Discrete Choice Analysis

Discrete Choice Analysis
Author: Moshe E. Ben-Akiva
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 424
Release: 1985
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9780262022170

Discrete Choice Analysis presents these results in such a way that they are fully accessible to the range of students and professionals who are involved in modelling demand and consumer behavior in general or specifically in transportation - whether from the point of view of the design of transit systems, urban and transport economics, public policy, operations research, or systems management and planning. The methods of discrete choice analysis and their applications in the modelling of transportation systems constitute a comparatively new field that has largely evolved over the past 15 years. Since its inception, however, the field has developed rapidly, and this is the first text and reference work to cover the material systematically, bringing together the scattered and often inaccessible results for graduate students and professionals. Discrete Choice Analysis presents these results in such a way that they are fully accessible to the range of students and professionals who are involved in modelling demand and consumer behavior in general or specifically in transportation - whether from the point of view of the design of transit systems, urban and transport economics, public policy, operations research, or systems management and planning. The introductory chapter presents the background of discrete choice analysis and context of transportation demand forecasting. Subsequent chapters cover, among other topics, the theories of individual choice behavior, binary and multinomial choice models, aggregate forecasting techniques, estimation methods, tests used in the process of model development, sampling theory, the nested-logit model, and systems of models. Discrete Choice Analysis is ninth in the MIT Press Series in Transportation Studies, edited by Marvin Manheim.

Markov Decision Processes

Markov Decision Processes
Author: Martin L. Puterman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 544
Release: 2014-08-28
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1118625870

The Wiley-Interscience Paperback Series consists of selected books that have been made more accessible to consumers in an effort to increase global appeal and general circulation. With these new unabridged softcover volumes, Wiley hopes to extend the lives of these works by making them available to future generations of statisticians, mathematicians, and scientists. "This text is unique in bringing together so many results hitherto found only in part in other texts and papers. . . . The text is fairly self-contained, inclusive of some basic mathematical results needed, and provides a rich diet of examples, applications, and exercises. The bibliographical material at the end of each chapter is excellent, not only from a historical perspective, but because it is valuable for researchers in acquiring a good perspective of the MDP research potential." —Zentralblatt fur Mathematik ". . . it is of great value to advanced-level students, researchers, and professional practitioners of this field to have now a complete volume (with more than 600 pages) devoted to this topic. . . . Markov Decision Processes: Discrete Stochastic Dynamic Programming represents an up-to-date, unified, and rigorous treatment of theoretical and computational aspects of discrete-time Markov decision processes." —Journal of the American Statistical Association

Discrete Choice Methods with Simulation

Discrete Choice Methods with Simulation
Author: Kenneth Train
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2009-07-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0521766559

This book describes the new generation of discrete choice methods, focusing on the many advances that are made possible by simulation. Researchers use these statistical methods to examine the choices that consumers, households, firms, and other agents make. Each of the major models is covered: logit, generalized extreme value, or GEV (including nested and cross-nested logits), probit, and mixed logit, plus a variety of specifications that build on these basics. Simulation-assisted estimation procedures are investigated and compared, including maximum stimulated likelihood, method of simulated moments, and method of simulated scores. Procedures for drawing from densities are described, including variance reduction techniques such as anithetics and Halton draws. Recent advances in Bayesian procedures are explored, including the use of the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm and its variant Gibbs sampling. The second edition adds chapters on endogeneity and expectation-maximization (EM) algorithms. No other book incorporates all these fields, which have arisen in the past 25 years. The procedures are applicable in many fields, including energy, transportation, environmental studies, health, labor, and marketing.

Discrete-Event Simulation and System Dynamics for Management Decision Making

Discrete-Event Simulation and System Dynamics for Management Decision Making
Author: Sally Brailsford
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2014-03-31
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1118762754

In recent years, there has been a growing debate, particularly in the UK and Europe, over the merits of using discrete-event simulation (DES) and system dynamics (SD); there are now instances where both methodologies were employed on the same problem. This book details each method, comparing each in terms of both theory and their application to various problem situations. It also provides a seamless treatment of various topics--theory, philosophy, detailed mechanics, practical implementation--providing a systematic treatment of the methodologies of DES and SD, which previously have been treated separately.

Decision and Discrete Mathematics

Decision and Discrete Mathematics
Author: I Hardwick
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 267
Release: 1996-01-01
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0857099825

This text offers a complete coverage in the Decision Mathematics module, also known as Discrete Mathematics, of the syllabuses of English A-level examination boards. it is a rewritten and modern version of Decision Mathematics (published by Ellis Horwood Ltd in 1986 for The Spode Group, so well known for its development of innovative mathematics teaching). It is also a suitable text for foundation and first year undergraduate courses in qualitative studies or operational research, or for access courses for students needing strengthening in mathematics, or for students who are moving into mathematics from another subject discipline.Compact and concise, it reflects the combined teaching skills and experience of its authors who know exactly what mathematics must be learnt at the readership level today. The text is built up in modular fashion, explaining concepts used in decision mathematics and related operational research, and electronics. It emphasises an understanding of techniques and algorithms, which it relates to real life situations and working problems that will apply throughout future working careers. - Clear explanations of algorithms and all concepts - Plentiful worked examples, clear diagrams - Many exercises (with answers for self-study)

Bayesian Heuristic Approach to Discrete and Global Optimization

Bayesian Heuristic Approach to Discrete and Global Optimization
Author: Jonas Mockus
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2013-03-09
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1475726279

Bayesian decision theory is known to provide an effective framework for the practical solution of discrete and nonconvex optimization problems. This book is the first to demonstrate that this framework is also well suited for the exploitation of heuristic methods in the solution of such problems, especially those of large scale for which exact optimization approaches can be prohibitively costly. The book covers all aspects ranging from the formal presentation of the Bayesian Approach, to its extension to the Bayesian Heuristic Strategy, and its utilization within the informal, interactive Dynamic Visualization strategy. The developed framework is applied in forecasting, in neural network optimization, and in a large number of discrete and continuous optimization problems. Specific application areas which are discussed include scheduling and visualization problems in chemical engineering, manufacturing process control, and epidemiology. Computational results and comparisons with a broad range of test examples are presented. The software required for implementation of the Bayesian Heuristic Approach is included. Although some knowledge of mathematical statistics is necessary in order to fathom the theoretical aspects of the development, no specialized mathematical knowledge is required to understand the application of the approach or to utilize the software which is provided. Audience: The book is of interest to both researchers in operations research, systems engineering, and optimization methods, as well as applications specialists concerned with the solution of large scale discrete and/or nonconvex optimization problems in a broad range of engineering and technological fields. It may be used as supplementary material for graduate level courses.

Operations Research and Decision Aid Methodologies in Traffic and Transportation Management

Operations Research and Decision Aid Methodologies in Traffic and Transportation Management
Author: Martine Labbe
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 364
Release: 1998-10-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9783540646525

This is a collection of state-of-the-art surveys on topics at the interface between transportation modeling and operations research given by leading international experts. Based on contributions to a NATO workshop, the surveys are up-to-date and rigorous presentations or applications of quantitative methods in the area. The subjects covered include dynamic traffic simulation techniques and dynamic routing in congested networks, operation and control of traffic management tools, optimized transportation data collection, and vehicle routing problems.

Robust Discrete Optimization and Its Applications

Robust Discrete Optimization and Its Applications
Author: Panos Kouvelis
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2013-03-09
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1475726201

This book deals with decision making in environments of significant data un certainty, with particular emphasis on operations and production management applications. For such environments, we suggest the use of the robustness ap proach to decision making, which assumes inadequate knowledge of the decision maker about the random state of nature and develops a decision that hedges against the worst contingency that may arise. The main motivating factors for a decision maker to use the robustness approach are: • It does not ignore uncertainty and takes a proactive step in response to the fact that forecasted values of uncertain parameters will not occur in most environments; • It applies to decisions of unique, non-repetitive nature, which are common in many fast and dynamically changing environments; • It accounts for the risk averse nature of decision makers; and • It recognizes that even though decision environments are fraught with data uncertainties, decisions are evaluated ex post with the realized data. For all of the above reasons, robust decisions are dear to the heart of opera tional decision makers. This book takes a giant first step in presenting decision support tools and solution methods for generating robust decisions in a variety of interesting application environments. Robust Discrete Optimization is a comprehensive mathematical programming framework for robust decision making.

Handbook of Transportation Science

Handbook of Transportation Science
Author: Randolph Hall
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 737
Release: 2006-04-11
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0306480581

Over the past thirty-five years, a substantial amount of theoretical and empirical scholarly research has been developed across the discipline domains of Transportation. This research has been synthesized into a systematic handbook that examines the scientific concepts, methods, and principles of this growing and evolving field. The Handbook of Transportation Science outlines the field of transportation as a scientific discipline that transcends transportation technology and methods. Whether by car, truck, airplane - or by a mode of transportation that has not yet been conceived - transportation obeys fundamental properties. The science of transportation defines these properties, and demonstrates how our knowledge of one mode of transportation can be used to explain the behavior of another. Transportation scientists are motivated by the desire to explain spatial interactions that result in movement of people or objects from place to place. Its methodologies draw from physics, operations research, probability and control theory.