For additional information, contact Dr. Jill Hardin at jrhardin@vcu.edu
To see information about the 2006 Seminar Series, click here.
“The Role of Simulation in Humanitarian Logistics"
School of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Tuesday, April 10, 11:30 a.m.
Student Commons Forum Room
Simulation is one of the most widely used Operations Research / Industrial Engineering methodologies. Although it finds most of its applications in industrial problems, simulation can also be used to analyze a variety of models that have social consequences. In this talk, we discuss various applications of simulation in humanitarian logistics. In particular, we discuss the role of simulation in modeling (i) refugee movement in The Sudan, (ii) a maternity ward in Kabul, Afghanistan, (iii) and an inner-city medical clinic serving the poor. In each case, simulation provided guidance and insight for decision-makers, who subsequently took action based on the information that the simulation provided.
Dave Goldsman is a Professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. His research is concerned with the application of statistical techniques for use in the analysis of simulation processes. He is particularly interested in combining simulation output analysis with techniques of statistical ranking and selection. Over the years, he has published in such archival journals as IIE transactions, Management Science, Naval Research Logistics, Operations Research, and Operations Research Letters. Dave is also an active member and participant in INFORMS and Winter Simulation Conference (WSC) activities; he was the WSC's Program Chair in 1995 and is now serving as the Chair of the WSC Board of Directors. He was recently Editor for the Simulation Department of IIE Transactions and is currently an Associate Editor for Sequential Analysis. Dave visited Turkey last year on a Fulbright teaching fellowship.
“Opt Art"
Department of Mathematics
Oberlin College
Tuesday, March 6, 11:00 a.m.
Student Commons, Richmond Salon III
Optimization is a quantitative art concerned with finding the best way to complete a task. It relies heavily on mathematics and has been put to good use in a great number of diverse disciplines: advertising, agriculture, biology, business, economics, engineering, manufacturing, medicine, telecommunications, and transportation (to name but a few). In this lecture, we will showcase its amazing utility by demonstrating its applicability in the area of visual art, which at first glance would seem to have no use for it whatsoever! We will begin by describing how to use optimization models to construct a portrait out of complete sets of double nine dominoes. We will then introduce ``edge-constrained tile mosaics''---mosaics whose building-block tiles must be arranged so that each tile's edge pattern matches those of its neighbors. Finally, we will describe how to convert high quality solutions to certain large-scale traveling salesman problems into beautiful continuous line drawings
Robert (Bob) Bosch is Professor of Mathematics and the Robert and Eleanor Biggs Professor of Natural Science at Oberlin College. He specializes in optimization, the branch of mathematics concerned with optimal performance. Since 2001, Bosch has devoted increasing amounts of time and effort into devising and refining methods for using optimization to create pictures, portraits, and sculpture. He has had pieces commissioned by Colorado College, Western Washington University, Occidental College, Spelman College, and the organizing committees of several academic conferences. He operates a website, www.dominoartwork.com, from which it is possible to download free plans for several of his domino mosaics.