Computational Management

This volume contains contributions from the 11th International Conference on Management Science (CMS 2014), held at Lisbon, Portugal, on May 29-31, 2014. Its contents reflect the wide scope of Management Science, covering different theoretical aspects for a quite diverse set of applications. Computational Management Science provides a unique perspective in relevant decision-making processes by focusing on all its computational aspects. These include computational economics, finance and statistics; energy; scheduling; supply chains; design, analysis and applications of optimization algorithms; deterministic, dynamic, stochastic, robust and combinatorial optimization models; solution algorithms, learning and forecasting such as neural networks and genetic algorithms; models and tools of knowledge acquisition, such as data mining; and all other topics in management science with the emphasis on computational paradigms.

This book offers a timely review of cutting-edge applications of computational intelligence to business management and financial analysis. It covers a wide range of intelligent and optimization techniques, reporting in detail on their application to real-world problems relating to portfolio management and demand forecasting, decision making, knowledge acquisition, and supply chain scheduling and management.

This book deals with complex problems in the fields of logistics and supply chain management and discusses advanced methods, especially from the field of computational intelligence (CI), for solving them. The first two chapters provide general introductions to logistics and supply chain management on the one hand, and to computational intelligence on the other hand. The subsequent chapters cover specific fields in logistics and supply chain management, work out the most relevant problems found in those fields, and discuss approaches for solving them. Chapter 3 discusses problems in the field of production and inventory management. Chapter 4 considers planning activities on a finer level of granularity which is usually denoted as scheduling. In chapter 5 problems in transportation planning such as different types of vehicle routing problems are considered. While chapters 3 to 5 rather discuss planning problems which appear on an operative level, chapter 6 discusses the strategic problem of designing a supply chain or network. The final chapter provides an overview of academic and commercial software and information systems for the discussed applications. There appears to be a gap between general textbooks on logistics and supply chain management and more specialized literature dealing with methods for computational intelligence, operations research, etc., for solving the complex operational problems in these fields. For readers, it is often difficult to proceed from introductory texts on logistics and supply chain management to the sophisticated literature which deals with the usage of advanced methods. This book fills this gap by providing state-of-the-art descriptions of the corresponding problems and suitable methods for solving them.

This book explores a range of important theoretical and practical issues in the field of computational network application tools, while also presenting the latest advances and innovations using intelligent technology approaches. The main focus is on detecting and diagnosing complex application performance problems so that an optimal and expected level of system service can be attained and maintained. The book discusses challenging issues like enhancing system efficiency, performance, and assurance management, and blends the concept of system modeling and optimization techniques with soft computing, neural network, and sensor network approaches. In addition, it presents certain metrics and measurements that can be translated into business value. These metrics and measurements can also help to establish an empirical performance baseline for various applications, which can be used to identify changes in system performance. By presenting various intelligent technologies, the book provides readers with compact but insightful information on several broad and rapidly growing areas in the computation network application domain. The book’s twenty-two chapters examine and address current and future research topics in areas like neural networks, soft computing, nature-inspired computing, fuzzy logic and evolutionary computation, machine learning, smart security, and wireless networking, and cover a wide range of applications from pattern recognition and system modeling, to intelligent control problems and biomedical applications. The book was written to serve a broad readership, including engineers, computer scientists, management professionals, and mathematicians interested in studying tools and techniques for computational intelligence and applications for performance analysis. Featuring theoretical concepts and best practices in computational network applications, it will also be helpful for researchers, graduate and undergraduate students with an interest in the fields of soft computing, neural networks, machine learning, sensor networks, smart security, etc.

"This book is for those who use data analysis to build decision support systems, particularly engineers, scientists and statisticians"--Provided by publisher.

In today’s modernized world, the field of healthcare has seen significant practical innovations with the implementation of computational intelligence approaches and soft computing methods. These two concepts present various solutions to complex scientific problems and imperfect data issues. This has made both very popular in the medical profession. There are still various areas to be studied and improved by these two schemes as healthcare practices continue to develop. Computational Intelligence and Soft Computing Applications in Healthcare Management Science is an essential reference source that discusses the implementation of soft computing techniques and computational methods in the various components of healthcare, telemedicine, and public health. Featuring research on topics such as analytical modeling, neural networks, and fuzzy logic, this book is ideally designed for software engineers, information scientists, medical professionals, researchers, developers, educators, academicians, and students.

Portfolio Management with Heuristic Optimization consist of two parts. The first part (Foundations) deals with the foundations of portfolio optimization, its assumptions, approaches and the limitations when "traditional" optimization techniques are to be applied. In addition, the basic concepts of several heuristic optimization techniques are presented along with examples of how to implement them for financial optimization problems. The second part (Applications and Contributions) consists of five chapters, covering different problems in financial optimization: the effects of (linear, proportional and combined) transaction costs together with integer constraints and limitations on the initital endowment to be invested; the diversification in small portfolios; the effect of cardinality constraints on the Markowitz efficient line; the effects (and hidden risks) of Value-at-Risk when used the relevant risk constraint; the problem factor selection for the Arbitrage Pricing Theory.

At present, computational methods have received considerable attention in economics and finance as an alternative to conventional analytical and numerical paradigms. This Special Issue brings together both theoretical and application-oriented contributions, with a focus on the use of computational techniques in finance and economics. Examined topics span on issues at the center of the literature debate, with an eye not only on technical and theoretical aspects but also very practical cases.