Dinnertime
A professor is planning an informal gathering for 100 or so of his closest friends. The
project breaks down as follows:
What is the early start time for the Hire valets activity?
A) 31
B) 27
C) 23
D) 20
In the formulation of a ≥ constraint:
A) a surplus variable is subtracted.
B) a surplus variable is added.
C) a slack variable is subtracted.
D) a slack variable is added.
Constant service times occur with
A) machinery.
B) well-trained employees.
C) service processes.
D) assembly processes.
The ________ is a procedure for developing a consensus forecast about what will occur
in the future.
A) Delphi method
B) quantitative method
C) regression equation
D) time series forecasting method
There is considerable overlap in the scientific method and management science
techniques. Which of the following steps is shared between them?
A) observation
B) problem definition
C) model construction
D) implementation
William ran the model in Excel and received both an answer and sensitivity report.
Which of these statements about this portion of the sensitivity report is best?
A) William needs only 62.5 hours to produce.
B) William needs to acquire 2.5 additional bushels of corn.
C) William needs 7.5 pounds more sugar.
D) William needs 1 more hour to produce.
The expected value and expected opportunity loss criteria result in:
A) the same decision.
B) different decisions.
C) similar decisions.
D) all of the above
The maximax criterion results in the:
A) maximum of the minimum payoffs.
B) maximum of the maximum payoffs.
C) minimum of the maximum payoffs.
D) minimum of the minimum payoffs.
Pairwise comparisons are made among:
A) all alternatives for a particular criterion.
B) all alternatives for all criteria.
C) some alternatives for a particular criterion.
D) some alternatives for all criteria.
The weight of a jar of jelly is normally distributed with a mean of 16 oz and a standard
deviation of 0.02 oz. What is the probability that a jar of jelly contains less than 16 oz?
A) .1915
B) .3085
C) .5000
D) .7257
Horatio Oscar Vineeth Lane (HOV Lane for short) records his commute times for a
period of one month and assigned them to five different categories as shown in the
table.
What is the probability that Mr. Lane makes it home in under thirty minutes?
A) .15
B) .35
C) .20
D) .55
Determining where to build roads at the least cost within a park that reaches every
popular sight represents a ________ network model.
Atwitter
The college director of global activities was hopeful that the print ads in the school
newspaper and 30 second spots on the campus radio station would spur some interest in
the array of study tour and study abroad options he had secured. The communications
director for the college had other ideas; she favored a social media campaign consisting
of tweets and facebook postings. “This is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of,” he
whined to the dean.
The communications director’s market research revealed the following:
The advertising budget is $3500, but there is no requirement that all the money be
spent. The newspaper has only four issues before the end of the semester, but the radio
is a 24/7 operation and has two dozen 30 second slots available. Facebook postings
must be alternated with the rest of the mindless drivel posted on the college page; thus
there is space for only three postings before the end of the semester. Twitter is
complicated by the 140 character requirement. The communications director feels she
needs five tweets to convey a single message about tours and semesters abroad, so for
one message, the cost would be $25 for each of the five components of the single ad.
Due to thumb fatigue, she feels that she has only 2800 characters left in her thumbs
before the end of the semester. (A side note – During the intersession period, she plans
to embark on a strict regimen of thumb yoga to prepare for the coming semester.)
Formulate the appropriate LP model for this scenario.
If a nonlinear programming problem results in profit (Z) of $250, and the Lagrange
multiplier for a constraint is 5, the new profit will be ________ if the right-hand side of
the constraint is decreased by 1 unit.
The local operations manager for the IRS must decide whether to hire 1, 2, or 3
temporary workers. He estimates that net revenues (in thousands) will vary with how
well taxpayers comply with the new tax code.
If he uses the maximin criterion, how many new workers will he hire?
The ________ integer solution will always be between the upper bound of the relaxed
solution and a lower bound of the rounded-down solution.
Mad Over Donuts
An entrepreneurial resident of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area is interested in
securing a new franchise for Mad Over Donuts. Ideally this franchise would be
centrally located so delivery could be economically handled and all citizens could enjoy
fresh, delicious donuts delivered to the doorstep. The main cities and anticipated
demand (in thousands per day) are shown in the table.
What are the appropriate constraints for this scenario?
The management scientist entered a trance-like state as he formulated his model. This
state was interrupted by an integer-hating colleague, who insisted that the model should
be run as a linear program rather than integer program. The management scientist
sighed, relaxed the integer constraint, and ran the model, obtaining the following
answer report. Provide a full interpretation and plan for action.
Variable Cells
Constraints
Two psychology majors, in two different sections of Clinical Psychology, were
comparing test scores. The following gives the students’ scores, class mean, and
standard deviation for each section:
Section 1 Section 2Student score 84 75
Mean 75 60
Standard deviation 7 8
What is the z-score of the student from section 2 and what is the probability that a
student in section 2 will score higher than 75?
The only car dealership in a community stocks cars from two manufacturers, Fret and
Cessy. The following transition matrix shows the probabilities of a customer purchasing
each brand of car in the next year given that he or she purchased that car in the current
year.
Given that a customer purchased the brand Cessy in the present year (year 1), determine
the probability that a customer will purchase Cessy in year 3.
The model was entered into an Excel spreadsheet and the table below shows part of the
sensitivity report. Provide an interpretation.
The poultry farmer discovers, much to his dismay, that the product mix that satisfies all
of his constraints isn’t really a mix of birdsit’s a flock consisting of nothing but 32
Leghorns. (His constraints were a plumage score greater than 75, fertilizer production
greater than 80 ounces per week, temperament less than 100 decibels, and an appetite
less than 160 ounces of layer pellets per week.) Not only is his flock going to be a very
one-note mix in terms of color, he is afraid that the gleaming white feathers and
deafening noise will attract predators, or worse yet, his neighbors. He immediately
embarks on a breeding program to develop a Super-Cochin that can lay 4.5 eggs per
week with all other performance measures the same. His optimal solution is now 27.5
Leghorns and 5.625 Super-Cochins. Assuming that he is willing to settle for a flock that
has 27 Leghorns and 5 Super Cochins, what is the weekly output of eggs and
performance with respect to the constraints?
Annual demand for notecards at Suzie’s Stationery shop is 10,000 units. Deliveries take
about 5 working days and Suzie operates 300 days per year. Calculate the reorder point
for the notecards that she stocks.
Refer to the table below to answer the question(s) that follow:
Within what amount of time (in weeks) is there a 90% probability that the critical path
for this project will be completed?
The Vacation
Final exams are almost here and once they are done, it will be time to reward myself
with a well-deserved vacation. As a state employee, I haven’t seen a raise since… well,
ever. Thus an important criterion, in fact the most important criterion is to find an exotic
region that can be visited inexpensively. There are three states of nature that could
impact costs in these five areas of interest, and they correspond to the relative strength
of the US Dollar against that region’s dominant currency. Rather than squander my time
doing any actual publishable research, instead I have determined the average cost per
day to visit each region under each of the possible states of nature. This table, which
should not be construed as actual vacation advice, appears below.
I have absolutely no clue what will happen with the strength of the dollar and can’t imagine
assigning likelihoods or adopting an optimistic or pessimistic stance. What’s the safest bet
for a destination and why?
Comedy Pasture
A horse and two llamas are discussing the key areas of their domain on a lazy summer
afternoon. The llamas favor the pond and shade and like to browse the fruit trees and
oaks on the property, making their way to the barn only when their owner favors them
with some oats. The horse prefers to graze the grass and hay for food and drink from the
pond but will race up to the barn when the owner is handing out oats up there. Between
the three of them, they have stepped off the distances between many of these key points
several times and believe that they have developed an accurate map, shown below. As
incredible as it may seem, neither the horse nor the llamas have had any training in
management science, which is where you come in.
The llamas are interested in developing a series of llama-only paths among their points
of interest. As they have a limited budget, they’d prefer to develop those paths using a
minimum quantity of materials and labor. Formulate an objective function for this
scenario using a linear programming model.
The following sales data are available for 2003-2008.
Determine a 4-year weighted moving average forecast for 2009, where weights are W1
= .1, W2 = .2, W3 = .2 and W4 = .5.
A(n) ________ is an up-and-down repetitive movement within a trend occurring
periodically.
Assume that the forecasted demand for 2006 is 15. Use the following data set and
exponential smoothing with α = 0.4 and determine the forecasted demand for 2009.
The collectively exhaustive set of events for flipping a coin is ________.