Logic and rationality in OR interventions: an examination in the light of the ‘critical rationalist’ approach

Historically OR has conceived of itself as a professional practice giving rational, objective advice rooted in the ethos of science. However, the claim of science to rationality and objectivity has wilted under the onslaught of relativist and post-modern attack. One proposed philosophy of science seeks to avoid such problems by adopting a strictly objectivist approach. Critical rationalism (CR), the philosophy originated by Karl Popper, attempts to eliminate all inductive, justificatory and merely subjective claims by the ruthless application of deductive logic. The philosophical development of the CR approach to practice is currently a work-in-progress; however, it is an approach that should on the face of it find favour with OR, particularly for those who want to claim that OR is logically rational. The paper, drawing on the work of David Miller, explores how such an approach can be applied in the OR context. It concludes that although as CR suggests it may be possible to drive out inductive and justificatory claims in OR, subjective choice is an essential element of managerial decision-making and cannot be ignored or assumed away. The paper identifies some of the challenges that confront philosophers of practice if OR is to take the insights of CR to heart, suggests some possible responses, and identifies areas for future research.     

Modeling the interaction of an electromagnetic field with a two-dimensional surface in the framework of symanzik’s approach

Symanzik’s approach to the construction of models for the interaction between quantum fields and macroobjects allows finding the general form of the action functional with a Chern-Simons potential up to an arbitrary dimensionless constant; it is used to describe the interaction of a material surface with the electromagnetic field. We discuss results obtained in static models of such a type. We also consider a simple dynamic model of the interaction of a massless scalar field with moving planes.     

Differential forms in Carnot groups: a Γ-convergence approach

Carnot groups (connected simply connected nilpotent stratified Lie groups) can be endowed with a complex (E ₀ ^* , d _c ) of “intrinsic” differential forms. In this paper we prove that, in a free Carnot group of step κ, intrinsic 1-forms as well as their intrinsic differentials d _c appear naturally as limits of usual “Riemannian” differentials d _ε , ε >?0. More precisely, we show that L ²-energies associated with ε ^?κ d _ε on 1 forms Γ-converge, as ε → 0, to the energy associated with d _c .     

Identifying the limiting distribution by a general approach of Stein’s method

A general exchange pair approach is developed to identify the limiting distribution for any sequence of random variables, by calculating the conditional mean and the conditional second moments. The error of approximation is also studied. In particular, a Berry-Esseen type bound of O(n~(-3/4)) is obtained for the Curie-Weiss model at the critical temperature.     

Kindergartners’ performance in length measurement and the effect of picture book reading

This paper addresses: firstly, kindergartners’ performance in length measurement, the components of their performance and its growth over time; secondly, the possibility to develop kindergartners’ performance in length measurement by reading to them from picture books. To answer the research questions, an experiment with a pretest–posttest experimental control group design was carried out involving nine experimental classes and nine control classes. The children in the experimental group participated in a 3-month picture book program that, among other things, spotlighted the measurement of length situated in meaningful contexts. Before and after the intervention, the children’s performance in length measurement was assessed in both groups. The responses of 308 kindergartners (4- to 6-year-olds) from two kindergarten years (K1 and K2) were analyzed. Analysis of the pretest data showed that the measurement tasks included in the test were not easy to solve. However, the children belonging to K2 did better than the younger children belonging to K1. Within children’s performance, three components could be identified: holistic visual recognition, ordering and unitizing. Finally, the effect of the intervention was investigated by comparing the performances of the experimental and control group in the pretest and the posttest. We found a weak but significant effect of reading picture books to children on their general measurement performance. However, this effect was only found for K1 children on the component of holistic visual recognition.     

Management of the risk of wind damage in forestry: a graph-based Markov decision process approach

This study deals with the problem of including the risk of wind damage in long-term forestry management. A model based on Graph-Based Markov Decision Processes (GMDP) is suggested for development of silvicultural management policies. The model can both take stochastic wind events into account and be applied to forest estates containing a large number of stands. The model is demonstrated for a forest estate in southern Sweden. Treatment of the stands according to the management policy specified by the GMDP model increased the expected net present value (NPV) of the whole forest only slightly, less than 2%, under different wind-risk assumptions. Most of the stands were managed in the same manner as when the risk of wind damage was not considered. For the stands that were treated differently, however, the expected NPV increased by 3% to 8%.     

‘Good enough’ performance measurement: a trade-off between activity and action

Performance measurement systems along the lines of the EFQM and the balanced scorecard have developed rapidly in recent years, and now occupy much management time and effort. There is limited evidence that performance improvement has received proportionate attention. Six organisations selected for their success were studied using a grounded theory approach based on interviews with management accountants and operations managers in each of the organisations. It is clear that they are all making strenuous efforts to use their performance measurement systems but with a focus on the ‘good enough’ rather than the detail. This gave managers in these organisations the time and space to concentrate on the use of performance measures on forward looking relevance, understanding and action, rather than retrospective and detailed control. This approach was promoted by senior managers and was based on their ability to see the business in simple terms and their understanding of the key drivers of business performance.     

On the output function in a Ginsburg’s machine

We give the form of the output function in Ginsburg’s machine in which the input and output dictionaries are abelian groups and the transition function is of a special form.     

Environmental site evaluation of waste management facilities embedded into EUGÈNE model: A multicriteria approach

EUGÈNE is a sophisticated mixed integer linear programming model developed to help regional decision makers on long-term planning for solid waste management activities. The model removes almost every limitations encountered in other waste management models and contains a large quantity of variables and constraints. The method used to embed waste management environmental parameters in the EUGÈNE model consists in building global impact index (GII) for all site/facility combinations. First, an environmental and spatial evaluation of waste management facilities over sites is based on qualitative and quantitative criteria measuring biophysical and social impacts. Spatial analysis is carried out by geographical information system routines. Then, a multicriteria analysis ranks all site/facility combinations, according to their global performance based on all criteria. The net flow, computed by the PROMETHEE multicriteria outranking method, is considered as a GII to be embedded into EUGÈNE. The model objective function is thus modified to minimize total system cost and GII. Some practical results obtained for the City of Montreal are discussed.     

Pay for performance: can the analytic hierarchy process hasten the day in the public sector?

In this paper we examine the suitability of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in performance monitoring systems at the state and local levels of government. We find the AHP to be a suitable technique for eliciting weights for developing overall performance scores for public agencies and think it would be useful for tying funding levels to performance levels.     

The Hopf–Lax formula in Carnot groups: a control theoretic approach

The purpose of this paper is to bring a new light on the state-dependent Hamilton–Jacobi equation and its connection with the Hopf–Lax formula in the framework of a Carnot group $(\mathbf G ,\circ ).$ The equation we shall consider is of the form $$\begin{aligned} \left\{ \begin{array}{l@{\quad }l} u_{t}+ \Psi (X_{1}u, \ldots , X_{m}u)=0\qquad &{}(x,t)\in \mathbf G \times (0,\infty ) \\ {u}(x,0)=g(x)&{}x\in \mathbf G , \end{array} \right. \end{aligned}$$ where $X_{1},\ldots , X_{m}$ are a basis of the first layer of the Lie algebra of the group $\mathbf G ,$ and $\Psi : \mathbb{R }^{m} \rightarrow \mathbb{R }$ is a superlinear, convex function. The main result shows that the unique viscosity solution of the Hamilton–Jacobi equation can be given by the Hopf–Lax formula $$\begin{aligned} u(x,t) = \inf _{y\in \mathbf G }\left\{ t \Psi ^\mathbf{G }\left( \delta _{\frac{1}{t}}(y^{-1}\circ x)\right) + g(y) \right\} , \end{aligned}$$ where $\Psi ^\mathbf{G }:\mathbf G \rightarrow \mathbb{R }$ is the $\mathbf G $ -Legendre–Fenchel transform of $\Psi ,$ defined by a control theoretical approach. We recover, as special cases, some known results like the classical Hopf–Lax formula in the Euclidean spaces $\mathbb{R }^n,$ showing that $\Psi ^{\mathbb{R }^n}$ is the Legendre–Fenchel transform $\Psi ^*$ of $\Psi ;$ moreover, we recover the result by Manfredi and Stroffolini in the Heisenberg group for particular Hamiltonian function $\Psi .$ In this paper we follow an optimal control problem approach and we obtain several properties for the value functions $u$ and $\Psi ^\mathbf G .$      

Bloom’s inequality: commutators in a two-weight setting

In 1985, Bloom characterized the boundedness of the commutator [b, H] as a map between a pair of weighted L^p spaces, where both weights are in A_p. The characterization is in terms of a novel BMO condition. We give a ‘modern’ proof of this result, in the case of p = 2. In a subsequent paper, this argument will be used to generalize Bloom’s result to all Calderón–Zygmund operators and dimensions.