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.

High Tech Mergers Are HOT Again

USAToday.com is reporting that high tech mergers, both in number and in value, are on the increase. Especially attractive, as acquisitions, are firms associated with mobile computing, cloud computing, and search engines. In the past year, SAP, IBM, Apple, and Google have acquired firms and Oracle's success may be due, in part, to its earlier wise acquisitions.

Interestingly, the article also notes that the Chinese are eager to acquire firms. One of the major drivers in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) this time around is the desire to obtain access to new global markets, coupled with bigger firms acquiring smaller, agile firms with technological know-how and cutting-edge technological expertise and products. Moreover, many of the leading high tech companies are sitting on a lot of cash and interest rates are lower than a year ago signaling an improved economic climate for such transactions.

Our research on the integration of multiproduct firms, and the quantification of associated synergy, entitled,"Multiproduct Supply Chain Horizontal Network Integration: Models, Theory, and Computational Results," was just published in the International Journal of Operational Research, volume 17 (2010), pp 333-349. The results therein can be applied to assess the synergy of mergers and acquisitions of firms with similar or distinct portfolios of products and with access to different markets.

Another recent M&A study of ours, which is in press, also in a peer-reviewed journal, Computational Management Science, entitled, "Formulation and Analysis of Horizontal Mergers Among Oligopolistic Firms with Insights into the Merger Paradox: A Supply Chain Network Perspective," shows the impacts on profits of different acquisitions in industries in which the firms compete directly and feed the same markets.

Adaptive Network Design, Biology, Railroads, and Operations Research

What can biology teach us about adaptive network design? That is the question underlying an article in The New York Times that is reporting on the paper published in Science by Tero, Takagi, and co-authors, entitled, Rules for Biologically Inspired Adaptive Network Design. The article appears in the January 22, 2010 edition of Science, pp. 439-442. The Times article with the catchy title, Slime Mold Proves to be a Brainy Blob, intrigued me so I also read the scientific article that it was based on.

Interestingly, the researchers, based in Japan and England, used amoeba to "reproduce" the rail network of Tokyo and also developed a basic mathematical model for adaptive network design.

They, however, do not cite any literature prior to 1996 and, coincidentally, as I have been writing in this blog, Northwestern University is hosting a Symposium on Transportation Network Design and Economics this coming Friday to mark the visit of Professor Martin Beckmann who co-authored a landmark book on transportation, which discussed decentralized versus centralized behavior, with mathematical models, in 1956!

Nevertheless, I was pleased to see that the authors of the Science article cited (as their earliest reference) a paper published in 1996 in the International Transactions in Operational Research (ITOR), which I am on the editorial board of, and which is now edited by Celso Ribeiro of Brazil. That article, Heuristics from Nature for Hard Combinatorial Optimization Problems, was authored by Colorni, Dorigo, and others, who are based in Italy.

Interestingly, the ecology community, led by Mullon and colleagues in France, which is also part of the biology community, is now also applying concepts of network equilibrium from operations research and economics, as their work on (with special relevance to fisheries) demonstrates. Indeed, my Network Economics book has inspired, in part, their work and they acknowledge accordingly.

Research4life Initiative, International Transactions in Operational Research, and 15th PhD student to be defending

Today I received an email message from Dr. Celso Carneiro Ribeiro of Brazil, who is the Editor of the journal, International Transactions in Operational Research (ITOR), that this journal will be added to the list of journals included in the Research4Life Initiative, which provides low-cost access for developing nations to journal content. Wiley-Blackwell, the publisher of ITOR (and our Fragile Networks book, as well), is committed to the Research4Life initiative. In particular, Wiley-Blackwell is a member of the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers and ITOR, with its overarching theme of Operations Research, is applicable to all three areas covered by the initiative, that is, health, agriculture, and the environment. I urge you to read up on the Research4Life initiative and note that the testimonials are very touching. Research4Life is a partnership seeking to help out in achieving the United Nation's Millennium Development goals.

I am very honored to be a member of the Editorial Board of ITOR and the paper, co-authored with Trisha Woolley and Patrick Qiang, entitled, "Multiproduct Supply Chain Horizontal Network Integration: Models, Theory, and Computational Results," has now been published online by this journal. Coincidently, Patrick Qiang was my 14th PhD student to complete his dissertation (in May 2009) and Trisha Woolley will be defending her doctoral dissertation, entitled, Sustainable Supply Chains: Multicriteria Decision-Making and Policy Analysis for the Environment, next month. She will be my 15th PhD student, quite the milestone! Trisha Woolley begins next week her tenure-track Assistant Professorship at Texas Wesleyan University in its School of Management.

It is terrific to have students who are carrying out research on sustainable supply chains and policy interventions ranging from carbon taxes to tradable pollution permit systems (also known as cap and trade systems). Some of our recent research publications and studies can be found on the Virtual Center for Supernetworks website.

My former doctoral students who have conducted research on transportation, supply chains, and environmental concerns have now assumed positions in such universities as the University of Sydney in Australia, York University in Canada, the University of Connecticut, DePaul University in Chicago, and two different Penn State campuses. One of my former doctoral students, Dr. Padma Ramanujam, whose dissertation received the Transportation Science dissertation prize, is with SAS in North Carolina. Needless to say, I am so very proud of all those students, whose doctoral dissertations I have had the privilege to chair!