William J. Cook

A complete, highly accessible introduction to one of today's most exciting areas of applied mathematics One of the youngest, most vital areas of applied mathematics, combinatorial optimization integrates techniques from combinatorics, linear programming, and the theory of algorithms. Because of its success in solving difficult problems in areas from telecommunications to VLSI, from product distribution to airline crew scheduling, the field has seen a ground swell of activity over the past decade. Combinatorial Optimization is an ideal introduction to this mathematical discipline for advanced undergraduates and graduate students of discrete mathematics, computer science, and operations research. Written by a team of recognized experts, the text offers a thorough, highly accessible treatment of both classical concepts and recent results. The topics include: * Network flow problems * Optimal matching * Integrality of polyhedra * Matroids * NP-completeness Featuring logical and consistent exposition, clear explanations of basic and advanced concepts, many real-world examples, and helpful, skill-building exercises, Combinatorial Optimization is certain to become the standard text in the field for many years to come.

This book was created to dispell the myriad of Internet articles proposing to tell observers how they can "collimate" their binocular by the willy-nilly tweaking of a few screws but which may produce unsatisfactory results or even damage alignment even more.

Featuring the second installment of the Driftwood Mysteries, "Eye of Newt," the compelling epilogue to the novel, Seal of Secrets. What happens when: * A college professor uses his knowledge of biology to plot the perfect murder?* A woman retrieves the lost childhood memories of her mother's murder?* A prominent scientist is hired to translate an ancient document that will change the history of the world?* A man is forced to relive all the worst moments of his life?* A father must prevent his Gestapo daughter from betraying his Jewish wife?* A dying WWII veteran reveals what really happened when he was shot down behind enemy lines?* A discontented man surrenders his life to the crows that inhabit his neighborhood? The 17 tales in this collection are paths through a darkened wood. Some lead to gruesome death; others, to healing and redemption. All are marked by surprises along the way. Seasoned with humor and grace, they become reflections on what is most important in life. So come--embark on the journey. But don't say you haven't been warned.

Hell hath no fury like a mother whose daughter has been kidnapped by a sexual predator. Chloe Denhurst lives in the quaint coastal town of Driftwood, Oregon. Recovering from a hurtful divorce, she finally allows herself to have feelings for another man. Suddenly, her life is turned upside down by a stranger who attacks her on the street and snatches her adolescent daughter Kaitlynn. She enlists the aid of Native American policeman Charley Whitehorse, but the wheels of justice turn too slowly. Chloe realizes she must use her own courage and wits to track down the marauder and rescue her daughter, but as she does so, she discovers that the new man in her life shares a terrible secret with the kidnapper. Seal of Secrets is a heart-pounding thriller described by one reader as "relentless in its suspense," and another as having "more twists than a corkscrew about to open a bottle of fine wine."

*What happens when Seattle is destroyed in a nuclear holocaust? *When all a young boy wants for Christmas is the left hand he lost in an automobile accident the year before? *When a woman travels to San Diego to commit suicide after the overdose death of her only son?*When a young man plots to humiliate his attorney father, running for public office, by taking a job in an adult shop?*When a psychiatrist's bipolar patient invites him to become his copilot when the aliens come back for him in their time-space ship?*When a priest hears the confession of a serial killer and is helpless to prevent him from killing again? These and ten other stories are a smorgasbord of short fiction, inviting the reader on a journey of droll humor, philosophical contemplation, suspense and terror. Pour yourself a glass of Oregon Pinot or a cup of hot black coffee and enjoy

What is the shortest possible route for a traveling salesman seeking to visit each city on a list exactly once and return to his city of origin? It sounds simple enough, yet the traveling salesman problem is one of the most intensely studied puzzles in applied mathematics--and it has defied solution to this day. In this book, William Cook takes readers on a mathematical excursion, picking up the salesman's trail in the 1800s when Irish mathematician W. R. Hamilton first defined the problem, and venturing to the furthest limits of today's state-of-the-art attempts to solve it. He also explores its many important applications, from genome sequencing and designing computer processors to arranging music and hunting for planets. In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman travels to the very threshold of our understanding about the nature of complexity, and challenges you yourself to discover the solution to this captivating mathematical problem.

Presents the findings on one of the most intensely investigated subjects in computational mathematics - the travelling salesman problem. This book describes the method and computer code used to solve a range of large-scale problems, and demonstrates the interplay of applied mathematics with increasingly powerful computing platforms.

The corporation model of organizations is in terminal decline, says Cook, and is being displaced by what he calls syntagma, a body of persons forming a division of the population of a country. The point he makes by this is that the emerging organization will be no artifact, no fabrication. It will be innately human, and in that sense, organic. His book traces the philosophical and historical development of the modern corporation through Hellenistic-Judeo-Christian theologies, with particular emphases on the social, political, and economic impacts of rationalistic science, impacts such as humanism, democracy, capitalism, and behaviorism. Cook offers an analysis of the critical aspects of the corporation as it exists today, and draws heavily for evidence upon contemporary management theories and practices. In doing so he argues that it is the radical changes going on in society itself that is rendering the traditional corporation obsolete. And, since western civilization is undergoing an epochal shift, the new, emerging corporation can have no resemblance to the old model. He maintains that the organization evolving to replace it will be characterized by common values, mutual purpose, excess capacity, and creative action, and will have two dynamics, what he calls commensuration and essentiality. Only with this kind of human system is it possible to create an organization that solely and exclusively serves the common good. His book is a provocative contribution to the professional and academic literature of several fields, including management, the social sciences, organizational behavior, development, and history, and will be of particular interest as well to certain well informed nonspecialists with concern for the role played the corporation in their societies.

Most of what passes for strategic planning is not strategic at all. It is long-range planning or comprehensive planning, or in some cases just program or project planning. The result is a relinquishment of control to external conditions and circumstances, the perpetuation of obsolete systems, and organizational fragmentation and internal conflict. The opportunity to create new possibilities and realities—the ultimate object of strategy—is lost. Cook maintains that even to attempt strategy there must first be a strategic system, a system that deals with strategic issues, decision-making, and strategic action, which is preceded by strategic thinking. Cook combines these three aspects of strategy into a coherent, powerful concept that reinvigorates strategy with its original forceful meaning: strategos—to lead an army. In this way strategy becomes the means by which communities continuously create artifactual systems to serve extraordinary purposes. His book contains sound, pragmatic theory, original insights into strategic issues, and detailed hands-on guidance on all phases of strategic thinking, planning, and action. Cook explains that stragetics can be expressed as thinking, planning, and action. Strategic thinking will always embrace five arenas: the definition of strategy, the meaning of leaders and leading, the distinction between condition and cause, the nature of systems, and the characteristics of organizations. Strategic planning, as a currently popular management practice, is not what it was originally. The definition has changed. The only definition that captures the original intent is: the means by which a community of people create artifactual systems to serve extraordinary purposes. Dr. Cook points out that strategic action is seldom included in any contemporary intepretation or application of strategy, yet action is both the realization of strategy and the creation of new possibilities beyond strategy. In that sense, strategic action is the end and the beinning of strategics. Thus, Cook takes the traditional idea of strategic planning, infuses it with strategic thinking, and carries it to strategic action. Instead of merely improving what already exists, organizations can create new systems that are capable of what he calls constant emergence—always vital, always creative.