Uncertainty theory is a branch of mathematics based on normolity, duality, subadditivity and product axioms. Uncertain process is a sequence of uncertain variables indexed by time. Canonical Liu process is an uncertain process with stationary and independent increments. And the increments follow normal uncertainty distributions. Uncertain differential equation is a type of differential equation driven by the canonical Liu process. Stability analysis on uncertain differential equation is to investigate the qualitative properties, which is significant both in theory and application for uncertain differential equations. This paper aims to study stability properties of linear uncertain differential equations. First, the stability concepts are introduced. And then, several sufficient and necessary conditions of stability for linear uncertain differential equations are proposed. Besides, some examples are discussed.

An inverse minimum spanning tree problem makes the least modification on the edge weights such that a predetermined spanning tree is a minimum spanning tree with respect to the new edge weights. In this paper, the concept of uncertain ${\alpha}$-minimum spanning tree is initiated for minimum spanning tree problem with uncertain edge weights. Using different decision criteria, two uncertain programming models are presented to formulate a specific inverse minimum spanning tree problem with uncertain edge weights involving a sum-type model and a minimax-type model. By means of the operational law of independent uncertain variables, the two uncertain programming models are transformed to their equivalent deterministic models which can be solved by classic optimization methods. Finally, some numerical examples on a traffic network reconstruction problem are put forward to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed models.

This paper proposes a new concept of comonotonicity of uncertain vector based on the uncertainty theory. In order to understand the comonotonicity of uncertain vector, some equivalent definitions are presented. Following the proposed concept, some basic properties of comonotonic uncertain vector are investigated. In addition, the operational law is given for calculating the uncertainty distributions of monotone functions of comonotonic uncertain variables. With the help of operational law, the comonotonic uncertain vector is applied to the premium pricing problems. At last, some numerical examples are given to illustrate the application.

This paper presents inventory models for fresh agriculture products with time-varying deterioration rate. Due to the particularity of fresh agriculture products, the demand rate is a function that depends on sale price and freshness. The deterioration rate increases with time and is assumed to be a time-varying function. In the models, the inventory cycle may be constant or variable. The optimal solutions of models are discussed for different freshness and the deterioration rate. The results of experiments show that the profit depends on the freshness and deterioration rate of products. With the increasing inventory cycle, the sale price and profit increase at first and then start decreasing. Furthermore, when the inventory cycle is variable, the total profit is a binary function of the sale price and inventory cycle. There exist unique sale price and inventory cycle such that the profit is optimal. The results also show that the optimal sale price and inventory cycle depend on the freshness and the deterioration rate of fresh agriculture products.

Motivated by the emergency scheduling in a transportation network, this paper considers a transportation problem, in which, the truck times and transportation costs are assumed as uncertain variables. To meet the demand in the practical applications, two optimization objectives are considered, one is the total costs and another is the completion times. And then, a multi-objective optimization model is developed according to the situation in applications. Because there are commensurability and conflicting between the two objectives commonly, a solution does not necessarily exist that is best with respective to the two objectives. Therefore, the problem is reduced to a single objective model, which is an uncertain programming with a chance-constrain. After some analysis, its equivalent deterministic form is obtained, which is a nonlinear programming. Based on a stepwise optimization strategy, a solution method is developed to solve the problem. Finally, the computational results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of our model and algorithm.

The paper discusses the problem of how to allocate the fund to a large number of individuals in a higher school so as to bring a higher utility return based on the theory of uncertain set. Suppose that experts can assign each invested individual a corresponding nondecreasing membership function on a close interval I according to its actual level and developmental foreground. The membership degree at the fund $x{\in}I$ is called utility degree from fund x, and product (minimum) of utility degrees of distributed funds for all invested individuals is called united utility degree from the fund. Based on the above concepts, we present an uncertain optimization model, called Maximal United Utility Degree (or Maximal Membership Degree) model for fund distribution. Furthermore, we use nondecreasing polygonal functions defined on close intervals to structure a mathematical maximal united utility degree model. Finally, we design a genetic algorithm to solve these models.

Age replacement policy is a commonly policy in maintenance management of spare part. It means that a spare part is always replaced at failure or fixed time after its installation, whichever occurs first. An optimal age replacement policy of spare parts concerns with finding the optimal replacement time determined by minimizing the expected cost per unit time. The age of the part was generally assumed to be a random variable in the past literatures, but in many situations, there are few or even no observed data to estimate the probability distribution of part's lifetime. In order to solve this phenomenon, a new uncertain age replacement policy has been proposed recently, in which the age of the part was assumed to be an uncertain variable. This paper discusses the optimal age replacement policies by dealing with the parts' lifetimes as different distributed uncertain variables. Several results on the optimal age replacement time are provided when the lifetimes are described by the uncertain linear, zigzag and lognormal distributions.

In insurance statistics, the sum of homogeneous insurance is often needed. The sum is called individual risk model which is a fundamental model in risk analysis for insurance. This paper first presents an individual risk model based on the uncertainty theory. Then its uncertainty distribution is provided. Finally, its arithmetic is shown by a numerical example.

This paper considers a single machine rescheduling problem whose original (efficiency related) objective is minimizing makespan. We assume that disruptions such as order cancelations and newly arrived orders occur after the initial scheduling, and we reschedule this disrupted schedule with the objective of minimizing a disruption related objective while preserving the original objective. The disruption related objective measures the impact of the disruptions as difference of completion times in the remaining (uncanceled) jobs before and after the disruptions. The artificial due dates for the remaining jobs are set to completion times in the original schedule while newly arrived jobs do not have due dates. Then, the objective of the rescheduling is minimizing the maximum earliness without tardiness. In order to preserve the optimality of the original objective, we assume that no-idle time and no tardiness are allowed while rescheduling. We first define this new problem and prove that the general version of the problem is unary NP-complete. Then, we develop three simple but intuitive heuristics. For each of the three heuristics, we find a tight bound on the measure called modified z-approximation ratio. The best theoretical bound is found to be 0.5 - ${\varepsilon}$ for some ${\varepsilon}$ > 0, and it implies that the solution value of the best heuristic is at most around a half of the worst possible solution value. Finally, we empirically evaluate the heuristics and demonstrate that the two best heuristics perform much better than the other one.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the impacts of R&D cooperation and obstacles to technological innovation on the innovation failure of the Korean manufacturing firms. Two hierarchical regression models including interaction variables are employed for the analysis. Some interesting findings are: first, almost all the obstacles have positive and significant effects on the failure. Second, R&D cooperation positively or negatively moderates the impact of obstacles to technological innovation on the innovation failure, although R&D cooperation itself is not directly related to the failure. Third, the interaction effects between the cooperation and the obstacles influence the failure in various manners. This study is expected to help manufacturing firms which are under unfavourable environments to formulate their cooperation strategies successfully based on what they learn from the failure.