Contents

• Editorial
• Soldier System Evaluation Methodology by N. Beagley, W. Hobbs, V. Ivancevic and J. Sunde
• ORSJ40 Award 2002
• 2002 South Australian ASOR Medal Winners
• Forthcoming Conferences
• Seeking Sabbatical Leave Opportunity

First of all, I would like to thank Ms Emma Hunt, Associate Editor, ASOR Bulletin, for collecting and compiling materials for the current issue.

In the paper version of September 2002 issue, we are featuring a technical paper on “Soldier System Evaluation Methodologyâ€� by N. Beagley, W. Hobbs, V. Ivancevic and J. Sunde, Land Operations Division, Defence Science and Technology Organisation, as a refereed article.  Work done at DSTO is becoming an increasingly significant part of Operations Research in Australia, as can be seen from the programme of last year's ASOR National Conference. There will be further technical articles arising from research done at DSTO appearing in coming issues of the Bulletin.

I am pleased to inform you that the electronic version of ASOR Bulletin is now available at this web site. Although the electronic version is prepared as an HTML file, for technical reasons articles may be in PDF or PS format.

Address for sending contributions to the ASOR Bulletin:

Abstract

In this paper we give an overview of the OR effort directed at Soldier Combat System analysis for Australia's Soldier Modernisation Program, Project WUNDURRA. The paper will also focus on several specific techniques, such as Bayesian Belief Networks (BBN) and Human Biodynamics Engine modelling, being employed in this analysis. To assess improvements in operational effectiveness of dismounted infantry units, as a result of introducing new concepts and technologies, we need an understanding and representation of critical skills and activities observed at the small unit level. This is related to the hypothesis that the primary impact of technologies is an enhancement in the core skills of individual soldiers. However enhancement in these core skills does not necessarily translate to an improvement in unit performance and hence an analytical approach is required which enables examination of the emergent unit performance from individual enhancements.

 
In commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Operations Research Society of Japan (ORSJ), ORSJ launched an International Cooperative Program for the promotion of Operations Research in 1997.

This program has essentially been made possible by the generous gift of 30M Yen (roughly $465, 000 AUD) donated over a five year period from 1997 through 2001 by Daiwa House Industry Co. Ltd., in the interests of promoting Operations Research worldwide, especially in the Asia-Pacific region.

The program sponsors young OR researchers from sister Asia Pacific Operations Research Society (APORS) member societies to attend the Annual Conference of the ORSJ. In 1998, five researchers from China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore were invited to the Annual Conference of the ORSJ. In 1999, nine researchers from Australia, China, India, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines and Singapore, including a member of ORSJ, were invited to present their papers at the Second APORS International Session of the 1999 Annual Conference of the ORSJ, held at Seikei University, Tokyo.

This tradition was continued in 2000 with Leonid Churilov (of Monash University) and Stephen Hill (of Curtin University). Stephen was in fact the 2000 runner-up, but his application was so impressive that ASOR, ORSJ and Lou Caccetta decided to jointly fund his conference attendance nonetheless.  The 2001 recipient of this award was Samuel Drake of DSTO Edinburgh.  2002 is the last year that the program will operate.

The criterion for the award is that the recipient must be under the age of 40.  The recipient must give a 20-minute presentation at the Fall Annual Conference of ORSJ.  This year the conference will be held in Hakodate, on the island of Hokkaido, on September 11 and 12, 2002.

ORSJ will pay the participant's registration fees, travel and local expenses. He/she can stay a bit longer than the period of the conference if desired and is encouraged to visit some universities before or after the conference. ORSJ will support this by covering these extra expenses as far as possible.

This year’s Australian recipient is Simon Dunstall , a Research Scientist with the Operations Research Group at CSIRO’s Mathematics and Information Sciences (CMIS) branch.  His winning extended abstract was titled “Automated Travel Itinerary Planning - An Operations Research Perspectiveâ€� and was coauthored with several CMIS colleagues.  It follows this article.

Since joining CSIRO’s  Operations Research Group Simon has been involved in OR research and development for staff rostering, locomotive rostering, supply network planning and operations, machine sequencing and scheduling and itinerary planning. In addition, he has assisted the CFD Group with the development of their webGF granular flow simulation interface. Simon joined the OR Group in April 2000 after submitting his PhD (Engineering) thesis at the University of Melbourne. This thesis combined a study of mathematical approaches to machine scheduling problems with setup times, with a broad analysis of the role of mathematical methods in the 'industrial scheduling problem'. During his PhD candidature Simon developed and implemented scheduling algorithms for a bus tour scheduling system (as part of a team formed by CMAD, Melbourne) and created the pilot version of the University of Melbourne's emamo on-line tutorial for linear programming. Prior to his research activities Simon received an honours degree in the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at the University of Melbourne. Simon has 11 publications to his credit.

The extended abstract of the award winning paper is given below.
 

 
In this presentation we describe key aspects of the Electronic Travel Planner (ETP), the pilot version of which has recently been developed by CSIRO Australia. ETP prepares and presents travel itineraries for tourists. These itineraries are created by combining tourism product data, information relating to the traveller’s requirements, preferences and desires for their trip, and the itinerary generation capabilities of the ETP Activity Planner.

ETP captures the preferences, interests and values of a traveller. This information about the traveller profile is assembled into a user request. The user request incorporates information such as the specified starting and finishing location of the trip, the locations that the traveller is and is not interested in visiting, the types of activity the traveller likes and dislikes, the traveller’s accommodation requirements, the duration of the trip and the budget available for the trip.
The role of the Activity Planner in ETP is to generate an itinerary. It builds this itinerary by matching the traveller profile with available travel products (i.e. airline flights, bus and rail journeys, accommodation, tours and activities). The data-gathering components of ETP act as a filter for identifying the travel products that are available at the time of the trip and which can be considered for an itinerary. The data is drawn from a database of many accommodation options and activities, and transport options are drawn directly from transport schedules.

ETP also provides the user with a natural-language explanation (or justification) of each proposed itinerary. These explanations are formulated relative to the traveller profile expressed by the user request, and are constructed using information gathered during the execution of the itinerary-generating algorithms.

We concentrate our attention on the Activity Planner component of ETP, and in doing so adopt an OR-oriented perspective of the prototype ETP technology. We present models for traveller desires and preferences, the criteria applied for measuring itinerary "goodness", and the scheduling models used in itinerary generation. From this basis we give an overview of the Activity Planner optimisation problems, and outline our approach to solving these problems using a combination of ideas gleaned from the areas of scheduling, routing, assignment and constraint programming.

The Activity Planner generates answers to the fundamental travel-related questions of "where, what and when". It selects the locations visited by the traveller ("where"), decides which tours and attractions are to be taken in by the traveller ("what"), and determines a detailed timetable for the chosen travel and tourism activities ("when"). In doing so it tackles a series of difficult and highly-constrained optimisation problems, each of which undertakes a combination of selection, assignment, scheduling and multi-criteria decision-making functions.

The Activity Planner translates the user request into a set of constraints and objective-function components. Each tourism product is associated with a set of attributes. The set of available attributes varies between travel products, and there are four broad categories of product: transport, locations and localities, activities and accommodation. For example, the set of transport attributes includes the elements “business class� and “rail journey�, and the set of accommodation attributes includes “swimming pool�, “disabled access� and “four star�.

The user request explicitly assigns a preference level to a selection of attributes, and default values are adopted for the attributes that are not part of the user request. There are six preference levels, specified on a scale of increasing desirability, ranging from “forbidden� through to “mandatory�. For many attributes, the default preference level is “permitted�. Locations and localities, for example “Island of Hokkaido�, “Tokyo� and “Central Australia�, are not marked with attributes. Rather, preferences for these are specified directly by the user request, either implicitly or explicitly.

The extreme preference levels translate into hard constraints that strictly force travel products either in- or out- of the itinerary-generation process. The intermediate preference levels give rise to objective function components (attribute response functions) that either reward or penalise an itinerary for possessing quantities of that attribute. The attribute response functions can be non-linear. The values of the attribute response functions are summed to give a quantity termed the gathered attribute value (GAV). The GAV reflects the “enjoyment value� of the itinerary.

The budget-related information in the user request is translated into a utility function that expresses, for a given total itinerary cost, the GAV value that the traveller would “expect�. The overall objective function value is the difference between the GAV and the utility function value, and we seek to maximise this value. The utility function is parameterised by the user request and is the sum of a linear function and an exponential “barrier function� that becomes increasingly significant as the itinerary cost approaches the traveller’s upper budget limit.

Itinerary construction is governed by a series of hard rules that capture the “system constraints� of travel. For example, a traveller must have booked accommodation for every night that they are not travelling, they must spend time resting before and after travelling between locations, and a traveller may only undertake one activity at a time.

An itinerary is composed of three scheduling layers. The locational layer specifies the location occupied by the traveller, or travel on a transport service, for each instant of the trip. The accommodation layer specifies the accommodation for each night that is not spent on a transport service. The activities layer schedules day tours and other activities between inter-location travel intervals.

The “where� question is addressed by an algorithm that combines TSP tour-scheduling with decision-tree searching. The root-node sequence consists of the user-specified first and last locations. Constraint programming approaches are used to weight and rank candidate locations, and the locations are inserted one- or two- at a time into the sequence of locations. The TSP algorithm seeks to minimise expected travel cost.

Each trial sequence is then used to create a sub-problem, the solution of which involves selecting transport services between locations and determining the time of travel (the “when� question), and scheduling touring activities and selecting accommodation (the “what� question). There is a strong interaction between these problems, both through the constraints of space and time, and the behaviour of the objective function. For example, an itinerary that specifies more time in a location with less-expensive accommodation and activities will save cost, yet allocating more time to an interesting location may result in the gathering of greater attribute value over the same time interval.

The “when� and “what� questions are addressed by a nested series of algorithms that operate on specific parts of the problem. The outermost algorithm selects transport services and touring activities. It forms a priority list of the options for each, where the priority depends on several factors. Ideas established within the constraint programming literature are used within a module that computes an influential factor in the priority value. In this module a selection of the problem constraints are analysed and the criticality of the inclusion or exclusion of a particular activity is determined. The priorities are dynamically updated during the execution of the outermost algorithm.

Elements are selected from the priority list and introduced into the itinerary. The introduction of an element spawns a process termed location scheduling, where the activities assigned to each location are scheduled according to their availability timetables. The OR methods used during location scheduling include bisection search, auction algorithms and network optimisation algorithms. Accommodation is selected as part of the location scheduling process, and “free time� in the itinerary is allocated to locations in order to maximise the objective function value in the neighbourhood of the current solution.

Computational testing of the prototype ETP has shown that further development iterations will be required in order for achieve computation-time performance that is suitable for, say, an on-line web-based application of the technology. Such an application is one of a series of potential business opportunities for the technology. For modestly sized input data sets, computation times can extend to several minutes, although many trials yielded results in a matter of seconds.

Our experience with the ETP itinerary-planning problem has clearly highlighted to us the need for thoughtful modelling of the needs, preferences, interests and values of travellers: it is the travellers who are the ultimate judges of a solution. Our personal observations of the quality of the itineraries that can be generated using ETP allow us to conclude that automated itinerary planning is an achievable goal for real world applications. Furthermore, the development of ETP has led to the identification and solution of a sizeable number of itinerary-planning sub-problems, each of which offer both research and commercial opportunities.

Since 1989 ASOR’s Adelaide chapter has funded an ASOR Medal both at the University of Adelaide and at the University of South Australia (formerly the South Australian Institute of Technology).  The winners each year receive $200, an engraved ASOR medal and a year’s subscription to ASOR.

At the University of Adelaide the prize is awarded to the student with the best performance in Level III in the four Operations Research courses of Applied Probability III, Stochastic Modelling for Telecommunications III, Optimisation III and Mathematical Programming III.

At the University of South Australia the prize is awarded to the student in the degree program in Mathematics and Computing having the most outstanding combined results in the courses Linear Programming and Simulation (second year),Queueing and Simulation (second year) and Optimisation (third year).

This year our congratulations go to Jeremy McMahon from the University of Adelaide and Jane Thredgold from the University of South Australia.

The Melbourne chapter also awards ASOR Medals to students.  We hope to feature this year’s recipients in the December issue of the ASOR Bulletin.
 

Past South Australian Medal Recipients:

     Year of Award             University of Adelaide                         University of South Australia(SAIT to 1990)
         1989                         Belinda Medlin                                             Jenny G Rowland
        1990                         Sue Barwick                                                Heather Palmer
        1991                         Michelle Harrison                                         Tracey Whitmore & James Alevizos  (shared)
        1992                         Leslie Bright                                                 Eleonora Dal Grande
        1993                         Emma Pearce & Jacek Noga  (shared)         Thang Hoang
        1994                         A D Vincent & I S D Solomon  (shared)       David George
        1995                         P J Wiskich                                                  Minh Tuan Nguyen
        1996                         Clare Saddler                                               Stuart Swan
        1997                         Kirk Hempel                                                Stephen E Frick
        1998                         Fiona K Fletcher                                          David Menz
        1999                         Chris Donoghue                                           Kathrine Grillett
        2000                         Gregory Sherman                                         Helen Monroe & Barbara Ridley  (shared)
        2001                         James Parrott                                               Kylie Bryant
 

This year the Melbourne Chapter of ASOR will be running the Student Conference in either late September or early October.  Both undergraduate and post-graduate students are invited to particpate, by submitting abstracts relating either to theoretical developments or practical applications of Operations Research.

The date of the conference will be fixed in August and the September Newsletter will contain another call for papers, suitable for putting up on university notice boards.  In the meantime, lecturers are encouraged to bring this event to the attention of their students.

Recent Advances and Future Directions in Operations Research

A tradition established by the ASOR Melbourne Chapter committee almost 20 years ago was to organize a one-day conference on "Recent Developments in Operations Research".  That tradition continues, this year with a focus on Future Directions and ‘Hidden OR’.  As previously, this year’s conference will be held in November, at a date to be announced later.

For now, members, and non-members, wishing to present papers are invited to submit abstracts.  This year the one-day conference will also feature two panel discussions.

The conference will start with a panel discussion on the topic: "Is OR alive; what is the evidence?�

Contributed papers will fill the balance of the morning and the first half of the afternoon.

The day will end with a second panel discussion, for which the topic is: " Is OR existing as hidden OR; and what are the pros and cons?"

The aim of these panel discussions is to assess the current situation and, if necessary, initiate some corrective action plans.

The topics of the panel discussion are more important than ever before, as lot of Operations Research departments have closed down, courses in OR offered by universities has been reduced, and membership of the OR societies around the world is reducing.

Contributed papers are invited and suggestions in connection with proposed panel discussions are welcome.  The joint organizers are:

The joint organizers for both events are:
Santosh Kumar: 9688 5333 (W), 9894 5102 (H); Mobile 0411 136 612; skumar@sci.vu.edu.au
Paul Lochert: 9802 4628 (H) paul.lochert@sci.monash.edu.au
Dudley Foster: 9894 0355 (HO);
Mobile 0417 342 272; dudleyf@ozemail.com.au

JSOM 2002
September 25-27, 2002, Kyoto
Website: http://www-optima.amp.i.kyoto-u.ac.jp/JSOM2002/ or http://vanilla.eie.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp/JSOM2002/

The Sino-Japanese Optimization Meeting (SJOM) is a conference series which aims to provide a forum for researchers from the Asia-Pacific region working in the area of optimization to gather together .
The meeting will take place at the Rihga Royal Hotel Kyoto. The hotel is located in the south of Kyoto City and is ten minutes walk from the JR Kyoto Station.  A free shuttle bus is available from the station.

Topics Include
· Linear and Nonlinear Optimization
· Smooth and Nonsmooth Optimization
· Integer and Combinatorial Optimization
· Convex Optimization
· Global Optimization
· Network Flows
· Complementarity and Variational Inequalities Problems
· Semi-Definite Programming
· Multiobjective Programming
· Stochastic Programming
· Generalized Convexity
· Metaheuristics
· Optimal Control
· Scheduling
· Data Mining Applications

Endorsement
The Second Japanese-Sino Optimization Meeting (JSOM 2002) is endorsed by The Mathematical Programming Society (MPS), The Operations Research Society of Japan (ORSJ), the Pacific Optimization Research Activity Group (POP), the Chinese Mathematical Programming Society and the Research Association of Mathematical Programming (RAMP), Japan.

Dates and Deadlines
· Evening of September 24, 2002: Registration & Reception
· September 25-27, 2002: JSOM 2002
· Evening of September 26,2002: Banquet

The next SJOM conference will be held in 2005.  It is expected to be held every three years from now on.   Persons interested in organizing the next SJOM conference may contact the Co-Chairs of the Steering Committee of SJOM.
 

Industrial Optimisation Symposium and Optimisation Day
September 30-October 3, 2002, Perth.
Website: http://www.maths.curtin.edu.au/ios.html

The Western Australian Centre of Excellence in Industrial Optimisation (WACEIO) is organising the inaugural “Industrial Optimisation Symposium� (September 30 – October 2, 2002) and the 9th (Australian) Optimisation Day (October 3, 2002).
The Symposium will be a forum for the exchange of ideas and information between users and developers of optimisation technology.  The theme of the Symposium extends to both the practical and fundamental aspects of industrial optimisation.
The Optimisation Day is the 9th in a very highly successful series of annual meetings in Australia.  The aim of this series is to bring together optimisation researchers for the exchange of new ideas and developments.

Invited Speakers
Peter J. Fleming, The University of Sheffield, UK.
Kees Roos, Delft University of Technology,  Netherlands.
Bruno Simeone, La Sapienza University, Rome, Italy.
Kok-Lay Teo, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.

Call for Papers
Contributions on all aspects of optimisation are invited.  A fully refereed Proceedings will be published following the Symposium/Workshop.  Participants who wish to contribute a paper are requested to submit three copies plus one without page numbers of the paper according to the attached guidelines.  Only previously unpublished papers will be considered for presentation at the Symposium / Optimisation Day.  All submitted papers will be refereed.  Furthermore, authors of selected papers will be invited to submit expanded versions for consideration for publication in a special issue.

For details on the instructions for the preparation of papers, please see the call for papers on the web.

Important Dates
Submission Of Abstracts:       30th August, 2002.
Notification Of Acceptance:   6th September, 2002.
Registration:                          13th September, 2002.
Submission Of Manuscripts For Proceedings:    25th October, 2002.
Notification Of Acceptance:  15th November, 2002.
Submission Of Final Manuscripts: 29th November, 2002.
Publication:                             December 2002.

For further information please contact the chair of IOS: Professor Lou Caccetta 9457 9926 (h)  0401103371 (m).
 

Optimization Theory and Applications Mini- Workshop
November 14 - 15, 2002
Centre for Informatics and Applied Optimization
School of Information Technology and Mathematical Sciences University of Ballarat, Victoria

Keynote speakers: J. Borwein and T. Rockafellar.
The list of invited speakers currently includes: A. Eberhard, J. Filar, P. Howlett, C. Pearce and A. Rubinov.

The registration fee is $US30 ($US15 for PhD students); morning tea, light lunch and afternoon tea are offered to registered participants.
Contributed talks are welcome.
For further details regarding the workshop, please contact: Alex Rubinov amr@ballarat.edu.au

CIAO at the University of Ballarat Ballarat is one of Australia's largest inland cities with a population of 90,000 and is set in the heart of Victoria just over an hour from Melbourne via a dual freeway. The University of Ballarat is unique in Australia as a dual-sector regional university providing a wide range of courses to 19,000 students. The Centre for Informatics and Applied Optimization (CIAO) within the School of Information Technology and Mathematical Sciences is one of four designated research centres in the University. The main research trusts are in applied optimisation, distributed simulation, knowledge management, health informatics, and mathematical and statistical analysis.
 

INFORMS 2002
November 17-20, 2002, San Jose
Website:  http://www.informs.org/conf/SanJosse2002/

The Silicon Valley Challenge
At the foundation of business and organizational success in Silicon Valley are five key elements: Management, Innovation, Technology, Entrepreneurship and Creativity (MITEC). These were the driving forces put in motion when William Hewlett and David Packard launched their company with $538 out of Packard’s garage. Those same elements are what hundreds of other companies in the valley and around the world have been built on over the past 50 years. Successfully integrating those elements is the Silicon Valley Challenge.

The INFORMS Annual Meeting in San Jose will take full advantage of all the resources Silicon Valley offers. The scientific program will cover the broad landscape of OR/MS research and application, from Manufacturing to Information, Transportation, Energy and Communication (MITEC). Executives from leading technology companies will present ideas and perspectives that challenge your thinking. Plant tours will give you an inside look at the systems and technology being used by major corporations in the Valley. And—as at every INFORMS Annual Meeting—the emphasis will be on networking and exchange with your colleagues from around the country and around the world.

We look forward to seeing you in San Jose for an INFORMS Annual Meeting guaranteed to be exciting, thought-provoking and challenging.

The details Call for Papers and Posters can be found on the web.

Technical Program
· The Omega Rho Distinguished Lecture by Secretary of the US Air Force, James G. Roche.
· The McCord Lecture, “Modeling to Bits: Marketing Engineering in a Digital, Networked Worldâ€� by Gary Lilien, Distinguished Research Professor of Management Science at Penn State University.
· A keynote address by Richard O’Neill, Chief Economic Advisor to the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Office of Markets, Tariffs and Rates on “Restructuring Electricity Markets.â€�
· The IFORS keynote address by David Ryan, Professor of Operations Research at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, who will share his insights gained from decades of effective, profitable implementation of OR.
· A reprise of the winning presentation from the 2002 Edelman prize competition: “New Era for Crew Recovery at Continental Airlines,â€� by Continental Airlines, CALEB Technologies Corp., and the University of Texas at Austin.
· Two special invited sessions celebrating the 50th anniversary of ORSA and featuring presentations by six past-presidents of ORSA.
· A tutorial by Edward Kaplan of Yale University and Larry Wein of Stanford University on “Modeling Bioterror Response Logistics.â€�
· A tutorial on “Very Large Scale Neighborhood Search Methodsâ€� by Ravindra Ahuja of the University of Florida and James Orlin of MIT.
· A tutorial by William Swope of IBM Research and Ali Abbas and Susan Holmes of Stanford University on “Applications of Management Science Tools in Bioinformatics.â€�
· Invited clusters on technology management, financial engineering, supply chain issues  in e-business, airline safety, product development, integer programming, nonlinear programming, and a broad range of other topics.
· Over 200 sponsored sessions organized by more than 20 subdivisions of INFORMS on topics ranging from applied probability to health applications, telecommunications and revenue management .
· A panel discussion on “The OR Entrepreneur,â€� chaired by INFORMS President-Elect Tom Cook, as well as more than 20 other sessions designed especially for practitioners.
· Topics include communication network planning, semiconductor manufacturing, managing new product development, risk management, supply chains, electric power and technology strategy.
· A conference-within-a-conference: The 7th Annual INFORMS Conference on Information Systems and Technology (CIST) with the theme of “IT-Enabled Transformations.â€�
· The Combined Colloquia, incorporating the Doctoral Colloquium, Teaching Effectiveness Colloquium and Industry Colloquium.
 

Numerical Global Optimization Mini-Workshop
December 5, 2002
Centre for Informatics and Applied Optimization School of Information Technology and Mathematical Sciences University of Ballarat

Leading experts in the field from Canada, Hong Kong and Australia will discuss various methods and approaches for solving highly nonlinear (global) optimization problems.
The list of invited speakers currently includes A. Bagirov, G. Beliakov. L. Caccetta , D. Li, C. Newton, J. Pinter.

Registration fee is $US30 ($US15 for PhD students); morning tea, light lunch and afternoon tea are offered to registered participants.

The workshop will be accompanied on December 6th, 2002 by a short course titled Algorithms and Software for Nonlinear Systems Modeling and Optimization, presented by János D. Pintér. For further details regarding these events, please contact: Alex Rubinov amr@ballarat.edu.au
 

OMS02
December 15 - 18, 2002, Hangzhou, China:
The first International Conference on Optimization Methods and Software (OMS 2002)
Website:  http://www.cityu.edu.hk/ma/conference/oms2002.html
Conference email address: maopt@math.cityu.edu.hk

Objectives
The conference aims to review and discuss recent advances and promising research trends in optimization theory, methods, applications and software developing.
Topics Include
· Linear and Nonlinear Optimization
· Integer and Combinatorial Optimization
· Convex and Nonsmooth Optimization
· Global Optimization
· Semi-definite Programming
· Semi-infinite Programming
· Multi-objective Optimization
· Stochastic Optimization
· Complementarity and Variational Inequality Problems
· Network Optimization
· Scheduling Problems
· Optimal Control
· Automatic Differentiation
· Optimization Software

Conference Venue
The New Building of the Center for Mathematics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.

Abstract Submission
Those interested in participating the conference are invited to submit abstracts of their papers by email to oms@math.zju.edu.cn.  Abstracts should not exceed one page and should be written in either LaTeX or Microsoft Word
It is preferable for the participants to submit their abstracts as an attached file, together with an email containing the following information:
1.  Contact author's name, affiliation, mailing and email address.
2.  Name of the speaker if the paper is a co-authored one.
3.  Name of the session organizer if the paper is for an organized session.
4.  One or two research topics most closely related to the paper.

Conference Publications
Papers presented at the conference will be considered for publication in a peer-reviewed proceedings which will appear as a special issue of the journal Optimization Methods and Software.  The co-editors of the special issue are Cornelis Roos and Jian-Zhong Zhang.  All papers should be submitted in electronic form (PS, PDF or DVI file) by email to maopt@math.cityu.edu.hk by 31 January 2003.  To prepare a manuscript, please follow the "Instructions for Authors" which is available on the journal's web site:
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/authors/g-authors/191/191-nfc.htm

Dates and Deadlines
Deadline for abstract submissions: 31 August 2002.
Notification of acceptance: 30 September 2002.
Release of the second announcement: 30 September 2002.
Deadline for early registration: 31 October 2002.
Deadline for hotel-booking at the special rate: 30 November 2002.
 

ICORD'2002
December 27-30, 2002, Chennai
International Conference On Operations Research For Development (ICORD 2002) & XXXV Annual Convention of ORSI, December 27 – 30, 2002, Chennai, India
Website: http://www.annauniv.edu/orsi-chennai/

Theme: Operations Research in Emerging Technologies and Societal Transformation.

Dates and Venue
The International Conference on Operations Research for Development (ICORD 2002) under the auspices of the Operational Research Society of India (ORSI) will be held during December 27 – 30, 2002 in the College of Engineering, Guindy Campus of Anna University, Chennai (Madras), India and is jointly organized by the Chennai and Bangalore Chapters of ORSI.

Scope 
The prevalence of Operations Research in the Nation’s economy reflects the growing complexity in managing large organizations that require the effective use of human & other resources, available technology and alternate solutions. Such applications play a major role in transforming the Society towards a better living.  This conference aims at bringing together the researchers and practitioners of Operations Research to a common platform to focus on current state-of-art in the relevant areas.
A number of distinguished speakers will deliver invited lectures on both theoretical and applied Operations Research.

Publications 
All the submitted papers will be peer reviewed for publication in the Proceedings (which will be brought out after the Conference). In addition to the electronic proceedings, a special volume of a well-known book series 'Annals of Operations Research' will be reserved for top quality papers. The presentation of the papers at the Conference is a pre-requisite for inclusion in the Conference Proceedings and consideration in the special volume.

Important Dates
Submission of Extended Abstract: Sept 15, 2002
Acceptance of Papers: Sept 30, 2002 (for presentation)
Submission of Registration:Oct 31, 2002
Accommodation form with

Contact details: ICORD 2002 Conference Secretariat, Industrial Engineering Division, Anna University, Chennai – 600 025, India, Phone : +91-44- 2351126 (Ext. 3189), Fax : +91-44-2350397
Email: icord2002@rediffmail.com  or   icord2002@annauniv.edu

ASOR’2003
The 17th National Conference of the Australian Society for Operations Research Inc., Sydney, Australia 7-11 July 2003

The 17th National Conference of Australian Society for Operations Research will be held in Sydney, as part of the 5th International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics, ICIAM 2003, in Sydney, during 7-11 July 2003. The web site for ICIAM 2003 is http://www.iciam.org .

Submission deadlines 
· 31 August 2002: early deadline for minisymposia proposals
· 31 October 2002: normal deadline for minisymposia proposals & deadline for contributed presentations (proposals received after this date will be by poster session)
· 31 January 2003: deadline for abstract submissions: mini-symposia and contributed talks & final deadline for abstract submissions to poster sessions.

Registration deadlines
· 30 November 2002: deadline for early-bird registration
· 31 March 2003: deadline for normal registration fee.
· 30 June 2003: deadline for late registration fee.
· 14 June 2003:  distribution of final announcement, with timetables.
 

As regular full time professor at Université Laval ,a French speaking university in Québec, (Canada), for the second part of my sabbatical leave, from the 1st july 2003 to the 31th December , 2003, I seek for an Australian university or research center which could accomodate me during this period..  I work in the field of OR and decision engineering , more specifically multicriterion modeling, group decision modeling,  quality management, including the mathematical and algorithmic aspect of the latters.  My research applications are implied  mainly in the  process engineering  and the urban transport fields. My coordinates :

                                                              Dr Laszlo Nandor KISS , professor
                                                              Université Laval, bureau 2537/PAP
                                                              SAINTE_FOY(Québec)
                                                               G1K 7P4 Canada
                                                               e-mail : laszlo.kiss@fsa.ulaval.ca