OR/MS Today articles from February 2004

OR/MS Today archives from February 2004

Not the usual suspect.(INSIDE STORY)
February 1, 2004... Every year, U.S. New & World Report ranks the top colleges and universities in the country. The magazine offers a smorgasbord of rankings, including private schools, public schools, doctorate and master's programs, liberal arts colleges,...

Academic/practitioner cooperation, Part 1: why is it important? Why is it hard?(PRESIDENT'S DESK)(INFORMS)
February 1, 2004... Given my campaign statement when I ran for INFORMS president-elect, it should come as no surprise that the first of my presidential columns deals with academic/practitioner cooperation. I believe it to be a strategic issue of great importance...

The state of IOL.(INFORMS Online)
February 1, 2004... This column is the first of my second term as IOL editor in chief, so it seems like an appropriate time to bring you up to date on the state of IOL and our plans for the near future. Our mission remains unchanged from when I began my first...

The internet of small things: RFID and EPC.(CYBERSPACE)(Radio Frequency Identification)(Electronic Product Code)
February 1, 2004... Ammu had an elaborate Calcutta wedding. Later, looking back on the day, Ammu realized that the slightest feverish glitter in her bridegroom's eyes had not been love, or even excitement at the prospect of carnal bliss, but...

Drafts, Dynasties and Dance Cards.(ISSUES IN EDUCATION)
February 1, 2004... A lot of our students love sports. Regrettably, many are terrified of quantitative problems. Enhancing a student's analytical problem-solving skills while capitalizing on their inherent interest in sports would seem like a worthy objective. ...

Riled up over ROI.(WAS ITSOMETHING I SAID?)(return on investment)
February 1, 2004... So I just finished up a research paper and sent it off to Interfaces the other day. The paper describes some recent consulting work that I am extremely proud of. The definition of the problem, the development of the solution, and the...

The weakest link: new study quantifies financial fallout from supply chain malfunctions.(REALWORLD)
February 1, 2004... Like the summer 2003 East Coast blackout, supply chain malfunctions may not happen often, but when they do, the repercussions are costly and widespread. A shortage of parts or other production and supply problems that delay production and...

Study: women underrepresented in sciences at top universities.(REALWORLD)
February 1, 2004... A new study confirms what many academicians have long suspected: women remain underrepresented on science and engineering faculty at the nation's top 50 research universities despite the fact that a growing number of women are earning...

Andrew (Andy) Vazsonyi: 1916-2003; Operations research/management science pioneer, educator, researcher, illustrator and author helped shape profession.(IN MEMORIAM)
February 1, 2004... Dr. Andrew Vazsonyi, a founder of The Institute of Management Sciences and pioneer in the application of OR/MS in industry and business, died Nov. 13, 2003 in Santa Rosa, Calif. Andy, to all who knew him, was a mathematician by training and...

'Better' campaign doesn't go far enough: promotion is fine, but the profession needs to build a better OR/MS product with more emphasis on "operations" and "management".(FORUM)
February 1, 2004... THE CENTRAL TOPIC OF THE DECEMBER 2003 ISSUE OF OR/MS TODAY WAS THE MARKETING campaign for the OR/MS profession, a campaign that touts OR/MS as the "The Science of Better" [1]. Any such public relations initiative can only be welcomed, but most...

The 'center' of attention: founded as an ad-hoc program by Philip Morse, the Operations Research Center at MIT prepares to celebrate 50 years at the top of the class of OR grad school education.
February 1, 2004... THE LARGEST AND ARGUABLY THE BEST AND MOST influential university graduate operations research program in the country doesn't offer a single course. It has no faculty. Heck, it's not even an academic department. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

Does OR hold the keys to the White House? The 2004 presidential election: do long-term patterns dictate the outcome? Quantitative historian Allan Lichtman uses OR techniques to predict elections.
February 1, 2004... THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN IS IN FULL SWING, and the outcome is very much up in the air--or is it? At least a couple of analysts, using OR/MS techniques, claim they have models and information that cut through irrelevant data and focus on the...

Insight 2.0: new edition of Sam Savage's Excel add-ins for uncertainty modeling and accompanying book earn high marks for teaching management science.(SOFTWAREREVIEW)
February 1, 2004... SAM SAVAGE IS KNOWN AS ONE OF THE FATHERS of the spreadsheet movement in management science. He developed the prize-winning spreadsheet optimization software What'sBest! back in the 1980s when most OR practitioners still solved their...

Northern exposure: CORS/INFORMS International Meeting in Banff offers unmatched mix of science and sightseeing.(INFORMS NEWS)
February 1, 2004... At what elevation does an elk become a moose? How do the elk know they're supposed to cross at the "Elk Crossing" signs? How far is Banff from Canada? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Those are some of the queries posed by visitors to Canada's...

Aviation Applications.(Doctoral Dissertation Award to Milind G. Sohoni)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Doctoral Dissertation Award: The Aviation Applications Section presented the 2003 Best Dissertation Prize to Milind G. Sohoni of Georgia Institute of Technology for the thesis, "A Robust Optimization Approach to Reserve Crew Manpower Planning...

Computing Society.(INFORMS Computing Society awarded the 2003 ICS Prize for research excellence to Ignacio Grossmann)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... ICS Prize: The INFORMS Computing Society awarded the 2003 ICS Prize for research excellence in the interface between operations research and computer science to Ignacio Grossmann for his many contributions to nonlinear mixed integer programming...

Decision analysis.(SUBDIVISION AWARDS)
February 1, 2004... Practice Award: The Practice Award was given to William Klimack, director, ORCEN, Department of Systems Engineering, United States Military Academy, and Jack M. Kloeber Jr., U.S. Army (Retired), Portfolio Management, J & J PRD, for their...

Health Applications.(Pierskalla Best Paper Award)(Bonder Scholarship for Applied Operations Research in Health Applications)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Pierskalla Best Paper Award: The Health Applications Section presented the Pierskalla Best Paper Award to H. Edwin Romeijn, Ravindra K. Ahuja, James F. Dempsey and Arvind Kumar for their paper, "A Column Generation Approach To Radiation Therapy...

Location Analysis.(Monica Gentili receives Dissertation Award)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Dissertation Award: The United Parcel Service in conjunction with the Section on Location Analysis presented the first-place 2003 Dissertation Award to Monica Gentili of the Universita Di Roma, Italy, for the dissertation, "New Models and...

Manufacturing and Service Operations Management.(SUBDIVISION AWARDS)
February 1, 2004... Student Paper Competition: The Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Society presented the 2003 Student Paper Competition first-place award to Amar Sapra for the paper, "The Martingale Evolution of Price Forecasts in a Market for...

Military Applications.(Koopman Prize)(J. Steinhardt Prize)(Bonder Scholarship for Applied Operations Research in Military Applications)
February 1, 2004... Koopman Prize: Edward H. Kaplan, David L. Craft and Lawrence M. Wein received the 2002 Koopman for their outstanding paper titled, "Emergency Response to a Smallpox Attack: the Case for Mass Vaccination." The Prize was named after Bernard...

Optimization.(2003 Optimization Prize for Young Researchers goes to Tim Roughgarden )(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Optimization Prize for Young Researchers: The Optimization Section presented the 2003 Optimization Prize for Young Researchers to Tim Roughgarden for his paper "The Price of Anarchy is Independent of the Network Topology." Roughgarden's paper...

Organization Science.(SUBDIVISION AWARDS)
February 1, 2004... Dissertation Proposal Competition: Minyuan Zhao of the Stern School of Business, New York University, earned first-place honors in the 2003 Organization Science Dissertation Proposal Competition for the dissertation proposal, "Essays on...

Quality, Statistics and Reliability.(Hong Wan wins the 2003 Best Student Paper Award )(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Best Student Paper Award: The Quality, Statistics and Reliability Section honored Hong Wan with the 2003 Best Student Paper Award in recognition of the paper, "Controlled Sequential Bifurcation: A New Factor-Screening Method for Discrete-Event...

Railroad Applications.(student competition awards)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Management Science in Railroad Applications Student Competition Award: The Rail Applications Special Interest Group in conjunction with Railway Age awarded first place in the 2003 Management Science in Railroad Applications Student Competition...

Technology Management.(section presents awards for best dissertation and distinguished speaker)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Best Dissertation Award: The Technology Management Section presented the 2003 Best Dissertation Award to Arvids A. Ziedonis of the University of California at Berkeley for the thesis, "The Commercialization of University Technology:...

Transportation Science and Logistics.(SUBDIVISION AWARDS)
February 1, 2004... Robert Herman Lifetime Achievement Award: (see box on page 54.). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Best Paper Award: The TSL Section presented the Best Paper award in Transportation Science and Logistics to Andrew Armacost, Cynthia Barnhart and...

Boyce earns TSL's Lifetime Achievement Award.(Transportation Science and Logistics Section rewards David E. Boyce)(Biography)
February 1, 2004... The Transportation Science and Logistics Section of INFORMS awarded the 2003 Robert Herman Lifetime Achievement Award to David E. Boyce for his important and continued contributions to the field of transportation science and his unrelenting...

Moving Spirit commendations 2003.(Moving Spirit Awards to Allen Holder and Donald Bates)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Allen Holder and Donald Bates received Moving Spirit Awards from the INFORMS Subdivision Committee at the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Atlanta. The award recognizes Chapter volunteers who have made significant contributions to their local...

CIST salutes best papers.(Conference on Information Systems & Technology)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... The following papers were honored at the 8th Annual INFORMS Conference on Information Systems & Technology (CIST), held in conjunction with the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Atlanta. Best Conference Paper Award: Robert J. Kauffman,...

Robert L. Smith.(Robert L. Smith is recipient of professorship at School of Engineering)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Robert L. Smith, engineering professor at The University of Michigan, recently became the first recipient of the Altarum/ERIM Russell D. O'Neal Professorship of Engineering. The endowed professorship is one of the highest honors that the...

David Murray Ryan.(elected Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... David Murray Ryan, a professor of operations research in the Engineering Science Department at the University of Auckland, was one of 13 scientists elected Fellows of the Royal Society of New Zealand. The prestigious science academy selects...

Jan Karel Lenstra.(delivered the 2003 IFORS Distinguished Lecture at the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences Fall Meeting)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Jan Karel Lenstra delivered the 2003 IFORS Distinguished Lecture during the INFORMS Fall Meeting in Atlanta. In 1999, IFORS established a special program, called IFORS Distinguished Lectures, to recognize distinguished OR scholars and analysts...

Symposium to honor NIST's Witzgall.(PEOPLE)
February 1, 2004... After a long and distinguished career, Dr. Christoph Witzgall retired from the Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, Md., in October. In honor of his...

In memoriam: Patricia Thornton.(Obituary)
February 1, 2004... Patricia Thornton, director of public relations for The Institute of Management Sciences (TIMS) from 1987-1993, died Nov. 3, 2003 in Providence, R.I. She was 74. Mrs. Thornton was instrumental in setting up the foundation for the...

Meetings.(Calendar)
February 1, 2004... INFORMS Meetings 2004 April 25-27 INFORMS Conference on OR/MS Practice Applying Science to the Art of Business Hyatt Regency Cambridge, Mass. Chair: Grace Lin, IBM Business Consulting Services ...

The Basic George B. Dantzig.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2004... George B. Dantzig, widely known as the father of linear programming, has been a major influence in mathematics, operations research and economics. Now professor emeritus at Stanford University, he continues his decades of research on linear...

Distributed Decision Making, Second Edition.(by Christoph A. Schneeweiss)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2004... Distributed decision making has become of increasing importance in quantitative decision analysis. In applications like supply chain management, service operations or managerial accounting, DDM has led to a paradigm shift. This book provides a...

Handbook of Human Systems Integration.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2004... Human systems integration (HIS) is rapidly emerging as a new discipline designed to migrate business and engineering cultures toward a more people-technology orientation. Over the past decade, the United States and foreign governments have...

Handbook of Operations Research and Health Care.(NEW BOOKS)
February 1, 2004... The decision technologies, tools and theories of operations research and management sciences have long been applied to a wide range of issues and problems within health care. To date, however, there has been no single handbook that synthesizes...

Monte Carlo Methods in Financial Engineering.(NEW BOOKS)
February 1, 2004... Monte Carlo simulation has become an essential tool in the pricing of derivative securities and in risk management. These applications have, in turn, simulated research into new Monte Carlo methods and renewed interest in some older techniques....

Community Operational Research.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2004... This book sets out the current concerns of community operational research and explores new possibilities for its development. Leading community OR writers with international reputations in operational research and systems, have contributed...

New Efficiency Theory.(NEW BOOKS)
February 1, 2004... New efficiency theory refers to the various parametric and semi-parametric methods of estimating production and cost frontiers, which include data envelopment analysis (DEA) with its diverse applications to management science and operations...

Quantitative Methods in Project Management.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2004... This unique reference provides the basis for calculating project value and setting up the metrics that will be measures of success. It also helps project managers understand the numerical values of risks to be addressed. Written for project...

Multiobjective Optimization: Principles and Case Studies.(NEW BOOKS)
February 1, 2004... From whatever domain they come, engineers are faced daily with optimization problems that require conflicting objectives to be met. This monograph presents several multiobjective optimization methods accompanied by many analytical examples....

Marketing Research and Modeling.(Linear Programming: Methods and Applications, 5th ed.)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2004... This book addresses state-of-the-art developments including new techniques and methodologies by leading experts in marketing and marketing research. This work emphasizes new developments in Bayesian decision analysis, multivariate analysis,...

GoldSim Technology goes independent.(GoldSim Technology Group LLC)(Industry Updates)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... GoldSim Technology Group LLC, formerly a division of Golder Associates, an international group of engineering consulting firms, has spun out to form an independent software company. The new company will continue to focus on providing...

Palisade releases StatTools.(Palisade Corporation)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Palisade Corporation announced the release of StatTools. Under development at the company for two years, StatTools is a complete statistics toolset for Excel users. It includes not only 36 of the most commonly used statistical procedures, but...

TK Solver 5.0 offers enhanced features.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
February 1, 2004... TK Solver 5.0, one of the industry's longest-standing mathematical equation solvers from Universal Technical Systems, Inc., is an equation solver and declarative programming environment all in one. TK Solver 5.0 solves simultaneous equations...

Boeing, NVIDIA become OptTek customers.(Boeing Co.)(NVIDIA Corp.)(OptTek Systems, Inc.)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... The Boeing Company and NVIDIA Corporation recently became customers of OptTek Systems, Inc. Both customers are licensing OptTek's OptQuest optimization software to support highly sophisticated projects and activities internal to their...

Wolfram releases Mathematica 5 and gridMathematica.(Wolfram Research Inc.)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Wolfram Research continues to provide advanced technical computing options for the latest and most-advanced microprocessor systems with the release of Mathematica 5 and gridMathematica for Linux on AMD64. As a reflection of Wolfram Research's...

Data Mining cluster.
February 1, 2004... The Data Mining (DM) Section of INFORMS is organizing its first official cluster of sessions during the 2004 INFORMS Annual Conference in Denver on Oct. 24-27. DM is an interdisciplinary section for professionals in engineering and...

Conference on Ad-Hoc Networks & Wireless.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... The 3rd Annual International Conference on Ad-Hoc Networks & Wireless (ADHOC-NOW'04) will be held July 22-24 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Conference organizers are interested in work in progress, experimental and theoretical...

Asian Applied Computing Conference.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... The Asian Applied Computing Conference (AACC) will be held Oct. 29-31 in Kathmandu, Nepal. The focus of the Asian Applied Computing Conference is primarily to bring the research in computer science closer to practical applications. The...

Rush Limbaugh's parable.(ORacle)
February 1, 2004... "Wow! That was some Super Bowl!" the OR/MS analyst exclaimed as the game winning field goal ended it. "This is one time the party stayed focused on the game," his wife Anne agreed. "Even I thought it was exciting." "Great party, Don,...