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ORSNZ Newsletter September2005

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ORSNZ Newsletter September2005 NEWSLETTER September 2005 Operational Research Society of New Zealand, Inc. PO Box 6544, Wellesley St. Auckland, New Zealand, www.orsnz.org.nz the conference are at http://www.univ- Contents nc.nc/Recherche/labo/erim/lastconf/confsp.htm 1 From the Editor In order to bring the mathematical community 1 ORSNZ Visiting Lecturer Scholarships in the South Pacific together, it was decided to 2 ORSNZ 2005 Conference found a South Pacific Mathematical Society. 3 What a Bunch of Nerds Can do to Promote For more details contact Henri Bonnel bon- the OR Profession [email protected]. 3 Puzzle Corner 4 Chapter News Matthias Ehrgott 6 Meetings Calendar 7 Officers of ORSNZ 2004 Newsletter publication dates are March, June, September, and December. Submissions deadline is the 15th of the month for the following month’s issue. Send submissions by email to the Newsletter editor, Matthias Ehrgott, news- [email protected]. Acceptable formats are plain text, ORSNZ Visiting Lecturer word, or graphic formats jpg, tiff, and gif. Pdf or postscript documents are not acceptable . Scholarships ORSNZ invites nominations for ORSNZ visit- From the Editor ing lecturer scholarships for visits to New Zea- land between September 2005 and June 2006. First South-Pacific Conference on Each visiting lecturer must give a talk on some Mathematics topic likely to be of general interest to ORSNZ The week of 19 th August to 2 nd September saw members at each of Auckland, Hamilton, Wel- the birth of a new series of conferences. On the lington, and Christchurch. Each visiting lecturer initiative of Henri Bonnel the first South-Pacific will be invited to write a guest editorial for the conference on mathematics was organised by society newsletter. The emolument of each the University of New-Caledonia and held at the scholarship is up to $1000. ORSNZ will not Institute of Research for Development (IRD) at normally consider payment of additional costs Noumea, New Caledonia. The conference was to visiting lecturers. attended by 38 researchers from New Caledo- Each candidate must be nominated by a current nia, French Polynesia, Fiji, Australia, New Zea- member of ORSNZ, “the champion”. The land, China, Japan, Brazil, France, and Finland.. nomination must include the CV of the nomi- While the focus of the conference was on opti- nated visiting lecturer, the date and location of mization, all branches of mathematics were the hosts of the visit, the name of the champion welcome. All participants agreed that the meet- and an undertaking by the champion to coordi- ing was a success and that a conference series nate a visit by the nominee to the four above should be established. The conferences will be named centres. hosted in turn by the University of New Cale- donia, Noumea, the University of the South- Enquiries concerning, or nominations for, Pacific, Suva, and the University of French scholarships should be sent to Polynesia, Papeete. The next event is planned David Ryan, Department of Engineering Science, for 22 – 28 January 2007 in Fiji, with the third The University of Auckland, Private Bag envisaged for 24 – 29 July 2009. Details about 92019Auckland September 2005 Page 1 40 TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE ORSNZ 2 – 3 December 2005 Wellington, New Zealand Operational Research Society of New Zealand, Inc. PO Box 6544, Wellesley St. Auckland, New Zealand, www.orsnz.org.nz REFLECTING BACK – LOOKING FORWARD : Celebrating 40 Years of OR in New Zealand The Hosts Student Grants-in-Aid for the ORSNZ Annual Conference, Wellington, Novem- The Wellington Branch of the ORSNZ, Victoria Management School and Victoria University of Wel- ber 2005 lington are pleased to host the 40 th Annual Confer- ence of the Operational Research Society of New Full-time students, who are members of ORSNZ, and Zealand, ORSNZ’05, on Friday 2 and Saturday 3 plan to present a paper at the ORSNZ conference, are December 2005 (with a pre-conference social on the eligible for travel assistance from ORSNZ to attend evening of Thursday 1 December and Dinner at the the conference. Applications should be made using Harbour View Lounge of the Michael Fowler Centre the conference registration form (see on Friday 2 December). www.orsnz.org.nz/conf ), and should be signed by the student’s supervisor or Head of Department to con- firm that the applicant is enrolled in a full-time uni- Call for Papers versity course. The completed registration form, to- We welcome papers on any aspect of operational gether with an abstract of the planned paper, should research, especially practical applications, but also be sent to the conference address above by 30 Sep- “tutorial-style” reviews of a field. Please email your tember, 2005. Grants will be payable at the confer- abstract, in 200 words or less, in plain text, to the ence upon production of a GST receipt for the travel conference organisers at [email protected] . expenses. Submission deadline for abstracts: Young Practitioners’ Prize (YPP) 30 September, 2005. OR practitioners and students who will be under 25 Following acceptance of your abstract, we shall in- years of age on 2 December 2005 are invited to com- vite you to submit a full-length paper for publication pete for the ORSNZ Young Practitioners’ Prize. in the conference proceedings. A copy of the pro- Condition for entry is the presentation of a paper at ceedings will be given to every attendee at the con- the 40 th Annual Conference of the ORSNZ. When ference. Full papers must be submitted by email in registering for the conference, competitors should Word (.doc), Postscript (.ps) or Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) request that their paper be scheduled in the YPP ses- format to the conference organisers. sion and must provide proof of their eligibility. The total prize money awarded will be $1,000, split be- Submission deadline for full papers: tween the authors of the best papers at the judges’ 31 October, 2005. discretion. Conference Committee Registration forms, guidelines for the preparation of full papers, and further information about the confer- John Davies, Vicky Mabin, Tom Halliburton, John ence, will be available on the conference website Hayes, Stefanka Chukova, Mark Johnston, Mark www.orsnz.org.nz/conf . Pickup Page 2 September 2005 What a Bunch of Nerds Can Do of INFORMS hiring some marketing firm, which went out and got interviews with CEOs and to Promote the OR Profession CIOs and made surveys .” Therefore, there While in Hawaii for the IFORS 17 th triennial seems to be a lot of justification for their claims conference I attended a presentation by Irvin and way to go. Lustig from ILOG, at the time representing IN- Of course, in the American way. FORMS. The presentation entitled “Principles of marketing the O.R. profession: how can your I have seen the efforts of ORSNZ to let students society get started” was mainly attended by rep- know what OR is about. While I really appreci- ate the effort – and keep the flyers handy just in resentatives of different national O.R. societies. case a students asks - I wonder whether ORSNZ In the opening remarks, Irvin said to the audi- would like to consider adapting the "Science-of- ence: “ Let’s face it: we are basically a bunch of better" campaign some more appropriate kiwi nerds ”. And went on to say that “ O.R. is the dis- fashion. I think this would enhance the promo- cipline of applying advanced analytical methods tional task already started. to help make better decisions ”. “Better deci- Fernando Beltrán sions” is the key to the invitation that Lustig ISOM Department extended to the bunch of us in front of him. University of Auckland Lustig’s main point was to illustrate how IN- FORMS is promoting the O.R. profession through the Science-of-Better campaign. Sci- ence of better aims at delivering a broader ex- planation of the impacts of O.R. in a wide range of practical settings. The campaign uses exam- ples from U.S. industries and corporations such as how Continental Airlines got the help of O.R. consultants to generate crew recovery solutions for responding to emergencies, a very sensitive issue for the industry in the aftermath of the ter- rorist attacks on the U.S. in 2001. His presentation also highlighted the adoption of the campaign by the U.K. OR Society. The Society adopted the campaign by adapting the The printing of this newsletter has been generously INFORMS material to its membership and cul- sponsored by Hoare Research Software. tural identity. For instance when referring to executives making bolder decisions and running everyday operations, with less risk and better outcomes, INFRORMS uses the phrase “Seat- Puzzle Corner of-the-pants-less”; the UK OR Society in turn used the same material and ideas but changed the phrase to “Bolder decisions with less gut- feel”. In fact, examples that exhibit successful stories in the U.S. refer to the U.S. experience; in con- trast, the UK OR Society has chosen O.R. suc- cess stories within the context of U.K. firms. Both campaigns can be seen at www.scienceofbetter.org and Why must a house whose rooms each have an www.scienceofbetter.co.uk, respectively. even number of doors likewise have an even number of entrance doors? INFORMS is encouraging other national socie- ties to go the same way. Not only this will pro- Source: L A Graham, Ingenious Mathematical mote the O.R. profession in each country but Problems and Methods, Dover Publication, New will also bring together the societies, they say. York, 1959. In the words of Lustig “ this effort has come out Solution to the Puzzle in theLast Issue Source: From A to B, on flooble :: perplexus and Nick's Mathematical Puzzles Let the total distance travelled downhill, on the (http://www.qbyte.org/puzzles/) level, and uphill, on the outbound journey, be x, y, and z, respectively.
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