This paper analyzes a single-machine scheduling problem with family setup times both from an optimization and a cost allocation perspective. In a so-called family sequencing situation jobs are processed on a single machine, there is an initial processing order on the jobs, and every job within a...

In this paper preparation sequencing situations are introduced. This new type of one-machine sequencing situations assumes that before a job can start, some preparation depending on its predecessor is required. Preparation sequencing situations are first analyzed from an operations research...

Many cooperative games, especially ones stemming from resource pooling in queuing or inventory systems, are based on situations in which each player is associated with a single attribute (a real number representing, say, a demand) and in which the cost to optimally serve any sum of attributes is...

This paper introduces a new class of interactive cooperative purchasing situations and provides an explicit alternative characterization of the nucleolus of cooperative games, which offers an alternative to Kohlberg (1971). In our cooperative purchasing situation, the unit price of a commodity...

In a resource allocation problem there is a common-pool resource, which has to be divided among agents. Each agent is characterized by a claim on this pool and an individual concave reward function on assigned resources. An assignment of resources is optimal if the total joint reward is...

All over the world intelligence services are collecting data concerning possible terrorist threats. This information is usually transformed into network structures in which the nodes represent the individuals in the data set and the links possible connections between these individuals....

In this paper we consider spanning tree problems, where n players want to be connected to a source as cheap as possible. We introduce and analyze (n!) vertex oriented construct and charge procedures for such spanning tree situations leading in n steps to a minimum cost spanning tree and a cost...

The identification of key players in a terrorist network can lead to prevention of attacks, due to efficient allocation of surveillance means or isolation of key players in order to destabilize the network. In this paper we introduce a game theoretic approach to identify key players in terrorist...

The core cover of a TU-game is a superset of the core and equals the convex hull of its larginal vectors. A larginal vector corresponds to an order of the players and describes the efficient payoff vector giving the first players in the order their utopia demand as long as it is still possible...

In this paper, we introduce a framework designed to identify and rank possible unwarranted variation of treatments in healthcare. The innovative aspect of this framework is a ranking procedure that aims to identify healthcare institutions where unwarranted variation is most severe, and diagnosis...