OR/MS Today articles from February 2003

OR/MS Today archives from February 2003

And the survey says. (Inside Story).
February 1, 2003... Software surveys are one of the more time-consuming editorial endeavors we routinely undertake at OR/MS Today We start the process by developing a questionnaire in conjunction with our invited author/expert. We keep the questionnaire simple so...

Bullish on OR. (President's Desk).
February 1, 2003... My friend Tom Magnanti wrote in this column several years ago that "it's a wonderful profession" and I couldn't agree with him more. Whether you are in academia or practicing OR, I'm sure you must feel the same way. It has been a great 50...

Privacy (yours) and security (ours). (Information).
February 1, 2003... It is frequently said that security is a process, not a state. Security and privacy require constant attention to new threats. INFORMS staff and officers have been discussing two issues that I believe should be relayed to our members. ...

Internet: The Straight Story. (Cyberspace).
February 1, 2003... I adapted the title of this column from the award-winning 1999 David Lynch movie, "The Straight Story," based on a true story. It is about a 73-year-old man, Alvin Straight, who drives a lawnmower with a makeshift trailer more than 300 miles...

Everything I know about general management I can learn playing with legos. (Issues in Education).
February 1, 2003... Experiential games have long been used to break up the tedium and boredom present in courses that consist entirely of lectures and cases. We use the hands-on game described in this paper to bring relevance to the concepts of high performance,...

The power of teamwork. (Was It Something I Said?).
February 1, 2003... Friday: The presentation is scheduled for Tuesday. I first hear about this on Friday night when Trudy calls and quickly presents the situation: "We met today and gave them an overview. Two groups are interested in our solution, but they want a...

The secret of wealth. (Oracle).
February 1, 2003... The OR/MS analyst was comfortable, but not content. His career seemed to have reached a plateau -- or a ceiling, as he saw it. Less talented people he knew had surpassed him in their prestige and standard of living. Frustrated, he decided to...

An immodest proposal to brand the profession. (Forum).
February 1, 2003... A little more than 10 years ago, Tom Sheehan, the executive director of the American Production and Inventory Control Society (APICS), thought that the Society needed to be renamed and refocused. Without further ado, and nodding to all the...

Anti-drug efforts produce surprising results. (Real World).
February 1, 2003... School-based anti-drug programs cut the use of tobacco and alcohol use far more than they reduce the use of illegal street drugs, according to a study by a group of RAND researchers headed by INFORMS member Jonathan Caulkins. [As reported in...

A contest only an optimizer could love. (Real World).
February 1, 2003... Tired of entering contests that you never win because some shmuck with better luck always walks off with the prize? COIN-OR (Common Optimization Interface for Operations Research) is holding an Open-Source Coding Contest in which the object is...

'Cadillac' drives through witty world of numbers. (Real World).
February 1, 2003... As a teenager growing up in Budapest before World War II, Andy Vazsonyi and his close friend, Paul Erdos, were among Hungary's most promising mathematicians. While Erdos went on to become one of the 20th century's most distinguished...

Correction.
February 1, 2003... Overturned Tables in 'Paper Chase' In an article that appeared in the December 2002 issue of OR/MS Today ("Paper Chase' pgs. 34-38), authors Ravi Bapna and James Marsden compared the research productivity of quantitative/technical...

The big (data) dig: data mining analytics for business intelligence and decision support.
February 1, 2003... KNOWLEDGE DISCOVERY AND DATA MINING (KDD) TECHNIQUES are used for analyzing and discovering actionable insights from data. Today, data mining is being increasingly used and embedded in vertical solutions for business intelligence and decision...

Risky business: turbulent times focus attention on operational risk management in financial services. (Operational Risk Management).
February 1, 2003... TODAY'S TURBULENT FINANCIAL MARKETS, growing regulatory environments and increasingly complex financial systems have led risk managers to realize the importance of measuring and managing operational risk (OpRisk). According to the Basel...

More March Madness; just when you thought it was safe to play in the office NCAA basketball pool, along comes a new twist on an old gambit: optimal (?) bidding.
February 1, 2003... BETTING ON SPORTS EVENTS IS ENORMOUSLY POPULAR. Some sports, such as horse racing, would probably not continue to exist in the a absence of associated betting. In addition to standard bets on the outcomes of sporting vents, friendly "pool"...

Forecasting software survey: predicting which product is right for you. (2003 Software Survey).
February 1, 2003... The analysis of time-series data permeates most arenas in business, science, social science, medicine, even sports. Movie studios chart the weekly box office returns of their films, the government monitors unemployment figures and inflation...

@Risk version 4.5 pro: Excel add-in is a valuable tool for modeling uncertain situations using spreadsheets. (Software Review).
February 1, 2003... @RISK IS A MICROSOFT EXCEL ADD-IN TO assist in the building and analysis of simulation models. It would be of interest to anyone building Monte-Carlo of discrete-event type simulation models in Excel for risk analysis or other applications....

Practice Conference to focus on mission-critical applications. (INFORMS News).
February 1, 2003... The INFORMS Practice Conference, set for May 4-6 at the Wild Horse Pass Resort & Spa in Phoenix, Ariz., will focus on applying OR strategies in mission-critical business applications. The early registration rate of $785 for members, $895 for...

Istanbul to host EURO/INFORMS Meeting. (INFORMS News).
February 1, 2003... The first EURO/INFORMS Joint International Meeting of the new millennium will be held in Istanbul from July 6-10. The theme of the conference, "New Opportunities for Operations Research," highlights potential research directions for...

What they're saying about operations research. (INFORMS News).
February 1, 2003... 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 Optimize! magazine, January 2003 (The article was...

New journal editors announce plans. (INFORMS News).
February 1, 2003... By Garrett J. van Ryzin M&SOM First, I would like to personally thank Lee Schwartz, the founding and outgoing editor in chief, for the fantastic job he has done creating the journal, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management....

Subdivision awards: the following awards were presented by subdivisions at the INFORMS Meeting in San Jose. (INFORMS News).
February 1, 2003... COLLEGE ON SIMULATION Distinguished Service Award: The INFORMS College on Simulation presented its 2002 Distinguished Service Award to David Goldsman, a professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech....

Moving Spirit Awards. (INFORMS News).
February 1, 2003... INFORMS presented Moving Spirit Awards to George Polak, Deepak Bammi and John W. Fowler for their efforts in founding, sustaining and/or reviving student and geographic chapters of INFORMS. Polak has served the Cincinnati/Dayton Informs...

In memoriam. (INFORMS News).
February 1, 2003... Vladimir Haensel Vladimir Haensel, professor emeritus of chemical engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, died Dec. 15 at the age of 88. A winner of the National Medal of Science, he had a profound impact on his profession....

Meetings. (INFORMS News).
February 1, 2003... INFORMS Meetings 2003 May 4-6 INFORMS Conference on OR/MS Practice Creating Value in the Extended Enterprise Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort & Spa Phoenix, Ariz. Chair: Grace Lin IBM T.J. Watson Research Center...

Calendar.
February 1, 2003... 2003 May 25-26 Annual meeting of ORSIS The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel The Israel OR society will hold its annual meeting under the auspices of the Department of Statistics, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem. ...

National Aviation Operations Research Center. (Industry News).
February 1, 2003... Seattle-based Preston Aviation Solutions Ltd., a Boeing Co. subsidiary that makes software for the aviation industry has entered a partnership with the National Center of Excellence for Aviation Operations Research at the University of...

GPC selects A.MAZE to optimize distribution operations. (Industry News).
February 1, 2003... GEOCOMtms, architect of the A.MAZE solution that optimizes simultaneously the routing and scheduling of fleet operations, announced that Genuine Parts Company, the leading distributor of automotive replacement parts in the United States, Canada...

New interfaces for TruckStops. (Industry News).
February 1, 2003... MicroAnalytics, Inc. announced two new interfaces for the TruckStops Routing and Scheduling Software. The new TruckStops/EZ-Locate interface is an add-on tool that offers users the ability to geocode (obtain X/Y or latitude/longitude...

Wolfram releases Neural Networks application package. (Industry News).
February 1, 2003... 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, realworld problems in engineering,...

NSF to fund development of OptFolio. (Industry News).
February 1, 2003... The National Science Foundation will fund the development of new software by OptTek Systems, Inc. aimed at improving the performance of financing and budgeting for capital projects in large commercial organizations. OptTek received...

NAG, Waterloo continue collaboration. (Industry News).
February 1, 2003... The Numerical Algorithms Group (a leading provider of mathematical and statistical algorithms) and Waterloo Maple Inc. (a leading provider of comprehensive mathematical exploration and application software for research, education and industry)...

Trust no one at the airport. (The Last Word).
February 1, 2003... It's always something. Because of Congress and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the United States at last has a world-class system of airline passenger and baggage screening. But now, TSA is embarking on questionable projects...