Expert: Richard J. Raridon - 11/28/2010

Question
how do i set these problems up in order to solve them?

Question 1
the waputi indians make woven blankets, rugs, and skirts.  each blanket requires 24 hours for spinning the yarn, 4hours for dyeing the yarn, and 15 hours for weaving.  rugs require 30, 5, and 18 hours and skirts 12,3, and 9 hours, respectively.  if there are 306, 59, and 201 hours available for spinning, dyeing, and weaving, respectively, how many of eah item can be made?

question 2: linear programming:
certain laboratory animals must have at least 30 grams of protein and at least 20 grams of fat per feeding period.  these nutrients come from food A, which costs 18 cents per unit and supplies 2 grams of protein and 4 of fat; and food B which costs 12 cents per unit and has 6 grams of protein and 2 of fat.  food B is bought under a long-term contract requiring that at least 2 units of B be used per serving.  how much of each food must be bought to produce the minimum cost per serving?  i got the series of equation: 45x + 35y = 51,750, 22.5x + 23.3y = 30,600.  i dont know if this is correct.

3. series of equation:  an apparel shop sells skirts for $45 and blouses for $35.  its entire stock is worth $57,750.  but sales are slow and only half the skirts and two-thirds of blouses are sold for a total of $30,600.  how many skirts and blouses are left in the store?

thanks.

Answer
I passed your questions along to the general pool since I wasn't sure about the first two.  For no. 3,
Let S = no. of skirts origionally and B = no. of blouses origionally
so 45S +35B = 57750 and (1/2)(45S) +(2/3)(35B) = 30600
You would expect S and B to be whole numbers but in this case they are not.  I suspect that $57,750 or $30,600 is not correct.