Hyperpath Truck Routing in an Online Freight Exchange Platform

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (6) ◽  
pp. 1676-1696 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Miller ◽  
Yu (Marco) Nie ◽  
Xiaobo Liu

Online freight exchange (OFEX) platforms serve the purpose of matching demand and supply for freight in real time. This paper studies a truck routing problem that aims to leverage the power of an OFEX platform. The OFEX routing problem is formulated as a Markov decision problem, which we solve by finding the bidding strategy at each possible location and time along the route that maximizes the expected profit. At the core of the OFEX routing problem is a combined pricing and bidding model that simultaneously (1) considers the probability of winning a load at a given bid price and current market competition, (2) anticipates the future profit corresponding to the current decision, and (3) prioritizes the bidding order among possible load options. Results from numerical experiments constructed using real-world data from a Chinese OFEX platform indicate that the proposed routing model could (1) improve a truck’s expected profit substantially, compared with the benchmark solutions built to represent the state of the practice, and (2) enhance the robustness of the overall profitability against the impact of market competition and spatial variations.

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Ermia Aghasi ◽  
Mansour Momeni ◽  
Mohammad Ali Shah Hoseini

<p><em>We consider a discrete time branching process where the population consists of k types of convergent products, an action is chosen for that which affects the lifetime, the number and types of its functions, and the profit received. The problem of maximizing the expected profit is shown to be equivalent to a generalized Markov decision problem of maximizing the expected profit is shown to be equivalent to a generalized Markov decision problem where the </em><em> </em><em>transition matrices are non-negative but not necessarily sub stochastic.</em></p>


Author(s):  
Jie Bai ◽  
Andreas Fügener ◽  
Jochen Gönsch ◽  
Jens O. Brunner ◽  
Manfred Blobner

AbstractThe intensive care unit (ICU) is one of the most crucial and expensive resources in a health care system. While high fixed costs usually lead to tight capacities, shortages have severe consequences. Thus, various challenging issues exist: When should an ICU admit or reject arriving patients in general? Should ICUs always be able to admit critical patients or rather focus on high utilization? On an operational level, both admission control of arriving patients and demand-driven early discharge of currently residing patients are decision variables and should be considered simultaneously. This paper discusses the trade-off between medical and monetary goals when managing intensive care units by modeling the problem as a Markov decision process. Intuitive, myopic rule mimicking decision-making in practice is applied as a benchmark. In a numerical study based on real-world data, we demonstrate that the medical results deteriorate dramatically when focusing on monetary goals only, and vice versa. Using our model, we illustrate the trade-off along an efficiency frontier that accounts for all combinations of medical and monetary goals. Coming from a solution that optimizes monetary costs, a significant reduction of expected mortality can be achieved at little additional monetary cost.


Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 1455
Author(s):  
Sunny R. K. Singh ◽  
Sindhu J. Malapati ◽  
Rohit Kumar ◽  
Christopher Willner ◽  
Ding Wang

Background: The incidence of invasive melanoma is rising, and approval for the first immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) to treat metastatic melanoma occurred in 2011. We aim to describe the epidemiology and outcomes in recent years, sociodemographic factors associated with the presence of metastasis at diagnosis, and the real‐world impact of ICI approval on survival based on melanoma subtype and race. Methods: This is a retrospective analysis of the National Cancer Database (NCDB) from the years 2004–2015. The primary outcome was the overall survival of metastatic melanoma by subtype. Secondary outcomes included sociodemographic factors associated with the presence of metastasis at diagnosis and the impact of treatment facility type and ICI approval on the survival of metastatic melanoma. Results: Of the 419,773 invasive melanoma cases, 93.80% were cutaneous, and 4.92% were metastatic at presentation. The odds of presenting with metastatic disease were higher in African Americans (AA) compared to Caucasians (OR 2.37; 95% CI 2.11–2.66, p < 0.001). Treatment of metastatic melanoma at an academic/research facility was associated with lower mortality versus community cancer programs (OR 0.75, 95 % CI 0.69–0.81, p-value<0.001). Improvement in survival of metastatic melanoma was noted for Caucasians after the introduction of ICI (adjusted HR 0.80, 95% CI 0.78–0.83, p < 0.001); however, this was not statistically significant for AA (adjusted HR 0.80, 95% CI 0.62–1.02, p‐value = 0.073) or ocular cases (HR 1.03, 95% CI 0.81–1.31, p‐value 0.797). Conclusion: Real‐world data suggest a 20% improvement in survival of metastatic melanoma since the introduction of ICI. The disproportionately high odds of metastatic disease at presentation in AA patients with melanoma suggest the need for a better understanding of the disease and improvement in care delivery.


Author(s):  
Kathleen C. Oberlin

The typical story about creationist social movements centers on battles in the classroom or in the courtroom—like the Scopes Trial in 1925. But there is a new setting: a museum. “Prepare to Believe” is the slogan that greets visitors throughout the Creation Museum located in Petersburg, Kentucky. It carries the message that the organization Answers in Genesis (AiG) uses to welcome fellow believers as well as skeptics since opening in 2007. The Creation Museum seeks to persuade visitors that if one views both the Bible (a close, literal reading) and nature (observational, real world data) as sources of authority, then the earth appears to be much younger than conventionally understood in mainstream society. This book argues that the impact of the Creation Museum does not depend on the accuracy or credibility of its scientific claims, as many scholars, media critics, and political pundits would suggest. Instead, what AiG goes after by creating a physical site like the Creation Museum is the ability to foster plausibility politics—broadening what the audience perceives as possible and amplifying the stakes as the ideas reach more people. Destabilizing the belief that only one type of secular institution may make claims about the age of the earth and human origins, the Creation Museum is a threat to this singular positioning. In doing so, AiG repositions itself to produce longstanding effects on the public’s perception of who may make scientific claims. Creating the Creation Museum is a story about how a group endures.


2021 ◽  
Vol 161 ◽  
pp. S608
Author(s):  
I. Fornacon-Wood ◽  
H. Mistry ◽  
C. Johnson-Hart ◽  
J.P.B. O’Connor ◽  
C. Faivre-Finn ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.M.T. Fatemi Ghomi ◽  
B. Asgarian

PurposeFinding a rational approach to maintain a freshness of foods and perishable goods and saving their intrinsic attributes during a distribution of these products is one of the main issues for distribution and logistics companies. This paper aims to provide a framework for distribution of perishable goods which can be applied for real life situations.Design/methodology/approachThis paper proposes a novel mathematical model for transportation inventory location routing problem. In addition, the paper addresses the impact of perishable goods age on the demand of final customers. The model is optimally solved for small- and medium-scale problems. Moreover, regarding to NP-hard nature of the proposed model, two simple and one hybrid metaheuristic algorithms are developed to cope with the complexity of problem in large scale problems.FindingsNumerical examples with different scenarios and sensitivity analysis are conducted to investigate the performance of proposed algorithms and impacts of important parameters on optimal solutions. The results show the acceptable performance of proposed algorithms.Originality/valueThe authors formulate a novel mathematical model which can be applicable in perishable goods distribution systems In this regard, the authors consider lost sale which is proportional to age of products. A new hybrid approach is applied to tackle the problem and the results show the rational performance of the algorithm.


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