A branch and bound algorithm for optimal television commercial scheduling.

In the current era of multimedia, television (TV) plays an important role in transmitting advertising messages. In addition, advertising is the primary source of revenue for the TV industry. Thus, a critical issue for TV stations is the scheduling of commercials in suitable advertising breaks on different TV channels to maximize revenue and minimize penalties. This type of TV commercial scheduling problem is similar to the machine scheduling problem, and both have availability constraints. However, the literature on TV commercial scheduling has not considered this perspective. Motivated by this, we consider the problem of scheduling commercials with specific service-level requirements on TV channels while minimizing the maximum lateness. The lateness of a commercial is defined to be its completion time minus its due date, and the maximum lateness is the maximum value of lateness among all commercials. We propose an exact branch and bound algorithm based on the LFJ (least flexible job first)/EDD (earliest due date first) rules and network flow methods, which were developed to solve the machine scheduling problem with availability constraints. Computational analysis shows that the bounding scheme proposed is highly effective, and a very low percentage of nodes is generated by the branch and bound algorithm. The algorithm can obtain an optimal solution for the problem.

Measuring Consumer Willingness to Pay to Reduce Health Risks of Contracting Dengue Fever.

Located in the subtropics, Taiwan is one of the major epidemic areas for dengue fever, with severe epidemics occurring in recent years. Dengue fever has become a serious health threat to Taiwan's residents and a potentially serious economic cost to society. This study recruited 730 random participants and adopted the contingent valuation method to understand the factors influencing the populace's willingness to pay (WTP) to reduce the health risk of dengue fever. The results show that high-income women with children and people with higher preventive perceptions and behavior are more willing to invest in preventive measures against dengue fever. In the evaluation of WTP for preventive treatment for health risks, each person was willing to pay on average NT$751 annually to lower psychological health risks, NT$793 annually to lower the risk of illness, and NT$1086 annually to lower the risk of death.