SCIENTIFIC PROGRAM

• General Session
• Panels
• Tutorials
• Department Chairs Meeting
• YA/EM'09 Student Project Competition
• YAD Practice Award

GENERAL SESSION

Prof. Dr. Candace Yano Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, University of California, Berkeley, ABD

PANELS
Several guest speakers from the business world and the academia will have discussions on the main theme of the conference. Panels entitled "University-Business World Partnership" and "The Role of Industrial Engineers in the Changing World" will be held.

TUTORIALS
Optimization: Fundamentals and some Currently Popular Application Areas 

Levent Tunçel Department of Combinatorics and Optimization, University of Waterloo, Kanada

I will discuss some of the fundamental tools and techniques of optimization which are currently popular and relevant in recent applications. Some new application areas will be covered while making connections to the classical applications when relevant. I will give a high-level view, avoid details, and point to the main references.

Multiple Objective Decision Processes and Models

Serpil Sayın İşletme Bölümü, Koç Üniversitesi, Türkiye

It is widely accepted that many real-life decisions inherently involve multiple conflicting criteria. Modeling and solution approaches to decision problems take form based on the intrinsic properties of the particular situation under study. Certain decision problems can be characterized by the fact that they involve a relatively small number of explicitly available alternatives. Personal decision situations such as purchasing an automobile or a holiday package, professional decision situations such as choosing among several suppliers of the same raw material, choosing among several shopping malls for locating a new store are well-studied examples of such decision problems. Many solution approaches have been proposed for this type of decision modeling. These approaches differ from each other in terms of the assumptions they make regarding the decision situation, the model data used and the modeling of the behavior of the decision maker. The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and ranking methods are representatives of the approaches in this category.

Apart form these problems that are modeled within a decision analysis framework, a multiple objective generalization of the well-known mathematical programming approach exists. Multiple objective mathematical programming borrows the exact structure of the single objective mathematical programming approach; however, existence of multiple objectives lead to the definition of pareto-optimal (efficient solutions) that are both difficult to obtain and many in number. Therefore a wide variety of approaches have been proposed for solving the multiple objective mathematical programming problems.

In this session, a classification of decision problems will be made and examples will be presented to cover the main types of approaches proposed in the literature. Several examples will be presented for researchers who wish to incorporate multiple objectives while modeling application problems using the mathematical programming framework. Problems that are multiple objectives in nature, such as in portfolio optimization and data mining will be discussed.

Stochastic Processes in Operations Research and Management Science

Hayriye Ayhan School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, ABD

In this talk, we will first introduce some of the basic discrete and continuous time stochastic processes such as Markov chains, Markov processes, regenerative processes, diffusion processes etc. We will then focus on the techniques which are commonly used to analyze these basic stochastic processes. Finally, we will conclude by presenting various applications of these models in queueing and inventory theory.

DEPARTMENT CHAIRS MEETING
OR/IE'09 Department Chairs' Assembly will be held on Bilkent University campus on June 24th, 2009. The aim of the assembly is to discuss the issues regarding the Industrial Engineering and Operations Research education and career possibilities, to enforce the cooperation between departments, and to take decisions concerning the subsequent OR/IE conferences. The details of the meeting will be announced on the conference web site and the will sent to the participating department chairs.

YA/EM'09 STUDENT PROJECT COMPETITION
Undergraduate students of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Programs can apply to participate in the Student Project Competition of OR/IE'09 Conference. Special prizes will be awarded to the first, second and third place winners. The details of the project competition will be announced on the conference web site.

YAD PRACTICE AWARD
The ultimate goal of the YAD Practice Award is to promote and award the enterprises that incorporate Industrial Engineering and Operations Research methodologies into successful applications in service and production sectors, and to encourage such practices to help them become prevalent. The projects applying for this award will be evaluated by an award committee. In order to be eligible to apply, the projects need to have been applied and consequences of application should have been observed. Faculty members and advisors can be members of the project team. Please follow the link for the details.