OR/MS Today articles from December 2002

OR/MS Today archives from December 2002

A record meeting. (Inside Story).
December 1, 2002... INFORMS threw a party for itself in San Jose, Calif., in November and nearly 3,000 of its closest friends showed up. The Institute's national meeting drew 2,732 registrants, 86 guests and 108 exhibitor representatives. The grand total of...

An educational experience. (President's Desk).
December 1, 2002... It is hard to believe that my year as president is almost over. It certainly has been an educational experience. I have learned a lot about people and organizations and, while I am not quite ready to tackle the Iraq situation, I think I am a...

Four years of IT progress. (Informs Online).
December 1, 2002... For the past four years, I have served as INFORMS' vice president for Information Technology. This is the last column I will write while serving in that capacity, though my term as editor of INFORMS Online (and as author of this column) has at...

A thousand years of archives. (Cyberspace).
December 1, 2002... I am sure you found the last issue of OR/MS Today (October 2002) celebrating 50 years of operations research delightful. Now imagine a similar issue a hundred years from now (in the year 2102), a thousand years from now (year 3002), even ten...

The keys to the vault: equipping business students with the knowledge to use management science. (Issues in Education).
December 1, 2002... For the business school management science course to thrive, students need to know how to apply what we teach them. Business school deans -- as well as their students and alumni - have no interest in courses that only prepare students to...

The trouble with data. (Was It Something I Said?).
December 1, 2002... Item: In the aftermath of Sept. 11, many OR/MS people were eager to help. Surely our skills and experience would make us welcome allies in any response to this national tragedy. Please, put us to work to help our country; be it a Manhattan...

A modest proposal. (Oracle).
December 1, 2002... There were smiles around the long, massive conference table in the walnut-panelled, thick-carpeted conference room. The dean's advisory committee had finished their meeting eager to pursue a new fund-raising effort, recruit more industry...

Help needed to update the PE exam in Industrial Engineering. (Real World).
December 1, 2002... The Professional Engineering exam in Industrial Engineering is being updated to better reflect the professional activities practiced today. The current task involves defining the skills and knowledge areas required of a practicing industrial...

Carnegie Mellon Wins Case Competition. (Real World).
December 1, 2002... A team of four MBA students from Carnegie Mellon University won the 2002 International Operations Management Case Competition held in November on the Carnegie Mellon campus. The tournament pitted teams from 18 of the top MBA programs in the...

Hewlett-Packard receives INFORMS Prize. (Real World).
December 1, 2002... The 2002 INFORMS Prize was awarded to Hewlett-Packard (HP) for its "extensive use of operations research and management science technologies across its value chain." The INFORMS Prize, last awarded in 1999, honors organizations for their...

Anti-drug advertising works. (Real Work).
December 1, 2002... An egg sizzles in a frying pan as the viewer is told, "This is your brain on drugs." That vivid image was used during a successful anti-drug television campaign created by The Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA) to change societal...

Praise for practice: roundtable members celebrate 20 years of history. (Real World).
December 1, 2002... The 1970s was a period of considerable angst for the OR/MS profession, one in which ORSA and TIMS were seen by many as becoming increasingly disconnected from the world of practice. In 1981, then-TIMS President-Elect Art Geoffrion set out to...

In defense of Smart People. (Lettersto the Editor).(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2002... Challenging Conventional Wisdom To the eidtor: Andrew Boyd's Forum piece ("Me Smart People Overrated?" OR/MS Today, October 2002) is fraught with ''conventional wisdom'' that deserves to be challenged. The scenarios fail to...

Operations research in a New Era of national security: secretary of the Air Force James G. Roche (above) critiques recent military OR practices and issues a challenge to "reinvigorate" the discipline.
December 1, 2002... SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE JAMES G. ROCHE DELIVERED THE Omega Rho Distinguished Lecture at the INFORMS Annual Meeting in San Jose, Calif., in November. Secretary Roche holds a master's degree in operations research from the U.S. Naval...

Demand for recasting today.
December 1, 2002... DEMAND FORECASTING is a well-studied topic, and most techniques used in practice today are relatively mature. There are many commercial software packages for forecasting (12), ranging from stand-alone, specialized packages to modules in...

The paper chase: comparing the research productivity of quantitative/technical departments in schools of business.
December 1, 2002... DURING THE LAST TWO DECADES, AS INFORMATION SYSTEMS/INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY developed in importance within business schools, a variety of department structures emerged. While in some cases, a new focused department was created to house IS/IT, a...

Preaching what he practices: the selling of OR; incoming INFORMS President Tam Cook to focus on marketing the profession and educating consumers. (Question & Answer).
December 1, 2002... AS THIS HISTORIC YEAR FOR INFORMS COMES TO a close, many within the OR/MS community are "celebrating 50 years of operations research" by pausing to look back at the profession's many achievements and the people who made them possible (see OR/MS...

May 4-6 in Phoenix practice meeting boasts strong line-up of speakers and sessions.
December 1, 2002... Corporate executives from Dell Computer, General Motors, Merrill Lynch, Hewlett-Packard, Manugistics, IBM and other leading companies are featured speakers for INFORMS 2003 conference on OR/MS practice. With a theme of "Creating Value in the...

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (People).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Arnold Barnett recently received the President's Citation for "outstanding service on behalf of safety" from the Flight Safety Foundation. Barnett, the George Eastman Professor of Management Science at Massachusetts Institute of...

Operations Management Group. (People).(University of Texas at Dallas)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Kathryn E. Stecke has taken a position as a full professor of Operations Management in the School of Management at the University of Texas at Dallas. The Operations Management Group is part of the Information Systems/Operations Management Area,...

In memoriam: Keith Uncapher.
December 1, 2002... Computer scientist Keith Uncapher, 80, whose pioneering research and development on computer networking helped lay the foundation for the Internet, died Oct. 10 in Los Angeles. Uncapher founded the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at...

What they are saying about OR. (Informs News).
December 1, 2002... Recent articles in the press examine the INFORMS annual meeting and the contributions made by operations researchers. Following are excerpts from selected articles and interviews. From UPI Science News, Nov. 19: A leading authority on...

Informs bestows Kimball Medals on Kirkwood, Larson, Lilien. (San Jose Award Presentations).
December 1, 2002... Professors Craig W. Kirkwood of Arizona State University, Richard C. Larson of MIT and Gary L. Lilien of Penn State University -- three stalwarts of the operations research community whose service to the Institute and the profession extends...

President's award winner Kaplan tries to 'make the world a better place'. (San Jose Award Presentations).
December 1, 2002... Edward Kaplan, who spent more than 15 years developing methods for evaluating policies to manage the AIDS epidemic and more recently turned his attention to bioterror policy modeling, received the 2002 INFORMS President's Award at the INFORMS...

Keeney, Raiffa pen the 'Write' Stuff. (San Jose Award Presentations).
December 1, 2002... Ralph Keeney and Howard Raiffa received the 2002 INFORMS Expository Writing Award for their publications in operations research and the management sciences that have set an exemplary standard of exposition. Prize Committee Member Matthew...

Iglehart, Derman win von Neumann Prize. (San Jose Award Presentations).
December 1, 2002... The 2002 John von Neumann Theory Prize was awarded to Donald L. Iglehart and Cyrus Derman for their "fundamental contributions to performance analysis and optimization of stochastic systems." The prize, presented by committee chair Arthur...

Ryan educates, inspires OR/MS practitioners. (San Jose Award Presentations).
December 1, 2002... David M. Ryan, professor of operations research at the University of Auckland, was presented the INFORMS Prize for the Teaching of OR/MS Practice, for "inspiring and educating a generation of successful OR/MS practitioners in New Zealand and...

Dantzig Dissertation Award. (San Jose Award Presentations).
December 1, 2002... Daniela Pucci de Farias of Stanford University won the George B. Dantzig Dissertation Award for her dissertation, "The Linear Programming Approach to Approximate Dynamic Programming: Theory and Application." The award, named for the "Father of...

Informs honors longtime editor. (San Jose Award Presentations).
December 1, 2002... Samuel J. Raff, the founding editor of the international journal Computers and Operations Research who stayed on the job for more than 30 years, received a special "Recognition of Service Award" from the INFORMS Board. Saul Gass, who made...

Worldwide or community salutes golden anniversary. (San Jose Award Presentations).
December 1, 2002... Well-wishers from the worldwide OR community sent letters marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Operations Research Society of America. (ORSA merged with TIMS in 1995 to create INFORMS). The letters were collected by former ORSA...

INFORMS honors inaugural 'Fellows'. (San Jose Award Presentations).
December 1, 2002... An impressive cast of Nobel Laureates, National Academy of Science and National Academy of Engineering members, and ORSA, TIMS and INFORMS past presidents and honorees -- 113 of the profession's best and brightest -- comprise the inaugural...

INFORMS meetings.
December 1, 2002... 2003 Jan. 8-10 8th INFORMS Computing Society Conference Sheraton San Marcos Chandler, Ariz. Chair: Nong Ye Arizona State University PO Box 875906 Tempe, AZ 85287 www.ebrc.psu.edu/ics2003/ May 4-6...

Calendar.
December 1, 2002... 2003 March 12-14 DIMACS WorkIng Group Meeting DIMACS Center, CoRE Building, Rutgers University, Piscataway, N.J. Vast quantities of molecular data are becoming available, and there is a need to provide efficient computer...

Lindo API: linear, quadratic, MIP callable library is a useful tool for OR/MS practitioners who write their own computer code. (Software Review).
December 1, 2002... THE AVERAGE OPTIMIZATION SOFTWARE reviewed in OR/MS Today has two parts: the graphical user interface (GUI) and the mathematical engine. UNDO Application Programming Interface (API) is solely an engine that has been purposely separated from the...

Handbook of Transportation Science, Second Edition. (New Book).
December 1, 2002... Over the past 35 years, a substantial amount of theoretical and empirical scholarly research has been developed across the discipline domains of transportation. This research has been synthesized into a systematic handbook that examines the...

Tools for Thinking: Modelling in Management Science, Second Edition. (New Books).
December 1, 2002... Thinking things through is easier said than done, but there are tools that can help decision-making. Writing from over 25 years' experience as a management teacher and consultant, Mike Pidd provides the tools for thinking that will help us to...

Advanced Modeling for Transit Operations and Service Planning. (New Book).
December 1, 2002... While public transport or transit systems have been in existence much longer than road traffic systems, the mathematical analysis techniques necessary for proper transit planning and operations have lagged far behind that of road traffic...

To Queue or not to Queue: Equilibrium Behavior in Queueing Systems. (New Book).
December 1, 2002... This book focuses on the practical viewpoint of customer behavior and its effect on the performance of the queueing system. The book's objectives are threefold: to provide a comprehensive survey of the literature on equilibrium behavior of...

Imagine That, Inc. releases Extend v6. (Industry News).
December 1, 2002... Imagine That, Inc. announced the release of Extend v6, the latest version of its simulation software. The new release delivers several new features along with enhanced interface, high-performing modeling and advanced analysis tools. Extend...

Optiant wins Technology award. (Industry News).
December 1, 2002... Optiant, Inc. won IndustryWeek's coveted Technology of the Year award for its PowerChain suite of supply chain design and inventory optimization applications. PowerChain is the a customer-proven strategic inventory planning solution that...

HPCVL, NAG partnership to boost research. (Industry News).
December 1, 2002... The High Performance Computing Virtual Laboratory (HPCVL) and the Numerical Algorithms Group, Inc. (NAG) announced a partnership that will bring the renowned NAG Parallel, SMP and other NAG numerical and statistical libraries to Canadian...

Axioma, Morgan Stanley make a deal. (Industry News).
December 1, 2002... Axioma Inc., a leading provider of optimization software, has entered into a strategic agreement with Morgan Stanley to provide solutions for portfolio management in the financial services industry. As part of the alliance, Morgan Stanley's...

Systat v10.2 offers expanded regression suite. (Industry News).
December 1, 2002... Systat Software Inc., a developer and supplier of statistical and data analysis tools, announced the release of SYSTAT version 10.2. SYSTAT Version 10.2 has expanded its regression suite by including rank and ridge regression routines. Rank...

Wolfram unveils new Neural Networks package. (Industry News).
December 1, 2002... The new Neural Networks application package from Wolfram Research provides a robust environment for modeling data structures. Artificial neural networks have revolutionized the way researchers solve complex, real-world problems in engineering,...