On returns policies with exogenous price

We contribute to current research on single-period returns policies by making a clear distinction between models in which transfer price is exogenous and models in which one dominant party unilaterally declares a price. We compare the equilibrium contracts that result from these two approaches and derive conditions for the equilibrium returns policy to be Pareto-efficient when transfer price is exogenous. Our main result is distribution free, but we make some interesting observations on channel performance when demand is uniformly distributed.     

Optimal (2, n) visual cryptographic schemes

In (2,n) visual cryptographic schemes, a secret image(text or picture) is encrypted into n shares, which are distributed among n participants. The image cannot be decoded from any single share but any two participants can together decode it visually, without using any complex decoding mechanism. In this paper, we introduce three meaningful optimality criteria for evaluating different schemes and show that some classes of combinatorial designs, such as BIB designs, PBIB designs and regular graph designs, can yield a large number of black and white (2,n) schemes that are optimal with respect to all these criteria. For a practically useful range of n, we also obtain optimal schemes with the smallest possible pixel expansion.     

An optimization based approach for deployment of roadway incident response vehicles with reliability constraints

In recent years transportation agencies have introduced patrol based response programs to remove roadway incidents rapidly. With the evolution of technology incident detection and notification from remote traffic operation centers is possible and patrols to detect incidents are not necessary. Instead, the response units can be placed at various depots in urban areas and dispatched to incident sites upon notification. In this paper, we propose a reliability based mixed integer programming model to find best locations of incidence response depots and assign response vehicles to these depots so that incidents can be cleared efficiently at a minimum cost. The approach is unique as it considers fixed and variable costs of vehicles and depots, occurrences of major and minor incidents, and reliability of response service in the same model. Numerical results are generated for an example problem and sensitivity analysis is conducted to explore the relationships between parameters of the problem.     

Optimal predictive densities and fractional moments

The maximum entropy approach used together with fractional moments has proven to be a flexible and powerful tool for density approximation of a positive random variable. In this paper we consider an optimality criterion based on the Kullback–Leibler distance in order to select appropriate fractional moments. We discuss the properties of the proposed procedure when all the available information comes from a sample of observations. The method is applied to the size distribution of the U.S. family income. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The homomorphismM*⊗N → Hom (M,N)

In this note we prove two theorems. In theorem 1 we prove that if M andN are two non-zero reflexive modules of finite projective dimensions over a Gorenstein local ring, such that Hom (M, N) is a third module of syzygies, then the natural homomorphismM* ⊗N → Hom (M, N) is an isomorphism. This extends the result in [7]. In theorem 2, we prove that projective dimension of a moduleM over a regular local ringR is less than or equal ton if and only if Ext_R ⁿ (M, R) ⊗M → Ext_R ⁿ (M, M) is surjective; in which case it is actually bijective. This extends the usual criterion for the projectivity of a module.     

On embedding an outer-planar graph in a point set

Given an n-vertex outer-planar graph G and a set P of n points in the plane, we present an O(nlog³n) time and O(n) space algorithm to compute a straight-line embedding of G in P, improving upon the algorithm in [8,12] that requires O(n²) time. Our algorithm is near-optimal as there is an Ω(nlogn) lower bound for the problem [4]. We present a simpler O(nd) time and O(n) space algorithm to compute a straight-line embedding of G in P where lognd2n is the length of the longest vertex disjoint path in the dual of G. Therefore, the time complexity of the simpler algorithm varies between O(nlogn) and O(n²) depending on the value of d. More efficient algorithms are presented for certain restricted cases. If the dual of G is a path, then an optimal Θ(nlogn) time algorithm is presented. If the given point set is in convex position then we show that O(n) time suffices.