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A simple linear model is constructed for production, use and recycling of various paper and related products. This model is used to estimate the maximum feasible recycling rate given the current state of pulp and paper technology. Parametric linear programming is used to investigate the effect of the efficiency of collecting, sorting and transporting waste paper on the fraction recycled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We document the "good-on-paper effect," whereby people make more virtuous decisions on paper than on a digital device (e.g., tablet). In a series of 10 studies, we find that people are more likely to make virtuous decisions on paper than on a digital device because they perceive choices on paper as more real (i.e., tangible, actual, and belonging to the physical rather than the virtual world) and hence as more self-diagnostic (i.e., representative of who they are). We first show people express more interest in donating and volunteering (Studies 1a and 1b), are more likely to donate (Study 2), and put more effort into helping a charitable cause (Study 3) when these choices occur on paper (versus tablet)—a pattern of decision making we label the good-on-paper effect. Study 4 extends these findings to book choices (highbrow versus lowbrow) and to a device interaction that closely mimics writing on paper (i.e., tablet with digital pen). In the context of volunteering decisions, we then provide evidence for the sequential mediating roles of perceptions of realness and self-diagnosticity in the good-on-paper effect (Study 5 and Studies 6a and 6b). Finally, we show that chronic (Study 7) and situational (Study 8) perceptions of self-diagnosticity moderate this effect in the contexts of environmental protection and food choices (healthy versus indulgent), respectively. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The journal is pleased to publish the abstracts of the six finalists of the 2023 Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Society's student paper competition. The 2023 prize committee was chaired by Ersin Korpeoglu (UCL), Simone Marinesi (Wharton), and Nur Sunar (UNC). The judges were Adam Elmachtoub, Adem Orsdemir, Agni Orfanoudaki, Alper Nakkas, Amrita Kundu, Antoine Desir, Antoine Feylessoufi, Anton Ovchinnikov, Anyan Qi, Arian Aflaki, Arzum Akkas, Ashish Kabra, Auyon Siddiq, Bilal Gokpinar, Bin Hu, Bob Batt, Bora Keskin, Brent Moritz, Can Zhang, Chloe Glaeser, Cuihong Li, Daniel Freund, Daniel Lin, David Drake, Divya Singhvi, Dongyuan Zhan, Ekaterina Astashkina, Elena Belavina, Elodie Adida, Emre Nadar, Enis Kayis, Fabian Sting, Fanyin Zheng, Fei Gao, Florin Ciocan, Francisco Castro, George Chen, Georgina Hall, Gloria Urrea, Gonzalo Romero, Guihua Wang, Guoming Lai, Heikki Peura, Hessam Bavafa, Hummy Song, Huseyin Gurkan, Ioannis Stamatopoulos, Iris Wang, Jiankun Sun, Jiayi Joey Yu, Jing Wu, Joel Wooten, John Silberholz, Jonas Oddur Jonasson, Jonathan Helm, Jose Guajardo, Junyu Cao, Kaitlin Daniels, Karen Zheng, Ken Moon, Kostas Bimpikis, Lennart Baardman, Lesley Meng, Lina Song, Luyi Yang, Mazhar Arikan, Mehmet Ayvaci, Meng Li, Mengzhenyu Zhang, Miao Bai, Michael Freeman, Mika Sumida, Ming Hu, Morvarid Rahmani, Mostafa Rezaei, Mumin Kurtulus, Nan Yang, Nazli Sonmez, Negin Golrezaei, Nektarios Oraiopoulos, Nikhil Garg, Nikos Trichakis, Nil Karacaoglu, Olga Perdikaki, Onesun Steve Yoo, Ovunc Yilmaz, Ozan Candogan, Panos Markou, Pengyi Shi, Philipp Cornelius, Qiuping Yu, Renyu Zhang, Robert Bray, Ruth Beer, Ruxian Wang, Saed Alizamir, Safak Yucel, Sanjith Gopalakrishnan, Santiago Gallino, Sarah Yini Gao, Scott Rodilitz, Sebastien Martin, Seyed Emadi, Sheng Liu, Shouqiang Wang, Siddharth Singh, Sidika Candogan, Sina Khorasani, So Yeon Chun, Somya Singhvi, Soo-Haeng Cho, Sriram Dasu, Stefanus Jasin, Stephen Leider, Suresh Muthulingam, Sytske Wijnsma, Taghi Khaniyev, Tian Chan, Tim Kraft, Tom Tan, Tugce Martagan, Vasiliki Kostamj, Velibor Misic, Vishal Agrawal, Xiaojia Guo, Xiaoshuai Fan, Xiaoyang Long, Yannis Bellos, Yao Cui, Yehua Wei, Yiangos Papanastasiou, Yi-Chun Chen, Yinghao Zhang, Ying-Ju Chen, Yinghao Zhang, Yuan-Mao Kao, Yuexing Li, Zhaohui (Zoey) Jiang, Zhaowei She, and Zumbul Atan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the quadratic cycle cover problem (QCCP), which aims to find a node-disjoint cycle cover in a directed graph with minimum interaction cost between successive arcs. We derive several semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxations and use facial reduction to make these strictly feasible. We investigate a nontrivial relationship between the transformation matrix used in the reduction and the structure of the graph, which is exploited in an efficient algorithm that constructs this matrix for any instance of the problem. To solve our relaxations, we propose an algorithm that incorporates an augmented Lagrangian method into a cutting-plane framework by utilizing Dykstra's projection algorithm. Our algorithm is suitable for solving SDP relaxations with a large number of cutting-planes. Computational results show that our SDP bounds and efficient cutting-plane algorithm outperform other QCCP bounding approaches from the literature. Finally, we provide several SDP-based upper bounding techniques, among which is a sequential Q-learning method that exploits a solution of our SDP relaxation within a reinforcement learning environment. Summary of Contribution: The quadratic cycle cover problem (QCCP) is the problem of finding a set of node-disjoint cycles covering all the nodes in a graph such that the total interaction cost between successive arcs is minimized. The QCCP has applications in many fields, among which are robotics, transportation, energy distribution networks, and automatic inspection. Besides this, the problem has a high theoretical relevance because of its close connection to the quadratic traveling salesman problem (QTSP). The QTSP has several applications, for example, in bioinformatics, and is considered to be among the most difficult combinatorial optimization problems nowadays. After removing the subtour elimination constraints, the QTSP boils down to the QCCP. Hence, an in-depth study of the QCCP also contributes to the construction of strong bounds for the QTSP. In this paper, we study the application of semidefinite programming (SDP) to obtain strong bounds for the QCCP. Our strongest SDP relaxation is very hard to solve by any SDP solver because of the large number of involved cutting-planes. Because of that, we propose a new approach in which an augmented Lagrangian method is incorporated into a cutting-plane framework by utilizing Dykstra's projection algorithm. We emphasize an efficient implementation of the method and perform an extensive computational study. This study shows that our method is able to handle a large number of cuts and that the resulting bounds are currently the best QCCP bounds in the literature. We also introduce several upper bounding techniques, among which is a distributed reinforcement learning algorithm that exploits our SDP relaxations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We evaluate what distinguishes a highly cited Interfaces paper from other Interfaces papers that are cited less often. Citations are used to acknowledge prior relevant research, to document sources of information, and to substantiate claims. As such, citations play a key role in the evolution of knowledge. More recently, citations are also being used to quantify the impact of papers and journals, a practice not without controversy, but one that motivates our work here. We find that Edelman competition papers, longer papers, tutorials, papers with larger numbers of references to prior literature, and papers with a larger number of "callouts" (a feature no longer used by Interfaces) tend to have a higher number of citations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a principal who periodically offers a fixed and costly nonmonetary reward to agents to incentivize them to invest effort over the long run. An agent's output, as a function of his effort, is a priori uncertain and is worth a fixed per-unit value to the principal. The principal's goal is to design an attractive reward policy that specifies how the rewards are to be given to an agent over time based on that agent's past performance. This problem, which we denote by P , is motivated by practical examples from both academia (e.g., a reduced teaching load) and industry (e.g., "Supplier of the Year" awards). The following "limited-term" (LT) reward policy structure has been quite popular in practice. The principal evaluates each agent periodically; if an agent's performance over a certain (limited) number of periods in the immediate past exceeds a predefined threshold, then the principal rewards him for a certain (limited) number of periods in the immediate future. When agents' outputs are deterministic in their efforts, we show that there always exists an optimal policy that is an LT policy and also, obtain such a policy. When agents' outputs are stochastic, we show that the class of LT policies may not contain any optimal policy of problem P but is guaranteed to contain policies that are arbitrarily near optimal. Given any ϵ > 0 , we show how to obtain an LT policy whose performance is within ϵ of that of an optimal policy. This guarantee depends crucially on the use of sufficiently long histories of the agents' outputs. We also analyze LT policies with short histories and derive structural insights on the role played by (i) the length of the available history and (ii) the variability in the random variable governing an agent's output. We show that the average performance of these policies is within 5% of the optimum, justifying their popularity in practice. We then introduce and analyze the class of "score-based" reward policies; we show that this class is guaranteed to contain an optimal policy and also, obtain such a policy. Finally, we analyze a generalization in which the principal has a limited number for rewards in any given period and show that the class of score-based policies, with modifications to accommodate the limited availability of the rewards, continues to contain an optimal solution for the principal. This paper was accepted by Jeannette Song, operations management. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4482. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces the winner of the 2023 Clemen-Kleinmuntz Decision Analysis Best Paper Award, which comes with a $2,000 prize. The winning paper, titled "Information Density in Decision Analysis," introduces the concept of "information density" as a new approach to sensitivity analysis in decision analysis. The paper provides a technical grounding of information density and offers examples for real-world implementation. Another paper, titled "An Empirical Comparison of Rank-Based Surrogate Weights in Additive Multiattribute Decision Analysis," was identified as a finalist for the award and provides valuable insights into converting ordinal rankings into attribute weights. The article encourages authors to continue submitting high-quality manuscripts for future consideration. [Extracted from the article]

This paper describes a decision support system for paper production scheduling. This is the first system to provide an integrated solution to paper production scheduling and to consider interactions between different stages of the manufacturing and distribution process. Using a multicriteria optimization approach, the system generates multiple enterprisewide schedules to reveal tradeoffs between the multiple, often competing, objectives. The large portfolio of algorithms used by the system is embedded in an agent-based decision support framework, called Asynchronous Team (A-Team). Successful implementations of the system in several paper mills in North America have resulted in significant savings and improved customer satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the impact of digital technologies on the field of finance. It highlights how digital finance, including mobile banking, digital wallets, fintech innovations, and robo-advisors, has transformed consumer behavior and the global financial system. The article calls for research papers that explore the systemic impacts of digital finance, propose new methodologies for analysis, and examine the broader economic implications of its rapid growth. The special issue aims to address topics such as artificial intelligence in financial economics, digital currencies and payment systems, decentralized financing, the socioeconomic implications of digital technologies, digitization in various industries, network security, and regulation. The deadline for submission is June 30, 2025, and accepted papers will be published in regular issues of Management Science. [Extracted from the article]

The article presents a list of various research papers in progress related to the management science. They include "The Effectiveness of Retail Price Reductions: A Comparison for Alternate Expressions of Price," by E. E. Anderson, "The Use of Field Experimental Observations in Estimating Advertising Recall," by E. C. Strong, and "A Survey of Computational Algorithms for Dynamical System Optimization and Control," by W. A. Gruver.

We built and deployed a decision-support system for scheduling paper manufacturing and distribution, an extremely complex task with multiple stages of production and strong interaction between stages. In contrast to earlier approaches, our system considers multiple scheduling objectives and multiple stages of production and distribution simultaneously using multiple evaluation criteria. Our system functions as an intelligent assistant to the schedulers and generates multiple good scheduling alternatives using a portfolio of algorithms and direct human-expert input. The successful deployment of our system at several paper mills in North America has resulted in significant savings, greater customer satisfaction, and improved business processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents several papers received for the November 1974 issue of the periodical "Management Science." Papers received include "Optimization of Traffic Signal Settings in Networks by Mixed-Integer Linear Programming," by N. Gartner, J.D.C. Little and H. Gabbay, "Intesections Cuts From Disjunctive Constraints," by E. Balas, and "Integer Programming," by Charles P. Bonini.

A common problem encountered in paper-production facilities is that of allocating customer orders to machines so as to minimize the total cost of production. It can be formulated as a dual-angular integer program, with identical machines inducing symmetry. While the potential advantages of decomposing large mathematical programs into smaller subproblems have long been recognized, the solution of decomposable integer programs remains extremely difficult. Symmetry intensifies the difficulty. This paper develops an approach, based on the construction of tight subproblem bounds, to solve decomposable dual-angular integer programs and successfully applies it to solve the problem from the paper industry. This method is of particular interest as it significantly reduces the impact of symmetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The journal is pleased to publish the abstracts of the six finalists of the 2022 Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Society's student paper competition. The 2022 prize committee was chaired by Florin Ciocan (INSEAD), Ersin Korpeoglu (University College London), and Nikos Trichakis (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). The judges were Adam Elmachtoub, Adem Orsdemir, Agni Orfanoudaki, Alp Akcay, Alper Nakkas, Amrita Kundu, Amy Pan, Andrew Wu, Antoine DESIR, Anyan Qi, Arian Aflaki, Ashish Kabra, Auyon Siddiq, Bilal Gokpinar, Bob Batt, Bora Keskin, Can Zhang, Dan Iancu, Dan Iancu, Daniel Freund, Daniel Lin, Daniela Saban, David Drake, Dawson Kaaua, Ekaterina Astashkina, Elena Belavina, Elodie Adida, Emre Nadar, Fabian Sting, Fanyin Zheng, Fei Gao, Georgina Hall, Gizem Korpeoglu, Gonzalo Romero, Guoming Lai, Hessam Bavafa, Hummy Song, Ioannis (Yannis) Bellos, Ioannis Stamatopoulos, Iris Wang, Itir Karaesmen, Jiankun Sun, Jiankun Sun, Jiaru Bai, Jiayi Joey Yu, Jing Wu, Joel Wooten, John Silberholz, Jonathan Helm, Jose Guajardo, Karen Zheng, Ken Moon, Kenan Arifoglu, Kimon Drakopoulos, Kostas Bimpikis, Lennart Baardman, Lina Song, Luyi Gui, Luyi Yang, Miao Bai, Mika Sumida, Ming Hu, Mumin Kurtulus, Nazli Sonmez, Negin Golrezaei, Nektarios Oraiopoulos, Nil Karacaoglu, Nitin Bakshi, Nitish Jain, Nur Sunar, Olga Perdikaki, Ovunc Yilmaz, Ozan Candogan, Panos Markou, Pengyi Shi, Philip Zhang, Philipp Cornelius, Qi (George) Chen, Qiuping Yu, Ruslan Momot, Ruth Beer, S. Alex Yang, Saed Alizamir, Safak Yucel, Sanjith Gopalakrishnan, Santiago Gallino, Sarah Yini Gao, Scott Rodilitz, Sebastien Martin, Sheng Liu, Shouqiang Wang, Simone Marinesi, Sina Khorasani, So Yeon CHUN, Somya Singhvi, Soo-Haeng Cho, Soroush Saghafian, Sriram Dasu, Stefanus Jasin, Stephen Leider, Tian Chan, Tim Kraft, Tom Tan, Vasiliki Kostami, Velibor Misic, Vishal Agrawal, Xiaojia Guo, Xiaoshan Peng, Xiaoshuai Fan, Xiaoyang Long, Yangfang (Helen) Zhou, Yasemin Limon, Yehua Wei, Ying-Ju Chen, Yonatan Gur, Yuqian Xu, Zhaohui (Zoey) Jiang, Zhaowei She, and Zumbul Atan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on changes at the journal that have been implemented or will be implemented soon that will entice the home run paper. It provides recent examples of home run papers in the area of Bayesian statistics research. It describes how the home run paper will involve both practitioners and doctoral students. To motivate authors to strive for home runs, the journal will adopt policies that will involve procedural changes and some will involve content changes, including the use of modern technology to spread the message from the papers.

The costs, benefits and strategic role of intermediate echelons in distribution networks are not well understood in many industries. This paper describes a study of such multilevel systems in the industrial paper and plastics industry. We quantify the impact of redistributors, who buy products from manufacturers and sell them exclusively to other distributors. The methodology was applied to an industry-wide study. We derived statistics based on optimal distributor policies for channel choice and stock control. Based on our analysis, we found that effective use of redistribution, in conjunction with these policies, has the potential to generate savings of $446 million for the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the development of a computer-aided formulation of silica defoamers for the paper industry. It also provides information on the standard way of making paper as well as some problems encountered during the manufacturing process. The mentioned computer-aided formulation of silica defoamers is based on a nonlinear programming model. The nonlinear programming model is developed based on an empirical equation of the defoamer's performance as well as on a deterministic equation of ingredient cost. Paper manufacturers confirmed the validity of the predicted optimal formula in four out of five paper plant trials.

Analyzing Capacitated Two-Echelon Systems with Permutation-Dependent Separability Capacitated multiechelon systems are common in practice due to the escalating costs of labor and advanced manufacturing technology. However, identifying the optimal replenishment policies for such systems is a largely open area of research due to the intrinsic complexity, especially when there is an upstream bottleneck. In "A Permutation-Dependent Separability Approach for Capacitated Two-Echelon Inventory Systems", Shen, Yu, and Huh propose a new approach, that is, permutation-dependent separability, to tackle a capacitated two-echelon system in which the capacity of upstream stage can be the bottleneck. They show that the value function for the capacitated two-echelon system in each period is permutation-dependent separable, and that for each echelon, a permutation-dependent echelon base stock policy is optimal. The authors also develop efficient solution procedures on how to obtain the optimal policy. We consider optimal inventory replenishment policies for capacitated 2-echelon serial inventory systems, where the capacity of upstream echelon can be the bottleneck. We show that the optimal replenishment decisions in each period can be made one echelon at a time by introducing a procedure that can sequentially decompose a multidimensional optimization problem to a series of one-dimensional problems. We also introduce the notion of permutation-dependent separability. A permutation-dependent separable function is a function that can be decomposed as a sum of single-variable component functions under each nondecreasing order of variables. We find that the value function for the capacitated 2-echelon system in each period is permutation-dependent separable, and that, for each echelon, a permutation-dependent echelon base stock policy is optimal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many businesses are currently uncertain of how the economic recession will affect demand for their services and products. For global papermaker Norske Skog, this is a familiar situation. Over the past decade, the company has experienced declining demand for its products as electronic media have replaced newsprint publications. As it struggles to survive, the company has been forced to make some difficult decisions, including closing paper production lines and entire mills. Operations research (OR) models have become a vital part of Norske Skog's decision-making process, helping the company to significantly reduce costs and enabling senior managers to make difficult choices with confidence that their solutions are the best possible. The tactical use of OR models has provided solutions that enable Norske Skog to save US$8 million and US$10 million annually in Australasia and Europe, respectively. In 2008, the Norske Skog Board used a model to make a strategic decision to close two paper mills and a paper machine, saving the company US$100 million annually, compared with the status quo. These savings are equivalent to 3 percent of the company's revenue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The journal is pleased to publish the abstracts of the six finalists of the 2021 Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Society's student paper competition. The 2021 prize committee was chaired by Vishal Agrawal (Georgetown University), Florin Ciocan (INSEAD), and Yanchong Zheng (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). The judges were Adam Elmachtoub, Adem Orsdemir, Amrita Kundu, Antoine Desir, Anyan Qi, Arian Aflaki, Arzum Akkas, Ashish Kabra, Bin Hu, Bora Keskin, Brent Moritz, Can Zhang, Chloe Kim Glaeser, Dan Iancu, Daniel Freund, Daniel Lin, Daniela Saban, David F. Drake, Dawson Kaaua, Divya Singhvi, Ekaterina Astashkina, Elena Belavina, Elodie Adida, Enis Kayis, Ersin Korpeoglu, Evgeny Kagan, Fabian Sting, Fanyin Zheng, Fei Gao, Fernanda Bravo, Francisco Castro, Georgina Hall, Gonzalo Romero, Guangwen Kong, Guoming Lai, Hamsa Bastani, Hessam Bavafa, Hummy Song, Ioannis (Yannis) Stamatopoulos, Ioannis Bellos, Iris Wang, Jake Feldman, Jason Acimovic, Jiankun Sun, Jiaru Bai, John Silberholz, Joline Uichanco, Jonas Oddur Jonasson, Jose Guajardo, Kaitlin Daniels, Kenan Arifoglu, Lennart Baardman, Leon Valdes, Lesley Meng, Luyi Gui, Luyi Yang, Mary Parkinson, Mazhar Arikan, Mehmet Ayvaci, Miao Bai, Michael Freeman, Ming Hu, Morvarid Rahmani, Mumin Kurtulus, Nan Yang, Nektarios Oraiopoulos, Nikhil Garg, Nil Karacaoglu, Nitin Bakshi, Nur Sunar, Olga Perdikaki, Ovunc Yilmaz, Ozan Candogan, Ozge Sahin, Panos Markou, Pascale Crama, Pengyi Shi, Pnina Feldman, Qiuping Yu, Renyu Zhang, Ruslan Momot, Ruth Beer, Ruxian Wang, Saed Alizamir, Safak Yucel, Samantha Keppler, Sanjith Gopalakrishnan, Santiago Gallino, Sarah Yini Gao, Sebastien Martin, Serdar Simsek, Seyed Emadi, Shima Nassiri, Shouqiang Wang, Siddharth Singh, Simone Marinesi, So Yeon Chun, Somya Singhvi, Song-Hee Kim, Soo-Haeng Cho, Soroush Saghafian, Sriram Dasu, Stefanus Jasin, Stephen Leider, Suresh Muthulingam, Suvrat Dhanorkar, Tian Chan, Tim Kraft, Tom TAN, Tugce Martagan, Velibor Misic, Vishal Gupta, Weiming Zhu, Xiajun Amy Pan, Xiaoshan Peng, Xiaoyang Long, Yangfang (Helen) Zhou, Yehua Wei, Yiangos Papanastasiou, Ying-Ju Chen, Yinghao Zhang, Yoni Gur, Yuqian Xu, Zhaohui (Zoey) Jiang, Zumbul Atan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an introduction to the articles published in the November 1990 issue of the journal "Interfaces."

The journal is pleased to publish the abstracts of the six finalists of the 2019 Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Society's student paper competition. The 2019 prize committee was chaired by Feryal Erhun (University of Cambridge), Antonio Moreno (Harvard University), and Yi Xu (University of Maryland). The other committee members were Elodie Adida, Vishal Agrawal, Arzum Akkaş, Mazhar Arıkan, Jiaru Bai, Gah-Yi Ban, Hamsa Bastani, Bob Batt, Elena Belavina, Ioannis Bellos, Kostas Bimpikis, Fernanda Bravo, Robert Bray, Eduard Calvo, Ozan Candogan, Tian Chan, Ying-Ju Chen, Soo-Haeng Cho, So Yeon Chun, Florin Ciocan, Pascale Crama, Ruomeng Cui, Kaitlin Daniels, Kris Ferreira, Santiago Gallino, Esma Gel, Chloe Kim Glaeser, Xiting Gong, Jose Guajardo, Ming Hu, Dan Iancu, Stefanus Jasin, Houyuan Jiang, Ashish Kabra, Itir Karaesmen Aydin, Enis Kayış, Diwas KC, Bora Keskin, Song-Hee Kim, Tim Kraft, Mirko Kremer, Mümin Kurtuluş, Guoming Lai, Daniel Lin, Fang Liu, Velibor Mišić, Suresh Muthulingam, Aris Oraiopoulos, Adem Orsdemir, Yiangos Papanastasiou, Chris Parker, Olga Perdikaki, Anyan Qi, Morvarid Rahmani, Guillaume Roels, Soroush Saghafian, Ozge Sahin, Burhan Sandıkçı, Juan Serpa, Pengyi Shi, Hummy Song, Brad Staats, Yannis Stamatopoulos, Sandra Sulz, Nur Sunar, Nicos Trichakis, John Turner, Jingqi Wang, Ruxian Wang, Shouqiang Wang, Yehua Wei, Wenqiang Xiao, Linwei Xin, Nan Yang, Renyue Zhang, Karen Zheng, and Weiming Zhu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on 21st century being termed as the century of disasters. Topics include blockchain for disaster logistics, wearable technologies for rescue teams and victims, and remote monitoring sensors for intelligence gathering; and Geographic Information System (GIS) for crisis mapping, social media for disaster information dissemination, and extraction of real-time intelligence.

This paper introduces a new decision support tool to optimize advertising campaigns for new product launches based on learnings from an ex post analysis of prior campaigns. The launch of a new product is one of the most critical activities that product and brand managers are faced with. It requires a substantial communications budget to introduce the new product to the market. As the number of media channels proliferates, however, managers are increasingly held accountable to demonstrate the efficient use of resources. This article introduces a new decision support tool to optimize advertising campaigns for new product launches based on lessons learned from an ex post analysis of prior campaigns. The tool builds on a distinct data collection approach combined with econometric modeling to produce advertising elasticities, which is the key information in the media mix optimization. The approach was implemented at Mercedes-Benz and applied to four major new car launches in Germany in 2012 and 2013. It revealed estimated savings of 15%–30% or EUR 2 million per campaign from a more efficient use of resources. Data files and the online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2018.1136. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author discusses various topics related to publication of the journal. Topics include changes in research areas of management science such as analytics; criteria for submission of research papers to the journal, such as research relevant to the management science community; and different departments related to selection of papers, like departments of Behavioral Economics, and Judgment and Decision Making.

Billerud, a Swedish company with four integrated pulp and paper mills, serves specific packaging-market segments. In 2000, the process-engineering department at Billerud's mill in Skärblacka sought to improve the mills' bleaching process. It contacted Linköping University, which collaborated with Eurocon Automation AB to develop a decision-support system, OptCab. Eurocon Automation AB now offers OptCab as a general tool in the market. Its core is an online optimization system that dynamically updates a process description and optimizes the bleaching control process. The system, which has been fully operational since 2004, has provided numerous benefits to Billerud. Chemical use has decreased by approximately 10 percent, saving approximately two million euros since its installation; the environmental impact has also been reduced; and the brightness quality of paper that the mill produces is more uniform and stable. Moreover, OptCab requires less operator time, freeing the operators for development and analysis work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The journal is pleased to publish the abstracts of the six finalists of the 2020 Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Society's student paper competition. The 2020 prize committee was chaired by Vishal Agrawal (Georgetown), Feryal Erhun (University of Cambridge), and Jun Li (University of Michigan). The judges were Adem Orsdemir, Antoine Desir, Anton Ovchinnikov, Anyan Qi, Arian Aflaki, Arzum Akkas, Ashish Kabra, Bin Hu, Bob Batt, Bora Keskin, Can Zhang, Carri Chan, Chloe Kim Glaeser, Daniel Lin, Eduard Calvo, Ekaterina Astashkina, Elena Belavina, Elodie Adida, Enis Kayış, Ersin Korpeoglu, Fabian Sting, Fang Liu, Fanyin Zheng, Fei Gao, Florin Ciocan, Gah-Yi Ban, Gizem Korpeoglu, Guihua Wang, Guillaume Roels, Guoming Lai, Hessam Bavafa, Hummy Song, Ioannis (Yannis) Stamatopoulos, Ioannis Bellos, Iris Wang, Itir Karaesmen, Jiankun Sun, Jiaru Bai, Jing Wu, Joann de Zegher, Joel Wooten, John Silberholz, Jose Guajardo, Kaitlin Daniels, Karen Zheng, Ken Moon, Kenan Arifoglu, Lennart Baardman, Leon Valdes, Lesley Meng, Linwei Xin, Luyi Gui, Luyi Yang, Mary Parkinson, Mazhar Arikan, Michael Freeman, Ming Hu, Morvarid Rahmani, Mumin Kurtulus, Nan Yang, Necati Tereyagoglu, Nektarios Oraiopoulos, Nikos Trichakis, Nil Karacaoglu, Nitin Bakshi, Niyazi Taneri, Nur Sunar, Olga Perdikaki, Ovunc Yilmaz, Ozan Candogan, Ozge Sahin, Panos Markou, Pascale Crama, Pengyi Shi, Pnina Feldman, Qiuping Yu, Renyu (Philip) Zhang, Robert Bray, Ruslan Momot, Ruxian Wang, Saed Alizamir, Safak Yucel, Samantha Keppler, Santiago Gallino, Serdar Simsek, Seyed Emadi, Shiliang (John) Cui, Shouqiang Wang, Simone Marinesi, So Yeon Chun, Song-Hee Kim, Soo-Haeng Cho, Soroush Saghafian, Stefanus Jasin, Suresh Muthulingam, Suvrat Dhanorkar, Tian Chan, Tim Kraft, Tom Tan, Tugce Martagan, Velibor Misic, Weiming Zhu, Xiaoshan Peng, Xiaoyang Long, Yasemin Limon, Yehua Wei, Yiangos Papanastasiou, Ying-Ju Chen, and Zumbul Atan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Continuing the work begun by Michael H. Rothkopf in 1996, this paper presents the ninth ranking of universities according to their contributions to the INFORMS practice literature. Two rankings are given, each based on a different metric: visibility is the number of times a university is listed as the primary academic affiliation in the INFORMS practice literature; yield is the equivalent number of INFORMS practice papers attributable to each university based on author primary academic affiliation. As with the Eighth Rothkopf Rankings for US universities, the Naval Postgraduate School earns the top ranking for visibility and second for yield, whereas the Colorado School of Mines earns the top ranking for yield and second for visibility; for non-US universities, the University of Chile earns the top ranking for both visibility and yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inventors cannot exploit new scientific discoveries if they do not pay attention to them. However, allocating attention to science is difficult because the scientific literature is complex, vast, fast-changing, and often unreliable. Inventors are therefore likely to rely on informational cues when screening new publications. I posit that inventors pay significantly less attention to discoveries "made in academia" than to those "made in industry" because they believe that the work of academic scientists will be less useful to them. I test this proposition by examining inventors' patent references to the scientific literature in the case of simultaneous discoveries made by at least one team based in academia and another based in industry. I find that inventors are 23% less likely to cite the academic paper than its "twin" from industry. My results highlight the importance of inventors' attention as a previously underexplored bottleneck shaping the translation of science into new technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tenure decisions, key decisions in academic institutions, are primarily based on subjective assessments of candidates. Using a large-scale bibliometric database containing 198,310 papers published 1975-2012 in the field of operations research (OR), we propose prediction models of whether a scholar would perform well on a number of future success metrics using statistical models trained with data from the scholar's first five years of publication, a subset of the information available to tenure committees. These models, which use network centrality of the citation network, coauthorship network, and a dual network combining the two, significantly outperform simple predictive models based on citation counts alone. Using a data set of the 54 scholars who obtained a Ph.D. after 1995 and held an assistant professorship at a top-10 OR program in 2003 or earlier, these statistical models, using data up to five years after the scholar became an assistant professor and constrained to tenure the same number of candidates as tenure committees did, made a different decision than the tenure committees for 16 (30%) of the candidates. This resulted in a set of scholars with significantly better future A-journal paper counts, citation counts, and h-indexes than the scholars actually selected by tenure committees. These results show that analytics can complement the tenure decision-making process in academia and improve the prediction of academic impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the selection and design of heuristic procedures for solving one-dimensional roll trim problems. These are well-defined combinatorial problems which are too large to optimize. Five different roll trim problems from the paper and film industries are described along with the heuristic procedures that have been used successfully to improve the quality of the solutions generated. The paper concludes with some general guidelines for developing "industrial-grade" heuristic problem solving procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study of 10 years of Edelman prize-winning papers (1977-1986) has yielded a wealth of information regarding applied contemporary managerial theory. We have distilled the core theory of seven authors who write about management principles and applied it in depth to the 40 papers that contain enough data about the client companies to lend themselves to the analysis. The first-prize winners are clearly superior, and all the finalists tend to exhibit these principles to a greater degree than would be expected by chance. The study provides fodder for future study of applied entrepreneurial activity and lends credulity to the Edelman award process as it has been conducted in the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the role of referees in making an academic journal unreadable. When an article is submitted to a refereed journal, the editor then sends it out to two or more referees for review. The paper may be sent out bearing the author's name or with the author's name removed. The referee is usually someone who has an established reputation in the field, someone who wants to establish his reputation and vita by refereeing. The referee is faced with the task of defending the unreadability of his journal. Over the years, referees have developed a number of powerful tactics. To successfully publish a paper, the author must not only write an acceptable paper, but have counterstrategies prepared. The objectives of countertactics are either to get the paper published or to get a thorough review so the paper can be improved. At many universities, the number of times work is cited is used as a basis for promotion. Thus, by accepting the paper the referee increases his promotability also. At minimum, the referee's reputation is enhanced by the flattering comments.

Continuing and expanding on the original work that Michael H. Rothkopf established in 1996, this paper presents the eighth ranking of universities according to their contributions to the INFORMS practice literature. Fittingly, we have named them the "Rothkopf Rankings" in honor of their originator, a scholar and practitioner with a passion for applied, effective, and influential operations research. The rankings assigned are based on two metrics: one measures visibility (the number of times a university is listed as the primary academic affiliation in the INFORMS practice literature), and the second measures yield (the equivalent number of INFORMS practice papers attributable to each university based on author primary academic affiliation). For US universities, the Naval Postgraduate School earns the top ranking for visibility and the second for yield, and the Colorado School of Mines earns the top ranking for yield and the second for visibility. For non-US universities, the University of Chile earns the top ranking for both visibility and yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A paper published in 1983 in this journal by A. de Palma et at. uses a deterministic queueing supply model in combination with a random utility demand model to predict the pattern of traffic flows during a peak period. Two different versions of the supply model are included, a "basic model" which is identical to the supply model used by a number of other authors investigating the same general problem (e.g., M. J. Smith, 1984), and a more complicated "extended model." As detailed below, there is a mathematical discrepancy in the analysis. Because of this discrepancy, some of the conclusions about the traffic flow pattern in the case of the extended model are incorrect and all are unproven. For the simpler-and seemingly more realistic-basic model the discrepancy vanishes and the conclusions remain valid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses points contained in the research papers of mathematician L.V. Kantorovich. There is little in either the Soviet or the Western literature in management, planning, or economics available in 1939 that could have served as a source for the ideas in this paper, in the concrete form in which they were presented. From its own internal evidence, the paper stands as a highly original contribution of the mathematical mind to problems which few at that time would have perceived as mathematical in nature-on a par with the earlier work of von Neumann on proportional economic growth in a competitive market economy, and the later work of Dantzig well known to readers of Management Science. Recently Kantorovich has published a book, "Economic Calculation of the Best Utilization of Resources," in which it is proposed that linear programming methods be applied in nationwide planning for the Soviet economy. This has already given rise to a lively debate in Russian economic and planning periodicals.

Describes the characteristics of the kinds of papers that will contribute to a well-rounded view of the conditions and craft of operations research and management science. Link between practice and central theoretical concepts; Criteria for publishability of papers in the study; Need for a well-focused and relevant analysis of an important problem.

Marketing Science has introduced a new section "Marketing Science: Frontiers," focused on publishing timely research with high potential for impact. The section is positioned as "different, but equal" relative to regular Marketing Science with the same high quality standards, but differentiated contribution criteria and a shorter Science-like format to highlight the core contribution and maximize readability and impact. The section will encourage competition among authors for publishing timely and contemporaneously relevant research--undervalued attributes in traditional contribution evaluation--on topics with high impact potential. In exchange, it will accept papers that make major contributions on one "primary" dimension (methodological, modeling or substantive), with more relaxed thresholds on the non-primary dimensions compared to traditional top journals, and offer faster reviews and time to print. Authors benefit from the promise of first-mover impact rewards, while the field benefits from faster entry and a larger volume of novel, timely and relevant ideas. The section will have a distinct editorial structure and a one round conditional accept/out review process. The editorial elaborates on the purpose of the section, its editorial structure and publication process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts of contributed papers submitted for presentation at the Chicago Meeting. The paper "Computer Simulation in a Missile Operational Cycle," by Robert T. Morrison explains a model of a hypothetical weapon system is analyzed by simulation techniques using a digital computer. All the important parameters affecting the model are identified and values selected. Random numbers selected by the computer are used to determine the occurrence of missile and GSE malfunctions according to the failure rates established and also to determine the repair times for the missiles and GSE if malfunctions occur. Another paper "A Measure of Effectiveness for Weapon-System Evaluation," by Robert T. Morrison explains a concept for a measure of effectiveness is developed for evaluating and judging weapon-system design and operation The proposed measure of effectiveness considers the most important factors in any complex system-maximum performance and reliability with minimum cost and time This paper shows how the measure of effectiveness is valuable for system analysis in judging between alternative proposed systems in preliminary design and measuring and evaluating the selected system progress from prototype design through final system operation and maintenance.

The article presents abstracts of contributed papers submitted for presentation at the Chicago Meeting. "Some Recent Contributions to the Lanchester Theory of Combat," by Ralph E. Bach, Laislav Dolansky and Harlod L. Stubbs explains that since the original formulation of Lanchester's equations pertaining to the combat of two opposing forces, the theory has been extended, organized and applied by many scientists. Certain more recent extensions of this theory, which have been developed under Project Numerics, will be described in this paper. Another paper "Single-Shot Kill Probability As a Measure of Bombing Effectiveness," by Albert M. Johnson and Vincent A. Ciminera points out advantages of using single-shot kill probability as a measure of bombing effectiveness in evaluating weapon systems. Historically the circular probable error has been employed for this purpose. However, with compressed reaction tunes made possible by future systems and the large effective yields of nuclear weapons, it is more desirable to be able to predict the probability that a single bomb will impact within a lethal distance of its intended target. The computation of this statistic, the single shot kill probability, is accomplished for values of the lethal radius and parameters of the distribution which characterize the bombing system.

"Tele," English Edition No 1, 1957, Information from The Royal Board of Swedish Telecommunications, edited by E Malmgren, contains five papers by Conny Palm prefaced by a short article, "Research on Telephone Traffic Carried by Full Availability Groups." The first paper, "Some Propositions Regarding Flat and Steep Distribution Functions," characterizes two classes of distribution functions arising in telephone traffic congestion. In the second paper, "Some Observations on the Erlang Formulae for Busy Signal Systems," an attempt is made at a brief systematic investigation of the form and properties of the most important traffic functions, in addition to some numerical calculations and tabulation procedures. The third paper is called, "Contributions to the Theory on Delay Systems" Unlike a busy-signal system in which a call that finds all channels occupied makes a new try at calling later, a delay system permits a call to wait to obtain service. The fourth paper is called "Waiting Times with Random Served Queue." The fifth paper is entitled "Duration of Congestion States in Delay Systems" To avoid long delays it is desirable first to study the distribution function for the duration of the congestion states.

A heuristic procedure for scheduling production rolls of paper through a finishing operation to cut them down to finished roll sizes is described. The ratio of service time to interarrival time of production rolls at the initial cutting station is large so that insufficient time is available to set it up unless a minimum number of production roils are to be processed in the same manner. Otherwise, some portion of each production roll must go through a reprocessing operation to complete the cutting of finished sizes. The objective is to minimize the cost of trim loss and reprocessing. The procedure generates cutting patterns and usage levels sequentially until all the requirements are satisfied. At each step the search is dependent upon the characteristics of the unsatisfied requirements. A maximum of three solutions is generated for each problem. If none satisfies a predetermined aspiration level, the best of the three is chosen. The procedure was evaluated by scheduling a specific paper production facility and observing the results for a set of 15 problems. For each problem, the best solution was recorded. The overall results from this set of problems were then compared to previously recorded results on problems solved manually. There was a 16% improvement in solution quality for the heuristic procedure relative to the manual method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The journal is pleased to publish the abstracts of the six finalists of the 2016 Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Society's student paper competition. The 2016 prize committee was chaired by Sameer Hasija (INSEAD), Nicos Savva (London Business School), and Tolga Tezcan (London Business School). The other committee members were: Philipp Afeche, Vishal Agrawal, Aydin Alptekinoglu, Dimitrios Antritsos, Nilay Argon, Mazhar Arikan, Alessandro Arlotto, Arash Asadpour, Atalay Atasu, Nitin Bakshi, Gah-Yi Ban, Opher Baron, Robert Batt, Elena Belavina, Omar Besbes, Kostas Bimpikis, Robert Bray, Carri Chan, Xin Chen, Ying-Ju Chen, Soo-Haeng Cho, So Yeon Chun, Florin Ciocan, Sarang Deo, Lingxiu Dong, Santiago Gallino, Srinagesh Gavirneni, Manu Goyal, Shuangchi He, Jonathan Helm, Ming Hu, Dan Iancu, Foad Iravani, Srikanth Jagabathula, Nitish Jain, Yash Kanoria, Fikri Karaesmen, Diwas KC, Saravanan Kesavan, Bora Keskin, Sang Kim, Song-Hee Kim, Pascale Krama, Mirko Kremer, Harish Krishnan, Mumin Kurtulus, Guoming Lai, Cuihong Li, Jun Li, Lauren Lu, James Luedtke, Victor Martinez de Albinez, Mili Mehrotra, Alex Mills, Toni Moreno, Nektarios Oraiopoulos, Anton Ovchinnikov, Yiangos Papanastasiou, Chris Parker, Rodney Parker, Ali Parlakturk, Alfonso Pedraza Martinez, Ramandeep Randhawa, Paat Rusmevichientong, Chris Ryan, Soroush Saghafian, Ozge Sahin, Burhaneddin Sandikci, Nicola Secomandi, Stephen Shechter, Pengyi Shi, Amitabh Sinha, Milind Sohoni, Brad Staats, Alireza Tahbaz-Salehi, Nicos Trichakis, Owen Wu, Wenqiang Xiao, Nan Yang, Fuqiang Zhang, Jiawei Zhang, Yao Zhao, Karen Zheng, Yong-Pin Zhou, and Leon Zhu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts of the six finalists of the 2008 Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Society's student paper competition including an econometric analysis of patient flows in the cardiac intensive care unit (ICU), sequential resource allocation for nonprofit operations and stock market pressure on inventory investment and sales reporting for publicly traded firms.