The project coordinator's problem

A project coordinator has a set of activities with known durations and values which are available for scheduling within a given horizon. There may be both precedence and corequisite restrictions (two activities are corequisites if scheduling one implies the other must be scheduled). The project coordinator's problem is to select the activities to be scheduled, and their start times, so as to maximize the net value of the project when there is no penalty for failing to schedule an activity. An efficient solution procedure is developed and illustrated and several generalizations are discussed.     

Focus groups identified women's perceptions of dairy foods

Focus groups were conducted with 39 Caucasian women (ages 30-55 years) to gain insight regarding their thoughts and feelings toward dairy foods. Women resided in Virginia; all had at least a high school education. Themes characterizing the group discussions were identified. Women knew that dairy foods were a good source of calcium and discussed it in relation to osteoporosis. Although many knew the risk factors related to osteoporosis, most were confused about measures to prevent it. Many used calcium supplements or vitamin/mineral supplements to help meet calcium requirements. Most thought dairy foods were high in fat. Women also discussed the sensory attributes of dairy foods as well as convenience and cost of dairy foods in relation to their dairy food choices.     

A short term forecasting model for R & D expenditures

Whenever budget requests for individual R & D projects contain a built-in contingency then this will result in inefficient use of scarce resources. At the end of the year the annual budget may have been fully allocated but not necessarily fully utilized. This can result in delays or even complete cancellation of other proposed R & D projects because of an apparent lack of funding.The objective of the study was to forecast monthly R & D expenditures with a better accuracy than available from the subjective estimates of individual project leaders. The method described in this paper proved to be successful in practice.