Review of recent developments in OR/MS research in disaster operations management

Potential consequences of disasters involve overwhelming economic losses, large affected populations and serious environmental damages. Given these devastating effects, there is an increasing interest in developing measures in order to diminish the possible impact of disasters, which gave rise to the field of disaster operations management (DOM). In this paper we review recent OR/MS research in DOM. Our work is a continuation of a previous review from Altay and Green (2006). Our purpose is to evaluate how OR/MS research in DOM has evolved in the last years and to what extent the gaps identified by Altay and Green (2006) have been covered. Our findings show no drastic changes or developments in the field of OR/MS in DOM since the publication of Altay and Green (2006). Additionally to our comparative analysis, we present an original evaluation about the most common assumptions in recent OR/MS literature in DOM. Based on our findings we provide future research directions in order to make improvements in the areas where lack of research is detected.     

Polynomial Identities for Tangent Algebras of Monoassociative Loops

We introduce degree n Sabinin algebras, which are defined by the polynomial identities up to degree n in a Sabinin algebra. Degree 4 Sabinin algebras can be characterized by the polynomial identities satisfied by the commutator, associator, and two quaternators in the free nonassociative algebra. We consider these operations in a free power associative algebra and show that one of the quaternators is redundant. The resulting algebras provide the natural structure on the tangent space at the identity element of an analytic loop for which all local loops satisfy monoassociativity, a ² a ≡ aa ². These algebras are the next step beyond Lie, Malcev, and Bol algebras. We also present an identity of degree 5 which is satisfied by these three operations but which is not implied by the identities of lower degree.     

Closed Prime Ideals in Algebras with Semiprime Multiplication Algebra

Let A be an algebra whose multiplication algebra M(A) is semiprime. We prove that, except in an exceptional case, the proper closed prime ideals of A are the maximal closed ideals of A, for the closure operations π and ?. In fact, these sets agree for both closures. The same can be said in M(A) for the closure operations π and ?′. Moreover, we establish the relationships between the proper closed prime ideals of A and the ones of the algebras M(A),U and A/U, for a given ideal U of A.     

Adem-Cartan Operads

In this article, we introduce Adem-Cartan operads and prove that the cohomology of any algebra over such an operad is an unstable level algebra over the extended Steenrod algebra. Moreover, we prove that this cohomology is endowed with secondary cohomology operations.     

Note on Generalized Quantum Gates and Quantum Operations

Recently, Gudder proved that the set of all generalized quantum gates coincides the set of all contractions in a finite-dimensional Hilbert space (S. Gudder, Int. J. Theor. Phys. 47:268–279, 2008). In this note, we proved that the set of all generalized quantum gates is a proper subset of the set of all contractions on an infinite dimensional separable Hilbert space ℋ. Meanwhile, we proved that the quantum operation deduced by an isometry is an extreme point of the set of all quantum operations on ℋ. This subject is supported by NSF of China (10571113).     

Socially responsible merchant operations: Comparison of shutdown-averse CVaR and anticipated regret policies

Commodity and energy production assets are managed as real options on market uncertainties. Social impacts of plant shutdowns incentivize balancing asset value with shutdown probability. We propose new shutdown-averse policies based on the popular dynamic conditional value-at-risk (CVaR). We analytically and numerically compare these policies to known shutdown-averse policies based on anticipated regret (AR). Our findings support the use of AR over CVaR to embed shutdown-aversion and the consideration of hybrid policies that are asymptotically time-consistent but easily interpretable.