TGS - New Graduate Student Orientation
September 14, 2009 at 9:00 AM — Norris University Ce
In addition to opening remarks from incoming President Morton O. Schapiro, a lunch reception, campus tours, and a resource fair, The Graduate School is developing several informative and useful breakout sessions for incoming Master's and doctoral students during orientation. Topics will include: Master's and Ph.D. students' unique financial needs, grants and grant-writing, multicultural and international student life, and technology resources. More details about the 2009 orientation will become available over the summer
TGS Night Out Summer Social
July 14, 2009 at 5:00 PM — The Lakefill Norris University Ce
TGS Night Out Summer Social Time: 5:00pm - 7:00pm Date: 7/14/2009 Location: The Lakefill, near the Norris University Center (Evanston Campus) This quarter's TGS Night Out will be a picnic held at the Lakefill co-hosted by TGS and a graduate student group (to be announced). There is no charge for admission or for refreshments. Registration is now open online at http://survey.gsad.northwestern.edu/night_out_july09/, and closes June 12.
University Closed for July 4th Holiday
July 3, 2009 at 12:00 AM —
Professional Masters Recognition Ceremony
June 19, 2009 at 12:00 PM — Ryan Auditorium Technological Instit
Professional Masters Recognition Ceremony - McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, 847-491-4547 No tickets required Ryan Family Auditorium Technological Institute (12) 2145 Sheridan Road
IEMS Undergrad Senior Ceremony
June 19, 2009 at 11:00 AM — M345 Technological Instit
IEMS SENIOR CEREMONY Friday, June 19th Tech M345 11am - Noon Refreshments will be served, followed by presentation of departmental awards and honors.
MS Recognition and PhD Hooding Ceremony
June 19, 2009 at 9:00 AM — Ryan Auditorium Technological Instit
MS Recognition and PhD Hooding Ceremony - Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, 847-491-4547 No tickets required Ryan Family Auditorium Technological Institute (12) 2145 Sheridan Road Preceded by 7:30 AM reception in Grand Foyer, Technological Institute
IEMS Candidacy Exams
June 17, 2009 at 8:00 AM — L361 Technological Instit
IEMS Candidacy Exams
June 16, 2009 at 8:00 AM — L361 Technological Instit
IEMS Candidacy Exams
June 15, 2009 at 8:00 AM — L361 Technological Instit
IEMS Seminar: Sharpening Comparisons Via Gaussian Copulas and Semidefinite Programming
June 2, 2009 at 4:00 PM — M228 Refreshments at 3:30 in C211 Technological In
Sharpening Comparisons Via Gaussian Copulas and Semidefinite Programming Shane HendersonCornell University Abstract:A common problem in operations research involves comparing two system designs through simulation of both systems. The comparison can often be made more accurate through careful control (coupling) of the random numbers that are used in simulating each system, with common random numbers being the standard example. We describe a new approach for coupling the random-number inputs to two systems that involves generating realizations of a Gaussian random vector and then transforming the Gaussian random vector into the desired random-number inputs. We use nonlinear semidefinite programming to select the correlation matrix of the Gaussian random vector, with the goal of sharpening the comparison. We describe implementation issues and a number of examples. This is joint work with Sam Ehrlichman..Bio:Shane G. Henderson is a professor in the School of Operations Research and Information Engineering at Cornell University. He is the simulation area editor at Operations Research, and an associate editor for the ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation and Operations Research Letters. He is the president-elect of the INFORMS Applied Probability Society. He co-edited the handbook Simulation as part of Elseviers series of Handbooks in Operations Research and Management Science, and also co-edited the Proceedings of the 2007 Winter Simulation Conference. He likes cats but is allergic to them. His research interests include discrete-event simulation and simulation optimization, and he has worked for some time with emergency services.
INFORMS Brown Bag: Prof. Jeremy Staum
May 28, 2009 at 12:30 PM — C211 Technological Instit
Speaker: Prof. Jeremy Staum Brown bag is a lunch seminar series designed exclusively for first-year students of the MS and PhD programs at IEMS Department. It provides an opportunity for the 1st years to hear invited speakers on a wide range of subjects that will definitely interest them. The motivation behind the series is two-fold: to help orient the 1st years for their new roles as graduate students, and to help settle them into the IEMS Department, into Northwestern University and into the field of industrial engineering and management sciences at large. 1st year students are encouraged to go to each of the BB sessions. The potential subjects for this one-year series include the following:IEMS faculty members introducing their research interests and opening projects (they will be held mainly in the latter half of the year);
Systemic Risk: The Next Frontier in Risk Management and Regulation
May 28, 2009 at 7:30 AM — JBC Commons (4th Floor) Technological Instit
Systemic Risk: The Next Frontier in Risk Management and Regulation Thursday May 28, 2009Presented by Jeremy Staum, Associate Professor, Industrial Engineering and Management SciencesRegister online (http://www.industry.northwestern.edu/mornings/registration.php)Location and schedule (See Below) The current paradigm of risk management and regulation addresses the risk of each firm in isolation. How can government regulators measure or reduce the risk of the financial system as a whole? How might this affect the practice of risk management within financial firms? Can regulation provide incentives for firms to make decisions that reduce systemic risk? We will discuss some basic concepts and insights of the emerging field of systemic risk management and consider their implications for engineering a more stable financial system. Location and Schedule Location: Northwestern UniversityMcCormick School of Engineering and Applied ScienceTechnological InstituteJBC Commons. 4th floor2145 Sheridan RoadEvanston, IllinoisSchedule: 7:30 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. Registration and Continental Breakfast8:00 a.m. to 8:15 a.m. Welcome and Introductions8:15 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Presentation9:00 a.m. to 9:25 a.m. Questions and Answers9:25 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. Closing and Departure Jeremy StaumProfessor Jeremy Staum is associate professor in the department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering. Prior to coming to Northwestern, he worked at a hedge fund and as an equity derivatives quant while earning his Ph. D. in Management Science from Columbia Business School. He was on the faculty at Cornell for two years, teaching in its master's program in financial engineering, before joining Northwestern in 2003. He is also the department editor for financial engineering at IIE Transactions
IEMS Seminar: Constant Proportion Debt Obligations: A Post-Mortem Analysis of Rating Models
May 26, 2009 at 4:00 PM — M228 Refreshments at 3:30 in C211 Technological In
Constant Proportion Debt Obligations: A Post-Mortem Analysis of Rating Models Michael B. GordyBoard of Governors of the Federal Reserve System Abstract:In its complexity and its vulnerability to market volatility, the CPDO might be viewed as the poster child for the excesses of financial engineering in the credit market. This paper examines the CPDO as a case study in model risk in the rating of complex structured products. We explain how a CPDO transaction works and review events in this market to date. We demonstrate that the models used by S&P and Moodys would have assigned (at best) low probability to the spread levels realized in the investment grade corporate credit default swap market in late 2007. The spread levels realized in the first quarter of 2008 would have been assigned negligibly small probabilities. Had the models put non-negligible likelihood on attaining these high spread levels, the CPDO notes could never have achieved investment grade status. This is joint work with Soren Willemann. Bio:Michael Gordy is a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Board. His current research focuses on credit risk pricing, and on the design, calibration and computation of models of portfolio risk. Michael is recipient of Risk's 2004 Quant of the Year and GARP's 2003 Financial Risk Manager of the Year, and serves as an associate editor of the Journal of Banking & Finance, the Journal of Credit Risk, and the International Journal of Central Banking. Michael received his Ph.D. in Economics from MIT in 1994.
Office of Student Life - Knocking on Wall Street's Door: Getting Started in Industry (Jonathan Owen)
May 21, 2009 at 3:30 PM — M228 Technological Instit
Knocking on Wall Street's Door: Getting Started in Industry Thursday, May 21, 2009 Jonathan Owen, General Motors R&D and Strategic Planning Presentation in M228, Reception to follow in C211 Students often want to work on Wall Street or other major financial entities. This session would be a portfolio building using current skills and education to help them market themselves for job hunting outside academia. Registration is required. Register at http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB228TLPVL28A
IEMS Seminar: Recent Advances in Solving Chance-constrained Stochastic Programming Problems
May 19, 2009 at 4:00 PM — M228 Refreshments at 3:30 in C211 Technological I
Recent Advances in Solving Chance-constrained Stochastic Programming Problems Jim LuedtkeUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison Abstract:Decision-makers are often faced with the task of finding a solution in the face of significant uncertainties. A classic stochastic programming approach to managing risk in such settings is to enforce chance constraints (also called probabilistic constraints) in the optimization model that require the selected solution to satisfy a desirable condition with high probability. Unfortunately, optimization with chance constraints is computationally difficult for two reasons: evaluating solution feasibility can be time-consuming; and the feasible region is not convex in general. We present recent work that demonstrates that a sample average approximation approach can be used to simplify the probabilistic nature of the problem and yet yield good feasible solutions with optimality bounds. The resulting sample approximation problem remains nonconvex, but can be formulated as a mixed-integer program (MIP). We discuss recent work using a strong MIP formulation that has been very effective in solving this problem under the restriction that the uncertainties appear only in the right-hand side of the constraints. We also present preliminary work that shows how this approach can be extended to the much more general setting when this restriction is removed. Bio:Jim Luedtke is an Assistant Professor in the departments of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Luedtke received his B.S. from UW-Madison in 2001, and his M.S. in Operations Research and Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering (2007) from the Georgia Institute of Technology. From 2007-2008, Dr. Luedtke did postdoctoral research at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center where he studied methods for solving large-scale production and distribution scheduling problems. Dr. Luedtke's research interests include stochastic optimization, with particular focus on solutions techniques for risk-averse models, and integer programming (both linear and nonlinear).
INFORMS Brown Bag: Prof. Barry Nelson
May 14, 2009 at 12:30 PM — C211 Technological Instit
Speaker: Prof. Barry Nelson Brown bag is a lunch seminar series designed exclusively for first-year students of the MS and PhD programs at IEMS Department. It provides an opportunity for the 1st years to hear invited speakers on a wide range of subjects that will definitely interest them. The motivation behind the series is two-fold: to help orient the 1st years for their new roles as graduate students, and to help settle them into the IEMS Department, into Northwestern University and into the field of industrial engineering and management sciences at large. 1st year students are encouraged to go to each of the BB sessions. The potential subjects for this one-year series include the following:IEMS faculty members introducing their research interests and opening projects (they will be held mainly in the latter half of the year);
IEMS Seminar: The Elusive Era of Supply Chain Coordination[1]
May 12, 2009 at 4:00 PM — M228 - Refreshments C211 at 3:30 Technological Ins
The Elusive Era of Supply Chain Coordination[1] Nicole DeHoratiusUniversity of Portland Abstract:Researchers and managers alike have been touting the benefits of supply chain coordination. Such benefits include information sharing for improved supply chain visibility and joint planning and improved physical flow of products through the supply chain. Despite these benefits, few manufacturers and retailers have developed the partnerships needed for such coordination to occur. The magnitude of distribution center receiving errors highlights this gap between theory and practice. Using data collected from one distribution center of a large retail chain with more than 700 stores, we show that 8% of the orders received from manufacturers were incorrect and resulted in a delay in distribution. We categorized the types of receiving errors observed and discuss the root cause of these disruptive events. This essay views the current financial crisis through the lens of quality management. The crisis represents a failure of quality, and solving it will require, among other things, careful management of quality in financial institutions and across financial supply chains. This will be difficult for several reasons, but not impossible. I offer several recommendations, partly inspired by successful quality practices in industry.Bio:Nicole DeHoratius teaches undergraduate-, MBA-, and Executive-level courses on operations and supply chain management. Professor DeHoratius earned her DBA in technology and operations management at Harvard Business School. Prior to her graduate studies, she was a researcher at RAND and was on the Board of Directors of the MIT Enterprise Forum of Washington-Baltimore, Inc. Professor DeHoratius is the recent recipient of a fellowship from the Center for Strategic Supply Research and was named a Batten Scholar based on the impact and quality of her research. She is also a former Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar which enabled her to obtain her M.Sc. in technology and innovation management from the University of Sussex in England. Professor DeHoratius's research focuses on the effective management of retail supply chains and the link between retail performance and operational execution. Poor execution at all stages in the retail supply chain can result in store out-of-stocks and, consequently, lost sales. Effective execution involves designing appropriate incentives, maintaining accurate information, and collaboration between manufacturers and retailers.
Office of Student Life - Web Training: Building a Professional Portfolio
May 7, 2009 at 4:00 PM — MG51 Technological Instit
Looking for a job or internship? Do you just want to know how to build a website? Check out the web training to learn important skills and techniques when it comes to marketing yourself. Open to current graduate students and junior/senior undergrads. May 7th at 4pm in MG51
INFORMS Brown Bag: Prof. Karen Smilowitz
May 7, 2009 at 12:30 PM — C211 Technological Instit
Speaker: Prof. Karen Smilowitz Brown bag is a lunch seminar series designed exclusively for first-year students of the MS and PhD programs at IEMS Department. It provides an opportunity for the 1st years to hear invited speakers on a wide range of subjects that will definitely interest them. The motivation behind the series is two-fold: to help orient the 1st years for their new roles as graduate students, and to help settle them into the IEMS Department, into Northwestern University and into the field of industrial engineering and management sciences at large. 1st year students are encouraged to go to each of the BB sessions. The potential subjects for this one-year series include the following:IEMS faculty members introducing their research interests and opening projects (they will be held mainly in the latter half of the year);
IEMS Seminar: Systems Monitoring and Prognostics
May 5, 2009 at 4:00 PM — M228 - Refreshments in C211 at 3:30 Technological
Systems Monitoring and Prognostics Nagi Gebraeel Georgia Institute of Technology Abstract: Recent advances in sensor technology and wireless communication have enabled monitoring of complex engineering systems. Research on interpreting and exploiting these rich data streams in making critical decisions stands to provide significant advancements across a wide range of application domains. One important application is predicting failure and performance degradation of engineering systems, which I define as Systems Monitoring and Prognostics (SMP). This talk is geared towards presenting the key components of the SMP framework; (1) acquisition and analysis of sensor data, (2) development of stochastic/statistical prognostic degradation models, and (3) development of adaptive prognostics-based operational and logistical decision models. The presentation will include a demonstration of two real-world base-case systems, a rotating machinery application and an aircraft electronic/avionic system, from the speakers Prognostic Systems Laboratory at Georgia Tech. The talk will be concluded by presenting examples of some current and future challenges in this area. Bio: Dr. Nagi Gebraeel is an assistant professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. He received his MS and PhD in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University, 1998 and 2003 respectively, and his B.Sc. in Production Engineering from the University of Alexandria, Egypt, in 1995. Professor Gebraeels research interest is in leveraging sensor-based data streams to improve the predictability of unexpected failure of engineering systems and advance subsequent operational and logistical decision making processes. He is a member of the Institute of Industrial Engineering (IIE) and the Institute of Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS).
IEMS Seminar: The Impact of Size and Occupancy of Hospital on the Extent of Ambulance Diversion: Th
April 28, 2009 at 4:00 PM — M228 Refreshments 3:30 C211 Technological Instit
The Impact of Size and Occupancy of Hospital on the Extent of Ambulance Diversion: Theory and Evidence Sarang Deo Northwestern University Abstract:In recent years, growth in the demand for emergency medical services along with decline in the number of hospitals with emergency departments (EDs) has raised concerns about the ability of the EDs to provide adequate service. Many EDs frequently report periods of overcrowding during which they are forced to divert incoming ambulances to neighboring hospitals, a phenomenon known as ambulance diversion. This paper aims to study the impact of key structural characteristics of the hospitals such as the number of ED beds, the number of inpatient beds, and the utilization of inpatient beds on the extent to which hospitals go on ambulance diversion. We first develop a simple queuing network model to describe the patient flow between the ED and the inpatient department and analyze this model using heavy traffic approximation. We show that, for a pre-specified delay probability, the fraction of time that the ED goes on diversion is decreasing in the spare capacity of the inpatient department and in the size of the ED, where both are appropriately normalized for the size of the inpatient department. We then test these findings by estimating a selection model using publicly available cross-sectional data on California hospitals and find moderate support for our theoretical findings. We also find evidence that certain hospitals, owing to their location and ownership structure, are more likely to choose ambulance diversion to mitigate overcrowding than others. Bio:Sarang Deo joined Kellogg School of Management in 2007 after completing his PhD from UCLA Anderson School of Management. His primary research interest is application of operations management methods to design efficient and effective healthcare delivery systems. His current work focuses on issues in resource-poor countries (developing models for HIV treatment scale-up, studying the impact of patient load on quality of care) as well as the US (joint planning of HIV screening and treatment at the Veterans Administration, theoretical and empirical investigation into the causes of ambulance diversion).
IEMS Seminar: Spectrum Management based on Competitive Economy Equilibrium
April 21, 2009 at 4:00 PM — M228 Refreshments at 3:30 in C211 Technological In
Spectrum Management based on Competitive Economy Equilibrium Dr. Yinyu Ye Stanford university Abstract:Consider a competitive ``spectrum economy'' in communication system where multiple users share a common frequency band and each of them, equipped with an endowed ``monetary'' budget, will ``purchase'' its own transmit power spectra (taking others as given) in maximizing its Shannon utility or pay-off function that includes the effects of interference and subjects to its budget constraint. A market equilibrium is a price spectra and a frequency power allocation that independently and simultaneously maximizes each user's utility. Furthermore, under equilibrium the market clears, meaning that the total power demand equals the power supply for every user and every frequency. We prove that such an equilibrium always exists for the problem, and, under a weak-interference condition, the equilibrium can be computed in polynomial time. This model may lead to an efficient mechanism and a decentralized method for spectrum allocation and optimization in achieving both higher social utilization and better individual satisfaction.Bio: Yinyu Ye received the B.S. degree in System Engineering from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University, Stanford. Currently, he is a full Professor of Management Science and Engineering and Institute of Computational and Mathematical Engineering and the Director of the MS&E Industrial Affiliates Program, Stanford University. His current research interests include Continuous and Discrete Optimization, Mathematical Programming, Algorithm Design and Analysis, Computational Game/Market Equilibrium, Metric Distance Geometry, Graph Realization, Dynamic Resource Allocation, and Stochastic and Robust Decision Making, etc.
IEMS Seminar: The Impact of Size and Occupancy of Hospital on the Extent of Ambulance Diversion: Th
April 21, 2009 at 4:00 PM — M228 - Refreshments 3:30 C211 Technological Instit
The Impact of Size and Occupancy of Hospital on the Extent of Ambulance Diversion: Theory and Evidence Sarang Deo Northwestern University Abstract:In recent years, growth in the demand for emergency medical services along with decline in the number of hospitals with emergency departments (EDs) has raised concerns about the ability of the EDs to provide adequate service. Many EDs frequently report periods of overcrowding during which they are forced to divert incoming ambulances to neighboring hospitals, a phenomenon known as ambulance diversion. This paper aims to study the impact of key structural characteristics of the hospitals such as the number of ED beds, the number of inpatient beds, and the utilization of inpatient beds on the extent to which hospitals go on ambulance diversion. We first develop a simple queuing network model to describe the patient flow between the ED and the inpatient department and analyze this model using heavy traffic approximation. We show that, for a pre-specified delay probability, the fraction of time that the ED goes on diversion is decreasing in the spare capacity of the inpatient department and in the size of the ED, where both are appropriately normalized for the size of the inpatient department. We then test these findings by estimating a selection model using publicly available cross-sectional data on California hospitals and find moderate support for our theoretical findings. We also find evidence that certain hospitals, owing to their location and ownership structure, are more likely to choose ambulance diversion to mitigate overcrowding than others. Bio:Sarang Deo joined Kellogg School of Management in 2007 after completing his PhD from UCLA Anderson School of Management. His primary research interest is application of operations management methods to design efficient and effective healthcare delivery systems. His current work focuses on issues in resource-poor countries (developing models for HIV treatment scale-up, studying the impact of patient load on quality of care) as well as the US (joint planning of HIV screening and treatment at the Veterans Administration, theoretical and empirical investigation into the causes of ambulance diversion).
IEMS Seminar: Design and Implementation of Late-Stage Adaptive Trials: Experiences of an Industry C
April 17, 2009 at 2:00 PM — M228 Technological Instit
Design and Implementation of Late-Stage Adaptive Trials: Experiences of an Industry Consultant Cyrus R. Mehta Ph.D. President, Cytel Corporation and Adjunct Professor of Biostatistics, Harvard University Abstract: Sound statistical principles combined with careful planning of the logistical details are essential for successful implementation of an adaptive clinical trial. In this presentation I will share my experience as a consultant involved in several late stage adaptive designs. Topics that I will cover include sample size re-estimation, population enrichment and seamless phase II/III design. Each topic will be illustrated with a real case study. The crucial role of simulation will be highlighted. Regulatory experiences will be discussed. Bio: Cyrus Mehta was born in Bombay, India. He studied engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and obtained his Ph.D. from MIT in 1973. Dr. Mehta is President and co-founder of Cytel Corporation and Adjunct Professor of Biostatistics, Harvard University. Cytel is a leading provider of software and services for the design, interim monitoring and implementation of adaptive clinical trials. Dr. Mehta consults extensively with the biopharmaceutical industry on group sequential and adaptive design, offers workshops on these topics, and sits on several data monitoring committees for these types of clinical trials. He has led the development of the StatXact, LogXact and East software packages that are widely used in the biopharmaceutical industry and at academic research centers. He publishes his methodological research results in leading statistics journals and is a past co-winner of the George W. Snedecor Award from the American Statistical Association for the best paper in biometry. He was elected a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1995 and named the Mosteller Statistician of the Year by the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Statistical Association in 2000. In 2002, Dr. Mehta was named Outstanding Zoroastrian Entrepreneur by the World Zoroastrian Chamber of Commerce. Dr. Mehta is the Zoroastrian Chaplain at Harvard and MIT.
Office of Student Life - Becoming the Person They Can't Start the Meeting Without (Bill White)
April 16, 2009 at 3:30 PM — L361 Technological Instit
Becoming the Person They Can't Start the Meeting Without Registration required at http://studentlife.iems.northwestern.edu/third_thursday.html Thursday, April 16, 20093:30pm, Tech L361Reception (3:30pm) to precede the talk (4:00pm). Prof. Bill White, Northwestern University This seminar provides a background of leadership principles and tools for students to assess their leadership strengths and development opportunities. Many want to become leaders in industry and academia and this session will help to: Build and maintain work teams, resolve conflicts, and learn which leadership styles fits different people. This event is part of the new IEMS Office of Student Life's Professional Development Series. Register at http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB228TLPDKZWH
IEMS Seminar: Quality Snags in the Mortgage-Finance Supply Chain
April 14, 2009 at 4:00 PM — M228 Refreshments 3:30 C211 Technological Instit
Quality Snags in the Mortgage-Finance Supply Chain Dr. Paul Zipkin Duke University Abstract: This essay views the current financial crisis through the lens of quality management. The crisis represents a failure of quality, and solving it will require, among other things, careful management of quality in financial institutions and across financial supply chains. This will be difficult for several reasons, but not impossible. I offer several recommendations, partly inspired by successful quality practices in industry. Bio: Paul Zipkin is the R. J. Reynolds Professor of Business Administration at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. His academic degrees come from Reed, Berkeley, and Yale. His teaching, research, and consulting focus on how supply chains work and how to make them work better, and their strategic roles in the success or failure of companies in the global marketplace. Within this broad theme, his work is concerned with issues of inventory management in supplier-customer relations; the impact of new production and communications technologies on supply-chain performance; coping with product variety at both the operational and strategic levels; and the design of logistics networks. He has published some 60 articles in scholarly journals and co-edited the book, Logistics of Production and Inventory. He is the author of the book, Foundations of Inventory Management. He serves on the editorial boards of several journals and often advises companies, government agencies, and other organizations. He is a Fellow of INFORMS and the Manufacturing & Services Operations Management Society.
IEMS Seminar: Optimizing Breast Biopsy Decision Making in Cancer Screening
April 7, 2009 at 4:00 PM — M228 - Refreshments at 3:30 p.m. in C211 Technolog
Optimizing Breast Biopsy Decision Making in Cancer Screening Oguzhan Alagoz Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems EngineeringUniversity of Wisconsin-MadisonAbstract:Early diagnosis through screening mammography is the most effective means of decreasing the death rate from breast cancer. While mammography is inexpensive, the interventional procedures that result from detected abnormalities (both false and true positives) increase the cost of this population-based screening program significantly. In fact, breast biopsy actually delivers a benign result in over 80% of cases making it the most costly per capita component of a breast cancer screening program. If a mammogram reports a suspicious finding, then a biopsy is required to decide whether an abnormality is in fact a breast cancer. Our previous research has developed several computer models that calculate the risk of breast cancer based on demographic risk factors and mammography findings. The objective of this research is to optimize the biopsy decisions for breast-cancer patients such that the early diagnosis of invasive breast cancer is improved while unnecessary procedures are minimized. We develop a discrete-time finite-horizon Markov decision process (MDP) model to find the optimal probability thresholds for the decision to perform breast biopsy for patients with different age groups. We perform a structural analysis of this MDP. Our computational experiments use clinical data, and show that these optimal probability thresholds change with patient age. In particular, our optimal policies suggest that as women get older they should be biopsied less aggressively. We compare our model to clinical practice and find that our model has a potential to improve breast cancer diagnosis significantly. Bio: Oguzhan Alagoz is currently an Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received his PhD in Industrial Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh in 2004. His research interests include medical decision making, completely and partially observable Markov decision processes, discrete-event system simulation, and scheduling. His works have appeared in journals such as Operations Research, Management Science, Medical Decision Making, Radiology, American Journal of Roentgenology, IIE Transactions, and European Journal of Operational Research. His research is funded by NSF and the National Cancer Institute of NIH.
Info Weekend 2009
March 21, 2009 at 8:00 AM — Technological Instit
Selected applicants are given the opportunity to learn more about our program through the Graduate Info Weekend. During this event, students have the opportunity to meet our faculty and current graduate students as well as other stellar applicants. The weekend's program will provide descriptions of our research and of the culture and lifestyle of our department. It will also be an opportunity to tour the campus and explore the Evanston community and the City of Chicago through the various planned activities. The Info Weekend for applicants for the 2009-2010 academic year will be held on March 19-21st. This is a Thursday through Saturday. Applicants arrive Thursday afternoon and depart Saturday evening. We ask that applicants plan ahead for this but keep in mind, this weekend is by invitation only. You cannot attend if you are not invited by the department so please do not inquire about attendance. Attendance at the event is by invitation only. Please do not contact us if you do not receive an invitation.
Info Weekend 2009
March 20, 2009 at 8:00 AM — Technological Instit
Selected applicants are given the opportunity to learn more about our program through the Graduate Info Weekend. During this event, students have the opportunity to meet our faculty and current graduate students as well as other stellar applicants. The weekend's program will provide descriptions of our research and of the culture and lifestyle of our department. It will also be an opportunity to tour the campus and explore the Evanston community and the City of Chicago through the various planned activities. The Info Weekend for applicants for the 2009-2010 academic year will be held on March 19-21st. This is a Thursday through Saturday. Applicants arrive Thursday afternoon and depart Saturday evening. We ask that applicants plan ahead for this but keep in mind, this weekend is by invitation only. You cannot attend if you are not invited by the department so please do not inquire about attendance. Attendance at the event is by invitation only. Please do not contact us if you do not receive an invitation.
Info Weekend 2009
March 19, 2009 at 8:00 PM — Technological Instit
Selected applicants are given the opportunity to learn more about our program through the Graduate Info Weekend. During this event, students have the opportunity to meet our faculty and current graduate students as well as other stellar applicants. The weekend's program will provide descriptions of our research and of the culture and lifestyle of our department. It will also be an opportunity to tour the campus and explore the Evanston community and the City of Chicago through the various planned activities. The Info Weekend for applicants for the 2009-2010 academic year will be held on March 19-21st. This is a Thursday through Saturday. Applicants arrive Thursday afternoon and depart Saturday evening. We ask that applicants plan ahead for this but keep in mind, this weekend is by invitation only. You cannot attend if you are not invited by the department so please do not inquire about attendance. Attendance at the event is by invitation only. Please do not contact us if you do not receive an invitation.
Office of Student Life - Web Training: Building a Professional Portfolio
March 5, 2009 at 4:00 PM — MG47 Technological Instit
Looking for a job or internship? Do you just want to know how to build a website? Check out the web training to learn important skills and techniques when it comes to marketing yourself. Open to current graduate students and junior/senior undergrads. Also an event on May 7th at 4pm in MG51
Containment vs Coverage: Flexible Network Design in the Presence of Random Disruptions
February 26, 2009 at 4:00 PM — Transportation Center - Lower Level Chambers Hall
Transportation Center Seminar Series presents..... Michael Lim PhD Candidate, Department of Industrial EngineeringAnd Management Science, Northwestern University; Transportation Center Dissertation Year FellowContainment vs Coverage: Flexible NetworkDesign in the Presence of Random DisruptionsThursday, Feb. 26, 20094:00 - 5:00 pmRefreshments available at 3:30 pm Location:Transportation Center -Lower levelNorthwestern UniversityChambers Hall - 600 FosterEvanston, IL Abstract:We extend the concept of chaining introduced by Jordan and Graves (1995) for designing a robust supply chain network in which the link and nodes are susceptible to disruptions. We introduce the concept of fragility to quantify the change in system performance resulting from a disruption. Although one may anticipate that networks with longer chains will be more robust (will have smaller fragility) than shorter ones, our study reveals that this is not always true. We show that the fragility with respect to a single link failure decreases as the size of the chain decreases; however, the fragility with respect to a single node failure decreases as the size of the chain increases. We also show that multiple failures in a network can be decomposed into a set of multiple subnetworks with a single failure; hence we can analyze the impact of large-scale disruptions by studying each singlefailure subnetworks. Simulation experiments are used to extend insights from single link or node failures to multiple failure cases. Bio:I am a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Industrial Engineering & Management Sciences. I am interested in the applications of optimization and stochastic models to thedesign of production, service operations and supply chain systems. Before coming to Northwestern, I briefly worked for IBM as an IT consultant establishing business continuity/recovery plans for companies in auto/financial sectors.
Office of Student Life - Web Training: Building a Professional Portfolio
February 26, 2009 at 4:00 PM — MG47 Technological Instit
Looking for a job or internship? Do you just want to know how to build a website? Check out the web training to learn important skills and techniques when it comes to marketing yourself. Open to current graduate students and junior/senior undergrads. February 26th at 4pm in MG47 (Note the Room Change)May 7th at 4pm in MG51
IEMS Seminar: Inventory Control and Accuracy Management under Uncertain Environment
February 24, 2009 at 4:00 PM — M Technological Instit
Inventory Control and Accuracy Management under Uncertain Environment Yongpei Guan University of Oklahoma Abstract:In this talk, we present efficient policies for inventory management problems under two types of uncertainties. For the first case, the uncertainty comes from different possible realizations of problem parameters in the future, such as customer demands, inventory capacities, and costs. In our study, these parameters are also dependent on each other throughout the finite planning horizon and the underlying stochastic process does not have Markovian properties. We develop scenario tree based stochastic optimization models to formulate different inventory control problems. We also study a dynamic programming recursion framework that allows us to show that the optimal value functions for the problems are piecewise linear and continuous, which we can further use to define polynomial time algorithms. For the second case, the uncertain information is on inventory records, which may also be referred as implied uncertainty. The inventory records are inaccurate due to theft and impropriate operations in the warehouse. For this case, we study a policy, based primarily on operational rather than financial considerations, to decide the best time to count each location/SKU and offer a sequence to count locations/SKUs when workforce is limited. Simulation results indicate that our proposed policy leads to fewer stock outs with less counting workload, compared with a traditional counting method.Bio:Dr. Yongpei Guan is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Industrial Engineering at the University of Oklahoma. He received his dual B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and Economic Decision Science from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1998, his M.S. in Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2001, and his Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2005.
First Year Brownbag: Gordon Hazen
February 24, 2009 at 12:30 PM — C211 Technological Instit
Join us each week as IEMS Faculty present on their current research. This week is Prof. Gordon Hazen
IEMS Seminar: A Price-Dependent Demand Substitution Rule and Its Applications
February 19, 2009 at 4:00 PM — M228 - Refreshments at 3:30 p.m. in C210 Technolog
A Price-dependent Demand Substitution Rule and Its Applications Dr. Ye Lu Operations Research Center Massachusetts Institute of Technology Abstract: In a multi-product market, if one product stocks out, consumers may substitute to competing products. In this research, we apply an axiomatic approach to characterize a price-dependent demand substitution rule, and provide a sufficient and necessary condition for demand models where our demand substitution rule applies. Our results can serve as a link between the pricing and inventory literature, and enable the study of joint pricing and inventory coordination as well as retail competition.
Office of Student Life - The Real World: Academia to Industry (ROOM CHANGE)
February 19, 2009 at 3:30 PM — Reception in Tech, C211 Talk in Room 1-412 Francis
Thursday, February 19, 2009 Justin Boesel,MITRE Corporation's Center for Advanced Aviation System Development (CAASD) Reception is at 3:30pm in Tech, C211 with talk to follow at 4:00pm in Francis Searle, 1-412. PLEASE NOTE THE ROOM CHANGE Students will be shown how their educational skills can be used to enhance their future careers whether they be inside academia or in industry. IEs at Northwestern are highly skilled in mathematical processes and theory and this session aims to show them how these skills are practically applicable to their futures. Register at: http://studentlife.iems.northwestern.edu/third_thursday.html. Dr. Justin Boesel is a Lead Simulation and Modeling Engineer for the MITRE Corporation's Center for Advanced Aviation System Development (CAASD). Prior to working in aviation safety at CAASD, he worked on airspace design and evaluation projects. He started his work with MITRE in 1999 after receiving his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering & Management Sciences from Northwestern University. His dissertation, "Search and Selection for Large-Scale Stochastic Optimization," done under the supervision of Prof. Barry Nelson, won the 1999 George B. Dantzig Award for Best Dissertation from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). He received a BA in History from Southern Methodist University (SMU) in 1990, graduating Summa cum Laude, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
IEMS Seminar: Inventory Control and Accuracy Management under Uncertain Environment
February 17, 2009 at 4:00 PM — M228 Technological Instit
Inventory Control and Accuracy Management under Uncertain Environment Yongpei Guan University of Oklahoma Abstract:In this talk, we present efficient policies for inventory management problems under two types of uncertainties. For the first case, the uncertainty comes from different possible realizations of problem parameters in the future, such as customer demands, inventory capacities, and costs. In our study, these parameters are also dependent on each other throughout the finite planning horizon and the underlying stochastic process does not have Markovian properties. We develop scenario tree based stochastic optimization models to formulate different inventory control problems. We also study a dynamic programming recursion framework that allows us to show that the optimal value functions for the problems are piecewise linear and continuous, which we can further use to define polynomial time algorithms. For the second case, the uncertain information is on inventory records, which may also be referred as implied uncertainty. The inventory records are inaccurate due to theft and impropriate operations in the warehouse. For this case, we study a policy, based primarily on operational rather than financial considerations, to decide the best time to count each location/SKU and offer a sequence to count locations/SKUs when workforce is limited. Simulation results indicate that our proposed policy leads to fewer stock outs with less counting workload, compared with a traditional counting method.Bio:Dr. Yongpei Guan is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Industrial Engineering at the University of Oklahoma. He received his dual B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and Economic Decision Science from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1998, his M.S. in Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2001, and his Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2005.
IEMS Seminar: Inventory Control and Accuracy Management under Uncertain Environment
February 17, 2009 at 4:00 PM — M228 Technological Instit
Inventory Control and Accuracy Management under Uncertain Environment Yongpei Guan University of Oklahoma Abstract:In this talk, we present efficient policies for inventory management problems under two types of uncertainties. For the first case, the uncertainty comes from different possible realizations of problem parameters in the future, such as customer demands, inventory capacities, and costs. In our study, these parameters are also dependent on each other throughout the finite planning horizon and the underlying stochastic process does not have Markovian properties. We develop scenario tree based stochastic optimization models to formulate different inventory control problems. We also study a dynamic programming recursion framework that allows us to show that the optimal value functions for the problems are piecewise linear and continuous, which we can further use to define polynomial time algorithms. For the second case, the uncertain information is on inventory records, which may also be referred as implied uncertainty. The inventory records are inaccurate due to theft and impropriate operations in the warehouse. For this case, we study a policy, based primarily on operational rather than financial considerations, to decide the best time to count each location/SKU and offer a sequence to count locations/SKUs when workforce is limited. Simulation results indicate that our proposed policy leads to fewer stock outs with less counting workload, compared with a traditional counting method.Bio:Dr. Yongpei Guan is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Industrial Engineering at the University of Oklahoma. He received his dual B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and Economic Decision Science from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1998, his M.S. in Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2001, and his Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2005.
IEMS Seminar: Optimal Multiple Listing Strategies for Liver Transplant Patients
February 10, 2009 at 4:00 PM — M228 Tech
Optimal Multiple Listing Strategies for Liver Transplant Patients Lisa Maillart Industrial Engineering Department University of Pittsburgh Abstract:End-stage liver disease patients must join at least one local waiting list to be eligible to receive cadaveric liver offers, each of which is evaluated and either accepted or declined. We analyze a patient's option to join several local waiting lists, a practice referred to as "multiple listing." More specifically, we determine where a patient should list to maximize total life expectancy under certain constraints. We model the organ accept/decline decision as a continuous time Markov decision process, and the upstream listing decision as an integer program. We parameterize the model using clinical data and present insightful numerical examples.
First Year Brownbag: Recruiting Weekend
February 10, 2009 at 12:30 PM — C211 Technological Instit
Join us each week as IEMS Faculty present on their current research. This week will have no faculty presenter but graduate students will be finalizing recruiting weekend. This is not open to the public.
IIE Winter Dinner
February 4, 2009 at 5:00 PM — Cohen Commons, 4th Floor Technological Instit
Psst. Psssst. Hey. Hey, buddy. Yeah, you. You look like somebody who could use an IE Event. Well, we got one here for you. A real nice one. Cheap, too. Whaddya say?IIE Winter DinnerWednesday, February 4th5:00 PMCohen Commons (4th floor of Tech)-Free dinner for all IE majors-Hear about the cool new things coming to IE this year-Sign up to be a member of IIE (Institute of Industrial Engineers): free if you have above 3.5See attached flyer for more details...See you there!The IIE Board
IEMS Seminar: Optimal Market-Making with Risk Aversion
February 3, 2009 at 4:00 PM — M228 Technological Instit
Optimal Market-Making with Risk Aversion Miao Song Massachusetts Institute of Technology Abstract: Market-makers have the obligation to trade fixed amounts of securities at quoted bid or ask prices, and their inventories are exposed to the potential loss when the market price moves in an undesirable direction. One approach to reduce the risk associated with price uncertainty is to adjust the inventory at the price of losing potential spread gain. For a single-security model, we show that a threshold inventory control policy is optimal with respect to an exponential utility criterion, and more general results are obtained for mean-variance analysis. The mean-various analysis for a multiple-security model suggests that there exists a connected no-trade region and that the optimal strategy can be obtained from the no-trade region.
First Year Brownbag: Jorge Nocedal
February 3, 2009 at 12:30 PM — C211 Technological Instit
Join us each week as IEMS Faculty present on their current research. This week it is Prof. Jorge Nocedal
IEMS Seminar: Optimal Path Finding for Direction, Location and Time Dependent Costs...
January 27, 2009 at 4:00 PM —
Optimal Path Finding for Direction, Location and Time Dependent Costs, with Application to Vessel, UAV and Robot Routing Irina Dolinskaya Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering University of Michigan Abstract: Real-time determination of an optimal path in a changing medium (such as winds and ocean waves) requires explicit incorporation of this cost function location- and time- dependency into the model. Furthermore, the direction-dependency of a cost function adds another layer of difficulty to the problem at hand. In this talk, we present methods to efficiently incorporate the complex structure of the cost function into the path planning process. We also integrate the system's operability and dynamics constrains in the optimization model, hence combining traditionally separated optimal-path finding and path-following stages of problem solving. An application to ship routing is introduced throughout the talk to motivate this research.
Books & Bottles: Balancing Career & Family in the Sciences
January 15, 2009 at 3:30 PM — C211 (Reception), M228 (Talk) Technological Instit
Books & Bottles: Balancing Career & Family Thursday, January 15, 2009 Bruce Ankenman, Northwestern University Reception is at 3:30pm in Tech, C211 with talk to follow at 4:00pm in Tech, M228. The workshop aims to provide students with an understanding of the intersection of career and family life. What are the difficulties of being a parent and a student? How can students meet the challenges of both worlds with the goal of not making them mutually exclusive. Register at http://studentlife.iems.northwestern.edu/third_thursday.html. Registration opens ten days prior to the event.
IEMS Seminar: On Supply Risk and Asymmetric Information
January 13, 2009 at 4:00 PM — M228 Technological Instit
Zhibin (Ben) Yang, Dept. of Industrial and Operations Engineering University of Michigan Abstract:This research addresses the important problem of a manufacturer managing supply disruption risks under asymmetric information about suppliers' probabilities of disruption. This research is among the first in the supply chain risk management literature to study the ramifications of asymmetric information about supply risk. The talk consists of two papers.In the first paper, we model a supply chain of one manufacturer and one supplier, where the supplier's reliability is either high or low and is the supplier's private information. Upon disruption, the supplier chooses between paying a penalty to the manufacturer for the shortfall and exercising its backup production option to fill the manufacturer's order. Using a game-theoretic approach (mechanism design theory), we derived the optimal procurement actions of the manufacturer. We found that asymmetric information about the supplier's reliability may cause the manufacturer to stop using backup production with the less reliable supplier type, making the backup production option less valuable when it is moderately expensive. However, information can also be a substitute for the backup production option. Surprisingly, even as the probability of drawing a more reliable supplier increases, the value of backup production may increase under asymmetric information. In addition, higher reliability need not be a substitute for better information.In the second paper, we examined the manufacturer's strategic use of a dual-sourcing option. We found that asymmetric information makes diversification more expensive and pushes the manufacturer towards sole-sourcing to leverage supplier competition. Consequently, information becomes more valuable for the manufacturer when the underlying business environment changes in ways that encourage diversification, such as higher revenue and lower correlation between suppliers' disruptions. Surprisingly, the additional cost imposed on diversification by asymmetric information may cause the manufacturer to cease diversifying even as the supply base reliability erodes.
Seminar by Jong-Shi Peng, Professor, Dept. Chair, UIUC
November 25, 2008 at 4:00 PM — Tech, M228
On Linear Programs with Linear Complementarity Constraints Jong-Shi Pang University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Abstract: In this talk, we will explain the fundamental importance of the class of linear programs with linear complementarity constraints (LPCCs) in disjunctive and hierarchical programming as well as in some novel paradigms of mathematical programming. In addition to providing a unified framework for bilevel and inverse linear optimization, nonconvex piecewise linear programming, indefinite quadratic programs, quantile minimization, and lo minimization, the LPCC provides a gateway to a mathematical program with equilibrium constraints, which itself is an important class of constrained optimization problems that has broad applications. We describe a logical Benders approach for the global resolution of problems the LPCC that can be applied to infeasible or unbounded. Bio: Jong-Shi Pang joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as the Caterpillar Professor and Head of the Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering in August 2007. Prior to this, he held the position of the Margaret A. Darrin Distinguished Professor in Applied Mathematics in the Department of Mathematical Sciences and was a Professor of Decision Sciences and Engineering Systems at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute from 2003 to 2007. He was a Professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University from 1987 to 2003, an Associate Professor and then Professor in the School of Management from 1982 to 1987 at the University of Texas at Dallas, and an Assistant and then an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Industrial Administration at Carnegie-Mellon University from 1977 to 1982. Professor Pang was a winner of the 2003 George B. Dantzig Prize awarded jointly by the Mathematical Programming Society and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics for his work on finite-dimensional variational inequalities, and a co-winner of the 1994 Frederick W. Lanchester Prize awarded by the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science. Two of his publications have received best paper awards. He isan ISI Highly Cited Researcher in the Mathematics Category between 1980--1999; he has published 3 widely cited monographs and more than 100 scholarly journals in top peer reviewed journals. Tuesday, November 25, 2008 M228 Tech 4:00 p.m. Refreshments Served 3:00 p.m. C211
Culture Beyond the Classroom (Patricia Brenner)
November 20, 2008 at 3:30 PM — M228 & C211 Technological Instit
 Culture Beyond the Classroom Registration required at http://studentlife.iems.northwestern.edu/third_thursday.html (Opens mid November) Thursday, November 20, 2008 Tech, M228 3:30pmReception to follow Prof. Patricia Brennan, University of Wisconsin - Madison Students will have an opportunity to discuss issues related to diversity in the classroom, research lab, and how it will play out in future careers. Issues of how diversity affects: career selection, inclusion in the workplace, and obstacles diverse populations face in industry. This event is part of the new IEMS Office of Student Life's Professional Development Series. Â
Seminar by Andrew Schafer, Associate Professor, University of Pittsburg
November 18, 2008 at 4:00 PM — M228 Technological Instit
Estimating the Patient's Price of Privacy in Liver Transplantation Andrew SchaeferUniversity of Pittsburgh Abstract:In the United States, patients with end-stage liver disease must join a waiting list to be eligible for cadaveric liver transplantation. Due to privacy concerns, the details of the composition of this waiting list are not publicly available. We consider the benefits associated with creating a more transparent waiting list. We study these benefits by modeling the organ accept/reject decision faced by these patients as a Markov decision process in which the state of the process is described by patient health, quality of the offered liver, and a measure of the rank of the patient in the waiting list. We prove conditions under which there exist structured optimal solutions, such as monotone value functions and control-limit optimal policies. We define the concept of the patient's price of privacy, namely the amount of expected life days lost due to the lack of complete waiting list information. We conduct extensive numerical studies based on clinical data, which indicate that this price of privacy is typically on the order of 5% of the optimal solution value. We briefly describe a method of alleviating this price. We conclude with directions for future research in end-stage liver transplantation and other diseases. This is joint work with Burhan Sandikci, Oguz Alagoz, Lisa Maillart and Mark Roberts. Bio:Andrew Schaefer is an Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering and Wellington C. Carl Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh. He holds secondary appointments in the departments of medicine and bioengineering. He received his PhD in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2000. His primary research interest is the application of stochastic optimization techniques to disease treatment problems. He has active research interests in the contexts of end-stage liver disease, sepsis, HIV, diabetes, flu shot design and kidney exchanges. His methodological interests include stochastic programming, mixed-integer programming, and Markov decision processes. Tuesday, November 18, 2008M228 Tech4:00 p.m.Refreshments Served 3:30 p.m.C211 Tech
“Who Let the Engineer Into the Hospital?â€
November 11, 2008 at 4:00 PM — M228 Technological Instit
Operations Research in Health Careor"Who Let the Engineer Into the Hospital?"Professor Michael CarterCentre for Research in Healthcare EngineeringMechanical & Industrial EngineeringUniversity of TorontoAbstract:Health Care is the number one industry in North America; bigger than automotive, telecommunications or steel. Total spending in 2005 in Canada was $142 billion ($3,326 US per person) or close to 10% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In 2005 in the U.S., spending was over $2 trillion dollars US ($6,401 US per person), over 15% of the GDP. The US spends far more than any other country (as a percent of GDP). Health care systems all over the world are in the midst of a serious financial crisis, and the situation will likely get worse in the next few years. Demand is going up as the population ages, and costs are increasing as the drugs and technologies continue to get more complex and expensive. Of course, it would help if there were more money available. However, I also firmly believe that the health care industry could be run a lot more efficiently. I believe that operations research tools can help the health care industry improve quality, reduce costs, improve effectiveness and increase efficiency. Over the past 18 years, I have supervised over 160 engineering students on projects in health care. In the past five years, more than 50 of my students have found jobs in health care. In this talk, I will describe a few examples, discuss opportunities, and outline where I believe that we need to go in the future.Bio:Michael Carter is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto and Director of the Centre for Research in Healthcare Engineering. He received his doctorate in Mathematics from the University of Waterloo in 1980. Since 1989, his research focus has been in the area of health care resource modeling with a variety of projects in hospitals, home care, rehab, long term care, medical labs and mental health institutions. He currently has 12 graduate students (7 doctoral and 5 masters) working in the area. He was the winner of the Annual Practice Prize from the Canadian Operational Research Society (CORS) three times (1988, 1992 and 1996). In 2000, he received the CORS Award of Merit for lifetime contributions to Canadian Operational Research. He also received an "Excellence in Teaching" Award from the University of Toronto Student Administrative Council. He is on the editorial board for the "Journal of Scheduling" and the journal "Health Care Management Science". He is a member of the "Nursing Effectiveness, Utilization and Outcomes Research Unit" and a mentor in the "Health Care, Technology and Place" Program at the University of Toronto. Prof. Carter is a member of the Advisory Board for the Regenstreif Centre for Healthcare Engineering at Purdue University. He is an Adjunct Scientist with the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto.Tuesday, November 11, 2008M228 Tech4:00 p.m.Refreshments Served 3:30 p.m.C211 Tech
Financial Engineering: Lessons From The Current Financial Crisis
November 6, 2008 at 5:00 PM — Lecture Room 4 Technological Instit
As the financial crisis continues to make headlines and thin pocketbooks, many people are asking: How could this happen? To provide some perspective, the McCormick School of Engineering Dean's Seminar Series will offer a panel discussion, titled, "Financial Engineering: Lessons From The Current Financial Crisis," at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 6 in Lecture Room 4 at the Technological Institute on Northwestern University's Evanston campus. The panel will include Vadim Linetsky, professor of industrial engineering and management sciences, and Jeremy Staum, associate professor of industrial engineering and management sciences - two experts in financial engineering, an interdisciplinary field that integrates methods and knowledge from mathematics, statistics, economics, operations research, and computer science. Financial engineers develop quantitative tools that help banks, manufacturing and service firms, and public institutions make disciplined financial decisions in the face of risk and uncertainty. Financial engineers also devise computational algorithms to implement these tools and calibrate them to financial market data. The panel will also include Robert McDonald, Erwin P. Nemmers Professor of Finance at the Kellogg School of Management. McDonald researches corporate finance and derivatives and is currently studying capital structure and institutional structure of securities markets. The panelists will speak, then take questions from the audience. The panel will be moderated by Barry Nelson, chair of the industrial engineering and management sciences department. Linetsky has developed stochastic models for equity, foreign exchange, interest rate, and credit derivatives. He has devised analytical and computational methods for derivative security pricing based on spectral expansions, integral transforms, and numerical solution of partial differential equations. He is currently working on mathematical modeling of credit risk in various settings, including corporate bonds and associated credit derivatives, asset-backed loans and leases, and real estate mortgages. Jeremy Staum works on simulation algorithms for derivatives pricing and risk management. He also researches pricing derivative securities when the resulting risks can not be thoroughly hedged.
Seminar by Jonathan Bard, University of Texas
November 4, 2008 at 4:00 PM — Tech, M228
 Work Area Design for Pickup & Delivery Operations  Jonathan Bard Professor at the University of Texas  Abstract: This talk addresses the problem of constructing a set of work areas for regional pickup and delivery operations. In general terms, the goal is to find the minimum number of compact clusters (homogeneous vehicles) that satisfy volume, time, and contiguity constraints. A mixed integer nonlinear programming formulation is given with several implicitly defined variables and constraints, and a weighted objective function that balances the number of clusters in a solution with a dissimilarity measure between points in a cluster. Because practical instances contain anywhere from 6,000 to 50,000 data points and can only be described in probabilistic terms, it is not possible to obtain provably optimal solutions to the proposed model. Instead, a novel solution methodology is developed that combines a grid-search metaheuristic with a set covering post-processor. To reduce the problem size, a fraction of the data points are aggregated in a preprocessing phase with the help of a new weighting scheme to estimate "time to next customer." The metaheuristic is built around diversification and intensification ideas. In the testing, six data sets provided by the sponsoring company were analyzed. All runs for the metaheuristic took less than 3 minutes, and in all but one case produced a sizable improvement over the current service area configurations. The set covering solution provided further improvement, which collectively averaged 19.2%.  Bio: Jonathan Bard is a professor of Operations Research & Industrial Engineering in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Texas at Austin.  He holds the Industrial Properties Corporation Endowed Faculty Fellowship and serves as the Associate Director of the Center for the Management of Operations and Logistics. He received a D.Sc. in Operations Research from The George Washington University, and has previously taught at the University of California - Berkeley and Northeastern University. His research interests are in the design and analysis of manufacturing systems, personnel scheduling, vehicle routing, and algorithms for large-scale integer programs. He is currently the Editor of IIE Transactions on Operations Engineering, and serves on the editorial board of several other journals. He is a fellow of IIE and INFORMS, and a registered professional engineer in the State of Texas.   Tuesday, November 4, 2008 M228 Tech 4:00 p.m. Refreshments Served 3:30 p.m. C211 Tech Topic: Operations Engineering
Seminar by Fikri Karaesmen, Koc University, Turkey
October 28, 2008 at 4:00 PM — Tech, M228
Topic: Markov Decision Processes and Applications in Queuing/Inventory
Seminar by Garud Iyengar, Associate Professor, Columbia University
October 21, 2008 at 4:00 PM — M228 Technological Instit
  Robust Portfolio Selection Abstract: Parameters in a portfolio section problem are typically estimated from a finite amount of data -- consequently, the parameter estimates are always erroneous. Moreover, optimal solutions to the portfolio selection models tend to amplify these parameter errors several fold, resulting in "error-maximized and investment irrelevant" portfolios!  Robust optimization has recently emerged as a particularly useful methodology for optimizing performance in the presence of data errors. In this talk we will survey some of our recent work on robust formulations for portfolio selection. In particular, we will discuss a robust version of the mean-variance and the mean-CVaR portfolio selection problem. We will illustrate these methods on examples from equity portfolio management, pension-fund management, and credit portfolio management.  (Parts of this talk are joint work with Donald Goldfarb, Emre Erdogan, and Ka Chun (Alfred) Ma.)  Bio: Garud Iyengar received a B. Tech. in Electrical Engg. from IIT Kanpur in 1993 and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1998. Since then he has been with the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operation Research at Columbia University where he is currently an Associate Professor. M228 Tech 4:00 p.m. Refreshments Served 3:30 p.m. C211 Tech Â
IEMS 50th Anniversary Celebration
October 19, 2008 at 12:00 AM —
Join the 50th Anniversary Celebration Registration is Required (Now Closed)! IE: Invest in Excellence The 50th Anniversary of the IEMS Department will be celebrated during the 2008 Homecoming Weekend on October 18 and 19. The final program will be posted soon. All current students and alumni are invited to attend. We have set up an Anniversary Fund the proceeds from which will be used to support our excellent nationally ranked undergraduate and graduate programs. 50th Anniversary Celebration Agenda Saturday, October 18 9:30 am -11:00 am: Alumni Tent at Ryan Field 11:00 am -2:30 pm: Homecoming Football Game Against Purdue 4:00 pm -5:00 pm: Opening Ceremony (Chief Guest: Mr. Mike Eskew, Former Board Chair & CEO of UPS), Norris Center, McCormick Auditorium 6:30 pm -7:30 pm: Cocktails (Cash Bar), Orrington Hotel 7:30 pm -9:00 pm: Anniversary Banquet, Orrington Hotel Sunday, October 19 8:00 am -8:45 am: Continental Breakfast, Norris Center 8:45 am -10:15 am: "IEMS Applications in Healthcare" (Workshop Leaders: Prof. Mark Daskin and Prof. Bill White), Norris Center 10:15 am -10:45 am: Coffee Break 10:45 am -12:15 pm: "NUvention: Bring the Real World into the Classroom" (Workshop Leader: Prof. Mike Marasco), Norris Center 12:30 pm -1:30 pm: Lunch and Closing Ceremony
Mike Eskew: The Supply Chain of the 21st Century (Keynote Speaker)
October 18, 2008 at 4:00 PM — McCormick Auditorium Norris Center
Mike Eskew retired from UPS at the end of 2007 after serving six years as chairman and chief executive officer. He continues to serve on the Board of Directors. Eskew graduated from Purdue University with a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering. He also completed the Advanced Management Program at the Wharton School of Business. Eskew began his UPS career in 1972 as an industrial engineering manager in Indiana. Eskew serves as the chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Annie E. Casey Foundation, which is the country's largest foundation dedicated to disadvantaged youth. He also serves on the Boards of Directors of the 3M Corporation, IBM and Eli Lilly. He is the former chairman of the U.S. China Business Council and also served on the President's Export Council. Refreshments will be provided.
IEMS 50th Anniversary Celebration
October 18, 2008 at 12:00 AM —
Join the 50th Anniversary Celebration Registration is Required (Now Closed)! IE: Invest in Excellence The 50th Anniversary of the IEMS Department will be celebrated during the 2008 Homecoming Weekend on October 18 and 19. The final program will be posted soon. All current students and alumni are invited to attend. We have set up an Anniversary Fund the proceeds from which will be used to support our excellent nationally ranked undergraduate and graduate programs. 50th Anniversary Celebration Agenda Saturday, October 18 9:30 am -11:00 am: Alumni Tent at Ryan Field 11:00 am -2:30 pm: Homecoming Football Game Against Purdue 4:00 pm -5:00 pm: Opening Ceremony (Chief Guest: Mr. Mike Eskew, Former Board Chair & CEO of UPS), Norris Center, McCormick Auditorium 6:30 pm -7:30 pm: Cocktails (Cash Bar), Orrington Hotel 7:30 pm -9:00 pm: Anniversary Banquet, Orrington Hotel Sunday, October 19 8:00 am -8:45 am: Continental Breakfast, Norris Center 8:45 am -10:15 am: "IEMS Applications in Healthcare" (Workshop Leaders: Prof. Mark Daskin and Prof. Bill White), Norris Center 10:15 am -10:45 am: Coffee Break 10:45 am -12:15 pm: "NUvention: Bring the Real World into the Classroom" (Workshop Leader: Prof. Mike Marasco), Norris Center 12:30 pm -1:30 pm: Lunch and Closing Ceremony
Building Your Social Web: Networking & Social Capital (Noshir Contractor)
October 16, 2008 at 3:30 PM — M228 & C211 Technological Instit
Building Your Social Web: Networking & Social Capital Thursday, October 16, 2008 Prof. Nosh Contractor, Northwestern University This session will place an emphasis on the importance of social capital regarding career advancement, research opportunities, & strengthening connections. Discussions will aim to provide insight on: building networks, maintaining networks, and using networks to their fullest. This event is part of the newIEMS Office of Student Life's Professional Development Series.
IEMS 50th Anniversary Registration
October 14, 2008 at 12:00 AM —
Join the 50th Anniversary Celebration On-line Registration will open on August 1st and remain open until September 24th. Registration fee will be $100 per person (adults attending all the events), $25 per spouse and child attending the football game only. IE: Invest in Excellence The 50th Anniversary of the IEMS Department will be celebrated during the 2008 Homecoming Weekend on October 18 and 19. The final program will be posted soon. All current students and alumni are invited to attend. We have set up an Anniversary Fund the proceeds from which will be used to support our excellent nationally ranked undergraduate and graduate programs. Donations can be made Online at https://wallstreet.itcs.northwestern.edu/Dev1/asp/giving.asp. Dont forget to specify your gift should go to the IEMS Anniversary Fund. 50th Anniversary Celebration Agenda Saturday, October 18 9:30 am -11:00 am: Alumni Tent at Ryan Field 11:00 am -2:30 pm: Homecoming Football Game Against Purdue 3:30 pm -5:00 pm: Opening Ceremony (Chief Guest: Mr. Mike Eskew, Former Board Chair & CEO of UPS), Norris Center, McCormick Auditorium 6:30 pm -7:30 pm: Cocktails (Cash Bar), Orrington Hotel 7:30 pm -9:00 pm: Anniversary Banquet, Orrington Hotel Sunday, October 19 8:00 am -8:45 am: Continental Breakfast, Norris Center 8:45 am -10:15 am: "IEMS Applications in Healthcare" (Workshop Leaders: Prof. Mark Daskin and Prof. Bill White), Norris Center 10:15 am -10:45 am: Coffee Break 10:45 am -12:15 pm: "NUvention: Bring the Real World into the Classroom" (Workshop Leader: Prof. Mike Marasco), Norris Center 12:30 pm -1:30 pm: Lunch and Closing Ceremony
INFORMS Practice Presentations
October 8, 2008 at 4:00 PM — Tech, M-228
Send an e-mail to RSVP to northwestern.informs@gmail.com
Seminary by Vicki Bier, Professor, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison
October 7, 2008 at 4:00 PM — Tech, M228
Topic: Homeland Security / Game Theory
INFORMS Practice Presentations
October 7, 2008 at 12:00 PM — Tech, M-228
Send an e-mail to RSVP to northwestern.informs@gmail.com
Industrial Engineering Seminar: Gordon Hazen
September 30, 2008 at 4:00 PM — Tech, M228
Incorporating Extrinsic Goals into Decision and Cost-Effectiveness Analyses Gordon Hazen Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences Northwestern University Abstract: Quality adjusted life years (QALYs) are the standard for incorporating health-quality issues into medical cost-effectiveness analyses, and see widespread use in hundreds of applications annually. While QALYs can capture ongoing goals such as maintaining mobility or avoiding pain, what has not been previously recognized is that goals occurring at unique points in time, such as completing an important project or seeing a child graduate from college, are difficult or impossible to express in terms of QALYs, and are in this sense extrinsic to the QALY model. Considering the QALY model as a multiattribute utility function over quality and lifetime, we introduce an extension of this model that relaxes the QALY assumptions and incorporates extrinsic goals. We use it to re-evaluate two previously published analyses where extrinsic goals may be important: the management of unruptured intracranial arteriovenous malformations (Auger and Weibers 1992), and the evaluation of preventive strategies for BRCA+ women (Anderson et al 2006). These re-analyses also illustrate the use of Markov chain models in medical cost-effectiveness. Our results indicate that inclusion of relevant extrinsic goals can significantly affect cost-effectiveness results.
Industrial Engineering Seminar: Alexander Lipton
September 26, 2008 at 4:00 PM — Tech Institute, L251
Jump-Diffusions and Credit Modeling (Theoretical Models and Practical Implications) Alexander Lipton Merrill Lynch, London Abstract: In this talk we discuss qualitative and quantitative approaches to modeling credit risk and credit events. In particular, we present a view from the trenches of the developing credit crisis.
IEMS Graduate Student Orientation
September 17, 2008 at 8:00 AM — Tech Bldg Room C211
Schedule: Start Time Host Location 10:45am Arrival C210 11:00am Lunch C211 12:00pm Dr. Barry Nelson M228 Department Overview 1:15pm Dr. Gordon Hazen M228 Program Overview, Curriculum 1:45pm Break 2:00pm Adam Cebulski M228 Staff Introductions 2:10pm Adam Cebulski M228 Student Life & Orientation 3:00pm Break 3:15pm First Year Advisor Meetings Various 4:15pm Break 4:30pm Graduate Students & GLC C211 Q & A Session
End of IEMS 50th Anniversary Celebration Registration
September 15, 2008 at 5:00 PM —
Join the 50th Anniversary Celebration Registration is now open for the 50th anniversary celebration. Please visit:On-line Registration will open on August 1st and remain open until September 15th. Registration fee will be $100 per person (adults attending all the events), $25 per spouse and child attending the football game only. IE: Invest in Excellence The 50th Anniversary of the IEMS Department will be celebrated during the 2008 Homecoming Weekend on October 18 and 19. The final program will be posted soon. All current students and alumni are invited to attend. We have set up an Anniversary Fund the proceeds from which will be used to support our excellent nationally ranked undergraduate and graduate programs. Donations can be made Online. Don't forget to specify your gift should go to the IEMS Anniversary Fund. 50th Anniversary Celebration Agenda Saturday, October 18 9:30 am -11:00 am: Alumni Tent at Ryan Field 11:00 am -2:30 pm: Homecoming Football Game Against Purdue 3:30 pm -5:00 pm: Opening Ceremony (Chief Guest: Mr. Mike Eskew, Former Board Chair & CEO of UPS),Norris Center, McCormick Auditorium 6:30 pm -7:30 pm: Cocktails (Cash Bar), Orrington Hotel 7:30 pm -9:00 pm: Anniversary Banquet, Orrington Hotel Sunday, October 19 8:00 am -8:45 am: Continental Breakfast, Norris Center 8:45 am -10:15 am: "IEMS Applications in Healthcare" (Workshop Leaders: Prof. Mark Daskin and Prof. Bill White), Norris Center 10:15 am -10:45 am: Coffee Break 10:45 am -12:15 pm: "NUvention: Bring the Real World into the Classroom" (Workshop Leader: Prof. Mike Marasco), Norris Center 12:30 pm -1:30 pm: Lunch and Closing Ceremony Fee: $100 per person
