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This case study focuses on modeling and analyzing the practices concerning the staffing of the immigration agency at the Island of Tropical Paradise International Airport, which is responsible for processing arriving passengers into the country. Students are challenged to model the status quo of immigration employee scheduling and analyze various high-level policy changes to determine the reduction in staffing requirements while also being concerned with the wait time of passengers in the queue at immigration. The case has been used in an introductory operations research (OR) course in an engineering curriculum as a term project and was created based on a client of a major consulting organization. The main teaching objective of the case is to have students demonstrate an understanding of how to use OR models and analysis to impact practice. To this end, the case moves the students from standard classroom or textbook examples to an open-ended problem where there is not a single correct model or analysis to tackle it. [For the related Case, see EJ1304600.]

Human trafficking is a serious crime and violation of human rights that results in numerous harms. Although the phenomenon is not new, scholarship on the issue has grown substantially since the first legal framework was passed in 2000. However, the existing literature has been criticized for its skewed focus on victims, among other things. The dearth of information on traffickers and their operations limits our ability to reduce or prevent perpetration. The current study presents a comprehensive and critical review of the existing literature focused on traffickers to synthesize what is already known and highlight the key gaps. Twenty-nine articles met the inclusion criteria of (1) focusing on traffickers and their operations and (2) relying on data either directly from traffickers or sources that contained detailed information about criminal cases against traffickers. We used an iterative process to identify relevant studies, which included collecting articles of which we were already familiar or were identified in existing reviews, searching their reference lists, and conducting cited-by searches until saturation was reached. Topics found in the extant literature included: characteristics of traffickers, relationships between traffickers and victims, organizational characteristics and networks, operations, connections with other crimes, motivations, perceptions of behavior, and risks associated with trafficking. It concludes with recommendations for future research and a discussion of how bridging gaps in the literature could support more rigorous mathematical modeling that is needed to identify and assess promising perpetration prevention and intervention strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study focuses on modeling and analyzing the practices concerning the staffing of the immigration agency at the Island of Tropical Paradise International Airport (ITPIA), which is responsible for processing arriving passengers into the country. Immigration at ITPIA has engaged you to understand the trade-offs between the number of employees and the time passengers spend in the queue waiting to be processed by an immigrations employee. A specific overview of the current practices of this staffing and a discussion of the analysis required to be conducted is provided. [For the related Case Article, see EJ1304602].

One of the major challenges associated with applying Operations Research (OR) models to disrupting human trafficking networks is the limited amount of reliable data sources readily available for public use, since operations are intentionally hidden to prevent detection, and data from known operations are often incomplete. To help address this data gap, we propose a network generator for domestic sex trafficking networks by integrating OR concepts and qualitative research. Multiple sources regarding sex trafficking in the upper Midwest of the United States have been triangulated to ensure that networks produced by the generator are realistic, including law enforcement case file analysis, interviews with domain experts, and a survivor-centered advisory group with first-hand knowledge of sex trafficking. The output models the relationships between traffickers, so-called "bottoms", and victims. This generator allows operations researchers to access realistic sex trafficking network structures in a responsible manner that does not disclose identifiable details of the people involved. We demonstrate the use of output networks in exploring policy recommendations from max flow network interdiction with restructuring. To do so, we propose a novel conceptualization of flow as the ability of a trafficker to control their victims. Our results show the importance of understanding how sex traffickers react to disruptions, especially in terms of recruiting new victims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the issue of illicit operations, which are activities that operate outside of the law and have a significant global impact. These operations include drug trafficking, human trafficking, illegal mining and fishing, wildlife trafficking, money laundering, counterfeit goods production, organ trafficking, identity theft, and weapons trafficking. The United States National Science Foundation has funded research grants to combat illicit operations, and this special issue highlights papers that have developed analytical approaches to detect, disrupt, and dismantle these operations. The papers cover a range of topics, including counterfeit goods, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and wildlife trafficking, and provide valuable insights and strategies for combating these illicit activities. [Extracted from the article]

We consider two new problems regarding the impact of edge addition or removal on the modularity of partitions (or community structures) in a network. The first problem seeks to add edges to enforce that a desired partition is one partition that maximizes modularity. The second problem seeks to find the sparsest representation of a network that has the same partition with maximum modularity as the original network. We present integer programming formulations, a row generation algorithm, and heuristic algorithms to solve these problems. Further, we demonstrate a counter‐intuitive behavior of modularity that makes the development of heuristics for general networks difficult. We then present results on a selection of social and illicit networks from the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]