Some Great Books I am Reading this Summer

This has been quite the eventful (and wonderful) summer. After a glorious month at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden we returned to Amherst and, in just the past few days, we took part in the Isenberg Business Leadership Awards gala in Boston and also celebrated my doctoral student's Dong "Michelle" Li's completion of her PhD and acceptance of a tenure-track Assistant Professorship job offer. Michelle had 3 such job offers and made her decision after careful deliberations.

I am so proud of Michelle, who is my 18th PhD student, whose dissertation committee I have chaired. Below we are together after our dinner celebration at Judie's this past Monday evening.

This summer, in addition to spending a month in Sweden, doing research, co-organizing a conference in Greece, which takes place next week, and making preparations for the EURO conference, plus the fact that I am also writing a book, I have had the pleasure of reading some great books (all nonfiction and appearing in the photo below).

And to the authors and editors of these books there is a neat "connection."
 

All the volumes in the photo above I received from the author or editor, except for the first one, The Handbook of Global Logistics, edited by James H. Bookbinder, which I got from the publisher, Springer, since I had the pleasure of reviewing this 21 chapter handbook for the European Journal of Operational Research, and the review is now in press. Bookbinder's inspiration for the handbook came out of a special issue of  Transportation Research E, volume 41(6), 2005, on Global Logistics, that he guest edited. I admit I had a  paper in that special issue: Global Supply Chain Network Dynamics with Multicriteria Decision-Making Under Risk and Uncertainty,, Anna Nagurney and Dmytro Matsypura, Transportation Research E 41: (2005) pp 585-612. I did not, however, have an invited contribution in the handbook that I reviewed.

I read Bookbinder's magnum opus cover to cover and prepared the review of it while in Sweden (working many hours on it). I enjoyed the handbook a lot since the theme is of great interest to me and I also teach a course on Transportation and Logistics. The chapters are by different authors, some of whom I know very well.

The book, Forecasting Urban Travel, by Davie E. Bouce and Huw Williams, I am now reading and I have read several chapters. It is over 600 pages and is a historical rendition of transportation forecasting over a sixty year period from US and UK perspectives. It is a massive, extensive piece of scholarship. The book is my nightly reading now as a reward for a good day. I am eagerly looking forward to Chapter 7 on Transportation Network Equilibrium. Transportation Network Equilibrium is a topic that was my first research passion (and that my dissertation advisor, Stella Dafermos at Brown University, contributed so much to). It was  one of the themes of my dissertation at Brown University. I did get a preview of Chapter 7, since David Boyce, who has been a mentor and friend for many years, wanted my comments and feedback on it. This chapter, alone, I believe, is worth buying the book for since so many operations researchers and transportation scientists are noted there and their contributions. I am so honored to be cited in this book!

The book, Telecommunications Network Economics, I am taking with me on my upcoming European 3 week sojourn. Patrick Maille, one of the authors (with Bruno Tuffin), sent me a complimentary copy. Given that my great collaborator, Tilman Wolf, and our Co-PIs on a big NSF grant, Jim Griffioen, Ken Calvert, Rudra Dutta, and George Rouskas, with our students, have been working on the Future Internet Architecture project known as ChoiceNet, for 4 years, now, this book should be a great read. And, yes, I peeked -- I am cited - specifically, my Supply Chain Network Economics book is, which I wrote while at Harvard.  Patrick Maille  is an Associate Professor at Telecom Bretagne (part of Institut Mines-Telecom) in France. This year he is visiting Jean Walrand’s team at UC Berkeley (I am a huge fan of Walrand's work). Maille has asked me to serve on his habilitation (Habilitation à Diriger les Recherches, in French)  committee, that he will defending  in Rennes, France in October. I have agreed.

A habilitation, according to Wikipedia, is the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve by his or her own pursuit in many countries in Europe, Central Asia, and Egypt^... Earned usually after obtaining a research doctorate, such as a PhD, the habilitation requires that the candidate write a professorial thesis (or habilitation thesis) based on independent scholarship.  I will also be reading his habilitation thesis this summer!

The book, Innovation Spaces in Asia, edited by Maurren McKelvey and Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen, I received as a gift from Maureen McKelvey at a lunch in Sjobaren in Gothenburg, Sweden 2 weeks ago. Maureen is a great friend and an exceptional scholar and served, for several years,  as the Dean of the Graduate School at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg. Her fellow co-editor, Sharmistha, was also a Visiting Professor at the school with me. Given the excitement surrounding innovation and entrepreneurship (and the Isenberg School received a gift of $10 million to fund the Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship, for example), this book I will be reading after returning from Europe.

You may have noticed that the bottom set of three books featured above in the photo has a Swedish connection. I already mentioned the book co-edited by McKelvey, which I carried back from Gothenburg less than 2 weeks ago. I also carried the volume edited by Jonas Floden, Sustainable Intermodal Biofuel Transport, and the dissertation, Essays on Performance Management Systems, Regulation and Change in Swedish Banks, by Viktor Elliott, who successfully defended his dissertation while I was in Gothenburg and I went to the party. The defense itself was in Swedish so I waited in my office for it to be over with and then we celebrated with champagne (see photo below)!

I have read parts of both of these books and have enjoyed them a lot. Jonas and I are obsessed with sustainability and supply chains and we have co-authored several papers together. At the EURO Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, in July I will be presenting our paper, Fashion Supply Chain Network Competition with Ecolabelling, Anna Nagurney, Min Yu, and Jonas Floden, Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management: From Sourcing to Retailing, T.-M. Choi and T.C.E. Cheng, Editors, Springer (2015) pp 61-84. Viktor's friendship I will always value. He was always ready and willing to give me lots of advice during my 4 year tenure as a Visiting Professor at the University of Gothenburg (including great restaurant recommendations) and for that I thank him!

Congratulations to all the authors and editors of the above books as well as to the contributors of the edited volumes! There is nothing like a great book!

Happy Summer Reading!

And to those who are writing book, Happy Writing!

Global Ports, Maritime Development, the Panama Canal, and Logistics

I returned only a few hours ago from Gothenburg, Sweden and this is my first blogpost since my magical two week trip to the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

I even got used to typing on the Swedish keyboard while there.

During my journey back (a flight from Gothenburg to London Heathrow, a 3 hour layover, then the 7 hour flight back to Boston Logan on a packed flight, plus (not fun) a two hour wait at Logan for the shuttle back to Amherst), followed by a 2 hour ride, I intellectually consumed both my weekend copy of The International Herald Tribune and the latest edition of the The Economist, both of which I had purchased at the Gothenburg airport. As an aside, I highly recommend the giftshop there -- simply fabulous -- and I will enjoy distributing the souvenirs that I purchased this week.

The Economist had an article on maritime ports, focusing on the prospectus for development of ports in Portugal. I enjoyed seeing the map in the article, that also featured Gothenburg, Rotterdam, and Antwerp.

Coincidentally, just the day before, I had attended a truly marvelous seminar given by Prof. Dr. Theo Notteboom (the 2 hour seminar felt like 2 minutes to me) at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. Above is a photo of Dr. Notteboom prior to his seminar.

This seminar was brought to my attention by my wonderful hosts at the University of Gothenburg and since I had completed giving my 5 talks, had had many stimulating discussions with faculty, students, postdocs, and staff members, I was very interested in learning more about maritime transportation. The announcement of the seminar that I received is below.

Northern LEAD Seminar: Revisiting the investment strategies of global container terminal operators

You are welcome to the following seminar:
When: March 23 at 2-4 PM (it may end earlier)
Where: Room 3452 at MORE at Chalmers (detailed information how to get there will follow later)

During this seminar Professor Theo Notteboom will discuss the investment strategies of global terminal operators. Prof. Dr. Theo Notteboom is president of ITMMA (Institute of Transport and Maritime Management Antwerp, an institute of the University of Antwerp, Belgium www.itmma.ua.ac.be). He is also professor at the University of Antwerp, a part-time professor in maritime transport at the Antwerp Maritime Academy and a visiting professor at several universities in Europe and Asia. He published widely on (trans)port and maritime economics. Theo Notteboom regularly acts as expert for organizations such as the European Sea Ports Organization (ESPO), OECD and the European Commission. He is president of the International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME) and chairman of the Board of Directors of the Belgian Institute of Transport Organizers (BITO), an institute of the Belgian Federal Government. He is a fellow of the Belgian Royal Academy of Overseas Sciences, Associate Editor of Maritime Policy and Management and a member of the editorial boards of five academic journals.

Learning about the evolution of maritime container terminal port operators globally and especially about European issues was fascinating. The role of intermodal transportation (barges, rail, and truck) that follows, stimulated interesting questions and my brain was buzzing with new ideas and modeling questions.

On my flight leg from Gothenburg to London, I was seated (the serendipity of travel) next to a couple who was flying to Miami with friends and then taking a cruise through the Panama Canal (the deepening of the canal to allow for even larger container ships to transit was one of many topics highlighted at the seminar the day before and something I have even discussed with my undergraduate students in my transportation & logistics class). Plus, the gentleman seated next to me works in fast fashion in Sweden (not H&M) but for a newer company that does a lot of outsourcing in China. The conversation on logistics and maritime transportation that we had taught me something that I was not aware of. His company uses Swedish Post to handle all of the logistics, while the company focuses on its core competencies of fashion design!

Perhaps handling more global logistics and supply chains might be the salvation of the US Post Office!