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.

Supply Chain Network Competition in Time-Sensitive Markets

The production and delivery of products in a timely manner are essential not only to the satisfaction of consumer demands in many industries but also to a company's reputation.

During last Christmas season, we saw delays of numerous deliveries in the US and even in Sweden Christmas trees that were ordered online, in some cases, arrived past the holiday! Needless to say, there were very many disappointed (and even furious) individuals and families.

Also, there may exist major events or even features such as the top-grossing animated Disney movie, Frozen, that generate intense demand for associated products, including clothing, under immense time pressures. Some of  these are being driven by children's demands for various paraphernalia. As a consequence, and because of the time pressures, now some of the Frozen  clothing products that are produced in China, such as the garments of Princess Anna (I do like that name - thanks, Disney), are being shipped by air rather than by slow boats.

Markets in which consumers are willing to pay a higher price for lower delivery times are knows as  time-sensitive markets. Below are examples of a few products that fit into this important category of consumer goods.

Fresh produce, many medicines and vaccines, human blood, as well as certain fashion goods are all time-sensitive.

One of the major challenges of supply chains that are globally dispersed is the pressures put in the production and transportation of time-sensitive products. Brands and firms that can deliver the goods in good condition and in a timely manner can reap greater profitss.

In our latest research, Supply Chain Network Competition in Time-Sensitive Markets, Anna Nagurney, Min Yu, Jonas Floden, and Ladimer S. Nagurney,  we develop a game theory model for supply chain network competition in time-sensitive markets in which consumers respond to the average delivery time associated with the various firms' products. The firms' behavior is captured, along with the supply chain network topologies, with the governing equilibrium concept being that of Nash equilibrium. We derive the variational inequality formulation of the equilibrium conditions and provide illustrative examples. We also identify special cases for distinct applications. An algorithm is proposed, and the framework further illustrated through a case study in which we explore varying sensitivities to the average time delivery with interesting results.

We will be presenting this paper at the Mathematics for Industry conference in Taormina, Sicily, Italy, next week, upon the invitation of our colleague, and  Center Associate of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks, Professor Patrizia Daniele. Our paper will be presented in the session: Recent advances on equilibrium problems with applications to networks. One of my former PhD students, Professor Fuminori Toyasaki of York University in Toronto will also be presenting in this session.

We will also present the paper the week after at the festschrift conference in Greece in honor of our dear friend, Professor Panos M. Pardalos.

The full presentation can be downloaded from the Virtual Center for Supernetworks website here.

How appropriate that this collaboration across continents is now being disseminated at various venues.

Terrific PhD Student Placement in Management Science from the Isenberg School

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported in a recent article: Master's in English: Will Mow Lawns, that most graduate programs don't say where graduates get jobs, and future Ph.D.s don't demand the data.

I would beg to differ regarding that statement since it does not apply to a doctoral program that I am deeply involved in.

I have served as the coordinator of the Management Science concentration of the PhD program in Business Administration at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst for many years and follow the careers of many of its graduates closely.

Throughout the year I receive inquiries from prospective applicants about our program and many of the applicants specifically ask about placement of our doctoral students. They want to know where our recent graduates have received jobs -- did they go to academia or industry and inquire even as the level of research university that our PhDs have obtained positions at. Prospective applicants also often ask as to the average length of time to receive the PhD in our program, the number of students that we admit each year, and the size of the financial package (and its duration).

Perhaps, since this doctoral program resides in a School of Management, our potential applicants may be more savvy and analytical when it comes to the outlay of time and effort that matriculation into a doctoral program entails and they want to be able to assess the potential benefits (and I am not just speaking of the deep sense of satisfaction that working on important research problems gives). Entering a doctoral program requires a big investment of personal resources in terms of time and effort but the payoffs can be truly spectacular.

Plus, earning a PhD is an achievement that noone can take away from you!

Now, for the data as to where our PhD students have been "placed." Our most recent graduates in the past 6 years have had as their "first" placements positions at: the University of Connecticut, the University of Sydney, McGill University, the University of Memphis, Texas A&M University, Texas Wesleyan University, University of Alabama, Holy Cross College, the University of Idaho, the University of Arkansas at Monticello, Pennsylvania State University at Malvern, and Pennsylvania State University at Hazleton, and Price Waterhouse.

I am extremely proud of our PhD students and the above list is only for the Management Science concentration! For additional placements, click here.

I might add -- and this also signifies the success of our graduates and our doctoral program -- that "second" placements matter, as well. In one's professional career, one may be faced with the "two body" problem in that one may wish to relocate closer to a spouse's or partner's position (or to be closer to a location for family reasons). Hence, being able to find a second position, is also a measure of success (and shows that one's professional trajectory is going in an upward direction).

Among the list of first placements above, I note that one has now moved to Central Washington University and another to the University of Washington at Bothell. Plus, yet another has moved to York University. All of these positions are for tenure-track Assistant Professorships.

I also would like to emphasize that one of our PhD graduates received tenure in three years and another an offer of a Full Professorship within three years of receiving her PhD (which she has accepted)! Since these two were my PhD students and they also serve as Center Associates of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks I could not be prouder. Dr. Dmytro Matsypura holds a tenured position at a top research university, the University of Sydney in Australia, and Dr. Tina Wakolbinger, will be moving from the Fogelman College of Economics and Business at the University of Memphis to a Full Professorship at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration as of this coming May. There she will have funding for 4 PhD students and her dream job!

Of course, a doctoral program is only as good as the students that it attracts, the faculty that work closely with the students, and the curriculum. The faculty in our program are leaders in their field and the courses that we offer our students prepare them deeply in terms of methodology and applications. For a list of faculty in all of our doctoral program concentrations, click here. Plus, all of our doctoral students are required to teach (typically, for two semesters) an undergraduate course for our Operations Management program. This experience clearly enhances their job prospects.

In addition, we provide numerous leadership opportunities for our students through, for example, the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter, which has garnered 4 national awards in the past 4 years for its various activities.