NEWS Volume 12 Number 3 September 2018 International Federation of Operational Research Societies ISSN 2223-4373 What’s Inside From the President From the President 1 The Growth of Operational Research Mike Trick <[email protected]> From the Editor 2 OR Everywhere! I started studying operational research Much of almost forty years ago when I was an this growth OR Impact undergraduate student at the University is due to 2 Assigning Inmates to Correctional of Waterloo in Canada. When I decided the growth Institutions and Programs in to continue in the field and applied for in scale of Pennsylvania doctoral programs, I remember getting operations advice from my fellow students to find a research. Tutorial faster-growing field. “There is no future By this I 6 Performance and Optimization of to operations research”, they said. “The mean that Network Evacuation Problems future is in …” And they suggested a OR is not number of “hotter” fields. just used for OR for Development Section big, multi- 9 OR-Analytics in a Start-Up Project for Thirty-eight years later, the field of million Refugees operations research shows no signs of dollar 11 Self-Directed Learning and Study stagnation. To the contrary, the field projects. With OR on every laptop Groups is as exciting as it ever has been. Some computer due to both commercial and of this excitement is simply due to the open-source software, OR can be used Book Review 12 Prediction Machines relationship between OR and “analytics”, for everything from small one-shot today’s current hot topic. But I think most decisions to huge, company-changing OR Society in Focus of the excitement is due to the growth initiatives. When I started, OR meant big 14 40 years of the Austrian Society of of OR in three different ways: growth of companies; now it means every company Operations Research (OEGOR) application, growth of scale, and growth and organization. No decision is too big 14 50 Years of the Brazilian Society of of geography. or too small for OR. Operational Research (SOBRAPO) In terms of application, it seems that And that leads us to geographic Conferences there is no area of endeavor that growth. While OR is well established in 16 AFROS 2018 Conference cannot be improved with OR. Whether the developed world, the developing 17 EURO 2018 it is sports, medicine, transportation, world offers new applications and 19 Report of EUROPT Workshop 2018 the arts, environmental planning, new opportunities for impact. When I 21 EWG-ORD 2018 Workshop telecommunications, or practically any was at the AFROS (African Federation 22 Balikesir Hosts OR Meeting other field, there are now researchers of Operational Research Societies) 24 INFORMS International in Taiwan and practitioners showing the value of conference this summer, I was struck OR in that field. I have worked for almost by the variety of problems being faced 25 ECCO XXXI - CO 2018 twenty years in the use of optimization in in Africa and how OR was being used to 26 XXXI International Seminar of creating sports schedules. When I started, address those problems. For a very small Ergonomics - Fostered by OR there were perhaps five people in the investment, companies and organizations 27 The 61st Meeting of EWGCFM world who had looked at such problems: throught the continent were being 29 ICEST 2018 in 2017 alone, there were more than 50 transformed by OR. 29 SEMIRATA-ICST 2018 papers published in the professional literature, many of which recounted the Thirty-eight years ago, my fellow students Association Governance and Management practical application of OR to real-world suggested a number of fields of study, 30 The Must-Do List for Association problems. This story can be repeated in many of which barely exist today: I am Board meetings hundreds of fields of application. glad I stuck with operational research. Editorial Box IFORS News September 2018 1 From the Editor OR Everywhere! Luciana Salete Buriol <[email protected]> The September issue of IFORS News presents of 50 years of the Brazilian OR society articles showing the growth of OR with applications (SOBRAPO), and, in November, 40 years in a number of different areas, as mentioned by our of the Austrian Society of Operations President Michael Trick in his editorial. Research (OEGOR). In a period of half a year, all of the IFORS Regionals In the OR Impact Section you can find the article and AFROS will have hosted their “Assigning Inmates to Correctional Institutions and conferences! AFROS and EURO are Programs in Pennsylvania”, which summarizes the already reported in this issue, and work that won the 2017 INFORMS Wagner Prize. the articles give an idea of how Another important application of OR is described extraordinary these events were. in the Tutorial Section with the article “Performance Moreover, many other international and Optimization of Network Evacuation Problems”. OR events are reported in the Conferences Section. The OR for Development Section presents a startup project for refugees that makes intense use of OR To conclude the issue, please read analytics. Moreover, an article about self-directed the inspiring article “The Must-Do learning and study groups is presented which list for association board meetings”. describes a methodology that can be used in different contexts to develop OR skills. Artificial Finally, I would like to thank the Inteligence is the subject of the Book Review Section IFORS News co-editor, James with the book “Prediction Machines: The Simple Bleach <managingeditor@ Economics of Artificial Intelligence”. theobexproject.co.uk>, for his support in generating this This issue of IFORS News also reports the celebration issue. Articles demonstrating direct benefits from implementing OR studies OR Impact Section Editors: Sue Merchant <[email protected]>, John Ranyard <[email protected]> Tamás Terlaky <[email protected]>, Mohammad Shahabsafa, Louis J. Plebani, George R. Wilson, Anshul Sharma, Chaitanya Gudapati, Lehigh University, Pennsylvania, USA Kristofer B. Bucklen, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, USA Introduction receives a list of treatment programs, all designed to According to the International Centre for Prison Studies, reduce the likelihood of further criminal activity upon the United States (US) incarcerates 698 people for every release. Inmates are usually given a sentence of minimum 100,000 of its population. Although it has approximately length in Pennsylvania (PA) and are eligible to be released 4.5% of the world’s population, the US has 21.4% of conditionally (i.e., paroled) if they satisfy all the parole the world’s incarcerated population (1, 2). In 2015, the requirements, including completing all the required Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PADoC) spent treatment programs. However, limited program resources a staggering $2.15 billion to house 50,366 inmates (3) at the Correction Institutes (CIs) causes inevitable delays but the authorities believed there was much potential in inmates taking up the programs, thus delaying their for increasing efficiency, security, and saving costs. parole and contributing to overcrowding in prisons. For Lehigh University was commissioned to explore ways example, an inmate might receive a 12 month (minimum) of improving the assignment of inmates to correctional to 24 month sentence for possession with intent to deliver institutions while considering the scheduling of the drugs. The sentence includes the prescription of drug correctional (rehabilitation) program at the time of the abuse and anger management programs, which have 4 assignment and the outcome is described here. and 6 months lengths, respectively. If perfect assignment is made, the inmate can start his/her programs within a The main goal was to develop an inmate assignment month, complete both programs in 6 months from the decision support system (IADSS) which simultaneously program start dates and be ready for parole hearing at assigns inmates to Correctional Institutions (CIs), schedules the minimum sentence time of 12 months. However, the treatment programs for these inmates, and considers all with a wait time of 5 months and if the inmate had to the relevant factors and criteria of each assignment. be transported to another CI for the second treatment program, the inmate would not be ready for the parole Background hearing until the 15th month and would be released at When a court delivers a sentence, the inmate often the earliest after 19 months. 2 IFORS NEWS September 2018 The Mixed Integer Linear Optimization (MILO) Approach The aim was to assign inmates to the CIs and schedule their programs, using mathematical optimization. This involved mapping and formalizing all the inmate assignment processes, a challenging task. To address the need for simultaneous system-wide optimization of inmate assignments which incorporated all the conflicting factors, a hierarchically weighted multi- objective mixed-integer linear optimization (MILO) model was developed and fine-tuned (see 5 for the technical details). The Inmate Assignment Decision Support System (IADSS) The MILO model was incorporated into a web-based Inmate Assignment Decision Support System (IADSS), 2017 INFORMS Wagner prize team. Back row (left to right): which enables a user to make optimal decisions for Chaitanya Gudapathi, George Wilson, Kristofer Bucklen assignment and treatment program scheduling in a (Director at DoC PA), front row (left to right): Anshul Sharma, fraction of the time needed previously. In addition data Mohammad Shahabsafa, Senator Lisa Boscola, Tamás Terlaky collection and preparation procedures, which interface (project leader), Louis Plebani with the existing database systems, were developed. Assignment Criteria The IADSS collects all the personal and sentence Previously each new inmate was manually assigned to information needed for the assignment of an inmate a CI using a range of criteria such as security concerns, and displays it in the web-based graphical user interface separation requirements, mental and medical to facilitate the review of the system’s assignment.