Request Username
Can't sign in? Forgot your username?
Enter your email address below and we will send you your username
INFORMS Journal Highlights from October 2017
AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT
EBRU K. BISH
“There are many established infections, such as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis viruses — as well as many emerging infections — that are transmittable through blood transfusion. In fact, the American Association of Blood Banks has a large set of emerging infections on their current “watch list.” Therefore, an effective donated blood screening policy can save lives and improve health outcomes. However, for many emerging infections, disease dynamics and prevalence rates are highly uncertain, and there is a lack of understanding of optimal screening policies.... Stochastic optimization modeling and methodologies can prove to be very useful for many problems arising in public policy and healthcare systems, and optimal policies can make a big difference on the safety of healthcare delivery.”Read Erbu's Latest Article
“Robust Postdonation Blood Screening Under Prevalence Rate Uncertainty”
in Operations Research
More by this Author
Disease Bundling or Specimen Bundling? Cost- and Capacity-Efficient Strategies for Multidisease Testing with Genetic Assays
Novel Pooling Strategies for Genetic Testing, with Application to Newborn Screening
Optimal Genetic Screening for Cystic Fibrosis
Static Risk-Based Group Testing Schemes Under Imperfectly Observable Risk
Optimal Group Testing: Structural Properties and Robust Solutions, with Application to Public Health Screening
Member, Health Applications Society, Public Sector Operations Research Section, Junior Faculty Interest Group (JFIG), Women in OR/MS (WORMS). Finalist, Pierskalla Best Paper Award, Health Applications Society, 2015. Winner, Pierskalla Best Paper Award, Health Applications Society, 2011. First Place, Junior Faculty Forum Paper Competition, Junior Faculty Interest Group, 2004.
Martin Savelsbergh
Transportation Science
“Electric vehicles (EVs) continue to attract attention for their potential to cut down greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately, their relatively short range, long charge time, and high battery price have limited the adoption of EVs. One possibility to address some of these impediments is to establish a system of battery swap stations at which discharged batteries are replaced by charged ones, and removed batteries are recharged. In their paper “Optimization of Battery Charging and Purchasing at Electric Vehicle Battery Swap Stations,” Schneider et al. explore optimization-based decision support for various aspects of such a battery swapping system. The authors consider long-term decisions regarding the number of batteries and charging bays to employ in the system as well as short-term decisions regarding when and how many batteries to recharge. To reflect the fact that the costs for electric energy as well as the demand rates for batteries are stochastic, the authors consider an infinite time horizon model for operation of the system. The model gives rise to an optimization problem that cannot be solved optimally in a reasonable amount of time for real world instances. By optimally solving various small problem instances and analyzing the resulting solutions, the authors gain a deep understanding of the mechanics of the model and the influence of its parameters on the optimal cost. This understanding is used to develop a near-optimal solution heuristic based on Monte Carlo sampling following the ideas of approximate dynamic programming for solving infinite horizon dynamic programs.”
Optimization of Battery Charging and Purchasing at Electric Vehicle Battery Swap Stations
Frank Schneider, Ulrich W. Thonemann, Diego Klabjan
Jeroen Belien
INFORMS Transactions on Education
“Instead of banning smartphones from the classroom, creative instructors search for ways to embrace modern technologies. Logic puzzle apps on smartphones are immensely popular these days. According to the Google Play store, the 8 Infinity Loop and Flow Free apps (which are discussed in this paper) were installed more than 10,000,000 and 100,000,000 times, respectively. Hartmann presents six smartphone apps that can be used as entertaining and motivating examples and exercises in mathematical programming. The six apps have simple, easy-to-learn rules and are all available free for Android (some are available for iOS as well). They cover a broad range of problem types and modeling techniques representing a varying level of difficulty. After having read this article, you will know how you can use smartphone apps to motivate students in developing modeling skills.”
Puzzle—Solving Smartphone Puzzle Apps by Mathematical Programming
Sönke Hartmann
69
New Articles
Optimizing New-Vehicle Inventory at General Motors
Published Online:
Vungle Inc. Improves Monetization Using Big Data Analytics
Published Online:
Calibrated Route Finder: Improving the Safety, Environmental Consciousness, and Cost Effectiveness of Truck Routing in Sweden
Published Online:
IBM Cognitive Technology Helps Aqualia to Reduce Costs and Save Resources in Wastewater Treatment
Published Online:
Genetic Gain Performance Metric Accelerates Agricultural Productivity
Published Online:
Book Reviews
Published Online:
Optimization of Multidisciplinary Staffing Improves Patient Experiences at the Mayo Clinic
Published Online:
Introduction: 2016 Daniel H. Wagner Prize for Excellence in Operations Research Practice
Published Online:
INFORMS MEETING CALENDAR
Published Online:
OM Forum—Causal Inference Models in Operations Management
Published Online:
The Paradox of Openness and Value Protection Strategies: Effect of Extramural R&D on Innovative Performance
Published Online:
Middle Managers and Corruptive Routine Translation: The Social Production of Deceptive Performance
Published Online:
186,253
Article Downloads
Editorial—Big Data, Data Science, and Analytics: The Opportunity and Challenge for IS Research
Published Online:
Using Mathematics to Solve Some Problems in Industry
Published Online:
Applications of Operations Research in the Air Transport Industry
Published Online:
Making Operations Management Fun: Littlefield Technologies
Published Online:
Middle Managers and Corruptive Routine Translation: The Social Production of Deceptive Performance
Published Online:
Scenario Analysis in Spreadsheets with Excel's Scenario Tool
Published Online:
Changing Their Tune: How Consumers’ Adoption of Online Streaming Affects Music Consumption and Discovery
Published Online:
Net Neutrality, Exclusivity Contracts, and Internet Fragmentation
Published Online:
JOURNAL SPOTLIGHT
Tutorials in Operations Research
Editor-in-Chief: J. Cole Smith
“TutORials in Operations Research are intended to provide current information on emerging research and applied topics, carefully written to accommodate the needs of a broad range of constituents and providing pointers to additional resources. This series, founded by Harvey Greenberg in 2004, provides a resource with several important (and sometimes unique) features.
By its nature, TutORials are both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary. Over the past several years, topics covered have spanned decision making, logistics, biological modeling, machine learning, economic applications, as well as modern optimization approaches.
Each TutORials volume covers both applied as well as methodological topics and is written in a style that is comprehensible to readers not already expert in that area.
The extended coverage provided by TutORials chapters provides the reader with a bird’s eye view of the topic, progressing from basic concepts to the forefront of current advances.
As tutorials, each chapter invites readers who are interested in emerging and high-impact areas to gain familiarity with new and exciting frontiers of operations research. Pointers are also provided for further study and exploration.
Following the visionary leadership of Harvey Greenberg, Paul Gray, and J. Cole Smith, the TutORials series continues to evolve. With the technical assistance of INFORMS, we plan to host additional supplementary material (such as extended bibliographies, lecture notes, videos, data sets, and algorithms) that can continue the momentum generated by the written chapters. We certainly welcome suggestions on future topics from our society members. Kindly contact the new series editor, Douglas Shier, with your suggestions.”