In the run-up to the 2026 midterm elections, the political parties in many states are working to redefine their congressional district maps to gain every possible edge. From California and Texas to Tennessee and Virginia, redistricting efforts have taken center stage. The Supreme Court has sanctioned partisan gerrymandering, and the system has evolved to one in which state legislature majorities get to determine who is most likely to fill those seats in Congress.
In short, gerrymandering has become a central feature of the system, not a bug. But what if we rethink the structure entirely?
For years, remote work has been viewed as one of the most important drivers of employee satisfaction. New research suggests that assumption may be giving remote work too much credit.
A study published in the INFORMS journal Management Science found that while remote employees often report higher job satisfaction, much of that advantage disappears when researchers account for factors such as workplace culture, trust in management, communication and opportunities for professional development.
A new study from INFORMS suggests warehouse robots perform better when they work together instead of operating independently.
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INFORMS Fellow William Cook, of the University of Waterloo, calculated the best route for visiting 50,000 sites across America from the National Register of Historic Places. Traveling by foot via the shortest route, which stretches 100 times the length of the Appalachian Trail, it would take 50 years to visit each site.
With the number of natural disasters doubling globally since the 1980s, a team lead by INFORMS Fellow Anna Nagurney are researching a novel new way to improve disaster response efforts: game theory.
New research by INFORMS member Burak Kazaz, of the Martin J. Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University, shows a wine distributor can significantly improve its profits by investing in wine futures, in addition to bottled wine. The study's numerical analysis demonstrates an approximate 21 percent profit improvement, a benefit that increases as the wine distributor's degree of risk aversion increases. This study will be published in the INFORMS journal of Manufacturing & Service Operations Management.
Aviation security expert and INFORMS Fellow Sheldon Jacobson provided insight on vulnerabilities at airport checkpoints, like the kind that resulted in 11 passengers passing through an unsupervised checkpoint at JFK airport in February, all of whom reached their flights without further screening.
“The most vulnerable time for any kind of check point is in a transition period,” said Jacobson, who continued that airport security is weakest early in the morning and during shift changes.
Looks do matter. According to a new study in the INFORMS journal of Management Science, the more competent you look (based on certain facial features) the more likely you are to be a CEO. They study, which focused on male CEOs, found that faces that rated as competent-looking typically had square jaws, overall sharper features and appeared more mature.
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