What you need to know before using Mosel
Before using Mosel you should be comfortable with the use of symbols such as x or y to represent unknown quantities, and the use of this sort of variable in simple linear equations and inequalities, for example:
Experience of a basic course in Mathematical or Linear Programming is worthwhile, but is not essential. Similarly some familiarity with the use of computers would be helpful.
For all but the simplest models you should also be familiar with the idea of summing over a range of variables. For example, if producej is used to represent the number of cars produced on production line j then the total number of cars produced on all N production lines can be written as:
| N |
| ∑ |
| j=1 |
This says `sum the output from each production line producej over all production lines j from j=1 to j=N'.
If our target is to produce at least 1000 cars in total then we would write the inequality:
| N |
| ∑ |
| j=1 |
We often also use a set notation for the sums. Assuming that LINES is the set of production lines {1,..,N}, we may write equivalently:
| ∑ |
| j ∈ LINES |
This may be read `sum the output from each production line producej over all production lines j in the set LINES'.
Other common mathematical symbols that are used in the text are ℕ (the set of non-negative integer numbers {0,1,2,...}), ∩ and ∪ (intersection and union of sets), ∧ and ∨ (logical `and' and `or'), the all-quantifier ∀ (read `for all'), and ∃ (read `exists').
Mosel closely mimics the mathematical notation an analyst uses to describe a problem. So provided you are happy using the above mathematical notation the step to using a modeling language will be straightforward.
© 2001-2020 Fair Isaac Corporation. All rights reserved. This documentation is the property of Fair Isaac Corporation (“FICO”). Receipt or possession of this documentation does not convey rights to disclose, reproduce, make derivative works, use, or allow others to use it except solely for internal evaluation purposes to determine whether to purchase a license to the software described in this documentation, or as otherwise set forth in a written software license agreement between you and FICO (or a FICO affiliate). Use of this documentation and the software described in it must conform strictly to the foregoing permitted uses, and no other use is permitted.