Reinforcement learning for Order Acceptance on a shared resource

Order acceptance (OA) is one of the main functions in business control. Basically, OA involves for each order a reject/accept decision. Always accepting an order when capacity is available could disable the system to accept more convenient orders in the future with opportunity losses as a consequence. Another important aspect is the availability of information to the decision-maker. We use the stochastic modeling approach, Markov decision theory and learning methods from artificial intelligence to find decision policies, even under uncertain information. Reinforcement learning (RL) is a quite new approach in OA. It is capable of learning both the decision policy and incomplete information, simultaneously. It is shown here that RL works well compared with heuristics. Finding good heuristics in a complex situation is a delicate art. It is demonstrated that a RL trained agent can be used to support the detection of good heuristics

Investment provisions in trade and investment treaties: the need for reform

This repository item contains a policy brief from the Boston University Global Economic Governance Initiative. The Global Economic Governance Initiative (GEGI) is a research program of the Center for Finance, Law & Policy, the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, and the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies. It was founded in 2008 to advance policy-relevant knowledge about governance for financial stability, human development, and the environment.Nations of the world are currently negotiating a variety of significant trade and investment treaties that cover upwards of eighty percent of the world economy. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would further integrate a number of Pacific-Rim nations; the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) would be a treaty between the United States and European countries. The United States and others are also negotiating major bilateral investment treaties (BITs) with China and India

Establishing cost-effectiveness of genetic targeting of cancer therapies

The clinical benefit of a new genomic instrument, the 70-gene signature for breast cancer patients, is being evaluated in a randomised clinical trial. The early, controlled implementation process is supported by a Constructive Technology Assessment to help decision-making in an uncertain time of development

Establishing cost-effectiveness of genetic targeting of cancer therapies\ud

The clinical benefit of a new genomic instrument, the 70-gene signature\ud for breast cancer patients, is being evaluated in a randomised clinical\ud trial. The early, controlled implementation process is supported by a\ud Constructive Technology Assessment to help decision-making in an\ud uncertain time of developmen

On the Divergence-Free Condition in Godunov-Type Schemes for Ideal Magnetohydrodynamics: the Upwind Constrained Transport Method

We present a general framework to design Godunov-type schemes for multidimensional ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) systems, having the divergence-free relation and the related properties of the magnetic field B as built-in conditions. Our approach mostly relies on the 'Constrained Transport' (CT) discretization technique for the magnetic field components, originally developed for the linear induction equation, which assures div(B)=0 and its preservation in time to within machine accuracy in a finite-volume setting. We show that the CT formalism, when fully exploited, can be used as a general guideline to design the reconstruction procedures of the B vector field, to adapt standard upwind procedures for the momentum and energy equations, avoiding the onset of numerical monopoles of O(1) size, and to formulate approximate Riemann solvers for the induction equation. This general framework will be named here 'Upwind Constrained Transport' (UCT). To demonstrate the versatility of our method, we apply it to a variety of schemes, which are finally validated numerically and compared: a novel implementation for the MHD case of the second order Roe-type positive scheme by Liu and Lax (J. Comp. Fluid Dynam. 5, 133, 1996), and both the second and third order versions of a central-type MHD scheme presented by Londrillo and Del Zanna (Astrophys. J. 530, 508, 2000), where the basic UCT strategies have been first outlined

A high order compact scheme for hypersonic aerothermodynamics

A novel high order compact scheme for solving the compressible Navier-Stokes equations has been developed. The scheme is an extension of a method originally proposed for solving the Euler equations, and combines several techniques for the solution of compressible flowfields, such as upwinding, limiting and flux vector splitting, with the excellent properties of high order compact schemes. Extending the method to the Navier-Stokes equations is achieved via a Kinetic Flux Vector Splitting technique, which represents an unusual and attractive way to include viscous effects. This approach offers a more accurate and less computationally expensive technique than discretizations based on more conventional operator splitting. The Euler solver has been validated against several inviscid test cases, and results for several viscous test cases are also presented. The results confirm that the method is stable, accurate and has excellent shock-capturing capabilities for both viscous and inviscid flows

On the Nonlinearity of Modern Shock-Capturing Schemes

The development is reviewed of shock capturing methods, paying special attention to the increasing nonlinearity in the design of numerical schemes. The nature is studies of this nonlinearity and its relation to upwind differencing is examined. This nonlinearity of the modern shock capturing methods is essential, in the sense that linear analysis is not justified and may lead to wrong conclusions. Examples to demonstrate this point are given

A search for H₂ emission in bipolar nebulae and regions of interstellar shock

We report a H2 emission survey of five bipolar outflow sources (NGC 1333, M2-9, As 353, S106, V645 Cyg), and one region of shock interaction between an H II region and molecular cloud (NGC 281). Two of the sources (M2-9, NGC 1333) were detected in the v = 1-0S(1), and Q-branch transitions of H2, and we provide a detailed analysis and modelling for these cases. The probable mass of shocked H2 is shown to range between 1.4 10-6 and 4.2 10-8 M⊙ for M2-9, and ≈ 2.5-4 and 1.9-10 M⊙ in the case of NGC 1333, although the latter values may require increasing by a factor of a few when due allowance is made for extinction. A detailed analysis for the core of M2-9 indicates that the ionized zone is extremely compact, and our Brackett line measures support other evidence in suggesting a high core extinction, large emission measure E~4 1010 cm-6 pc, and a projected angular radius θc~0.04. Similarly, it is apparent from the H2S(1) line strength that the core expansion velocity must be low and less than ~ 1 km s-1 (a constraint which is also required on dynamical grounds). Finally, CO J = 3-2 observations of the source failed to detect emission above a 2σ limit of T*R ~ 0.4 K, and this is shown to imply a probable expansion timescale of ≲2 103 yr

High Order Upwind Schemes for Multidimensional Magnetohydrodynamics

A general method for constructing high order upwind schemes for multidimensional magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), having as a main built-in condition the divergence-free constraint \divb=0 for the magnetic field vector \bb, is proposed. The suggested procedure is based on {\em consistency} arguments, by taking into account the specific operator structure of MHD equations with respect to the reference Euler equations of gas-dynamics. This approach leads in a natural way to a staggered representation of the \bb field numerical data where the divergence-free condition in the cell-averaged form, corresponding to second order accurate numerical derivatives, is exactly fulfilled. To extend this property to higher order schemes, we then give general prescriptions to satisfy a $(r+1)^{th}$ order accurate \divb=0 relation for any numerical \bb field having a $r^{th}$ order interpolation accuracy. Consistency arguments lead also to a proper formulation of the upwind procedures needed to integrate the induction equations, assuring the exact conservation in time of the divergence-free condition and the related continuity properties for the \bb vector components. As an application, a third order code to simulate multidimensional MHD flows of astrophysical interest is developed using ENO-based reconstruction algorithms. Several test problems to illustrate and validate the proposed approach are finally presented.Comment: 34 pages, including 14 figure