The monkeypox outbreak made headlines this summer and the number of cases has steadily increased since then, causing public health concerns. As the cases increase, so too does criticism about missed opportunities to contain the virus using the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. The operations research and management sciences (OR/MS) community is trained to improve operations and management in complex environments when resources are limited. What can be done and how can we help the situation?
Global modeling efforts tell us that a vast expansion of wind energy – 5.5 times the current amount – is needed to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change. Operations research (O.R.) plays a large role in modeling efforts of the energy transition, at the heart of which is a modeling framework familiar to many industrial engineers – an optimization model for capacity investment planning.
Wildfire managers must resolve complex decisions often characterized by considerable uncertainty and trade-offs across multiple objectives (e.g., cost, safety, environmental impact). Such challenges are compounded by a changing climate that is exposing an increasing amount of assets at risk and putting an ever-growing strain on wildfire management systems across the globe. These converging forces create special challenges for fire managers that we believe operations research and management science (OR/MS) specialists can help resolve.
The latter two, my hats off to those using the field to save lives, especially in the midst of a pandemic. My career efforts have been mostly to make the world more efficient or use algorithms and technology to create new business opportunities.
To learn more about Kermit, click here.The extreme social, governmental and environmental events over the past few years have highlighted the vulnerability of the world’s supply chain. Supply shortages and varying demand continue to cause major disruptions to businesses, challenging their forecasting systems. Although there is no forecasting system that guarantees correct, or even half-adequate, forecasts in all situations, the disruptions highlight the importance of having a resilient forecasting system that is capable of being adjusted to appropriately respond to rapidly changing circumstances. Thus, one of the new goals of this biennial survey was to assess the changes introduced by vendors in response to these recent challenges.
There’s a very famous story of a grocery chain, they had a run on their toilet paper, so there were a lot of online orders for toilet paper. And there was an AI system that shut down the ordering system online because it thought there was some kind of attack that is happening on the system, and it did not realize that because of the pandemic there is a move towards stocking up on essentials. You know, it would have known that if it had common sense.
Common sense. A highly valued trait among our peers, partners, friends, and honestly anyone we interact with on a regular basis. Difficult to define at best, common sense is a necessary component to decision-making, helping us navigate any number of choices we must make day to day, to presumably achieve the best outcomes.
And while common sense is an inherently human trait, much like our emotions, as applications of artificial intelligence in our daily lives continue to grow, from customer service interface to smart home technology, can common sense be introduced to this technology to improve their decision-making capability? Or will technology’s inability to incorporate common sense place a hard stop on the role that AI will ultimately play? Joining me to take a closer look at the challenges of introducing common sense into AI decision-making is Mayank Kejriwal with the University of Southern California, who is leading a research team exploring this very topic.
Operations research (O.R.) has a long history contributing to supply chain management, transportation routing and other business problems. Less well known is the use of O.R. tools in nontechnical fields and for noncommercial purposes. Such applications include humanitarian operations, such as refugee resettlement and post-disaster relief operations, and research in the liberal arts, such as analysis of alternative outcomes for historic military battles and assessment of library use and management. What about visual arts?
Embrace sales. You have to sell your results and models to others. Technical sales is a good career and is more intellectually engaging than people may think. And, if you start a company, sales skills will help.
For more from Mike, click here.A personal connection to Ukraine and real advice on how operations researchers can help the country recover from the Russian invasion using disaster management and humanitarian logistics techniques.
Operations research can help save lives in myriad ways and be the positive force in terrible situations. This issue contains several articles that prove this, including reconstructing Ukraine, managing the wildfire crisis, investing in wind energy and more.
In this issue, I would like to share some of my thoughts following the second AI/OR workshop and some musings about ways in which our profession can make a difference as we face myriad societal challenges.
INFORMS Executive Director Elena Gerstmann shares the 22 reasons why she's excited to attend the 2022 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, October 16-19.
On Wednesday, October 19, the 2022 INFORMS Annual Meeting will feature a special new program for attendees. This new special session about the INFORMS Advocacy Program will focus on learning more about the importance and benefits of engaging with government officials and the media. Participants will also have the opportunity to learn or refine communication skills through a first-of-its-kind communication training workshop.
The design of sensible questions for tests – already a challenging task in a “normal” teaching environment – became even more exigent in a virtual setting. At first glance, a multiple-choice (MC) testing approach seemed like the best alternative because grading could largely be automated, although the creation of sound test entries often became a daunting and time-consuming process, to say the least, especially for those with limited experience in the design of MC questions.
BLUF: INFORMS designs new forum to serve its military veteran and active duty members. For those attending the 2022 INFORMS Annual Meeting, join us at our first kickoff event for the Military Veterans Forum on Monday, October 17, 4:30-5:00 p.m., jointly sponsored by the INFORMS Analytics Society and Military and Security Society (MAS).
This article reflects on how INFORMS publications can serve the INFORMS strategic goal "To advance diversity, equity and inclusion in all that we do," by promoting the use of inclusive language.
Over the past two years, the coronavirus pandemic has had a tremendous impact on our lives; universities and schools converted to virtual teaching, and almost every aspect of our social life has changed. During these challenging times, student organizations, such as INFORMS student chapters, had a heavy responsibility to bring students together. This article features two INFORMS student chapters – Pennsylvania State University (PSU) and North Carolina State University (NCSU) – and their current and previous teams to learn about the challenges they’ve faced since the onset of COVID-19 and how they overcame them.
Start your engines! The 2022 INFORMS Annual Meeting is coming to Indianapolis, Indiana, and we want you to join us! Here are some updates.
After more than 50 years since its inception, WSC will be held in Asia for the very first time on Dec. 11-14. It will take place at Marina Bay Sands, an iconic landmark of Singapore and one of the most dynamic and cosmopolitan cities in Asia.
Inspired by NextProf, a program designed to diversify faculty positions in engineering started by the University of Michigan, Campbell came up with the idea for FutureBAProf, a workshop for Ph.D. students and postdocs to demystify academic careers in business analytics. It was particularly aimed at those from underrepresented groups and designed to diversify application pools at all business analytics departments, not just University of Iowa.
