Most nations have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by locking down parts of their economies to reduce infectious spread. The optimal timing of the beginning and end of the lockdown, together with its intensity, is determined by the tradeoff between economic losses and improved health outcomes....

We propose a theoretical model to study individual lifestyle choices related to calorie intake and physical activity, depending on personal fitness level and body weight. The model builds on the rational eating literature and can generate a variety of behaviors that are consistent with the...

When optimal parcel delivery plans have to be made, a logistic system with locker boxes as alternative delivery locations can greatly increase efficiency. An important decision in such a system is where to locate the locker box stations. Hence, we extend the vehicle routing problem with locker...

In this paper we propose two cooperation schemes to compose new parallel variants of the Variable Neighborhood Search (VNS). On the one hand, a coarse-grained cooperation scheme is introduced which is well suited for being enhanced with a solution warehouse to store and manage the so far best...

In our paper, we analyze new exact approaches for the multi-mode resource-constrained project scheduling (MRCPSP) problem with the aim of makespan minimization. For the single-mode RCPSP (SRCPSP) recent exact algorithms combine a Branch and Bound algorithm with principles from Constraint...

Due to the deployment of distributed renewable energy sources (e.g., solar), the introduction of communication technologies, and the digitalization of the power system (e.g., smart meters, control devices), energy consumers are switching from passive to active in the management of their energy...

We examine within a life-cycle set-up the simultaneous choice of health care and retirement (together with consumption), when health care contributes to both a reduction in mortality and in morbidity. Health tends to impact on retirement via morbidity, determining the disutility of work, and...

China and India, two Asian countries that experienced a rapid decline in fertility since the middle of the twentieth century, are the focus of this paper. Although there is no doubt that lower fertility levels have many positive effects on the economy, development and sustainability, little is...

We examine within a life-cycle set-up the choice of health and retirement. Health care contributes to a reduction in both mortality, determining the need to accumulate retirement wealth, and in morbidity, determining the disutility of work. The retirement age affects health through the value of...

We show that in a large class of distributed optimal control models (DOCM), where population is described by a McKendrick type equation with an endogenous number of newborns, the reproductive value of Fisher shows up as part of the shadow price of the population. Depending on the objective...