Assignment 4
Decision-making with Spreadsheet
Dr. Ramesh Anbanandam, DOMS, IITR
1. State True or False: A transportation problem with 3 sources and 4 destinations will have 7
decision variables.
a. True
b. False
Ans. b
2. Consider a shortest route problem in which a bank courier must travel between branches
and the main operations center. When represented with a network,
a. the branches are the arcs and the operations center is the node.
b. the branches are the nodes and the operations center is the source.
c. the branches and the operations center are all nodes and the streets are the arcs.
d. the branches are the network and the operations center is the node.
Ans. c
3. Which of the following is not true regarding the linear programming formulation of a
transportation problem?
a. Costs appear only in the objective function.
b. The number of variables is (number of origins) + (number of destinations).
c. The number of constraints is (number of origins) × (number of destinations).
d. The constraints' left-hand side coefficients are either 0 or 1.
ANS: c
4. For a portfolio selection problem with the objective of maximizing expected return, the
dual price for the available funds constraint provides information about the
a. proportion of the portfolio that is invested in a particular investment type
b. return from additional investment funds
c. degree of portfolio diversification that is optimal
d. cost of an additional unit of a particular investment type
Ans. b
5. To develop a portfolio that provides the best return possible with a minimum risk, the
linear programming model will have an objective function which
a. minimizes the maximum risk.
b. minimizes total risk.
c. maximizes return and minimizes risk.
d. maximizes the minimum return.
Ans. d
6. State True or False: The shortest-route problem is a special case of the transshipment
problem.
a. True
b. False
Ans. a
7. The objective of the transportation problem is to
a. identify one origin that can satisfy total demand at the destinations and at the same time
minimize total shipping cost.
b. minimize the number of origins used to satisfy total demand at the destinations.
c. minimize the number of shipments necessary to satisfy total demand at the destinations.
d. minimize the cost of shipping products from several origins to several destinations.
Ans. d
8. The assignment problem constraint x31 + x32 + x33 + x34 <= 2 means
a. agent 3 can be assigned to 2 tasks.
b. agent 2 can be assigned to 3 tasks.
c. a mixture of agents 1, 2, 3, and 4 will be assigned to tasks.
d. there is no feasible solution.
ANS: a
9. The difference between the transportation and assignment problems is that
a. total supply must equal total demand in the transportation problem
b. the number of origins must equal the number of destinations in the transportation problem
c. each supply and demand value is 1 in the assignment problem
d. there are many differences between the transportation and assignment problems
Ans. c
10. Which of the following is not true regarding an LP model of the assignment problem?
a. Costs appear in the objective function only.
b. All constraints are of the >= form.
c. All constraint left-hand side coefficient values are 1.
d. All decision variable values are either 0 or 1.
ANS: b