Operations Research Conference in Argentina Snapshots

In an earlier blogpost I provided photos of my first 48 hours in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I am attending the ALIO INFORMS conference. This conference has convened operations researchers from around the globe and I have enjoyed the plenary talks and tutorials and the talks that I have attended.

Above I have posted photos of the conference venue which is the law school in Buenos Aires. The group photo was taken at the international collaborations panel that took place yesterday morning after which I also had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Celso Ribeiro speak on soccer scheduling optimization for Brazil.

Coincidentally, at my session on sustainable supply chains, which took place on Sunday, a member of the audience was wearing a UMass Amherst sweatshirt. He bought the sweatshirt in Chile and it is his favorite. Seeing him in the audience made my presentation on Sustainable Supply Chain Network Design: A Multicriteria Perspective a lot of fun to give.

First 48 Hours in Buenos Aires, Argentina

I arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina after about 17 hours of travel. It is Fall here but the weather is perfect with sunny skies and temps in the 60s.

The ALIO INFORMS conference has begun and I have met conferees from around the globe.

Above are some snapshots taken in Buenos Aires during my first 48 hours here.

The elegance of the city and its charms are apparent as is the warmth of the people here. Knowing Spanish is a clear advantage and it is great to have an opportunity to speak this language.

Operations Research Tutorials at ALIO-INFORMS Conference

There is a wealth of tutorials at the very soon to take place ALIO-INFORMS Conference, as well as exciting plenary talks and keynote speeches. The venue is Buenos Aires, Argentina, which has been called the "Paris of the South."

The topics of the tutorials and plenary and keynote speeches are varied and exciting and include a wide spectrum: from optimization in sports to portfolio management, OR education, revenue management, dynamic games, humanitarian operations, telecommunications applications, cliques in graphs, among others. The full list can be read here.

Mike Trick has a blog post that he is also off to the conference and has been working on his tutorial.

I am sure that this conference will be covered well by the bloggers in attendance and plan on posting from Buenos Aires!

The tutorial that I will be giving is on Fragile Networks: Identifying Vulnerabilities and Synergies in an Uncertain Age and I have made the slides available (along with those for a presentation and for the International Collaborations panel that I will be on). An invited paper, based on this tutorial, and in press in the journal, International Transactions in Operational Research, joint with my co-author of the Fragile Networks book, can be downloaded (in pdf format).

3 million dollars in Kavli Prizes announced

The richest prize in science known as the Kavli prize was announced today by the Norwegain Academy of Science and Letters. As reported in The New York Times:

The prizes, one each in astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience, are awarded every other year. This year, eight scientists will share the money, $3 million in all, which comes from the Kavli Foundation, set up by Fred Kavli, a Norwegian-American physicist, entrepreneur and philanthropist.

The astrophysics prize will be split three ways between Jerry Nelson of the University of California, Santa Cruz; J. Roger P. Angel of the University of Arizona; and Raymond N. Wilson, formerly of the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany.

The neuroscience prize will also be split three ways, between Thomas Südhof of the Stanford School of Medicine, Richard H. Scheller of Genentech and James E. Rothman of Yale for work on the molecular basis of nervous transmission.

The prize for nanoscience will go to Donald M. Eigler of I.B.M.’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif., and Nadrian C. Seeman of New York University for developing the ability to indulge in architecture and engineering on the smallest scales imaginable.

The ceremony was streamed live in conjunction with the World Science Festival (WSF), which is taking place in NYC, June 2-6, 2010.

I watched the video streaming and it was so neat to see segments from NYC with those great WSF red chairs as well as from the very elegant ceremony in Oslo. You can view it here.

International Collaborations Panel

I am very much looking forward to the ALIO-INFORMS Conference that will take place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, June 6-9, 2010. Besides giving a talk on Sustainable Supply Chain Network Design at the conference and an invited tutorial: Fragile Networks: Identifying Vulnerabilities and Synergies in an Uncertain Age, which is on the theme of my latest book with Professor Patrick Qiang, I will be on a panel: International Collaborations. The panel was organized by Professor Sadan Kulturel of Pennsylvania State University Berks and is sponsored by WORMS (Women in Operations Research and the Management Sciences). Dr. Kulturel has assembled a great group of panelists that I am honored to be included with: Dr. Karla Hoffman of George Mason University, Dr. M. Gulnara Baldoquin of the Higher Polytechnic Institute in Cuba, and Dr. Lorena Pradenas of Concepcion University in Chile. More information on the panelists can be accessed here with a press release from Penn State Berks on this panel available here.

Each panelist will give a 10 minute presentation followed by questions and answers.

My presentation on my personal experiences and reflections on international collaborations is available here (complete with a lot of photos)

I am very much looking forward to this conference and to participating in the panel and discussions and I thank Dr. Sadan Kulturel for organizing this special panel.

Supernetwork News

The 2010 Summer Edition of the Supernetwork Sentinel is now available (in pdf format). It is the newsletter of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks at the Isenberg School at UMass Amherst. It, along with all previous editions of this newsletter, can be accessed here.

This newsletter overviews some of the recent research and successes of the Center Associates with a focus on supply chains and transportation. The newsletter also covers many of the exciting activities from conference presentations to hosting speakers to accolades that the supernetwork team members have received recently. As Director of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks, I especially enjoy seeing the collaborations that are made possible through the networks that we have established and the scholarship and research that has, as a consequence, come about.

Avatars, Computer Modeling, and Networks

I always say that one of the best things about travel is the people that you (might) meet. My most recent trip (about which I have also blogged about) was to give an invited talk at the Social Theory and Social Computing: Steps to Integration Workshop that took place May 22-23, 2010 in gorgeous Honolulu, Hawaii. Not only was the venue perfect but the talks at this workshop were stimulating, thought-provoking, and at, times,, may I say, somewhat controversial. The passion for research was obvious among the speakers and what I appreciated tremendously was the interdisciplinary focus of the research that was presented.

Let me say, that the organizers and the speakers at this workshop have the courage to break through disciplinary boundaries because that is the best way to create new synergies and to stimulate new discoveries. Doing business, as usual, will not yield innovations.

At the workshop, I had the pleasure of meeting (among other fascinating individuals) Professor Barry Silverman, who combines systems engineering (and actually told me that he was also trained in operations research) with behavioral science, and is a Professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Lo and behold, last Sunday, right on the first page of The Boston Globe, was a feature article on the research that Professor Silverman is conducting under the provocative title: Knowing the Enemy, One Avatar at a Time. The article discussed his research on the computer modeling of villagers in Afghanistan, which has attracted a lot of funding support but also a bit of controversy (any research that goes against the grain is bound to be challenged).

More information about the workshop at which Professor Silverman spoke can be found here and his presentation may be downloaded (if you are impatient) here.

You can read more about Professor Silverman's research as well as the complementary research of Professor Kathleen Carley of CMU (who I have had the pleasure of meeting several times) in an earlier article on the types of networks that they study in the IEEE Spectrum.

The above group photo was taken at the Hawaii workshop. Professor Silverman is the tallest standing in the back row wearing a Hawaiian shirt.