Impulsive control in management: Prospects and applications

An outline of impulsive control and its applications in management is reviewed. Conditions for optimal impulsive controls when the dynamic process is given by a stochastic differential equation with Wiener and jump processes are given. Applications to inventory control, capacity expansion, vehicle dispatching, maintenance-replacement-inspection, and pricing problems are formulated, and optimality conditions found. Although there are many other applications that can be outlined, these provide some motivation for further study in this emerging field

Les outils et le contrôle de la qualité

National audienc

Advertising for a new product introduction: A stochastic approach

Marketing, goodwill, new product introduction, stochastic LQ control, stochastic Riccati equation, 90B60, 93E20, 49N10,

Linear Programming with Uncertain Data: Some Extensions to Robust Optimization

An optimization problem often has some uncertain data, and the optimum of a linear program can be very sensitive to small changes in the data. Such a problem can often be modified to a robust program, which is more stable to such changes. Various methods for this are compared, including requiring all versions of the data to be satisfied together (but they may be inconsistent), worst-case MAX–MIN model, and various models where deviations incur penalty costs. Existing methods require substantial computation. It is shown here that smaller computations often suffice; not all cases need be considered. Other penalty methods are suggested, using different norms. Moreover, perturbations of constraint coefficients can be represented by suitable perturbations of a requirement vector

The Impact of Short-Sale Constraints on Asset Allocation Strategies via the Backward Markov Chain Approximation Method

asset allocation, stochastic optimal control, short sale constraints, inflation risk, Markov chain approximation,