Book reviews

Theory and Practice in Medieval Persian Government. By A. K. S. Lambton. London: Variorum Reprints, 1980. 332 pp.

The Fundamental Principles and Precepts of Islamic Government. By Abolhassan Banisadr. Translated from the Persian by Mohammad R. Ghanoonparvar. Lexington, Kentucky: Mazda Publishers, 1981. xiv & 103 pp.

Islamic Calligraphy. By Yasin Hamid Safadi. Boulder: Shambhala, 1979. 142 pp.; 163 black and white plates. $8.95 paper.

Calligraphy in the Arts of the Muslim World. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979. 216 pp.; 12 color plates, 98 black and white. $25.00 cloth.     

A DIALECTICAL APPROACH TO RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PLANNING

This paper reports on the methodology and an application of a dialectical approach to research and development, planning. The methodology features a structured debate followed by argumentation analysis. The argumentation analysis in turn is followed by an assessment of the plausibility of the arguments. The application involved using the methodology to assess the level of funding for research and development for a transportation system that would employ advanced technology. The Dialectic Inquiry process, and specifically, the plausibility rating activity, were seen as valuable aids for policy analysis.     

Location Modeling Utilizing Maximum Service Distance Criteria

The location set-covering problem (LSCP) and the maximal covering location problem (MCLP) have been the subject of considerable interest. As originally defined, both problems allowed facility placement only at nodes. This paper deals with both problems for the case when facility placement is allowed anywhere on the network. Two theorems are presented that show that when facility placement is unrestricted, for either the LSCP or MCLP at least one optimal solution exists that is composed entirely of points belonging to a finite set of points called the network intersect point set (NIPS). Optimal solution approaches to the unrestricted site LSCP and MCLP problems that utilize the NIPS and previously developed solution methodologies are presented. Example solutions show that considerable improvement in the amount of coverage or the number of facilities needed to insure total coverage can be achieved by allowing facility placement along arcs of the network. In addition, extensions to the arc-covering model and the ambulance-hospital model of ReVelle, Toregas, and Falkson are developed and solved.