本系列丛书是以美国大学生数学建模竞赛（MCM/ICM）赛题为主要研究对象，结合竞赛特等奖的优秀论文，对相关的问题进行解析与研究。本辑针对2015年MCM/ICM竞赛的4个题目：Control Ebola virus outbreak、Search for a missing aircraft lost in the open sea、Manage human capital in organizations以及Create a sustainable world进行了解析与研究。本书由美国资深建模教师编写，由于参赛论文需要用英语书写，同时考虑到不同层次读者的需要，故本书为英文呈现。读者在学习建模方法的同时，可以了解美国建模教师对问题的理解。

本书内容新颖、实用性强，可作为指导学生参加美国大学生数学建模竞赛的主讲教材，也可作为本科生、研究生学习和准备全国大学生、研究生数学建模竞赛的参考书，同时也可供研究相关问题的教师和研究生参考使用。

Front Matter
1 Eradicating Ebola
  1.1 Problem Description
  1.2 Outstanding Winners
  1.3 Previous Work
   1.3.1 The SIR model
   1.3.2 Clustering
   1.3.3 Technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution
  1.4 Modeling the Situation
   1.4.1 Approaching the problem
   1.4.2 Assumptions
   1.4.3 Modeling the spread of Ebola
   1.4.4 Amount of medicine
   1.4.5 Delivering the medicine
   1.4.6 Manufacturing the medicine
   1.4.7 Other factors
  1.5 Sensitivity Analysis
  1.6 Strengths and Weaknesses
  1.7 Comments
  Exercises
  References
2 Searching for A Lost Plane
  2.1 Problem Description
  2.2 Outstanding Winners
  2.3 Previous Work
   2.3.1 Air France Flight 447
   2.3.2 Searching for AF447
   2.3.3 Finding AF447
  2.4 Modeling the Situation
   2.4.1 Approaching the problem
   2.4.2 Assumptions
   2.4.3 Determining a search region
   2.4.4 Determining an initial PDF
   2.4.5 Search probabilities
   2.4.6 Search strategy
   2.4.7 Search time
  2.5 Sensitivity Analysis
  2.6 Strengths and Weaknesses
  2.7 Comments
  Exercises
  References
3 Using Networks to Model Human Capital Within Organizations
  3.1 Problem Description
  3.2 How to Approach the Problem
   3.2.1 Building a network model
   3.2.2 Dynamic processes
   3.2.3 Measurements and metrics
  3.3 Outstanding Winners
  3.4 Static Modeling of the Human Capital Network
   3.4.1 Assumptions
   3.4.2 Approach 1: Rule-driven assignment
   3.4.3 Approach 2: Multi-layer connected networks
   3.4.4 Approach 3: Using genetic algorithms to assign people to positions
  3.5 Dynamic Human Capital Network Modeling
   3.5.1 Assumptions
   3.5.2 Developing attributes for nodes
   3.5.3 Modeling churn
   3.5.4 Modeling promotion and recruitment
  3.6 Metrics and Results
  3.7 Sensitivity Analysis
  3.8 Strengths and Weaknesses
  3.9 Comments
  Exercises
  References
4 Sustainable Society
  4.1 Problem Description
  4.2 How to Approach the Problem
  4.3 Outstanding Winners
  4.4 Approach 1: Ecological-Economic Tradeoff Model
   4.4.1 Sustainability model
   4.4.2 A 20-year plan for Zambia
   4.4.3 Evaluating the 20-year plan
   4.4.4 Sensitivity analysis
  4.5 Approach 2: Entropy-GE Matrix Model
   4.5.1 Sustainability model
   4.5.2 Forecast model
   4.5.3 Modified forecast model with control
   4.5.4 Sustainable development activities
   4.5.5 Congo 20-year sustainability plan
   4.5.6 External effects
   4.5.7 Stability analysis
  4.6 Comments
  Exercises
  References
5 Math Modeling in Cutting-Edge Research Problems
  5.1 Problem Description
  5.2 Problem Formulation
  5.3 Modeling of Topic Discovery
   5.3.1 The simplest model
   5.3.2 A simple model with latent distributions
   5.3.3 A mixture model
   5.3.4 Latent semantic analysis
   5.3.5 Probabilistic LSA
   5.3.6 Latent Dirichlet Allocation
  5.4 Application of Labeled LDA: News Classifications
   5.4.1 Labeled LDA
   5.4.2 LLDA news classifiers
   5.4.3 Experiments
  5.5 Closing Remarks
  Exercises
  References
Appendix Dirichlet Distribution
  1 Beta distribution
  2 Beta is conjugate prior to binomial
  3 Dirichlet Distribution
  4 Dirichlet is conjugate prior to multinomial
  Exercises
Index
图书清单

王杰，美国马萨诸塞大学罗威尔分校计算机系系主任，教授。Jay Belanger,美国杜鲁门州立大学教授。