IFORS News - September issue

The September issue of the IFORS News is now up at http://ifors.org/newsletter/ifors-news-sept2016.pdf We invite you to go through the issue.  Our editor, Elise del Rosario shares the following on what you can expect to find in this September issue: 

The Rio 2016 Summer Olympics has been concluded, yet a lot of the excitement remains. The IFORS News is not immune, as we feature three articles, two of them about how OR has become a game changer in decision-making strategies and scheduling in various sports – these we can glean from our book review and our tutorial. A fun piece on how OR was used to maximize the number of events to watch at the Olympics is contributed by our President. 

Still from Rio is good news from our editor about the IFORS publication, the International Transactions in Operational Research. It continues to help the IFORS mission of helping the community exchange information about OR. IFORS also has a long history of involvement with OR for Development, and this issue covers two such events sponsored by IFORS – the International Conference on OR for Development  (ICORD) and the EURO Working Group on ORD Workshop. 

The Workshop was a satellite event of the EURO 2016 held at the Poznan University of Technology. From all fronts, this EURO conference was a big success as you would read in two accounts of the organizers and delegates. Various other smaller and special interest conferences were held in Germany and Hungary. Interestingly, we feature an OR Conference and A Workshop in Mongolia, which does not yet have a national OR society.

As you recall, IFORS is composed of national OR society members, which in turn are grouped into the regions of North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, and Europe. Our President tells us more about these groups in his piece. 

Latin America has recently concluded its highly successful Summer School in Cali, Colombia and planning another one in Buenos Aires and Miramar in Argentina this coming February. EURO has its own summer school in Italy. These Schools aim to develop skills and promote networking among the young OR professionals in mind.  We also do pay our deepest respects to two departed gentlemen who have played a big part in our profession and in IFORS. 

Apart from its role in Sports, we also note the role of OR in helping with environment issues, as our OR Impact piece points out. When talking about environment protection, efforts of organizations in New Zealand come to mind. In this issue, we read about another aspect of how the Analytics movement is sweeping the country. 

Olympic reporters Victor and Sarah took the challenge of seeing how many games they can see in a day. I invite you to see how many articles in this issue you can read - from the Olympics in Brazil to Analytics in New Zealand - in just one sitting!