A Tribute to the Founder of Regional Science, Walter Isard

It has taken me a few days to come to terms that the founder of the field of Regional Science, Walter Isard, passed away last Saturday at the age of 91. I heard the sad news while at the INFORMS conference in Austin, Texas through a message from David E. Boyce who is not only an INFORMS Fellow but also a Regional Science Association International (RSAI) Fellow.

The Regional Science conference is now taking place in Denver, Colorado.

The New York Times ran an obituary on Professor Isard last Monday and Professor Boyce graciously prepared an obituary on the RSAI website.

There aren't many individuals today who can say that they established entirely new fields.

Professor Isard, you will always be remembered as a great scholar, humanitarian, and gentleman. Thank you for coming to my talk at Cornell University on April 1, 2009. Having you in the audience meant the world to me.

The middle and bottom photos above were taken at Cornell that day. In the middle photo joining me with Isard were Professors Kieran Donaghy, my kind host, and Sid Saltzman (the father of Matt Saltzman, who is well-known in INFORMS circles). In the bottom photo, in the background, is my collaborator, Professor June Dong of SUNY Oswego.

The top photo above was taken at the RSAI conference in November 2008 in Brooklyn. I am standing behind Isard who is seated between my two dear friends, Professors Manfred Fischer and David E. Boyce.

Transportation Network and Supply Chain Design Talks are Now Online!

Talks, in pdf format, on transportation network design and supply chain network design, given at the Symposium on Transportation Network Design and Economics, at Northwestern University last month, in honor of the visit of Professor Martin Beckmann, are now online.

Professor Hani S. Mahmassani, the Director of the Transportation Center at Northwestern University, and Professor David E. Boyce organized this symposium, which was very successful and generated numerous discussions and research ideas.

The below presentations, given at the Symposium, are available for download from the Transportation Center's site:

• Anna Nagurney:
  Supply chain network design under profit maximization and oligopolistic competition
• David Boyce:
  A road network design methods revisited: expressway spacing and economic evaluation
• John McDonald:
  Approaches to mitigating traffic congestion: A very short survey
• Yanfeng Ouyang:
  Reliable facility location: from supply chain network design to traffic sensor deployment
• T. John Kim:
  Transportation, information and communication technologies, and future cities
• Dirk Brockmann:
  Multi-scale human mobility - what complex network theory can reveal
• Yu (Marco) Nie:
  Pricing-refunding in general transportation networks: when it works and how
• Diego Klabjan:
  Carbon Footprint in Logistics

Professor Ouyang's talk and my talk focused on supply chain network design. My presentation was based on the paper with the same name as my presentation, which was just published in 2010 in the journal, Transportation Research E.

Professor Boyce gave a fascinating historical perspective on road network design with applications to the Chicago area (and beyond).

Professor McDonald spoke on different means of traffic mitigation, whereas Professor Nie discussed pricing and refunding in transportation networks (both very hot topics now).

Professor Kim discussed, from his unique, international perspective, how ICT (information, communication, and transportation) technologies can assist in the problems that cities are facing.

Professor Brockmann gave a physicist's perspective on human mobility and complex network theory (a topic also of great interest to me).

Professor Klabjan spoke on the work that he is interested in regarding modeling the carbon footprint in logistics and the challenges faced by the trucking industry in determining what part of the load contributes what amount to emissions (and who, hence, should pay).

Many thanks to the symposium organizers for putting up these presentations so that anyone interested may benefit from them!