The Outstanding Optimization and Decision Science Conference in Beautiful Firenze, Italy

I would like to thank the organizers of the outstanding Optimization and Decision Science Conference that took place August 30-September 2, 2022 in the stunning city of Firenze, Italy.

It was a conference of great scientific value, with wonderful social activities, at the University of Firenze, which brought together researchers from many different countries for face to face exchanges. For many of us, it was the first international face to face conference since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. I very much enjoyed all the sessions on variational analysis and equilibrium problems!

I would also like to extend my deepest appreciation to the Conference Co-Chairs: Professors Fabio Schoen and Paola Cappanera, for the warmth and hospitality extended to all of us. The conference website can be found here. Thanks to the Local Organizing Committee and to the Program Committee for their outstanding work!

It was a great honor to give the opening keynote talk at the Museum of Innocents this past Tuesday, followed by a cocktail hour and tour of the museum.  The title of my keynote was: Labor and Supply Chain Networks: It's All About People. The slidedeck can be downloaded here.

Above I am with Drs. Alice Raffaele and Marti Fischetti, two incredibly talented OR researchers and very dynamic leaders of AIROYoung!

The energy and enthusiasm of the conferees was heartwarming to behold. New friendships were made and established relationships further cemented. The sessions were excellent and the University of Firenze a great venue.

It was fabulous that all 5 co-authors of our paper on UAVs, 5G, and Disaster Management showed up! Below are: Yours truly, Daniele Sciacca, Professor Patrizia Daniele, Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney, and Dr. Gabriela Colajanni.

I very much enjoyed listening to the other keynote talks of Professors Bertsimas (virtual presentation), Dick den Hertog, and Paola Scaparra. It was very cool that both the opening and closing keynoters were female!

Below is a photo of the female keynoters.

The social dinner was a banquet at a farm with majestic views of the landscapes in Tuscany. 

It was truly special to see Professor Ivana Ljubic and her postdoc Martina Cerulli at the banquet and to meet colleagues even from the Czech Republic!

I leave you with some views of beautiful Firenze, Italy! 

All the conferees had a fabulous time scientifically and socially.  The great discipline of Operations Research, because of the creativity and dedication of its researchers, educators, and practitioners, is making laudable positive impact globally. Working together we can achieve so much good.

Thanks to the organizers of the great Optimization and Decision Science 2022 conference for bringing many of us together again, in person!

Networks and Variational Inequalities Rock at the ECMI Conference in Stunning Taormina, Sicily

We made it back to Gothenburg, Sweden last night after 10 days in southern Europe where, although the Internet was not always stable or speedy, the conferences and seminar venues as well as the ambience, beauty, and great people I will never forget.

Exactly one week ago, we were in Taormina, Sicily, which was the location for 2014 ECMI (European Conference on Mathematics for Industry). Taormina is a stunning, historical city.

I was at the conference, upon the invitation of Professor Patrizia Daniele of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Catania. She had organized the session below, which was broken up by a delicious lunch and also a plenary session but it worked!

Conference Room 3 - Vincenzo Bellini Room: MS 48
Patrizia Daniele
Recent advances on equilibrium problems with applications to networks
12:00 Patrizia Daniele, Fuminori Toyasaki and Tina Wakolbinger
A Variational Inequality Formulation of Equilibrium Models for End-of-Life Products with Nonlinear Constraints
12:30 Anna Nagurney, Min Yu, Jonas Floden and Ladimer Nagurney
Supply Chain Network Competition in Time-Sensitive Markets

17:00 Tina Wakolbinger, Fuminori Toyasaki, Thomas Nowak and Anna Nagurney
When and for whom would e-waste be a treasure trove? Insights from a network equilibrium
17:30 Fabio Raciti
Nash equilibrium problems with uncertain data.

This conference was also a great reunion! Patrizia and I have co-authored several papers, and she and I organized a Complex Network Workshop a few years back at her university when I held a Senior Fulbright Specialist Award there. Patrizia has also worked with me as a Visiting Scholar at Harvard when I was a Science Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study there on my sabbatical in 2005-2006.

It was great to see my former doctoral student, Dr. Fuminori Toyasaki, who is now on sabbatical in Vienna, having received promotion and tenure at York University in Toronto, Canada.  Their first paper in the session, with another former doctoral student of mine, Dr. Tina Wakolbinger, who is a Professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business,  was recently published in the European Journal of Operational Research.

My presentation at ECMI, with colleague Professor Jonas Floden from the University of Gothenburg, my former doctoral student, Dr. Min Yu of the University of Portland, and Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney of the University of Hartford, can be downloaded here.

Dr. Toyasaki presented our paper, with Tina's doctoral student, Thomas Nowak (3 generations of scholars!), which was just published in the International Journal of Production Economics!

Dr. Raciti of the University of Catania gave a fabulous presentation on his latest work on variational inequalities in which the data in uncertain.

It was great to meet again face to face in this remote but magical location. The photos below capture how happy we were to be together again! Nothing beats meeting collaborators in exotic venues and exchanging the latest research results!

 

 

Professors Daniele and Wakolbinger are Center Associates of the Supernetwork Center at the Isenberg School of Management and very much enjoy visiting me at UMass Amherst and have hosted me at their universities.

From Sweden to Sicily for the Love of Supply Chains

This past Tuesday, we had quite the adventurous travel from Gothenburg, Sweden to Taormina, Sicily. We made it uneventfully via Air Berlin from Landvetter Airport in Gothenburg to Berlin, Germany (can't wait for the new Berlin Airport to be finally finished) and enjoyed the delicious chocolates that we were given upon disembarking (through the back door of the plane, no less).

After a great lunch at the Berlin Airport we saw that our flight to Catania, Sicily was on time so we went to security only to find out that our carryon bags were too heavy so that we had to check them. Upon arriving at the  checkin counter for Air Berlin  we were told our flight was delayed by 8 hours and would leave (if you trust) at 10:30PM! Since there was still about a one hour trip by taxi from Catania to Taormina we knew that this would not work for us and there was too much uncertainty, in any event.

After standuing in line for 40 minutes at the Air Berlin counter to wait for a reassignment we were told we were on our own so off we ran to the Germanwings counter to try and get on a flight at 4:20PM. Great service and not a bad price and after a wait we were comfortably seated and en route to Sicily!

Upon arrival in Catania, we were met by an Italian taxi driver who took us in his black Mercedes to Taormina where the conference, Mathematics in Industry. was taking place. The drive at high speed on the flowerstudded expressway was quite the experience and, when we arrived at the conference hotel, we were told that we were put into another hotel (5 star!) a 10 minute walk away.

The venue in Taormina has been magical but, best of all, was seeing Professor Patrizia Daniele, who is a Supernetwork Center Associate and who has visited me at the Isenberg School and when I was a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. She invited me to speak at this conference and organized a special session, Recent Advances on Equilibrium Problems with Applications to Networks. Plus, one of my former doctoral students, Professor Fuminori Toyasaki, who is a Professor at York University in Toronto, is also here and he will be presenting a joint paper of ours on electronic recycling, co-authored with Professor Tina Wakolbinger of the Vienna University of Economics and Business (who also was my former doctoral student at the Isenberg School of Management), and her doctoral student, Thomas Nowak. That paper was just published in the International Journal of Production Economics.

Our session takes place later today and I am so exited to be presenting the paper, Supply Chain Network Competition in Time-Sensitive Markets, co-authored with my former doctoral student, Professor Min Yu of the University of Portland, my great colleague at the University of Gothenburg, Professor Jonas Floden, and even my husband, Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney of the University of Hartford!

The photos below were taken at the conference venue and surrounding area. No wonder movie stars will soon be converging here in Taormina where a major movie festival will take place. The beauty of this part of Italy is breathtaking and the people are so friendly and generous.

And I have to mention that the food in Sicily is delicious and so beautifully presented! I can see why those who consume the Mediterranean diet live longer, but, perhaps, it is also the climate and the beauty of where they live.