S Volume 8 W Number 1 E March 2014 N International Federation of Operational Research Societies ISSN 2223-4373 What’s Inside: From the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Hola Barcelona! 2 IFORS is 55! Hola Barcelona! Conferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 ICOTA9 3 ORSN 4th International Conference The Art of Modeling could not have found a better backdrop for expression than this city 4 New Beginnings in Historic Erzurum overflowing with passion for festivals, cuisine, art, culture, architecture – Barcelona! New from Around the World. . . . . . . . . This dynamic and inviting city will play host to thousands of Operational Researchers from 4 INFORMS 5 OR Practice in nigeria around the globe as they participate in a long-awaited triennial event, the IFORS 2014 6 ELAVIO Scores Another Success Conference from July 13 to18 . OR for Development Section . . . . . . . . The venue for the conference is the Centre de Convencions Internacional de Barcelona (CCIB) 6 IFORS Continues Tradition http://www.ccib.es/home. Located at the newest section of Barcelona’s seafront, it is one of of Recognizing OR Work the largest and more modern convention centers in Europe. Numerous choices of hotels for Development for all budgets dot the ten- minute walking distance radius from the CCIB. It can be easily 7 IFORS Prize for OR in Development reached by bus, metro or tram from the city center. Finalists 11 IFORS Prize for OR in Development Judges Among the luminaries invited to give plenary sesisons are Jaume Barceló (Universitat 12 Organizers Bare Accepted List Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain), Robert Blackburn (BASF, Germany), Margaret Brandeau of Paper Presenters at ICORD 2014 (Stanford University, USA), and Kate Smith-Miles (Monash University, Australia). The abstracts of their presentations together with their bios are available at http://www.ifors2014.org/ Tutorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . program/confirmed-plenary-speakers. 13 The Basic Combinatorics of Tournament Scheduling Over 2000 abstracts grouped into more than 170 streams are being organized by the Program OR Impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Committee. Several competitions will be held in some of these streams. The IFORS Prize for 16 OR-Based Extraction Plan Pays Off * OR in Development will be awarded at the close of the conference. The winners of two other prizes, traditionally awarded at EURO Conferences, will also be announced at IFORS 2014, Book Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . given that no EURO Conference is organized in the years when IFORS conferences take place. 18 Lasting Legacy of A Legend One such prize is the Award for the Best EJOR Paper 2014. The other is the ROADEF/EURO challenge. OR Society in Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Polish Representation in IFORS : The social program kicks off the conference on Sunday July 13 with a welcome reception A Fruit of Collaborative Effort taking place at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya. It is located in the hillside of Montjuïc, News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . facing the magic fountain, offering a spectacular display of color, light, motion, music and 19 Welcome IFORS VP for EURO water acrobatics. 2013 Annual Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A number of choices are offered for the Wednesday full day excursion. They include 20 President’s Report a Barcelona City Tour, a visit to Codorniu Cava Cellars and Sitges, the Dali Museum in Figueres 21 Report of the Treasurer (Girona) and the beautiful village of Tossa de Mar in the Costa Brava. More details can be found at 22 Report of the ALIO VP http://www.ifors2014.org/program/tours-excursions. 23 Report of the APORS VP 24 Report of the EURO VP 25 Report of the NORAM VP Be a part of the OR. Be a part of Barcelona. Be a part of IFORS 2014. Find out more at 25 Report on Education Initiatives www.IFORS2014.com. 26 Report on IFORS Lectures 26 IFORS 2014 Conference Report 26 Report of the Chair, IFORS Publications Committee 27 Report of the Chair, IFORS Website and IFORS News Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 IFORS @ 55 IFORS NEWS March 2014 • P. 1 From the Editor IFORS is 55! Reaching 55 years is a milestone. Celebrating it in Barcelona – where commerce, education, entertainment, media, fashion, science, and the arts conspire to make it a major world center – makes the event doubly momentous. The Federation holds it 20th Triennial Conference in sunny Spain where we expect more than two thousand delegates. As you read about preparations reported by IFORS Conference Chair Elena Fernandez, the success of this Triennial Conference is indeed certain. As you would know by now, this conference is preceded by the International Conference on OR for Development (ICORD), another major IFORS event that takes place in Lleida. Papers that had been accepted are included in the ICORD piece inside. The OR for Development section also includes the competition finalists of the IFORS Prize for OR in Development. Varied as they may be, the eight finalists’ works cover a lot of areas demonstrating how OR has impacted development and developing countries. News and conferences from all the regions (Asia, Latin America, North America, Europe and Africa) focus on the different aspects of our discipline –from the points of view of students, practitioners and academics. IFORS Past President Dominique de Werra teaches us how OR concepts become important tools in sports scheduling in the Tutorial section. OR Impact, on the other hand, shows how the use of OR has translated into millions of dollars in savings in the mining sector. Geographically, OR is alive and well in the 51 member countries of IFORS. The Member Society in Focus section gives us an idea of how the Polish organization is structured. Technically, getting hold of an encyclopedia devoted to OR can give an appreciation of the breadth and depth of our discipline – this issue’s Book Review highly-recommends one such encyclopedia. How did the past year go? The 2013 report of the 20th President of IFORS, Nelson Maculan with details given by the Administrative Committee gives a snapshot of how the organization has evolved and strengthened over the 55 years of its existence. An active global community under strong leadership indeed bodes well for OR and IFORS - a toast to its next 55 years! - Elise del Rosario <[email protected]> Conferences ICOTA9 in Taipei Impresses Young Dalian Researcher Zhichuan Zhu <[email protected]>, Gerhard-WilhelmWeber <[email protected]> Participants gather for a picture by which to remember ICOTA9 Optimizers coming from different regions of the globe - Australia, programming; equilibrium problem; vehicle system; economics; Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, nonsmooth optimization; management science; multi-objective Macau, Malaysia, Mongolia, Norway, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South optimization; new methods and algorithms; optimal control; and Africa, Singapore, South Australia, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United supply chain management. Kingdom, USA, Vietnam, congregated in Taipei from December 12 to 16 for the 9th International Conference on Optimization: Techniques ICOTA 9 featured 2 keynote speeches, 10 plenary speeches, 2 semi- and Applications (ICOTA 9,http://icota9.conf.tw). plenary speeches and12 streams. Keynote speeches were given by George L. Nemhauser (Institute Professor, Georgia Tech ISyE, Atlanta) More than 200 papers and posters were presented on various on Mixed-Integer Programming: Approaches to Improving Solution theoretical and application aspects in the area of nonlinear Performance and by Jong-Shi Pang (Daniel J Epstein Dept. of Industrial optimization; Hankel tensors; semi-infinite optimization; bilevel and Systems Engineering, USC Viterbi School of Engineering) on programming; conic optimization; industrial management; linear Nonconvex Nash Games. P. 2 • IFORS NEWS • March 2014 The plenary speeches included IFORS VP for APORS Ya-Xiang relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung and Xindian rivers, which Yuan’s Subspace Techniques for Nonlinear Optimization, Liqun join to form the Tamsui River along the city’s western border.) Qi’s Hankel Tensors: Associated Hankel Matrices and Vandermonde Decomposition, Po-Lung Yu’s Optimization in Changeable Spaces, ICOTA was first held in 1987 and has become a traditional Masao Fukushima’s Equilibrium Problems with Equilibrium international well-recognized OR event. The conference had Constraints and Multi-Leader-Follower Game, taken place every three years from 1992, Toh Kim Chuan’s Algorithms for Large Scale and since then, has been held nine times. Matrix Optimization, Jie Sun’s Two-Stage The conference series aims to provide a Stochastic Optimization with Risk Measure forum for scientists, researchers, software and Risk Aversity, Juan-Enrique Martinez- developers, and practitioners to exchange Legaz’ On the Voronoi Mapping, Kok Lay ideas and approaches, to present research Teo’s Optimal Control Problems with Stopping findings and state-of-the-art solutions, to Constraints, Xiaoqiang Cai’s Fourth-Party share experiences on potentials and limits, Logistics, Internet of Things and Cooperative and to open new avenues of research and Games, and Xiang-Sun Zhang’s OR development. The ICOTA conference series is Methodology in Community Structure Analysis closely related with the Pacific Optimization of Complex Networks. Marco Antonio Lopez Research Activity Group (POP), a partner ICOTA 9 was especially Cerda’s The Calmness Property in Linear Semi- of the EURO Working Group of Continuous infinite Optimization and Jane Ye’s Solving inspiring for the young Optimization (EUROPT) for the last10 years Bilevel Programs with a Nonconvex Lower Level and avid supporter of EURO conferences. Program were the featured semi-plenary researchers who had sessions. ICOTA 9 was especially inspiring for the the opportunity to young researchers who had the opportunity The Organizing Committee chaired by Yi- present and discuss to present and discuss novel methods and Kuei Lin ensured that ICOTA 9 delivered the research findings with international experts. novel methods and perfect setting for academic learning and In particular, the article co-author, Zhichuan social interaction among the participants. research findings with from the Dalian University of Technology The conference was held at the International delivered his first presentation on A Modified international experts. Building of National Taiwan University of Homotopy Method For Solving The Principal- Science and Technology, and was sponsored Agent Bilevel Programming Problem very by the National Taiwan University of Science much impressing co-author Weber for and Technology, Academia Sinica, Chinese depth and breadth of the analysis. He and Institute of Industrial Engineers, National Cheng Kung University, his colleagues came to Taiwan from Dalian in China. (Dalian is a National Tsing Hua University and Operations Research Society major city and seaport in the South of Liaoning province; it is the of Taiwan. The city landmark Taipei 101 formerly Taipei World southernmost city of Northeast China and China’s northernmost Financial Center and presently the second tallest building in the warm water port, at the tip of the Liaodong peninsula. Today a world was the venue of the Conference Banquet. (Taipei, officially financial, shipping and logistics center for Northeast Asia, Dalian known as Taipei City, is situated at the northern tip of Taiwan, has a significant history of being used by foreign powers for its lying in the Taipei Basin, an ancient lakebed bounded by the two ports.) ORSN: Young Society Holds 4th International Conference Sunity Shrestha Hada <[email protected]> An international conference and a pre-conference workshop marked the February 1 annual day of the Operational Research Society of Nepal (ORSN). The 4th international conference of ORSN February 1 and 2 was held at Chitwan on February 1 and 2 this year. Participants numbered 105, featuring 61 technical papers on various themes such as optimization, socio-economic, finance, marketing, human resource management. Keynote speeches were given by James Cochran of the Louisiana Tech University on An Alternative Test for the Relative Age Effect and an Examination of the RAE in High School Swimming, Kenneth Chelst of Wayne State University on Beyond Optimality: Value Added Decision Managing, Nan Zhu from China on The Problem Of Regional Cash Armoured Transport And Storage In The Chinese Banking Industry. Jim Cochran giving the Plenary at the ORSN Conference Speakers from Nepal included Pushkar Man Bjracharya, former member of National Planning Commission of Nepal who spoke Lumbini and the capital city Kathmandu. on Graduation from LDCs: Strategies and Approaches for Nepal, and Devendra Bahadur Chhetry former Head of Department of Prior to the conference, a workshop on “Decision Analysis based Central Department of Statistics, TU/Nepal who delivered a talk on Advanced Mathematics” was held January 29, 2014 at the on Revisiting Averages. Kathmandu University School of Education (KUSOED). Conference speakers James Cochran and Kenneth Chelst led the workshop The conference venue was Chitwan, a famous tourist destination participated in by 42 mathematics teachers. for jungle safari and elephant riding and lying between Pokhara, IFORS NEWS March 2014 • P. 3 New Beginnings in Historic Erzurum Gerhard-Wilhelm Weber <[email protected]> It was hard to resist an invitation from Muhammed Yasin Çodur, a cocktail followed. head of the Department of Civil Engineering of Erzurum Technical It was an enjoyable University (http://www.erzurum.edu.tr/) who was responsible for gathering, making boosting the Turkish presence at the EURO 2012 in Vilnius and EURO- me realize that these INFORMS 2013 in Rome. I thus paid Erzurum Technical University opportunities to reach (ETU) a visit on November 18. out to the youth and schools that are just At three years of existence, the university certainly needed inputs starting out should for its development as an institution of education and science. ETU not be missed, as one is an academic project in Erzurum, complementing the older and may have an advise established Atatürk University, which was named after the founder to give or an idea to of Turkish Republic. The students who come from all over Turkey express that might and its neighbouring countries were certainly interested in learning have some impact and in exchange. I took the chance to talk to lecturers and higher on the development education students while gathering technical information about the of a course, or the development strategy and administration of the young university. life of a young student. Among the In the afternoon, after introducing myself to the audience as a friend interesting ideas that Weber with Erzurum Technical University’s and hemşehri (coming from the same city), I proceeded to deliver was floated around Muhammed Yasin Çodur a lecture on Stochastic Dynamics and Its Optimization, in Economics was for Erzurum to and Finance, Science and Engineering. Though dealing with what offer hosting the EURO Winter Institute. Why not? After all, Erzurum some students would consider as complicated topics of Stock Price has some of the finest winter sports facilities in all of Turkey, having Dynamics, Lévy Processes, Bubbles, Jumps and Insiders, Stochastic hosted the 2011 Winter Universiade. Famous for such sites as the Control of Stochastic Hybrid Systems I, Merton’s Optimal Consumption Castle of Erzurum and Double Minaret Madrasah, Erzurum hosts – Investment Problem, Hamilton-Jacobi- fingerprints of numerous civilisations Bellman Equation, Optimization and ranging from Roman to the Ottoman Numerics, Stochastic Hybrid Systems II, Empire. An Institute in Erzurum will be a I am still in touch with the the audience, based on feedback, found great opportunity to the locals as it is for the presentation enjoyable and beneficial. students, via social media the Institute itself. I then invited everyone to two highlights through which I constantly of international OR of the forthcoming Oh, yes, I am still in touch with the years, namely, IFORS 2014 in Barcelona, alert them on conference students, via social media through which Spain (http://ifors2014.org/) and EURO I constantly alert them on conference announcements and other 2015 in Glasgow, United Kingdom. announcements and other interesting interesting information from information from the OR world. In this After receiving my plaque for the age, social media is one effective way to the OR world. lecture from the Rector of Erzurum capture the interest of the young minds Technical University Muammer Yaylalı, of the OR community. News from Around the World Continuously Growing Analytics From IFORS Correspondent Grace Lin <[email protected]> In full support of IFORS, INFORMS is encouraging communities and Big Data, starting June 22 in San Jose, CA, which will help business special interest groups in more than a dozen specialties – including people make the leap from data discovery to return on investment. aviation, the environment, and the military, as well as optimization, • Certification: Last spring INFORMS launched its Certified Analytics data mining and applied probability – to submit papers and abstracts Professional (CAP ®) program, which rigorously allows applicants to the IFORS 2014 in Barcelona. to obtain professional credentials and reassures employers who seek certification from their new hires. More than 500 people are This active pace also continues as INFORMS seeks to become known in the process of seeking certification, over 100 people have taken as the leading professional society for those interested in all aspects the exam, and approximately 75% of those who took the exam of analytics. For more than two years, INFORMS has been growing top passed and earned the coveted status as CAP certified. analytics programs: • Continuing Education: Last September INFORMS introduced courses in essential practices for analytics professionals, as well as • Meetings: INFORMS successfully rebranded its spring O.R. data explorations & visualization. In a few short months last year practice conference as an analytics conference, emphasizing ways 55 people attended the courses; many more will attend this year. of attracting not only O.R. analysts and analytics experts but also In the fall, INFORMS will introduce additional courses as it expands their executives (the INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics & the training it offers to analytics professionals who want to keep Operations Research begins on March 30, 2014 in Boston, MA). This their skills strong. year, INFORMS is introducing a new Conference on the Business of P. 4 • IFORS NEWS • March 2014 • Career Center: Last August INFORMS Maturity Model will allow organizations partnered with the firm Job Target to to complete an online assessment of expand job services for employers and their maturity along three themes: their INFORMS members seeking a position. organizational maturity, their analytics INFORMS more than doubled its job capability, and their infrastructure/use views, to 103,000, in 2013. The number of data. After providing a score of low, of résumés posted by job seekers also medium, or high maturity, INFORMS will doubled, to more than 2,200. guide organizations toward services and resources that will help them rise to their At its analytics conference this March, desired level of analytics maturity. INFORMS will beta test its new analytics maturity model. INFORMS is bringing INFORMS remains committed to being its reputation as a trusted nonprofit, an operations research society, and its professional society to a new offering. leaders take pride at news like US News ...operations research and Leaders at many organizations are & World Report’s ranking of “operations interested in making better use of analytics are becoming a research analyst” as the #2 in its ranking analytics but are not sure about the of top business professions. For INFORMS, current strength of their organization’s dynamic duo. operations research and analytics are analytics use. The INFORMS Analytics becoming a dynamic duo. Operations Research Practice in Nigeria Ismaila Salawu <[email protected]> Twenty years after Operations Research was introduced in Nigeria, recognised under the laws of the Federal most executives in public and private industries are still unaware of Republic of Nigeria on 4th July 2006. the profession and much less use it. Undergraduates and graduates of OR, especially those doing their internship, are frequently asked, “What The Institute provides a venue for is Operations Research?” This suggests that there is a lot of scope for professionals in Operations Research improving effectiveness and efficiency in the country. in Nigeria to interact, develop the profession, and advance its practice, OR as a field of Study method and application for improved The University of Benin, Nigeria established the first postgraduate systems performance in Nigeria. It also programme in Industrial Mathematics which directly included OR as a offers courses leading to the award of field of study in 1980. OR development had its quantum leap in 1986 Certificate and Diploma in Operations when Eyitayo Lambo, professor and then the former minister for health Research. in Nigeria started the PhD programme in OR at the University of Ilorin. The earliest contributors to the development of OR as a discipline in Students of OR follow Suit Nigeria include Professors B.Onimode, Joseph Funsho Akingbade, A.A. The Statistics and Operations Research department at MAUTECH is also Agbadudu, Eyotayo Lambo, Soyibo and Adamu Idama (who introduced home to a National Society of Operations Research Students (NSORS), of the discipline as an undergraduate programme at Mautech).Today which the author is current President. Mautech is the only University in Nigeria that offers pure Operations Research at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The association comprises all undergraduate and post graduate students studying Operations Research in the University. Like the INFORN, it Modibbo Adama University of aims to develop OR among the Technology Yola (MAUTECH students of Nigeria. Students see Yola), formerly Federal University the following challenges ahead as of Technology Yola was among they join the work force: an additional seven universities established in 1980 by the Federal • The name of Operations Research government of Nigeria in response is misleading and people tend to to perceived need for skilled think of the discipline as academic manpower. On September 1, research. 1998 the department of Statistics • People in industry and and Operations Research was government neither know what it established in the School of Pure is nor its potential. and Applied Sciences. Since then, • Lack of competence to implement NSORS take it upon themselves to create an awareness for OR in addition to the undergraduate projects. programmes, the department now runs courses leading to the award of M.Tech and PhD in Operations The students have embarked on activities to create awareness by Research. The durations of these are 5 years for undergraduate degrees, educating Nigeria employers on what OR is and how they could benefit a minimum of 18 months for Masters and minimum of 36 months for from the discipline as well as providing its members with skills through PhD. workshops and seminars. NSORS also tries to obtain donations of books/ journals for its students (Interested readers may contact the author Professionals Form An Association directly.) Nigeria’s foray at establishing an enduring OR professional body was made by Professor Joseph Funsho Akingbade in 1980 when an Conclusion Operational Research club was formed at the University of Lagos. In Thus, even with OR being taken up in school, it is not being implemented late 2004, the Institute for Operations Research of Nigeria (INFORN) was in practice. However, it can be said that the professional and student established under the leadership of Abdulfatai Oyeyemi Lawal. It was associations are working hard to change the way things are in Nigeria. IFORS NEWS March 2014 • P. 5 ELAVIO Scores Another Success Oscar C. Vásquez* <[email protected]> ALIO (Asociación Latino-iberoamericana de Investigación Operativa) has been organizing the ALIO Summer School for Young Scholars (ELAVIO) for two decades. In the past as now, it has continued to provide young Operations Researchers the opportunity to be updated and network with others. For 2014, ELAVIO took place in Paraiba, Brazil from February 17 to 21 at the Hotel Fazienda Triunfo (http://www.hoteltriunfo.com.br/) at Areia, a town located 127 km from Joao Pessoa, capital of Paraiba. It was a well-chosen venue for young doctoral and master students mainly from Latin America to “cachaza” as well as a social dinner, where professional and personal discuss their research and take part in networking activities. connections were established amid the “very cool” live music. The scientific program was divided into 5 tutorials, 2 plenary talks and Apart from ALIO and IFORS, other sponsors for the event were CNPQ parallel technical sessions. The tutorials were led by OR specialists such (Brazil), CAPES (Brazil) and FAPESQ (Fundação de Apoio à Pesquisa as Philippe Michelon (Université d’Avignon et des Pays de Vaucluse) do Estado da Paraíba). The School was organized by Centro de who presented constraint programming as an alternative tool for Informatics, University Federal da Paraíba. solving combinatorial optimization problems and Flavia Bonomo (Uniersidad de Buenos Aires) I would to thank Lucidio dos Anjos Formiga who talked about several structural properties of In the past as now, Cabral (chair-Universidade Federal da Paraiba), well known graph classes and their use in solving it has continued all ELAVIO team for the hospitality and IFORS strategies for optimization problems, among for making it possible for me to attend this very others. In the plenary talks, Luiz Satoru Ochi to provide young productive OR school. It was indeed a great (Universidade Federal Fluminense) discussed Operations Researchers opportunity for developing contact, exchanging the efficient methods for solving vehicle routing the opportunity to be ideas and meeting with potential research problems, while Rosiane de Freitas (Universidade collaborators! Federal do Amazonas) spoke on complex updated and network scheduling problems and some applications. In with others. Oscar Vazquez is a PhD student in Computer Science the parallel sessions, students had the chance to at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie France and present their own research works and to discuss it completed his undergraduate studies in Chile. His with the audience. work on “For The Airplane Refueling Problem Local Precedence Implies Global Precedence” won for him the chance to join ELAVIO with IFORS An important part of every ELAVIO is the social event that enables providing the airfare, and ELAVIO his living expenses. The screening participants to interact in an informal setting. Activities included a trip committee was headed by IFORS VP for ALIO, Lorena Pradenas. to the Arena town, which included a tasting of the traditional drink OR for Development Section IFORS Continues Tradition of Recognizing OR Work for Development During the IFORS XI Conference held in Buenos Aires, Weights Criteria the Third World Prize was set up in order to encourage Elimination Final and reward the best applications of OR in a developing Definition of Problem 5% 5% country. The prize winning paper was “The National Creativity / Appropriateness of Approach 10% 5% Assessment of Education in Chile” by Nicolas Majluf. At MS/OR Content 10% 10% the IFORS XII in Athens, the prize was not awarded. During the succeeding competition in Lisbon, the Prize has been Paper Organisation and Structure 10% 5% renamed IFORS Prize for OR in Development. Since then, Participation of Local Researchers 20% 20% prize money has increased and more rigid criteria had Technical Aspect Total 55% 45% continuously been introduced. The current Prize criteria is shown in the Table on the right. Past winners list can Impact of the Study (actual and potential) 25% 20% be found at http://ifors.org/web/ifors-prize-for-or-in- Stress on Developmental Issues 20% 15% development/. Application Area Total 45% 35% The eight finalists who got the highest scores in the Clarity and organisation 10% elimination round are given in the following pages. Handling of Questions 5% Meanwhile, Andres Weintraub who chairs the 2014 Assessment of Study Impact 5% competition announced the complete list of the panel of judges. Presentation Aspect Total 20% The 2014 IFORS Prize stream has been scheduled on the TOTAL WEIGHT 100% 100% first day of the conference. P. 6 • IFORS NEWS • March 2014 2014 IFORS Prize for OR in Development FINALISTS THE Emergency Engineering Rescue Scheduling and its Application in Disaster Relief Operations in China Zheng Yu-Jun, Ling Hai-Feng, Xu Xin-Li, and Chen Sheng-Yong College of Computer Science & Technology, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310023, China College of Field Engineering, PLA University of Science & Technology, Nanjing 210007, China Abstract Disaster relief operations typically involve a large number of engineering rescue tasks, the completion of which is vital to the success of the operations. The paper establishes a model of emergency engineering rescue scheduling, which involves multiple rescue teams Zheng Yu-Jun Ling Hai-Feng and tasks, different and perhaps fuzzy processing times, as well as different importance weights of the tasks. We then propose a solution method based on biogeography-based optimization (BBO), develop effective migration and mutation operators, and employ a multi objective optimization approach to provide a set of candidate solutions for decision support. Computational experiments demonstrate that our approach can provide competitive performance in test problems. The proposed model and method have been successfully applied to the very recent 2013 Dixi Earthquake in China. Keywords: Emergency engineering rescue scheduling, multi-expert decision, multiobjective optimization (MOO), biogeography-based optimization (BBO) Xu Xin-Li Chen Sheng-Yong A Multi-Period Fleet Allocation Model for the Santiago Fire Department Juan Pérez and Sebastián Maldonado 1Universidad de los Andes, Mons. Álvaro del Portillo 12455, Las Condes, Santiago, Chile. Abstract The city of Santiago de Chile has experienced significant but uneven growth in the last Juan Pérez Sebastián Maldonado few decades, while the location of fire stations and their resources have experienced little change. Additionally, the lack of a centralized and coordinated assignment of resources has caused a significant increment in the average response times in some zones, leading to inefficient and inequitable service. In this study we propose a multi-period fleet assignment model for the Santiago Fire Department. In order to include the seasonal effects observed in the data, a time-series analysis is also presented for forecasting the occurrence of future events, and used as input for the mathematical programming problem. According to our results, an improvement of 10% can be achieved in terms of response time compared to the current scenario by reallocating the existing resources in an optimal way, without the need of adding more fire engines. Keywords: Fleet allocation, Mixed integer programming, Emergency response. IFORS NEWS March 2014 • P. 7 2014 IFORS Prize for OR in Development THE FINALISTS Public Transit Planning and Scheduling Based on AVL Data in China Yindong Shen School of Automation, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China Abstract The public transit operation planning process commonly includes the following activities: network route design, service planning (frequency setting and timetabling) and scheduling (vehicle scheduling, crew scheduling and rostering). However, the network route design is generally the only one widely recognized, whilst the service planning and scheduling are often ignored in China. This leads to the lack of elaborate timetables and schedules, hence, transit operation is often in disorder with high operating cost. To raise the service level and the utilization of resources, this paper presents an applied study for three cities in China, focusing on the enhancement of the cognition and means of public transit planning and scheduling. A comprehensive framework of public transit planning is first proposed, which is composed of Chinese traditional three items (i.e. network route design, land use for depots and equipment with vehicles) and the following newly added items: intelligent public transit system (IPTS) planning, service planning and scheduling. This is pioneering work in China, during which an IPTS is planed and a random model and solution methods for vehicle scheduling based on AVL data are developed. Experiments under the actual projects show that vehicle schedules with high on-time probability and low cost were compiled, while the essential input parameters such as headways and trip times were set automatically. It is anticipated that the research fruits and practical experiences obtained would be of great benefit in increasing service and management level and resource use in the public transport sector in China and other developing countries. Keywords: Public Transit Planning; Vehicle Scheduling; Timetabling, AVL Data, Public Transport Optimizing Ambulance Moveable Station Location and Vehicle Repositioning to Reduce Response Times for the City of São Paulo Luiz Augusto Canito Gallego de Andrade Graduate Program in Logistics Systems Engineering, University of Sao Paulo Claudio Barbieri da Cunha Department of Transportation Engineering, University of Sao Paulo Abstract In this paper, we address the problem of determining the optimal number and the location of ambulance stations, as well as the vehicle allocation and repositioning for the Mobile Emergency Care Service of Sao Paulo (SAMU-SP), in Brazil. This problem arises in the context of seeking to reduce expected ambulance Luiz Augusto Canito response times, that was within 27 minutes in Sao Paulo for 98% of the requests. In order to bring total Gallego de Andrade response times down closer to internationally acceptable standards, SAMU-SP devised the concept of moveable ambulance stations that can be installed in available public spaces such as squares and parks and also can be periodically relocated to ensure a good coverage at all times. This new concept, however, was not an easy sell. It was necessary to clearly demonstrate the benefits that such stations, properly located, could provide in the context of limited budgetary resources when compared to the traditional facilities in regular buildings. In this context, we propose an optimization-based decision support system to guide SAMU-SP in its strategic decisions involving their service network, as well in the allocation and repositioning of ambulances to each stand-by points in order to cope with varying demand on different time periods. The model was applied to analyze different scenarios, including one that was implemented in the short term and yielded an improvement in the expected coverage of over 40%. Keywords: emergency medical services; ambulance stations; location; relocation Claudio Barbieri da Cunha P. 8 • IFORS NEWS • March 2014 2014 IFORS Prize for OR in Development THE FINALISTS Modelling and Solutions of Slab Allocation and Reallocation Problems in Chinese Steel Industry Lixin Tang*, Gongshu Wang, Ying Meng, Jiyin Liu and Yuan Yuan The Logistics Institute, Northeastern University, Shenyang, China, 110819 Abstract Over the last thirty years, China’s steel industry, along with China’s economy, has developed rapidly. However, in terms of operations management, most steel companies in China are still well behind those in developed countries and need significant improvements. This work improves resource utilization and customer satisfaction for Baosteel, China’s leading steel company by addressing two important operations decision problems on allocating and reallocating slabs to customer orders. The problems were formulated as an integer linear programming model and a mixed-integer second-order cone programming model, respectively. Column generation and Lagrangian relaxation techniques were used to solve the models. For large-scale instances of the slab allocation and reallocation problems, hybrid metaheuristic algorithms were proposed to obtain near-optimal solutions within a short computation time. The models and solution methods were successfully embedded into a computerized decision support system (DSS). The implementation of the DSS has brought a total direct economic benefit of $43.16 million USD to Baosteel and reduced carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 238,883 tons annually. Keywords: Steel industry; slab allocation/reallocation; integer programming; second-order cone programming; column generation; Lagrangian relaxation; metaheuristics Water Allocation Modelling and Policy Simulation for the Min River Basin of China under Changing Climatic Conditions Jiuping Xu*, Zhineng Hu, Hong Yan, Liming Yao, Ziqiang Zeng, Mengxiang Zhang State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, P.R. CHINA Low Carbon Technology and Economic Research Center, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, P. R. CHINA Department of Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, CHINA Abstract Unsustainable water resource allocation has been a problem for the Min River Basin, a tributary of the upper Yangtze River in China. At Sancha Lake, the local authority sought to ensure equitable and efficient water use for its subareas. An interactive-dynamic-programming-based genetic algorithm (IDP-GA) is designed to simulate the policies needed for the optimum allocation of water Jiuping Xu Zhineng Hu resources under various climatic scenarios. Specifically, a complete operationalized mechanism for the Sancha Lake area is presented to demonstrate the practicality and efficiency of the model, specifically, that: (1) the bi-level equilibrium model integrating the Stackelberg-Nash equilibrium and the Cournot-Nash equilibrium, is an efficient tool for optimizing water resource allocation strategies; (2) the policy simulation system with an IDP-GA, an extension of principle of computable general equilibrium CGE, inputs scenario data and outputs an early-warning mechanism to inform Hong Yan Liming Yao policy making; and (3) an emergency response cooperative mechanism based on allocation modes dominated by an authority is a relatively equitable and efficient method for developing countries. Keywords: water allocation modelling; changing climatic conditions; bi-level equilibrium model; policy simulation; emergency response cooperative mechanism. Ziqiang Zeng Mengxiang Zhang IFORS NEWS March 2014 • P. 9 2014 IFORS Prize for OR in Development THE FINALISTS Measuring the Effectiveness of Development Programmes for Vulnerable Indigenous People in India B. K. Mangaraj, Production, Operations and Décision Sciences Area XLRI-Xavier School of Management, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand-831001, INDIA Upali Aparajita, Department of Anthropology, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha-751004, INDIA Abstract This paper tries to measure as well as benchmark the effectiveness of development programmes meant for the vulnerable indigenous people of India. These people who live in different parts of the country are named as particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PTGs) by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India. In this work, development effectiveness has been explained in a multi-dimensional framework B. K. Mangaraj and multi-criteria decision-making methodologies have been employed to measure it. The identification of the multiple criteria of the complex effectiveness construct has been done with the help of an ethnographic survey followed by a confirmatory analysis. The concept of relative effectiveness has been introduced to benchmark the effectiveness from that of the relatively ineffective ones. A twophase fuzzy goal programming methodology has been adopted to determine an effective portfolio for the purpose. Two case studies were also presented to demonstrate the measure of development effectiveness of the government sponsored development programme for the PTGs who are in the weakest section of the Indian society. Keywords: development effectiveness; endogenous development; particularly vulnerable tribal group; factor analysis; analytical hierarchical process; fuzzy goal programming. Upali Aparajita Disaster Risk-Sensitive Shelter Plans from Community- Based Risk Analysis for Legazpi City, Philippines Leorey Marquez, CSIRO Computational Informatics (CCI) Gate 5, Normanby Road, Clayton, Australia 3168 Sarah Redoblado, Maria Cheryl Prudente, Nicasio De Rosas, Myrna Llanes, Bernard Apuli Alternative Planning Initiatives, Inc. (ALTERPLAN) Unit 3A, Casa San Jose, 30 Road 8, Project 6, Quezon City, Philippines Ernesto Serote, UP School of Urban and Regional Planning E. Jacinto St, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines Jenifer Belarmino, Evelyn Sierra, Department of  Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Batasan Complex, Constitution Hills, Quezon City, Philippines Abstract Disasters disproportionally affect the poor, vulnerable, and marginalized. Improving social protection and community-driven development (CDD) interventions and linking these mechanisms to disaster risk management (DRM) increases the effectiveness of DRM programs in contributing to poverty alleviation and sustainable development, while  significantly reducing disaster response costs. These interventions are especially relevant to the Philippines which has the third highest disaster risk worldwide, and with climate change, high population density and poverty conditions, the impacts of disasters are expected to increase. This paper describes the implementation and impact of a CDD project aimed at creating Disaster Risk-Sensitive Shelter Plans (DR-SSP) for nine barangays  in the city of Legazpi. The results show the importance of building  capacity in civil society organizations and local government, and the effectiveness of the participatory approach in data collection, risk assessment, and disaster planning.   Keywords disaster risk management, shelter plans, participatory planning, risk analysis, civil society organization P. 10 • IFORS NEWS • March 2014