But again, the article is so hand-wavy that I could be totally off base. I'm not really sure what you're trying to accomplish, but some problems are amenable to linear programming.

The use of linear programming to select diets to meet specific nutritional requirements frequently results in an over-supply of certain nutrients. Nutritional balance is difficult to achieve in diets ...

Mokhtar S. Bazaraa, Aziz Bouzaher, A Linear Goal Programming Model for Developing Economies with an Illustration from the Agricultural Sector in Egypt, Management Science, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Apr., 1981), ...

Input data requirements include (1) physical and economic characteristics of the system; (2) prioritized policy goals; and (3) parameters for automatic linearization. RiverWare automatically generates ...

Formulate linear and integer programming problems for solving commonly encountered optimization problems. Understand how approximation algorithms compute solutions that are guaranteed to be within ...