In this dissertation, several essays in the field of bio-security are presented.The estimation of the probability of an FMD outbreak by type and location ofpremises is important for decision making. In Essay I, we estimate and predict theprobability/risk of an FMD outbreak spreading to the...

In recent years, dramatic changes in business factors have triggered a trend of manufacturing relocation out of 'The World's Factory', which is the Pearl River Delta (PRO), China. Global manufacturers in PRO have been facing unprecedented operating cost pressure, due to RI1B currency...

Fractional aircraft ownership programs offer companies and individuals all the benefits of owning private jet, such as safety, consistency, and guaranteed availability, at a fraction of the cost of owning an aircraft. In the fractional ownership model, the partial owners of an aircraft are...

Drei große Reformenpakete und eine Reihe kleinerer Begleitmaßnahmen prägen das renten¬politische Erbe der rot-grünen Bundesregierung. Einerseits greifen sie Trends in der Reformpolitik seit Beginn der 90er Jahre auf. So verstärkt die Rentenstrukturreform 2001 beispielsweise die...

Transcribing medical documents accurately into pre-defined formats and within certain time frames is vital for administrative and medical purposes in any hospital. This paper describes quantitative models incorporating available data to represent transcription activities of a medical records...

CMPL (Coliop Mathematical Programming Language) is a mathematical programming language for modelling linear programming (LP) problems or mixed integer programming (MIP) problems. The CMPL syntax is similar in formulation to the the original mathematical model but also includes syntactic elements...

Struggling retail chains often try to recover profitability by closing some of their stores. The challenge in this strategy lies in determining how many stores to close, as store exit has implications for both the customers and the supply chain. After a store closes, its customers are lost...

In this thesis, several stochastic optimization models are presented to determine the number of airport arrival slots that should be made available for distribution via a market mechanism. Considerable attention is paid to the structure and mathematical properties of each of these models, with...

Nitrate pollution from agriculture is an important environmental problem, caused bythe excessive use of inorganic fertilizers. The internalization of this externality, via a tax onmineral nitrogen, could lead to a second best solution, reducing nitrate emissions. Severalauthors suggest that a...

We analyze the current state and future requirements of an agricultural income stabilization mechanism in a transition country – namely, the crop insurance system in Kazakhstan. Three objectives will be pursued: First, factors influencing the development of the crop insurance market will be...