Operations Research 91

The volume comprises a collection of 172 extented abstracts of talks presented at the 16th Symposium on Operations Rese- arch held at the University of Trier in September 1991. It is designated to serve as a quickly published documentation of the scientific activities of the conference. Subjects and areas touched upon include theory, modelling and computational methods in optimization, combinatorial op- timization and discrete mathematics, combinatorial problems in VLSI, scientific computing, stochastic and dynamic opti- mization, queuing, scheduling, stochastics and econometrics, mathematical economics and game theory, utility, risk, insu- rance, financial engineering, computer science in business and economics, knowledge engineering and production and ma- nufacturing.

This proceedings volume highlights the role and importance of Operational Research (OR) in the digital era and the underlying ICT challenges. The selected papers cover recent advances in all branches of operational research, mathematical modeling and decision making. It covers a wide range of key areas from digital economy, to supply chain management, and also finance. The book adopts an applied perspective that covers the contributions of OR in the broad field of business and economics linked with the discipline of computer science. The chapters are based on papers presented at the 6th International Symposium & 28th National Conference on Operational Research. Although the conference is organized by the Hellenic Operational Research Society (HELORS), the contributions in this book promotes international co-operation among researchers and practitioners working in the field.

Audience: Anyone concerned with the science, techniques and ideas of how decisions are made."--BOOK JACKET.

The volume contains a selection of manuscripts of lectures presented at the International Symposi um on Operations Research (SOR 96). The Symposium took place at the Technical University of Braunschweig, September 3-6, 1996. SOR 96 was organized under the auspices of the two German societies of Operations Research, Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Operations Research (DGOR) and Gesellschaft fur Mathematik, Okonomie and Operations Research (GMOOR) in cooperation with the Working Group Discrete Optimization of the IFIP (WG7.4). Since 1995, DGOR and GMOORjointly prepare the Symposium as a common annual conference. In particular, the annual general meetings of the DGOR, the GMOOR and the WG7.4 took place during the conference. The Symposi~m had 527 participants from 32 countries around the world, including 92 partici pants from Eastern Europe. The Symposium obviously attracts an international audience of workers fully covering the broad spectrum of Operations Research and related areas in economics, mathema tics and computer science. The importance of a highly interdisciplinary field as Operations Research is increasing owing to the growth in applications in related disciplines. Technological advances in computer science and algorithmic mathematics are crucial for attacking the great challenges waiting in the areas of applications of Operations Research effectively. As a participant of SOR 96 one could well observe the current pace of achievements. Many of these results are in these proceedings. The program consisted of two plenary, 17 semiplenary, and 335 contributed lectures in 18 sections.

We are pleased to welcome readers to this issue of the Journal of Applied Operational Research (JAOR), Volume 3, Number 2. The journal reports on developments in all aspects of operational research, including the latest advances and applications. It is a primarily goal of the journal to focus on and publish practical case studies which illustrate real-life applications.

"This is the book I have been waiting for. Community Operational Research has shown that analysis can be used not only for, but also with, community groups, helping them to gain more control of their situations. What Midgley and Ochoa-Arias' volume does is provide not only rich examples of grass-roots practice, but also thought-provoking theoretical explorations. The editors have a point of view, but they allow space for debate with those who interpret Community OR differently." Jonathan Rosenhead (Emeritus Professor of Operational Research, London School of Economics and Political Science; Ex-President of the ORS)