Volume 35, Number 3, June 2008

FEATURE ARTICLES

Can We Detect ‘The Coming Plague'

Is terrorism the worst threat you can imagine? If so, pay attention. Are you aware that an epidemic within the last century, starting in the United States, killed more people in four months than all of World War I did?
- Doug Samuelson
Math & Music: The Perfect Match

Operations research is a field that prides itself in its versatility in the mathematical modeling of complex problems to find optimal or feasible solutions. It should come as no surprise that O.R. has much to offer in terms of solving problems in music composition, analysis and performance. Operations researchers have tackled problems in areas ranging from airline yield management and computational finance, to computational biology and radiation oncology, to computational linguistics, and in eclectic applications such as diet formulation, sports strategies and chicken dominance behavior, so why not music?
- Elaine Chew
Strengthening Supply Chains

A GREAT DEAL OF LITERATURE promotes the virtues of global sourcing and international supply chains. Certainly, there are numerous examples of how cost can be reduced by expanding the supply chain. Adding vendors to a supply chain can result in lower cost due to increased competition and a greater chance of finding a vendor that has a core competency meeting the exact needs of the customer [1].
On the Right Track

To understand just how important the passenger railway system is to the 16.5 million people who live and work in the Netherlands, consider that more than half the citizens are frequent if not daily train passengers, and on certain corridors during rush hour, upward of 70 percent of the people who commute from one city to another do so by train. Thus in Holland, most people’s lives literally revolve around the train timetable, so when the trains start running late because demand starts overwhelming the system, it’s not only a big problem for the train operator, it’s a big problem for the Dutch people and the Dutch government.
- Peter Horner
Reflections on Life, Love and Chance

Chance! That’s the key word. Chance is how I got into the field of operations research and how I made my living in the field.
- Donald Gross
FORECASTING FORECASTING AT STEADY STATE?

Many professional and casual users do explanatory and time series forecasting in medicine, business and academia. The forecast “hits” and “misses,” particularly the latter, sometimes make headlines. The large increase in college applications for the class of 2012, especially to prestigious universities, caught some provosts by surprise. Box office returns for “Juno”(on the high side) and “Leatherheads” and “Stop-Loss” (who underperformed) had repercussions in the movie industry. Doctors simultaneously promulgate and de-emphasize the charting of homocysteine levels to help predict the risk of coronary heart disease. Watching the approval numbers as a function of time for Clinton vs. Obama vs. McCain has become a mainstay of cable news networks. The trend curves for the price of oil, and finding explanatory models for said prices, are subjects of discussion in academia, on Wall Street and at many dinner tables.
- Jack Yurkiewicz

DIGITAL EDITION

DEPARTMENTS

Inside Story

Analytics Packs a Punch

Peter Horner

In the good old days – say 15 minutes ago – many so-called “savvy” corporate CEOs and other assorted head honchos in the public and private sector routinely made critical decisions by the seat of their pants. That is, they relied on their experience, their intuition, their “gut” to determine a course of action that could make or break the organization. Sometimes they were right, sometimes they were wrong, and sometimes the organization went down the drain as a result.

President's Desk

Student Competition

The purpose of this column is to update you on our efforts to increase the awareness of the potential for operations researchers to address problems of importance to society, and to engage operations researchers in the task of addressing these important societal problems.

Issues in Education

Teaching Colloquium

In April’s Issues in Education column, Tava Olsen referred to the wake-up call to our society when AACSB removed management science as a core requirement within business programs. As business schools eliminated O.R. from their programs, our society realized that it no longer had a captive audience; mathematical elegance, algorithm nuances and “killer apps” would not be of interest to business students unless those students could be sold on the impact of OR/MS on organizational efficiency and effectiveness.

INFORMS in the News

When Selling Stories, Consider the ‘Who cares?’ Factor

Barry List

Operations researchers often ask what it takes to interest a reporter on radio, TV, print or the Internet in a story about O.R. The story below about “March Mathness” illustrates how a great idea, a bit of media savvy and a good working relationship with the public relations staff at INFORMS or your organization can place a story.

Was It Something I Said

Frozen Moments in Time

Vijay Mehrotra

The essayist Adam Gopnik has written that, “All grown-up craft depends on sustaining a frozen moment from childhood: scientists, it is said, are forever four years old, wide-eyed and self-centered; writers are forever eight, over-aware and indignant” [1]. This column has now been appearing regularly in this magazine for the past 10 years, so I humbly ask that you indulge me in calling the act of writing it a “craft” of sorts.

PuzzlOR

The Traveling Spaceman Problem

John Toczek

Below is a three-dimensional map of the universe containing nine galaxies that you, as the traveling spaceman, wish to visit. Each galaxy’s position in the universe is indicated by the accompanying table.

ORacle

The Math Teacher’s Parable

Doug Samuelson

The high school the O.R. analyst had attended somehow looked older and smaller than he remembered, but his favorite math teacher was still there, looking only slightly the worse for aging and mileage. “I’m glad I came back for this reunion, Mrs. Campbell,” the analyst said, “but I’m even happier we got a chance to talk and catch up. I’ve told you what I’ve been doing, and how I’ve used the math you taught me. Now, what’s the most important thing you feel I still haven’t learned?”