E-News Blog

Our second annual professional job event, Analytics Connect, will be held at INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics and Operations Research, April 15-17, 2012, in Huntington Beach, California. A huge success last year, Analytics Connect matches professional job seekers with top industry employers. Analytics Connect features a jobs-related networking reception and booths for private meetings with employers. Employers are welcome to sign up now. Attendees of the conference receive free access.

Know some colleagues, friends, students, or supervisors who should belong to INFORMS? Please recommend them! We'll make it worth your while with great incentives during our 2012 member-get-a-member campaign. See the web page for more details. Contest ends March 9. Your recommendation is our most effective membership marketing tool!

Calling all organizations that have benefited handsomely from O.R. and analytics expertise. Please help sponsor the Franz Edelman Gala, the "Academy Awards" celebration of our profession, Monday evening, April 16, 2012, in Huntington Beach, California, at the spring Analytics Conference. We have monetary levels to fit every corporate budget starting at just $1,000. Special rewards come with each gift.

We would like to have you with us in 2012. INFORMS cannot be a strong, vital society without you. Remember, you'll need your Customer ID to renew online. Soon some member benefits, such as your dues journal access and OR/MS Today, will have to be turned off. We certainly don't want that to happen. If circumstances prevent you from renewing, please contact Customer Service.

INFORMS is happy to offer a scholarship program for the INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics and Operations Research. This is a competitive program, supported by SAS® and sponsored by the Analytics Section of INFORMS, that will recognize one outstanding student who would like to learn more about the practice of analytics at this conference in Huntington Beach, April 15-17, 2012 by covering the costs of attending the event and additional networking opportunities. Deadline to apply is midnight, February 19. A one-page essay is required. Click here for more information.

If you are interested in learning more about the intersection of marketing analytics and operations research, you can attend a special track at the INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics and Operations Research. Four ISMS colleagues, P.K. Kannan, Elea Feit, Manoj Chari, and Maher Lahmar have spent months searching for the very best topics and speakers. They have put together an outstanding two-day track of 10 talks on marketing analytics.

The two-day track features 10 talks of the highest quality from hand-picked presenters.

Registration open. Additional information is here.

INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics & Operations Research 2012

April 15-17, 2012, Hyatt Regency, Huntington Beach, California
http://meetings.informs.org/Analytics2012

Register Now - Take Advantage of Super-Saver Rates

Register today for super-saver rates valid through February 24. Team discounts for the third and additional registrants from the same organization. Click here to register.

2012 Franz Edelman Competition & Awards Banquet

Six organizations will compete for the 2012 Edelman Award, vying for honors as the most outstanding examples of O.R. and analytics in practice: Danaos Corporation, TNT Express, Carlson Hotels, Intel, HP, and the Centers for Disease Control. The finalists will be honored and the winner announced at the Monday evening gala banquet (included in our registration fee). Click here for details.

Richard E. Rosenthal Young Researcher Connection

Nominate a junior faculty member or young industry practitioner for this select program. Young Researchers nominated and selected for this honor receive an almost 60% reduction of the conference registration fee to $375. Nomination deadline is March 1, 2012. Click here for more information.

For Students! INFORMS Professional Colloquium

Recommend a practice-oriented master's or PhD student for this one-day career workshop. The IPC registration fee of $375 covers the Colloquium on Sunday, April 15, full registration to the conference, and a half-year INFORMS membership (Jul.-Dec. 2012). Nomination deadline is March 1, 2012. Click here for more information.

INFORMS International Beijing 2012 - Abstract Deadline: February 13

June 24-27, 2012, China National Convention Center, Beijing, China
http://meetings.informs.org/beijing2012

Abstract Submission

Submit an abstract now for this prestigious conference. Submissions in all areas of the OR/MS field, broadly defined, are welcome. We particularly encourage submissions in areas that illustrate the use of OR/MS in keeping with the theme "OR/MS for a Sustainable World." The Committee also welcomes proposals for new Invited Sessions of 3-5 papers. Click here for detailed information on Invited Sessions and abstract submission.

Distinguished Plenary Speakers

The Committee has invited an impressive group of plenary speakers: Brenda Dietrich, Vice President of Business Analytics & Mathematical Sciences at IBM; Darrell Duffie, Distinguished Professor of Finance at Stanford University; Avishai Mandelbaum, Chaired Professor of OR, Statistics and Service Engineering at Technion; and Yuzhuo Zhang, President & CEO of Shenhua Group Corp.

Venue and Accommodations

The meeting will be held at the China National Convention Center, located in the heart of the Olympic Green and one of the exciting structures built for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The Center is adjacent to the famous "Bird's Nest" (the National Stadium), the "Water Cube" (National Aquatics Center), and the National Indoor Stadium - all of which are popular tourist attractions. A full range of hotels are offered to attendees at exclusive conference rates; all hotels are either connected to the convention center or within walking distance.

INFORMS Meetings Calendar

Go to http://meetings.informs.org for a complete conference calendar.

Do you have a question for the INFORMS board?

INFORMS is growing, and when the INFORMS board meets every three months, board members work on policies that make your association more responsive to your needs. For example, INFORMS is exploring ways to match our mission with the analytics movement that dovetails on the work of many operations researchers. And the INFORMS board is giving consideration to developing a certification program in advanced analytics.

The INFORMS board will meet on January 26 and 27, and this meeting will present a chance for you to engage with the board and pose questions about your society. At the meeting, INFORMS will film a special half-hour session with INFORMS President Terry Harrison and other board members who will speak to the contemplated changes that are part of INFORMS' strategic planning.

If you have a question for the INFORMS board, pose it as a question on Twitter using the hash tag #INFORMSboard, or send your question to socialnetworking@mail.informs.org. The deadline to submit questions is Wednesday, January 25. Select questions will be answered by the board, and the video will be posted to the INFORMS website.

Stay tuned.

Models are fundamental for operations researchers, but, as the financial collapse of 2007-2008 proved, models don't always behave as they should. Emanuel Derman of Columbia University's financial engineering program is the author of the new book "Models. Behaving. Badly. Why Confusing Illusion with Reality Can Lead to Disaster on Wall Street and in Life" explores not only the differences between scientific and financial models but also the perspectives of great philosophers in this week's podcast at www.scienceofbetter.org/podcast.

Full-Text INFORMS Journals in 2012
Organization Science and Interfaces will now have the option of full-text HTML in 2012. Subscribers will be able to read 2012 journal articles in full-text HTML or as PDFs making it easier to use on your handheld devices. New issues are publishing in January and February.

Operations Research - New Issue

Read the new articles published in the November/December 2011 Operations Research issue. Anyone can read "In this Issue" for an overview of all 10 articles.

• "Nurse Staffing in Medical Units: A Queueing Perspective"
• "Optimal Energy Commitments with Storage and Intermittent Supply"
• "Optimal Selection of Airport Runway Configurations"

Information Systems Research - New Issue

Read the 11 new papers featured in the December 2011 issue of Information Systems Research including "Reflections on Year One: A 2011 Retrospective." Go to the IPOL Portal to access all new INFORMS journal issues.

• "Protecting Privacy Against Record Linkage Disclosure: A Bounded Swapping Approach for Numeric Data"
• "Pricing Digital Goods: Discontinuous Costs and Shared Infrastructure"
• "Risk Management and Optimal Pricing in Online Storage Grids"

Articles in Advance

Subscribers can read papers published ahead of print every month. Members can now access even more content through their INFORMS subscriptions.

Organization Science, December 22, 2011
Mathematics of Operations Research, December 22, 2011
Management Science, December 22, 2011
M&SOM, December 22, 2011
Interfaces, December 21, 2011
Marketing Science, December 20, 2011
Information Systems Research, December 20, 2011
INFORMS Journal on Computing, December 7, 2011

Register for your 2012 Journal eAlerts

Get alerted when new journal content goes online whether you are a subscriber or not. Choose from a number of alert options, including Tables of Contents and Articles in Advance, for all 13 INFORMS journals. Be sure to add your second member dues journal to your registration: eTOC Alerts.

Interfaces Call for Papers "Operations Research in Freight Transportation and Logistics" Special Issue

Submission deadline: November 15, 2012
Special Issue Editor: Michael F. Gorman
Read the Call for Papers.