Swing Analysis and Electoral Forecasting

This paper examines the procedure by which votes are converted into seats at U.K. General Elections. In particular it seeks to answer these questions.

1. i)
   What is the meaning of swing when more than two parties fight an election?
    
2. ii)
   How can the distribution of seats at an election be determined from a prediction of national swing?
    
3. iii)
   How can swing analysis be extended to help determine an electoral strategy for political parties?
    
4. iv)
   What explanation can be provided for the swing in Scotland?
    
5. v)
   What explanation can be provided for variations in the English swing?
    

     

Operational Research Projects in Health and Welfare Services in the United Kingdom and Ireland

The paper presents a comparison of Health and Welfare O.R. in the U.K. and Ireland as represented by two registers of current projects, compiled in 1972 and 1977 respectively. The survey shows that

1. i)
   There appear to be very few O.R. studies of social services;
    
2. ii)
   The major focus has apparently moved away from hospital-based tactical studies, towards more broadly-based strategic studies;
    
3. iii)
   Related to this, the number of projects labelled as concerned with "planning" has increased;
    
4. iv)
   The number of projects involving "optimisation" has decreased, whilst those involving simulation have shown some increase; and
    
5. v)
   The majority of projects in both years were described as involving "applied common sense", rather than any specific technique.
    

     

An Algorithm for the Vehicle-dispatching Problem

The vehicle-scheduling problem involves the design of several vehicle tours to meet a given set of requirements for customers with known locations, subject to a capacity constraint for the vehicles and a distance (or time) constraint for vehicle tours. Three methods of solution are considered in this paper:

1. a
   A branch-and-bound approach.
    
2. b
   The "savings" approach.
    
3. c
   The 3-optimal tour method.
    

The excessive computation time and computer storage required for the first method renders it impracticable for large problems. Ten problems are examined and the results suggest that method C is superior to the other two methods.     

A Production Planning and Stock Control Problem in the Textile Industry

This paper describes the techniques used in an enquiry into production planning and stock holding problems encountered by one of our member firms.The investigation of the problem falls into three parts:

1. i)
   The analysis of demand.
    
2. ii)
   The determination of optimum stock levels.
    
3. iii)
   The solution of the allocation problem which arises if the capacity available for the production of stock lines is not equal to the amount required to bring stocks back to the optimum levels. This problem has not been fully investigated, but a proposed method of solution is given in an appendix.
    

     

Relations between the $${\mathcal {}}$$-ultrafilters

Under CH we show the following results:

1. (1)
   There is a discrete ultrafilter which is not a \({\mathcal {Z}}_{0}\)-ultrafilter.
    
2. (2)
   There is a \(\sigma \)-compact ultrafilter which is not a \({\mathcal {Z}}_{0}\)-ultrafilter.
    
3. (3)
   There is a \({\mathcal {J}}_{\omega ^{3}}\)-ultrafilter which is not a \({\mathcal {Z}}_{0}\)-ultrafilter.
    

     

Eigenvalue comparisons for boundary value problems for second order difference equations

We consider the eigenvalue problems for boundary value problems of second order difference equations

(1)

and

(2)

Comparison results for the eigenvalues of the problem (1) and the problem (2) are established.     

Semistability and Restrictions of tangent bundle to curves

We consider all complex projective manifolds X that satisfy at least one of the following three conditions:

1. (1)
   There exists a pair \({(C\,,\varphi)}\) , where C is a compact connected Riemann surface and

   $\varphi\,:\, C\,\longrightarrow\, X$

   a holomorphic map, such that the pull back \({\varphi^* {\it TX}}\) is not semistable.
    
2. (2)
   The variety X admits an étale covering by an abelian variety.
    
3. (3)
   The dimension dim X ≤ 1.
    

We prove that the following classes are among those that are of the above type.

• All X with a finite fundamental group.
• All X such that there is a nonconstant morphism from \({{\mathbb C}{\mathbb P}^1}\) to X.
• All X such that the canonical line bundle K _X is either positive or negative or \({c_1(K_X)\,\in\,H^2(X,\, {\mathbb Q})}\) vanishes.
• All X with \({{\rm dim}_{\mathbb C} X\, =\,2}\).

     

The inside outside intersection problem for hexagon triple systems

We give a complete solution of the following two problems:

1. (1)
   For which (n, x) does there exist a pair of hexagon triple systems of order n having x inside triples in common?
    
2. (2)
   For which (n, x) does there exist a pair of hexagon triple systems having x outside triples in common?
    

     

More on stability of almost surjective <Emphasis Type="Italic">ε</Emphasis>-isometries of Banach spaces

Let X and Y be two Banach spaces, and f: X → Y be a standard ε-isometry for some ε ≥ 0. In this paper, by using a recent theorem established by Cheng et al. (2013–2015), we show a sufficient condition guaranteeing the following sharp stability inequality of f: There is a surjective linear operator T: Y → X of norm one so that

$$\left\| {Tf(x) - x} \right\| \leqslant 2\varepsilon , for all x \in X.$$

As its application, we prove the following statements are equivalent for a standard ε-isometry f: X → Y:

1. (i)
   lim inf _t→∞ dist(ty, f(X))/|t| < 1/2, for all y ∈ S _Y ;
    
2. (ii)
   \(\tau(f)\equiv sup_{y\epsilon S_{Y}}\) lim inf _t→∞dist(ty, f(X))/|t| = 0;
    
3. (iii)
   there is a surjective linear isometry U: X → Y so that

   $$\left\| {f(x) - Ux} \right\| \leqslant 2\varepsilon , for all x \in X.$$
    

This gives an affirmative answer to a question proposed by Vestfrid (2004, 2015).     

Regularly weakly based modules over right perfect rings and Dedekind domains

A weak basis of a module is a generating set of the module minimal with respect to inclusion. A module is said to be regularly weakly based provided that each of its generating sets contains a weak basis. We study

1. (1)
   rings over which all modules are regularly weakly based, refining results of Nashier and Nichols, and
    
2. (2)
   regularly weakly based modules over Dedekind domains.
    

     

Linear Programming in Air Defence Modelling

The paper describes the use of an optimizing model, together with a simulation model, to determine the most effective mix and deployment of air defence weapons to defend a given set of assets against a range of air threats. The advantages of using an optimizing model in such studies are that it:

1. a
   —Gives more consistent results by reducing player variance.
    
2. b
   —Can generate solutions that are robust to variations in threat and environment.
    
3. c
   —Ensures that good solutions are not overlooked.
    
4. d
   —Reduces the total processing time required to complete the study.
    

     

Operational Research and Management

The purpose of this paper is to discuss and if possible to dispel the industrialist's misunderstanding of operational research. The author lists some of the varied ideas held by industrialists of operational research including several which are contradictory, as for example (a) That operational research is new and revolutionary; and (b) That operational research proves nothing new and has always been practised without being so named.A number of suggestions are then made and developed, which should lead to a better understanding. These include, clearer definitions of operational research and a better adaptation of the specialized literature to the needs of industrial management, with particular emphasis on the publication of real rather than synthetic case histories. Headings of sections are:

1. 1
   The attitude of industrialists.
    
2. 2
   The exact nature of operational research.
    
3. 3
   Problems, criteria, models.
    
4. 4
   The practice of operational research in business.
    

     

Absolutely minimising generalised solutions to the equations of vectorial calculus of variations in $$L^\infty $$

Consider the supremal functional

$$\begin{aligned} E_\infty (u,A) := \Vert \mathscr {L}(\cdot ,u,\mathrm {D}u)\Vert _{L^\infty (A)},\quad A\subseteq \Omega , \end{aligned}$$

(1)

applied to \(W^{1,\infty }\) maps \(u:\Omega \subseteq \mathbb {R}\longrightarrow \mathbb {R}^N\), \(N\ge 1\). Under certain assumptions on \(\mathscr {L}\), we prove for any given boundary data the existence of a map which is:

1. (i)
   a vectorial Absolute Minimiser of (1) in the sense of Aronsson,
    
2. (ii)
   a generalised solution to the ODE system associated to (1) as the analogue of the Euler-Lagrange equations,
    
3. (iii)
   a limit of minimisers of the respective \(L^p\) functionals as \(p\rightarrow \infty \) for any \(q\ge 1\) in the strong \(W^{1,q}\) topology and
    
4. (iv)
   partially \(C^2\) on \(\Omega \) off an exceptional compact nowhere dense set.
    

Our method is based on \(L^p\) approximations and stable a priori partial regularity estimates. For item ii) we utilise the recently proposed by the author notion of \(\mathcal {D}\)-solutions in order to characterise the limit as a generalised solution. Our results are motivated from and apply to Data Assimilation in Meteorology.

     

The hole probability for Gaussian entire functions

Consider the random entire function

$f(z) = \sum\limits_{n = 0}^\infty {{\phi _n}{a_n}{z^n}} $

, where the ? _n are independent standard complex Gaussian coefficients, and the a _n are positive constants, which satisfy

$\mathop {\lim }\limits_{x \to \infty } {{\log {a_n}} \over n} = - \infty $

.

We study the probability P _H (r) that f has no zeroes in the disk{|z| < r} (hole probability). Assuming that the sequence a _n is logarithmically concave, we prove that

$\log {P_H}(r) = - S(r) + o(S(r))$

, where

$S(r) = 2 \cdot \sum\limits_{n:{a_n}{r^n} \ge 1} {\log ({a_n}{r^n})} $

, and r tends to ∞ outside a (deterministic) exceptional set of finite logarithmic measure.