Model Trains in San Diego

Since I teach and do research in transportation and logistics as well as in networks, whenever I travel, I garner experiences, adventures, and "stories" for my students.

After the State Games of America, an athletic competition extravaganza, which took place in San Diego recently, at which my daughter competed in figure skating, it was time to take in a few of the sites. For me, a Sunday in a city exploring museums is one of my favorite activities.

Since my husband was traveling with us, it would have been remiss not to visit the San Diego Model Railroad Museum in gorgeous Balboa Park, which we did. He has a collection of model trains that he has collected during our world travels to conferences, which adds to the trains that he and his father collected in years past.

Also, I have written about model trains and operations research on this blog.

The above photos were taken at the model railroad museum, which is situated in a stunning building.

Photos of Figure Skating at the State Games of America in San Diego

For this event, I did not have to prepare a presentation but, instead, came to support my daughter who was competing in figure skating at the 2011 State Games of America in gorgeous San Diego, California. She had qualified by medalling at the Bay State Games in Williamstown, MA, this past winter.

She competed in 4 events and medalled in each and brought back 2 silver medals and 2 bronze ones. Security at the San Diego Airport was rather taken aback by the medals that kept on setting off the machines but let us through (and, thank goodness, we could carry on her figure skates because if they had gotten lost there would have been a major problem).

This figure skating competition was most enjoyable due to the excellent organization, great venue, and events such as artistic, interpretive, light entertainment, among others.

It was great to see so many family members and friends supporting the athletes.

Above are some photos taken at the San Diego rink and outside.

A fabulous time was had by all and special thanks go to my daughter's amazing figure skating coach, Ms. Suzy McCaughtry, who traveled to San Diego to support her 3 skaters who were competing there. Might I add that, in total, they brought home more than a dozen medals, but, more importantly, they supported one another and had a fabulous time.

More info on the history of the State Games can be found here.

Photos from the Integrated Risk Management in Operations and Global Supply Chains Conference in Montreal

Above are some photos taken at the INTRIM (Integrated Risk Management in Operations and Global Supply Chains) Conference that took place at lovely McGill University in Montreal, Canada recently.

I had the pleasure of speaking on our research on Medical Nuclear Supply Chain Design at this conference.

Many thanks to the organizers for putting together such an interesting set of presentations, all delivered in a single track, along with delicious coffee breaks, lunches, etc.

I especially enjoyed the originality of the problems that are being tackled and the challenges faced by industries in capturing system-wide risk.

As for photos of Montreal taken while I was there, click here.

Following Up on Mike Trick's Post and Congrats to ITOR and Its Editor, Celso Ribeiro!

I must say that when someone has worked really hard on the editing of a journal, it is gratifying when that work is acknowledged in a meaningful and substantive way.

We heard from the Editor of the journal, International Transactions in Operational Research (ITOR), Dr. Celso Ribeiro, that ISI (Web of Knowledge) has accepted International Transactions in Operational Research into the SSCI, the SCIE, Current Contents: Engineering, Computing and Technology, and Current Contents: Social and Behavioural Science with coverage from the 2009 volume. The journal should receive its first Impact Factor in the 2011 JCR, released next year.

ITOR is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of IFORS, the International Federation of Operational Research Societies.

Mike Trick wrote an informative post on this news in which he congratulates Celso on this achievement and I fully concur. As an Associate Editor of this journal, I can attest to the hours that Celso spends communicating even on weekends to make sure that the papers are handled in a professional and timely manner.

Great job by a terrific editor and also a wonderful group of fellow Associate Editors.

University Press Release on Our Blood Supply Chain Research

The University of Massachusetts Amherst has issued a nice press release on our research on blood supply chains.

It is really exciting when theory, modeling, and computations all come together synergistically to contribute to an application that can help humanity.

It is also special when the research is done with students who are passionate about the topic.

The press release: UMass Researchers Seek Improvement in Blood Supply Chain.

Blood is a critical life-saving product that is frequently in scarce supply. Blood service operations are also a key component of the health care system all over the world. The U.S. averages 38,000 blood donations daily, but the supply is frequently two days away from running out. Blood is also perishable and estimates are that 8 percent becomes outdated and goes to waste.

Blood supplies are used in activities other than life-saving emergency care, and have an impact on whether hospitals can perform elective surgery and other non life-threatening procedures. The cost of each unit of blood has also been increasing in recent years, a factor in overall health care costs.

We built a model for a regionalized blood banking system consisting of collection sites, testing and processing facilities, storage facilities, distribution centers, as well as points of demand, which include hospitals.

The paper that describes the modeling and computational framework, co-authored with my doctoral students, Amir H. Masoumi and Min Yu, Supply Chain Network Operations Management of a Blood Banking System with Cost and Risk Minimization, will appear in Computational Management Science.

The Fashion Supply Chain Management Book is Now Available

Today I received my copy of the book, Fashion Supply Chain Management: Industry and Business Analysis, a photo of which is above. The book was edited by Professor Tsan-Ming Choi and it is a stunning volume with sections on Mathematical Modeling Research, Quantitative Empirical Research, and Exploratory Study and Case Research.

The publisher is IGI Global in Hershey, PA.

The full list of chapters and their authors can be found here.

Our contribution to this book is the first chapter,

Fashion Supply Chain Management through Cost and Time Minimization from a Network Perspective (pages 1-20),

Anna Nagurney (University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA), and Min Yu (University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA)

View Details View Sample PDF

Scenes from Montreal Including Bicycles

I am back from a wonderful conference at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where the weather was delightful until we were ready to board the puddle jumper airplane (where each passenger gets her own aisle and window seat). A red alert was issued because the sky had turned black and the grounds crew can't be out on the tarmac if there are lightning strikes within 5 miles.

Although we had boarded the Air Canada plane, our pilot let us take a vote (how civilized) as to whether we wanted to wait on the plane before the alert was lifted or to go back to the waiting area. Luckily, the pilot's vote had more clout (the vote was split and one passenger was neutral) so we marched back in, caught some dinner, and two hours after the scheduled departure time we were off and had a bumpless flight.

I had spoken to my husband earlier and there had been a hailstorm in Amherst with our yard almost white.

Montreal is an amazing city and I managed to get a good deal of walking in -- caught a parade on Saturday of "twins," with one duo dressed up as a bride in white and a bride in black, and with bagpipers and even bands of twins -- very festive and fun.

What impressed me, as well, was the number of bicyclists, even around 6:30AM, with nice bicycle lanes and bicycles to rent (a bit like Paris).

However, this past Sunday, a tunnel collapsed around 9:15 AM (the Ville-Marie) tunnel and 15 tons ended up on the ground with, amazingly, no injuries. There has been a lot of pres recently about the bad state of infrastructure in Montreal due to salting of the roads and bridges in the winter resulting in deterioration of the infrastructure and insufficient funds invested for maintenance and repair. I heard that this is rather "local" to Montreal, however, and having been to Toronto and Waterloo last April was impressed by the quality of the roads there.

The last photo above is of the red alert light at the Montreal airport outside of our gate.