Plenaries & Keynotes
10-10:50am, Hilton, Continental 5
Honoring George B. Dantzig at 100: Remembering the Dantzig Century
Richard Cottle, Stanford University

10-10:50am, Hilton Continental 6
Reprise of 2014 Edelman Award-Winning Presentation: Polio Eradicators Use Integrated Analytical Models to Make Better Decisions
Kid Risk, Inc.: Kimberly Thompson, Radboud J. Duintjer Tebbens
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Stephen L. Cochi, Mark A. Pallansch, Steven G. F. Wassilak

3:10-4pm, Hilton, Continental 4
Panel on MOOCs: Just a Fad or Here to Stay?
Moderator: Martin Haugh, Columbia University
Panelists: Dimitris Bertsimas, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Kay Giesecke, Stanford University; Garud Iyengar, Columbia University; Soulaymane Kachani, Columbia University

3:10-4pm, Hilton, Continental 5
Operating the Grid
Mark Rothleder, California Independent System Operator Corporation

3:10-4pm, Hilton, Continental 6
Reprise of the 2014 UPS George D. Smith Prize
Georgia Perakis and Donald Rosenfield, MIT

Wagner Prize Presentations
Hilton, Union Square 9, Level 4
To see clear, concise examples of verifiable O.R. and analytics practice success, you won't want to miss the six Wagner Prize presentations.

8-9:30am:

• Project Portfolio Planning at Intel Corporation
• Airline Crew Augmentation, Decades of Improvements from Sabre

11am-12:30pm:

• Vaccine Prioritization for Effective Pandemic Response
• Identifying Risks and Mitigating Disruptions in the Automotive Supply Chain

1:30-3pm:

• Statistical and Optimization Techniques for Laundry Portfolio Optimization at P&G
• Gerrymandering for Justice: Redistricting U.S. Liver Allocation

 

The Whys, Hows, and Whats of Analytics Certification

11am-12:30pm, Parc, Market Street

CAP^�, the Certified Analytics Professional, is one of the newest professional designations in the area of big data and analytics. Have you wondered why you should be a CAP, how to prepare for the exam, what it means to employers, how INFORMS came to develop an analytics program? Come to this joint session Analytics/CPMS presentation today!

 

Innovative Applications in Analytics Award 2014 Winner Reprise
4:30-6:30pm, Parc, Market Street, Level 3
UNICEF Uganda, US Fund for UNICEF, and IBM Research - A SMS Text Classification System for UNICEF Uganda
Rick Lawrence, IBM Research

All Welcome!
10:30-11:30am, Hilton, Golden Gate 3
Refereed journals are facing many important trends that impact INFORMS and authors. This Editors' panel will discuss leading issues including editorial board structures, review-cycle time, open access, submission fees, and plagiarism. Please join us!
Chair: M. Eric Johnson (VP Publications), Vanderbilt University
Panelists: Ritu Agarwal (ISR), University of Maryland; Preyas Desai (Marketing Science), Duke; Stephen C. Graves (MSOM), MIT; Zur Shapira (Organization Science), NYU; David Woodruff (INFORMS Journal on Computing), University of California, Davis; Kathleen Luckey (Senior Managing Editor, INFORMS)

INFORMS is pleased to offer a free mobile app for smart phones and tablet users. Use the app to access conference information on the go, including the schedule of talks, maps showing meeting locations, exhibit details, and much more. As this is a native app, you do not need an internet data connection to use it during the conference.

When you enter the meeting program in the app, you can either browse through the parallel sessions and special events or search for a specific speaker or keywords. As you locate the events, sessions, and presentations you are interested in, click on the star button which bookmarks it into the My List itinerary. Use My List for a quick reference tool.

Android Devices - to download, go to the Google Play Store and search for INFORMS Mobile.
Apple Devices - to download on either iPhone or iPad, go to the App Store and search for INFORMS Mobile.

Please Provide Your Input
We encourage you to complete the survey on the information screen of the main menu. The conference committee greatly appreciates your feedback on individual sessions and on the meeting overall.

Mobile App Information Desk
Visit the booth located next to INFORMS Registration in the Hilton, Yosemite, BR Level. We're happy to help you make the most of your INFORMS Mobile App experience!

Choose the community that is right for you and attend. Members and nonmembers welcome.
H = Hilton and P = Parc 55

Attend the corresponding Community meeting to join in the fun. Most begin at 6:15pm.

Computing Society
INFORMS Computing Society Prize
The ICS Prize is an annual award for best English language paper on the OR/CS interface. The award includes a plaque and a $1,000 cash prize.
Winners: Jim Ostrowski, Jeff Linderoth, Fabrizio Rossi, and Stefano Smriglio

INFORMS Computing Society Student Paper Award
The ICS Student Paper Award is given annually to the best paper on computing and operations research by a student author, as judged by a panel of the ICS. The award includes a plaque and $500 cash prize.
Winner: Andre A. Cire
Runner-Up: Kalyani Nagaraj

Presented: 6:15pm, Computing Society Business Meeting, Hilton, Continental 5, BR Level

Decision Analysis Society
Publication Award
This award is given annually to the best decision analysis article or book published in the second preceding calendar year, as judged by a panel of Society members. The award includes a plaque and $750 cash prize.
Winners: Manel Baucells and Rakesh Sarin

Student Paper Competition Award
This award is given annually to the best decision analysis paper by a student author, as judged by a panel of Society members. Student papers need not be sole-authored or first-authored. This award includes a plaque and $500 cash prize.
Winner: Mark Schneider

Frank P. Ramsey Medal
The Frank P. Ramsey Medal is the highest award of the DAS. It was created to recognize distinguished contributions to the field of decision analysis. The medal is named in honor of Frank Plumpton Ramsey, a Cambridge University mathematician who was one of the pioneers of decision theory in the 20th century. The Ramsey Medalists are recognized for having made substantial further contributions to that theory and its application to important classes of real decision problems. The medal is accompanied by a $1,000 cash prize.
Winner: Gregory S. Parnell

Presented: 6:15pm, Decision Analysis Society Business Meeting, Parc 55, Embarcadero, Level 3

Technology, Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship Section
Best Dissertation Award
The Technology Management Section recognizes the best doctoral dissertation in the field of technology and innovation management in terms of furthering the field and making a theoretical and practical contribution. The award includes a plaque and $500 cash prize.
Winner: Ryan Raffaelli
Runner-Up: Andrew G. Earle

Best Paper Award
For this award, the section reviews the top five papers by citation from the past five years. Winners and finalists are selected by a panel of senior leaders in the field of technology management.
Winners: Matt Marx, Deborah Strumsky, and Lee Fleming
Runners-Up: Constantine Andriopoulos and Marianne W. Lewis

Distinguished Speaker Award
TMS presents its distinguished speaker award to an outstanding academic leader in the field of technology management. The award is presented every year during the INFORMS Annual Meeting and includes a plaque and $500 cash prize.
Winner: Haim Mendelson

Presented: 6:15pm, Technology Management Section Business Meeting, Hilton, Golden Gate 7, Lobby

By Invitation Only
7:15pm, Parc 55, Cyril Magnin 1&2
The INFORMS Analytics Maturity Model will officially launch at this special reception and celebrate the new INFORMS benefit that helps analytics experts at organizations find out how well they are using analytics. If you're a practitioner, you can stop by for a piece of cake and a chance to raise a toast with INFORMS Past President Anne Robinson to the new analytics arrow in INFORMS' quiver. Make sure to stop by the INFORMS Analytics Maturity Model booth in the Exhibit Hall to take it for a spin and ask your question to INFORMS reps.

Designed for students, faculty, and practitioners, TutORials in Operations Research provides in-depth instruction on significant operations research specialties and practices.

All sessions are located in the Hilton, Continental 4, BR Level.

8-9:30am
From OR to OM: Observations on the Emergence of a Discipline
John Buzacott, York University

11am-12:30pm
Clearing the Jungle of Stochastic Optimization
Warren Powell, Princeton University

1:30-3pm
Cloud Computing for Optimization
Jeff Linderoth, University of Wisconsin-Madison

3-4:30pm
Simulation-Based Education in Supply Chain and Project Management
Yale T. Herer, Avraham Shtub, and Avinoam Tzimerman, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology

9am-5pm, Hilton, Grand Ballroom
OK, you did the Job Fair on Sunday and met lots of great employers/candidates. Now it's time for on-site interviews to explore opportunities in academia, industry, and government.

In addition, the INFORMS Career Center offers:

• Online access to job listings and applicant files
• Expanded information about jobs and applicants
• Weekly updates of the database
• Improved database search capabilities
• Online data entry for applicants and employers
• Extended availability of the database
• http://careercenter.informs.org

Select panelists will lead informal discussions in two panels:

Academic Job Search
11am-12:30pm, Parc 55, Cyril Magnin 2, Level 4
The panel will discuss the academic interview process and do's and don'ts associated with the job search.

Industry Job Search
1:30-3pm, Parc 55, Cyril Magnin 2, Level 4
The panel will discuss the industry interview process and do's and don'ts associated with the job search.

By Andrea Hupman
The Decision Analysis Society is hosting several special technical sessions honoring the 50th anniversary of the emergence of the field in a professional and academic sense. One of those sessions was on the societal applications of decision analysis.

Warner North described several challenges to applying decision analysis in a democratic society, including the existence of many decision makers, stakeholders, and uneven political power among them. To apply decision analysis, several questions need to be asked to ensure the relevant information is characterized, the problem is well formulated, and the impediments (if any) to a normative process are understood.

Three speakers discussed applications of decision analysis to societal problems in detail.

Stephen Barrager explained how decision analysis was used to design a network of marine reserves along the California coastline. The project required the formation of an unbiased task force, science advisory team, and stakeholder group, and used a process of negotiation to create a recommendation that has since been implemented.

Anne Smith described the use of decision and risk analysis in setting standards for compliance with the Clean Air Act. She highlighted the danger of using quantitative methods in the absence of the vocabulary and philosophy of decision analysis.

Mazen Skaf described the application of decision analysis to design policies for the Ministry of Labor in Saudi Arabia to improve the employment rate among nationals. The project resulted in the implementation of a database of nationals seeking work and an incentive structure for companies to hire them. The project has had a significant impact: the number of nationals working in the private sector has more than doubled, and there has been a more than five-fold increase in the number of women employed.

By David Hutton
I admit: I often don't attend the plenary sessions. I usually like to go to the sessions focused on areas close to my research. And I also value my time talking with colleagues I haven't seen in a while. But, if you missed Jonathan Caulkins talk today on OR in services of Drug & Addiction Policy, you missed a good one. Here are some of the key take-aways:

1. Jonathan Caulkins has lots of cool stories of how he's used simple OR methods to get some great insights into drug policy. He has several stories where economists were using regression models to look at historical changes in drug use. Unfortunately, the regression models could not to model the big swings and drop-offs observed in actual drug use. As many of us OR-types know, swings up and down might be indicative of more complex systems dynamics. Jonathan was able to use some simple models like the Bass model of product diffusion and a simple two-state Markov model to both dramatically replicate observed historical patterns of drug use and also show how the type of drug users (light and heavy) could have a dramatic impact on what types of intervention policies might work best. The Office of National Drug Control Policy felt these analyses were some of the most insightful they have ever seen.

Read more.

By Andrea Hupman
Mayo Clinic has a long history of using analytics and operations research and was awarded the 2014 INFORMS Prize for its work using innovative tools to provide patient-centric care. In a session Sunday morning, Mayo Clinic described successful applications of OR techniques within its organization and also underscored that many opportunities exist in healthcare applications.

Mayo Clinic has numerous projects that illustrate its use of analytics and OR to improve patient care. Simple measures such as armband standardization eliminated the need for 50,000 handwritten bands. A pharmacy redesign decreased wait time by 62%. Re-engineering dialysis reduced hospital days by 40%. Simulation models of hospital admission showed the need for multiple queues specific to admission time to get patients to the operating room on time. In addition to implementing these techniques, Mayo Clinic disseminates the results of its projects with almost 2,500 publications to date in top-notch journals.

Several challenges still exist for Mayo Clinic. It must manage a rapidly changing reimbursement system in which an increasing proportion of patients are reimbursed at Medicare levels. Mayo Clinic is also a "destination medical center" and must account for long travel times for patients. The need for large capacity buffers does not translate to lower costs, yet capacity buffers are needed. By looking to analogies in other businesses such as shipping systems that track packages across the globe, Mayo Clinic will continue to bring innovative solutions that improve patient care.

Mayo Clinic's mission is to place patients first. It has shown that analytics and operations research are essential in achieving this goal.

All attendees receive free access to the INFORMS 2014 TutORials in Operations Research: Bridging Data and Decisions online content concurrently with the meeting. Registrants of the 2014 INFORMS Annual Meeting have online access to the 2014 chapters, written by select presenters, beginning on November 1, 2014. Access this content using the link provided to all attendees by email or, if you are a 2014 member, simply login to INFORMS PubsOnLine. 

If you chose not to receive a hard-copy printed program in San Francisco, you can print out sections of interest before you travel.

Click here to print pdfs of all daily sessions and the entire front matter of the program. You can also view the itinerary in the Search the Program tool and plan your day. All registrants will receive a "Quick Reference" summary brochure in San Francisco, which includes the master track schedule, maps and floor plans, and other key information.

Program Book Kiosks
In an extended effort to go green, this year we are introducing kiosks to access a flip book of the full conference program. Two kiosks will be located in the Exhibit Hall and one kiosk will be located near the INFORMS Registration Desk in Yosemite BC.