This thesis deals with a modification to an existing mathematical
ppogramming algorithm called Beale's method. This method is
designed to solve only quadratic or linear programming problems.
The modification proposed aims to solve some of the problems this
method encounters and to shorten the time required for solution by
examining...
The objective of this thesis is to develop and
computationally test a new algorithm for the class of
network models with generalized upper bound (GUB) side
constraints. Various algorithms have been developed to
solve the network with arbitrary side constraints problem;
however, no algorithm that exploits the special structure
of...
Support Vector Machines (SVM) and Random Forests (RF) have
consistently outperformed other machine learning algorithms on a variety of
problems. SVM can be used for classification and regression on many types of
data (e.g. nonlinear, high dimensional), but cannot handle missing or mixed data.
This research implements a permutation-based variable...
Alteration of natural areas in attempts to support increasing human populations has been a crucial yet less publicized contributor to the fall of many of the world's greatest civilizations, since healthy ecosystems can help maintain stable societies and economies. Given this unhappy fact and the ancient relationship between people and...
This paper presents a framework for analyzing efficient spatial allocation of forest
management efforts - fuel treatment and harvest - under the risk of fire. The framework
integrates a fire behavior model and a spatially-explicit stochastic dynamic optimization
model. I investigate the effects of spatial interaction across plots during forest...
Lagrangean relaxation is presented as a solution
technique to solve flow constrained area-based harvest
scheduling problems. The best set of multipliers in the
Lagrangean approach is obtained through the subgradient
method. Guidelines to set some parameters to compute the
step size in the subgradient algorithm are provided. An
additional procedure...
Innovation is critical for firm growth and survival. Thus, how much value firms create and capture from their innovative activities has been an interest of scholars. This dissertation explores three important questions on this topic to which extant literature has paid little attention. First, I examine how the external threat...
In this three-essay dissertation I explore how CEOs’ self-serving motivation, specifically driven by their relative pay standing and celebrity status, is useful for advancing the understanding of executive behavior and strategic decision-making. In the first essay, focusing on CEOs’ motivation to reduce the dissonance caused by pay inequity, I examine...
