Operational Research 84

An Annotated Timeline of Operations Research: An Informal History recounts the evolution of Operations Research (OR) as a new science - the science of decision making. Arising from the urgent operational issues of World War II, the philosophy and methodology of OR has permeated the resolution of decision problems in business, industry, and government. The Timeline chronicles the history of OR in the form of self-contained, expository entries. Each entry presents a concise explanation of the events and people under discussion, and provides key sources where further relevant information can be obtained. In addition, books and papers that have influenced the development of OR or helped to educate the first generations of OR academics and practitioners are cited throughout the book. Starting in 1564 with seminal ideas that form the precursors of OR, the Timeline traces the key ideas and events of OR through 2004. The Timeline should interest anyone involved in OR - researchers, practitioners, academics, and, especially, students - who wish to learn how OR came into being. Further, the scope and expository style of the Timeline should make it of value to the general reader interested in the development of science and technology in the last half of the twentieth century.

LNCS volumes 2073 and 2074 contain the proceedings of the International Conference on Computational Science, ICCS 2001, held in San Francisco, California, May 27-31, 2001. The two volumes consist of more than 230 contributed and invited papers that reflect the aims of the conference to bring together researchers and scientists from mathematics and computer science as basic computing disciplines, researchers from various application areas who are pioneering advanced application of computational methods to sciences such as physics, chemistry, life sciences, and engineering, arts and humanitarian fields, along with software developers and vendors, to discuss problems and solutions in the area, to identify new issues, and to shape future directions for research, as well as to help industrial users apply various advanced computational techniques.

This is the third edition of a textbook that has been used in a number of undergraduate courses and covers the standard models and techniques used in decision-making in organizations. The main emphasis of the book is on modelling business-related scenarios and the generation of decision alternatives. Fully solved examples from many areas are used to illustrate the main concepts without getting bogged down in technical details. The book presents an approach to operations research that is heavily based on modelling and makes extensive use of sensitivity analyses. It is the result of the authors’ many years of combined teaching experience. The third edition includes new topics such as nonlinear programming and reliability theory, as well as additional material on multi-attribute decision-making. Each chapter includes a number of fully solved problems that allow students to practice or self-study. Additional problems are available on the book’s accompanying website.

These proceedings provide information on the most recent advances in operations research and related areas in economics, mathematics, and computer science, contributed by academics and practitioners from around the world.