The "Traveling Salesman" and similar combinatorial programming tasks encountered in operations research are discussed as possible data analysis models in psychology, for example, in developmental scaling, Guttman scaling, profile smoothing, and data array clustering. A short overview of various computational approaches from this area of…

Argues that library book circulation is a binomial rather than a Poisson process, and that individual book popularities are continuous beta distributions. Three examples demonstrate the superiority of beta over negative binomial distribution, and it is suggested that a bivariate-binomial process would be helpful in predicting future book…

This study attempts to determine which media-exposure models available today are the best. A survey of the literature of the last 20 years is used to provide the basis for assessment of the state of the art of media planning and to draw distinctions between the implicit, naive, subjective, and sophisticated media-exposure models. Discussion of the…

Two aspects to be considered in designing a storage system for library materials are: the fraction of the collection which is to be stored; and the criteria to be used for selecting materials for storage. This study demonstrates that for a given selection criterion least-cost storage quantities can be assessed by balancing the large circulation…

THE PROBLEM OF PREDICTING THE PATTERNS OF USE OF LIBRARY MATERIALS IN ORDER TO DECIDE WHICH MONOGRAPHS SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM A MAIN COLLECTION AND PLACED IN STORAGE IS STUDIED IN THIS REPORT. SPECIFICALLY, THE STUDY EXAMINES PREVIOUSLY DEVELOPED MATHEMATICAL MODELS AND DEVELOPS NEW MATHEMATICAL MODELS AND STATISTICAL TECHNIQUES FOR STUDYING THE…

THIS REPORT PRESENTS A DISCUSSION OF 2 TECHNIQUES WHICH CAN BE USED TO REPRESENT AND INTERPRET MULTIVARIATE STATISTICAL SYSTEMS WHEN IT IS FELT THAT THERE ARE CAUSAL RELATIONS BETWEEN SOME OF THE VARIABLES. THE BASIC TECHNIQUE IS PATH ANALYSIS AND THE OTHER IS ITS EXTENSION THROUGH THE USE OF RECURSIVE SYSTEMS OF EQUATIONS. THE ANALYSIS IS…

A model is developed which relates an index of school performance to management policy under a variety of environmental conditions. The process of education is defined by the qualitative concept that education is a process of communication. In the model development, the assumed relationships among the variables (factors controllable by management…

A method to calculate the need for academic staff per faculty, based on educational programs and numbers of students, is described which is based on quantitative relations between programs, student enrollment, and total budget. The model is described schematically and presented in a mathematical form adapted to computer processing. Its application…

As the first of two papers delineating the design of Massachusetts' Management and Information System for Occupational Education (MISOE), these specific dimensions of MISOE structure and function are considered: (1) the distinction between economic and noneconomic analysis, (2) distinctions among census, sample, and other data, (3) the distinction…

Presents a review of microcomputer-based software packages that have been designed for Operations Research, Management Science, and Production and Operations Management. Listed for each package are price for student use, minimum system requirements needed to run the package, and maximum capability constraints. (PK)

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) commissioned the papers in this publication to address advances in measuring education inflation and adjusting for it, as well as to examine the emergence of a new focus on school spending, rather than school district spending, as well as new, private sources of funding for public education, and…