The following table shows observed electrical power consumption at several different levels of a factory’s operation.

Level 2 3 5 7 Power 1 3 3 5 Engineers want to fit the estimating relationship power = b0 + b1level to these data in a way that minimizes the sum of the absolute deviations between predicted and observed power requirements. Both parameters b0 and b1 should be nonnegative.

(a) Formulate a linearized nonlinear LP to choose optimal parameter values. (Hint: b0 and b1 are among the decision variables.)

(b) Enter and solve your model with the class optimization software.

(c) Determine from your solution in part (b)

the absolute deviation at each observed point.