Models, Values, and Disasters

Decision-support models have values embedded in them and are subjective to varying degrees. Philosophical and ethical perspectives on operations research models are used to describe this subjectivity. Approaches to model building are then suggested that take into account subjectivity and values. For the decisions to reflect the right values, the model must align with the decision-maker’s values. I argue that it is appropriate and important for Christians applying mathematical models to be keenly aware of decision-maker’s values and seek to reflect them in the model. Disaster response planning is presented as an example where incorporating values is challenging. The responding organizations have multifaceted goals. How is equity balanced with efficiency? How is cost and donor interest considered? I report on a study of how Christian relief organizations differ from non-faith based organizations in ways that can be reflected in their logistics procedures and in these models

Mathematics and Values: Can Philosophy Guide Projects?

The philosophy of mathematics has provided insight on questions of foundations and mathematical truth; however, it has not been very fruitful in guiding the practice of mathematics. This paper attempts to find points of contact between a Christian worldview and the choice of mathematical projects and methods. Three areas are considered: (i) dubitability in current research, (ii) the intrinsic value of contemporary mathematics to contemporary society, and (iii) the affirmation of human value in the use of mathematics. Finally, a framework for valuing mathematics is proposed as an encouragement to think more deeply about how a Christian might choose a mathematical topic

Optimal Control of Two-Station Tandem Production/Inventory System

A manufacturing facility consisting of two stations in tandem operates in a maketo-stock mode: after production, items are placed in a finished goods inventory that services an exogenous demand. Demand that cannot be met from inventory is backordered. Each station is modelled as a queue with controllable production rate, and the problem is to control these rates to minimize inventory holding and backordering costs. Optimal controls are computed using dynamic programming and compared with kanban and buffer control mechanisms, popular in manufacturing, and with the base stock mechanism popular in inventory/distribution systems. Conditions are found under which certain simple controls are optimal using stochastic coupling arguments. Insights are gained into when to hold work-in-process and finished goods inventory, comparable to previous studies of production lines in make-to-order and unlimited demand ("push") environments

Monotone Control of Queueing and Production/Inventory Systems

Weber and Stidham (1987) used submodularity to establish transition monotonicity (a service completion at one station cannot reduce the service rate at another station) for Markovian queueing networks that meet certain regularity conditions and are controlled to minimize service and queueing costs. We give an extension of monotonicity to other directions in the state space, such as arrival transitions, and to arrival routing problems. The conditions used to establish monotonicity, which deal with the boundary of the state space, are easily verified for many queueing systems. We also show that, without service costs, transition-monotone controls can be described by simple control regions and switching functions, extending earlier results. The theory is applied to production/inventory systems with holding costs at each stage and finished goods backorder costs

Scheduling a Make-To-Stock Queue: Index Policies and Hedging Points

A single machine produces several different classes of items in a make-to-stock mode. We consider the problem of scheduling the machine to regulate finished goods inventory, minimizing holding and backorder or holding and lost sales costs. Demands are Poisson, service times are exponentially distributed, and there are no delays or costs associated with switching products. A scheduling policy dictates whether the machine is idle or busy, and specifies the job class to serve in the latter case. Since the optimal solution can only be numerically computed for problems with several products, our goal is to develop effective policies that are computationally tractable for a large number of products. We develop index policies to decide which class to serve, including Whittle's "restless bandit" index, which possesses a certain asymptotic optimality. Several idleness policies, which are characterized by hedging points, are derived, and the best policy is obtained from a heavy traffic diffusion approximation. Nine sample problems are considered in a numerical study, and the average suboptimality of the best policy is less than 3%

Molecular motors robustly drive active gels to a critically connected state

Living systems often exhibit internal driving: active, molecular processes drive nonequilibrium phenomena such as metabolism or migration. Active gels constitute a fascinating class of internally driven matter, where molecular motors exert localized stresses inside polymer networks. There is evidence that network crosslinking is required to allow motors to induce macroscopic contraction. Yet a quantitative understanding of how network connectivity enables contraction is lacking. Here we show experimentally that myosin motors contract crosslinked actin polymer networks to clusters with a scale-free size distribution. This critical behavior occurs over an unexpectedly broad range of crosslink concentrations. To understand this robustness, we develop a quantitative model of contractile networks that takes into account network restructuring: motors reduce connectivity by forcing crosslinks to unbind. Paradoxically, to coordinate global contractions, motor activity should be low. Otherwise, motors drive initially well-connected networks to a critical state where ruptures form across the entire network.Comment: Main text: 21 pages, 5 figures. Supplementary Information: 13 pages, 8 figure