LINTHICUM, Md., June 5 - Dubbed rocket scientists for their Wall Street trading models and credited with the magic behind airline super saver fares, members of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Scientists (INFORMS) and the Operational Research Society of Israel (ORSIS) will hold an international convention in Israel at Tel Aviv University from Sunday, June 28 to Wednesday, July 1. The theme of the conference is "Management Science and Operations Research in an Emerging Region." Invisible but Essential
Operations researchers--also known as management scientists--are little known but indispensable experts who use math and science to better decision-making, management, and operations. Operations researchers work at Tel Aviv University, IBM, the military, and throughout business, government, and academia.
Impressively, they make sense of millions of details. For example, operations research is responsible for the math models used to book the complex web of passenger reservations and discount tickets at busy airlines.
The following are examples of workshops that may interest reporters:
Israeli Politics
Israel's Controversial Blood Policy Toward Ethiopian Jews
Monday 13:00-14:00
A keynote with Dr. Edward Kaplan (Yale University, 1997 Lady Davis Visiting
Professor at Hebrew University) questions the assumptions of the 1996 Israeli
health ministry decision to exclude blood donations by Ethiopian immigrants
because of HIV risk.
The West Bank Economy: Failing or Thriving?
Monday 15:45-17:15
A workshop
that includes papers on small scale manufacturing in the West Bank; Palestinian
businesses on the West Bank; and the Palestinian entrepreneur; with Professor
Benson L. Honig, St. Andrews University, Scotland; Professors Samir Abuznaid and
Usamah Salim Shahwan, Hebron University; and Professors Isobel Doole and Nicola
Stokell, Sheffield Hallam University.
What Mathematicians Learn from the Animal World
Ant Colony Optimization: Nature's Efficiency Experts
Monday 15:45-17:15
A workshop chaired by the field's creator, Professor Marco Dorigo, Free University
of Brussels, Belgium, includes a series of papers on math models derived from
the observation and simulation of ant colonies.
Data Mining
Data Mining
Tuesday 13:00-14:00
A keynote with Professor Jacob Zahavi, Tel Aviv
University about tapping, analyzing, and converting massive
amounts of data into useful information that supports decision making.
Health
Simulating the Scheduling of Surgical Operations
Tuesday 17:00-18:30
A workshop with Professor Jim E. Everett, University of Western Australia,
provides an approach to dealing with lengthening queues of public patients
waiting for elective surgery.
Higher Education
The Management of Higher Education - Models, Perspectives & Illustrations
Tuesday 13:00-14:00
Keynote with Professor Abraham Mehrez, Ben-Gurion
University, on the evolution of the Israeli system of higher education over the
past 10 years.
The convention will include sessions on topics applied to a wide number of fields, including information technology, health care, the Internet, energy, marketing, real estate, securities, and telecommunications. Nearly 700 papers are scheduled to be presented at the four-day conference.
The General Co-Chairs of the convention are Professor Jacob Hornik of Tel Aviv University and Professor Benjamin Lev of the University of Michigan, Dearborn.
For additional information on the conference, including a full list of workshops, visit the web site at http://www.informs.org/Conf/TelAviv98/.
The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) is an international scientific society with 12,000 members, including Nobel Prize laureates, dedicated to applying scientific methods to help improve decision-making, management, and operations. Members of INFORMS work primarily in business, government, and academia. They are represented in fields as diverse as airlines, health care, law enforcement, the military, the stock market, and telecommunications.
The Operational Research Society of Israel (ORSIS) was founded in 1966 to promote and enhance the research and practice of operations research in Israel. It publishes a biannual newsletter and holds a national conference every year at a chosen location in Israel. Of the 300 members, one third are academics and the rest are in industry, business, and the public sector.
Contact at Tel Aviv University: Abigail Fraser, Public Relations, 972-3-642-4020, 640-8741, abigailf@post.tau.ac.il.