Operations Researchers Take Over Glasgow, Scotland with Fabulous EURO Conference

We arrived in Glasgow, Scotland, this past weekend, to attend and speak at the EURO 2015 conference, which has 2,300 operations research delegates from around the world. This is the biggest conference ever held in Glasgow and I was reminded of EURO 2006, which was in Reykljaik, Iceland, with 700 delegates and the biggest scientific conference there to that date. Frankly, the climate is not so different between the two but with more rain in Glasgow.

We were greeted, when we disembarked from the train from Edinburgh, by welcome banners in George Square.  The University of Strathclyde is the site and organizer of this fabulous conference. The registration at the Innovation Centre with so many student helpers in red t-shirts was very efficient. The assistants have been very helpful with providing directions and answering questions  throughout the conference. The emphasis on customer service has been extraordinary everywhere in Glasgow and Scotland that we have been. Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh had recently dedicated the Innovation Centre.

One of the first colleagues that I saw was Professor Panos M. Pardalos of the University of Florida, with whom I co-organized the Dynamics of Disasters conference in Kalamata, Greece, just two weeks ago (and we also connected in Edinburgh last week).

The first day of the conference was jam-packed. In the afternoon, my former PhD student at the Isenberg School, Dr, Amir Masoumi of Manhattan College, delivered our integrated disaster relief paper in a session organized by Professor Tina Wakolbinger of the Vienna University of Economics and Business (who also was my PhD student). Our paper is joint with Professor Min Yu of the University of Portland (another very successful former student of mine). The paper was recently published in an edited volume that includes a paper by the Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences Paul Krugman.

Then it was time to run to a session organized by my long-time collaborator and Supernetwork Center Associate, Professor Patrizia Daniele of the University of Catania in Italy. Her session was on equilibrium problems and variational inequalities and I spoke in it on our ecolabelling and fashion supply chain research with Professor Jonas Floden of the University of Gothenburg and also Min Yu.

 We even took a group photo of the session participants.

 And, amazingly, the fashion supply chain paper that I presented was just published in a book by Springer, which was on display at the conference! Below I am with Christian Raucher of Springer.

At the exhibit were several books that I had chapters published in.

Another high point (so far) was listening to Professor Terry Rockafellar (since retiring from the University of Washington he has joined the University of Florida) give a plenary talk on his latest work on risk, which is brilliant. He also gave a talk the same day in another session organized by Patrizia Daniele! This is stamina and operations researchers have it.

After such an exciting day filled with great talks and reconnecting with colleagues and friends who had traveled to Glasgow, we convened a group for dinner, which included 3 of my former Isenberg PhD students (Wakolbinger, Masoumi, and Toyasaki), Professor Patrizia Daniele, Professor Monica Cojocaru, Professor Laura Scrimali, Professor Giancarlo Bigi, Professor Mauro Pssacantando, and my husband, Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney, at Amarone (which we had also eaten at in Edinburgh and enjoyed very much).

 EURO 2015 also is  serving as a great venue for a reunion of 5 Supernetwork Center Associates. 
And both Professors Wakolbinger and Toyasaki also took part in our Dynamics of Disasters conference! 

And, after all the great food that we have been consuming, what can be better than walking the Flasgow Green!

Optimization Workshop in Majestic Edinburgh, Scotland

I am spending 3 weeks in Europe engaged in some very serious conference" chaining." I have been blogging from different countries, beginning with Greece, where the Dynamics of Disasters conference that I co-organized with Professors Pardalos and Kotsireas took place in Kalamata.

Today we will be taking the train from Edinburgh to Glasgow, where the EURO 2015 conference will begin tomorrow.

While in majestic Edinburgh, which is breathtakig with its architecture (including the Edinburgh Castle), greenery of the Meadows,  stunning shops, multiple modes of transport (we arrived from London via Virgin Trains), and the conviviality of the people of Scotland. The food, I might add, has also been so delicious!

Of course, I would be remiss not to mention the great writers from this area, including for all the Harry Potter fans out there, J.K. Rowlings, and the cafe in which she did much of her writing of the first books. Also, Sir Artur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes books, also write in Edinburgh.

The photo above was taken in front of the cathedral prior to a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the massacre at Srebrenica.

I was in Edinburgh to attend the EUROPT Workshop on Continuous Optimization.

It was great to see Panos Pardalos again who is also en route to EURO Glasgow.

I got a chance to enjoy some excellent talks, including a talk on closed loop supply chains in which several of my publications and my Network Economics book were noted. The finance risk sessions was also very good and the energy talks also very interesting. I could relate to these since my supernetwork team has done a lot of work on risk and supply chains and also electric power supply chains, even with data for all of New England!

Below are some photos taken at the great workshop. Special thanks to professor Julian Hall at the University of Edinburgh for being so responsive to my questions!

I will miss Edinburgh!

Scenes from Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard and Cambridge

Yesterday I had the pleasure of being back in Cambridge, MA so I had to visit Brattle Street, Radcliffe,  and Harvard Square.

I spent the 2005-2006 year as a Science Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and that year I wrote my Supply Chain Network Economics book

I have wonderful memories of that year --  of the people that I met, the friends that I made, and of the research  and writing that I did.

I lived on 83 Brattle Street in the building below on the 6th floor.

My office was in Putnam House a few buildings down from my apartment, where, in the Fall that year, one of my neighbors was the French mathematician, Pierrette.Cassou-Nogues from Bourdeaux. 
In the Spring, my collaborator Professor Patrizia Daniele, who is an operations researcher, joined me for several months and Radcliffe provided her with an office in Putnam House, which was terrific! Patrizia is from the University of Catania in Italy and she is also a Supernetwork Center Associate.

Below is a photo taken in front of Putnam House.

Radcliffe Yard looked beautiful and I enjoyed checking out the award-winning sculpture.

The sculpture is an installation called Saturate the Moment.

We wandered over to Bartley's, a Cambridge institution but it was closed.

 

 Cardullo's in Harvard Square had the beautiful gingerbread house in its window below.

Burdick's was open so we enjoyed some delicious hot chocolate! 

We had traveled to eastern MA, since my daughter wanted to meet a friend who had returned from a semester abroad at the University of St Andews in Scotland.  The head (known as the Principal and Vice-Chancellor) of St Andrews is Dr. Louise Richardson, who was the Executive Dean of Radcliffe when I was there. You can see her at our Radcliffe Fellows "graduation" ceremony  in the top photo in my blogpost here.

You may recall that Prince William and his wife, Kate Middleton, the Duke and Dutchess of Cambridge (in England), were recently in NYC for a fundraiser for St Andrews, since they met at this university, and Dr. Richardson can be seen with them here. The 600th anniversary gala for the University of St Andrews took place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

And, when I returned back to Amherst last night, I had a message from none other than Dr. Pierrette Cassou-Nogues, wishing me a Happy New Year!