Military and Homeland Security

The Military and Homeland Security (M&HLS) area seeks papers that present original research and innovative models of defense-related problems. Although the area still considers papers that address classical problems such as one-sided and force-on-force modeling, the focus will be on current defense issues such as the value and effect of battlefield information, deployment and operational aspects of unmanned vehicles (such as UAVs), sensor deployment and operation, counterinsurgency operations, and contemporary military logistics problems. Of particular interest are papers that address problems related to the war on terror such as search, detection and mitigation of threats (for example, improvised explosive devices), evaluating the effect of and determining the response to terror attacks, and modeling social aspects in counterinsurgency operations (such as social networks). The area will also consider submissions that model and analyze emergency responses to large-scale disasters such as bio-attacks, earthquakes, and hurricanes.

Two types of papers may be considered for publication:

• Original applications of real-world problems, especially if some important and useful operational insights are obtained

• New methodological developments and models

Obscure or classified references should be summarized if they are essential, rather than merely referred to, and acronyms should be spelled out on first occurrence. There is bound to be overlap between this area and others. A paper on logistics that focuses on massive transportation by air would be natural for this area, whereas a paper on routine truck routing would more naturally belong in the Transportation area even if the client were military. Authors are encouraged to select the area they deem most natural. Journal editors will send it to a different area if there is good reason. Operations Research was originally a military activity, and Operations Research has been one of the primary journals of record for military OR ever since the first issue in 1952. Our objective is to continue this record of excellence. We encourage military operations research analysts and researchers to submit their excellent work for publication.

Associate Editors: Michael Atkinson, Boaz Golany, Kyle Lin, Johannes Royset, and Roberto Szechtman