes and 25 sub-attributes. Six international humanitarian relief organisations based in Dubai, UAE participated for specific warehouse location selection problem with five major attributes and 30 sub-attributes. The overall research design adopted in this thesis is as follows. First, the coherent humanitarian warehouse location decision attributes were developed in the basis of a literature and semi-structured interviews with practitioners whose organisation practice pre-positioned warehouse operation system. Secondly, two case studies were conducted for constructing the hierarchy structure for warehouse evaluation for regional and specific site location. In the first case study, 11 managerial level officers participated to construct the regional warehouse location decision attributes and evaluated the warehouse location for the organisation. In the second case study, panel members were form by 11 decision-makers from six different organisations constructed the hierarchical structure of the specific site warehouse location attributes for the evaluation. Thirdly, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is executed to acquire criteria weights and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) is employed to obtain the final ranking of the warehouse locations. Fuzzy set theory is adopted in the evaluation to deal with the fuzziness of decision-makers‟ preferences in decision making. In conclusion, this thesis extends the body of knowledge in pre-positioned warehouse location problem in the humanitarian relief logistics context by suggesting a MADM location method, AHP and TOPSIS, integrated with fuzzy set theory to understand the priority preference of regional (macro) and specific site (micro) warehouse location attributes and the selection of the optimal warehouse

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

Towards new technology : computerization for maritime education and training at the Philippine Merchant Marine Academy

The key to success of any maritime education and training programs in achieving its goals and objectives will depend upon how well various new technology is being used toward the learning process by every educator. This dissertation looks at the use of new technology in maritime education and training such as computer aided learning, to provide basic knowledge and understanding of the functions of the different parameters of computer systems. The paper describes the potential use of computer technology in MET, particularly in a developing country. Some models of computer aided learning (CAL) and computer based training (CBT) are also examined. It describes the overall process of learning and the use of different high-technology instructional materials. The dissertation also considers the integration of computers to new curricula and discusses the implementation of the same. The different models of CAL are studied to improve the system of teaching in the maritime field. In addition, the dissertation evaluates two leading maritime training software programs currently available in the market. Other maritime software programs are also investigated and discussed. In conclusion, proposals and recommendations are made to improve the training facilities and the teaching method at Philippine Merchant Marine Academy (PMMA) for every student in the field of maritime education and training. The use of computer technology at PMMA for education and training is a method of ensuring that the skills and ability of the trainees are vastly improved