OR and the challenge to improve the NHS: modelling for insight and improvement in in-patient flows

This paper considers efforts to improve in-patient flows, a particularly urgent issue in the National Health Service (NHS). The context is described and related to reasons why OR has been making relatively little contribution. The paper argues that large complex models may often be unnecessary and even get in the way of providing clear insight and guidance for problem owners. The importance of understanding the generic working of systems to lead to improvement, and the limitations of simply describing them, is stressed. It is demonstrated that some very simple models can be of significant practical value in understanding and managing complex systems, changing mindsets and driving collection and use of operationally valuable data. Recommendations for more effective engagement with the NHS are offered.     

A Bayesian analysis for the seismic data on Taiwan

A Bayesian approach is used to analyze the seismic events with magnitudes at least 4.7 on Taiwan. Following the idea proposed by Ogata (1988,Journal of the American Statistical Association,83, 9–27), an epidemic model for the process of occurrence times given the observed magnitude values is considered, incorporated with gamma prior distributions for the parameters in the model, while the hyper-parameters of the prior are essentially determined by the seismic data in an earlier period. Bayesian inference is made on the conditional intensity function via Markov chain Monte Carlo method. The results yield acceptable accuracies in predicting large earthquake events within short time periods.     

Positive solutions of singular boundary value problem of negative exponent Emden—Fowler equation

This paper investigates the existence of positive solutions of a singular boundary value problem with negative exponent similar to standard Emden-Fowler equation. A necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of C[0, 1] positive solutions as well as C¹[0, 1] positive solutions is given by means of the method of lower and upper solutions with the Schauder fixed point theorem.     

Improved tabu search algorithm for the handling of route duration constraints in vehicle routing problems with time windows

This note introduces a refinement to a previously proposed tabu search algorithm for vehicle routing problems with time windows. This refinement yields new best known solutions on a set of benchmark instances of the multi-depot, the periodic and the site-dependent vehicle routing problems with time windows.     

Insights on some chiral smectic phases

Combining layered positional order as smectic order and chirality can generate complex architectures since twist parallel to the layers is not allowed. This paper will review some new experimental results on different phases resulting from the competition between smectic positional order and twist orientational order. It concerns the TGB_A and the NL^*, that is the liquid line phase as well as the SmQ phase. Chiral effects in the isotropic phase will also be discussed.