Operations research and data mining

With the rapid growth of databases in many modern enterprises data mining has become an increasingly important approach for data analysis. The operations research community has contributed significantly to this field, especially through the formulation and solution of numerous data mining problems as optimization problems, and several operations research applications can also be addressed using data mining methods. This paper provides a survey of the intersection of operations research and data mining. The primary goals of the paper are to illustrate the range of interactions between the two fields, present some detailed examples of important research work, and provide comprehensive references to other important work in the area. The paper thus looks at both the different optimization methods that can be used for data mining, as well as the data mining process itself and how operations research methods can be used in almost every step of this process. Promising directions for future research are also identified throughout the paper. Finally, the paper looks at some applications related to the area of management of electronic services, namely customer relationship management and personalization.     

The determinants of customer interactions with internet-enabled e-banking services

This paper empirically explores the major considerations associated with Internet-enabled e-banking systems and systematically measures the determinants of customer interactions with e-banking services. The results suggest that perceived usefulness, ease of use, security, convenience and responsiveness to service requests significantly explain the variation in customer interactions. Exploratory factor analysis and reliability test indicate that these constructs are relevant and reliable. Confirmatory factor analysis confirms that they possess significant convergent and discriminatory validities. Both perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use have significant impacts on customer interactions with Internet e-banking services. Perceived security, responsiveness and convenience also represent the primary avenues influencing customer interactions. In particular, stringent security control is critical to Internet e-banking operations. Prompt responses to service requests can encourage customers to use Internet e-banking services. The findings have managerial implications for enhancing extant Internet e-banking operations and developing viable Internet e-banking services.     

Application of structural equation modeling to evaluate the intention of shippers to use Internet services in liner shipping

Operations research (OR) is the application of modeling techniques to formulate and analyze systems and problems for management decision-making. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a modeling technique applied to social or behavioral systems to understand and explain relationships that may exist among elements of systems. Recently, the measurement of unobservable variables has gained increasing attention in operations management (OM) research, and the OR discipline has begun to recognize the value of applying SEM to analyze behavioral-related OR problems. To provide OR researchers with a better understanding of the application of this useful statistical modeling technique, this paper presents a tutorial on the application of SEM. Specifically, we investigate the key factors that affect the adoption of Internet services in the context of liner shipping services. Although [Fishbein, M.A., Ajzen, I., 1975. Belief, Attitude, Intention and Behavior: An Introduction to Theory and Research, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA; Davis, F.D., 1989. Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly 13 (3), 319–339; Ajzen, I., 1985. From intention to actions: A theory of planned behavior. In: Kuhl, J., Bechmann, J. (Eds.), Action Control: From Cognition to Behavior. Springer Verlag, New York, pp. 11–39; Ajzen, I., 1991. The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 50, 179–211] have made important contributions to understanding users’ behavior of technology acceptance, shippers’ resistance to end-user systems is still a common problem in the liner shipping industry. To better predict, explain, and increase shippers’ acceptance of technology, we need to understand why shippers accept or reject Internet services provided by their liner shipping carriers. Another objective of this paper is to propose and empirically test a theoretical framework that relates the intention of shippers to use Internet services in liner shipping with its antecedents such as perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and the perceptions of security protection. Tests of the structural model confirm Davis’s (1989) notion that perceived ease of use explains the intention of shippers to use Internet services, and that perceived ease of use has a strong positive effect on perceived usefulness. The results also indicate that security protection influences perceived ease of use. The SEM analyses in this study offer OR researchers a methodological guide on how to assess the efficacy of both a measurement model that relates observed indicators to latent factors and a structural model that poses relationships between constructs.     

Understanding artificial intelligence adoption in operations management: insights from the review of academic literature and social media discussions

In this digital era, data is new oil and artificial intelligence (AI) is new electricity, which is needed in different elements of operations management (OM) such as manufacturing, product development, services and supply chain. This study explores the feasibility of AI utilization within an organization on six factors such as job-fit, complexity, long-term consequences, affect towards use, social factors and facilitating conditions for different elements of OM by mining the collective intelligence of experts on Twitter and through academic literature. The study provides guidelines for managers for AI applications in different components of OM and concludes by presenting the limitations of the study along with future research directions.

     

Optimal electronic musical instruments

For many musical instruments, a musician depresses various combinations of keys in order to play the notes in the instrument’s range. For traditional (or acoustic) instruments of this type (e.g., woodwinds and most brass), the ways in which the combinations of keys can be assigned to the notes are limited by physics. However, for electronic instruments of this type, there are essentially no such limitations. In this paper, we exploit this freedom and present several designs for electronic instruments which are optimally easy to play; that is, the total movement of the fingers when playing some common sequences of notes (i.e., various, general collections of scales) is minimized. Our designs are built upon Gray codes, which are used in digital communications.     

基于灰色加权马尔可夫链的移动通信市场预测

在传统的用灰色预测模型预测的方法基础上,建立了灰色加权马尔可夫链模型.以中国移动通信市场预测作为实例,介绍了使用这种模型的方法与步骤.灰色加权马尔可夫链模型既考虑了从时间序列中挖掘数据的演变规律,又通过规范化各阶自相关系数为权重,用加权的马尔可夫转移概率矩阵的变换,考虑数据的随机波动,具有严密的科学性,能较好地应用于中国移动通信市场的预测.     

You want them to remember? Then make it memorable! Means for enhancing operations research education

In this article I summarize the main points I made in the keynote presentation of the same title I gave at the EURO XXIV conference in Lisbon, Portugal in July of 2010. Each of these points deals in some way with making communications between an operations research professional (academic or practitioner) and a student, client, subordinate, supervisor, or colleague more effective. Furthermore, each point is directly related to some realization (or epiphany) that I have had with regard to communication since I began teaching ORMS in 1984. It is noteworthy that these communications share a common objective; we are trying to facilitate learning. Since I have spent most of my career in academia, my primary emphasis is on communication with students (particularly those enrolled in introductory ORMS courses). However, I have also spent a great deal of time working on operations research problems outside of academia, either as an employee in private industry or as an operations research consultant to corporations and not-for-profit organizations, and I hope as a consequence my discussion is also relevant to those working in the practice of ORMS.     

Mobile WiMAX MAC and PHY layer optimization for IPTV

WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) embodies the IEEE 802.16 family of standards that provision wireless broadband access. With the IEEE 802.16e?2005 mobility amendment, WiMAX promises to address the ever-increasing demand for mobile high speed wireless data in fourth-generation (4G) networks. WiMAX market studies continue to project increased subscriber growth rates and planned carrier trials worldwide. Coupled with these increasing growth rates and higher WiMAX throughput rates, bandwidth intensive video on demand (VoD), Internet Protocol TV (IPTV), and mobile TV services are emerging in the forefront of the mobile arena.In this paper, we explore and derive optimum system level WiMAX parameters by quantifying network performance using such video-rich services. The video traffic will sufficiently load and stress the network to exploit the potential bandwidth, delay, and mobility limitations. We use the OPNET Modeler to engineer simulation sequences and explore the impact of channel bandwidth, time division duplex (TDD) frame size, advanced antenna systems support, and retransmission schemes using four objective performance metrics while streaming a feature-length movie to a Mobile WiMAX subscriber. The objective of this paper is to provide greater insight into Mobile WiMAX system performance using emerging, load intensive and delay sensitive media streaming services.     

An interactive approach for Bi-attribute multi-item auctions

The advances in the technological infrastructure and in the Internet led electronic auctions to become popular. With online sites, people buy/sell inexpensive products/services through auctions. In this paper, we develop an interactive approach that provides aid to both the buyer and the bidders in a bi-attribute, multi-item auction environment. Our approach is applicable for both reverse and forward auctions. We test our approach for underlying linear preference functions of the buyer. We also adapt it as a heuristic for the case the buyer has a nonlinear preference function. The test results show that our approach works well.     

INVITED PAPER: Some mathematical aspects of security in the automated business environment

In the automated business world, personal contact and paper-basedtransactions are being replaced by digital electronic communications.This transition raises many new security issues, and has seenthe emphasis of cryptography broaden from secrecy to includemessage integrity, user verification, digital signature, andaccess control. In this paper, we consider some of the waysin which mathematics is playing a crucial role in securing theautomated business environment. We begin with a brief introduction to cryptography and the principlesupon which the design of cipher systems is based. We then considerstream ciphers and block ciphers in turn, discussing their respectiveuses, design requirements, and crypt-analysis. Here statisticalmethods are of prime importance, as well as algebraic methodsfor generating and combining bit strings and blocks. The section on public key systems includes a discussion of severalmathematical techniques that provide one way functions. Theseare functions that are easy to perform but difficult to invert,often based on some difficult mathematical problem, and areat the heart of public key systems. Two public key systems (RSAand El Gamal) are described, and the status of algorithms forsolving the difficult problems upon which they are based factoringand discrete logarithms is reviewed. Finally we discuss applications of digital-signature and user-verificationtechniques. These are becoming of increasing importance in today'sautomated business world.     

E-science infrastructures for molecular modeling and parametrization

E-science infrastructures are becoming the essential tools for computational scientific research. In this paper, we describe two e-science infrastructures: Science and Engineering Applications Grid (SEAGrid) and molecular modeling and parametrization (ParamChem). The SEAGrid is a virtual organization with a diverse set of hardware and software resources and provides services to access such resources in a routine and transparent manner. These essential services include allocations of computational resources, client-side application interfaces, computational job and data management tools, and consulting activities. ParamChem is another e-science project dedicated for molecular force-field parametrization based on both ab-initio and molecular mechanics calculations on high performance computers (HPCs) driven by scientific workflow middleware services. Both the projects share a similar three-tier computational infrastructure that consists of a front-end client, a middleware web services layer, and a remote HPC computational layer. The client is a Java Swing desktop application with components for pre- and post-data processing, communications with middleware server and local data management. The middleware service is based on Axis2 web service and MySQL relational database, which provides functionalities for user authentication and session control, HPC resource information collections, discovery and matching, job information logging and notification. It can also be integrated with scientific workflow to manage computations on HPC resources. The grid credentials for accessing HPCs are delegated through MyProxy infrastructure. Currently SEAGrid has integrated several popular application software suites such as Gaussian for quantum chemistry, NAMD for molecular dynamics and engineering software such as Abacus for mechanical engineering. ParamChem has integrated CGenFF (CHARMM General Force-Field) for molecular force-field parametrization of drug-like molecules. Long-term storage of user data is handled by tertiary data archival mechanisms. SEAGrid science gateway serves more than 500 users while more than 1000 users use ParamChem services such as atom typing and initial force-field parameter guess at present.     

基于物联网的微车后桥数字制造关键技术研究与应用

通过在物联网环境下对微车后桥的数字制造技术进行全面的分析和关键技术开发,包括对汽车后桥装配、制造的数字化技术研发、汽车后桥数字化检测技术的研发、汽车后桥车间物流信息管理系统的研发.实现物联网环境下的微车后桥的全数字制造.     

Service and cost benefits through clicks-and-mortar integration: Implications for the centralization/decentralization debate

Traditional “Brick-and-Mortar” operations face the challenge of adapting to a new set of competitive rules made necessary by consumers who want the option of ordering electronically via the Internet. To satisfy these customers, firms must develop strategies that integrate their standard retail in-store channel with this relatively new on-line channel. Therefore, this research is designed to provide insights into supply chain inventory management strategies relevant to “Clicks-and-Mortar” firms trying to satisfy both on-line and in-store sales. Specifically, this work considers the total cost implications of various inventory allocation strategies while maintaining target customer service levels. Analysis focuses on the development of models capable of handling new operating strategies made possible by electronic commerce. The implications of inventory risk pooling are considered in depth, revealing the existence of characteristics that determine whether completely centralized or decentralized policies are preferable.     

Initiating a state of the art system for real-time supply chain coordination

Intelligent Wireless Web (IWW) employs the capabilities of high speed wireless networks and exploits the parallel advancements in Internet-based technologies such as the Semantic Web, Web Services, Agent-based Technologies, and context awareness. Considering its great potentials to be applied in business systems, we have devised an innovative model, based on the IWW services, for a typical mobile real-time supply chain coordination system which has been developed and tested in a real operational environment. Our article investigates the proposed system in this way: at the start, the building blocks of the IWW are discussed in detail. Then, we fully explain the basic concepts of mobile real-time supply chain coordination and concentrate on the motivations to implement such a modern system. The vision of intelligent wireless web services, as discussed in this paper, centers on the need to provide mobile supply chain members highly specific data and services in real-time on an as-needed basis, with the flexibility of use for the user. In this regard, we investigate nine enabling technologies of the IWW for our system and discuss how, by exploiting the convergence and synergy between different technologies, it has become possible to deliver intelligent wireless web support to mobile real-time supply chain coordination. Afterwards, a practical framework is clearly established in four phases. This initiative system has been implemented in the laboratory and has passed the evaluation processes successfully. Further details will be announced in near future in another research article.     

电子政务系统中面向公众的个性化信息服务模型

电子政务作为Internet的主要应用领域，已受到世界各国的普遍关注。面对公众各种服务需求日趋个性化，如何打破政府职能机构的条块分割，构建一个一体化的虚拟政府，集成各类信息资源，为公众提供“一站式”的、个性化的服务，是当前电子政务理论和实践的热点课题。本文首先提出一个面向公众的“一站式”服务总体框架；其次，将个性化信息服务的概念引入到电子政务系统中，构建一个个性化信息服务模型；最后，运用数据挖掘技术对模型中的关键技术加以实现。     

Fifty years of operational research and emergency response

Over the past 50 years, a wealth of applications has resulted from researchers turning their attention to operations such as fire suppression, law enforcement and ambulance services. The 1970s might even be argued as the ‘golden age’ of this particular effort, producing many of the seminal works in fire station location planning, unit assignment and ambulance queuing models. Such efforts naturally continue through to the present, but with a focus shifting away from earlier contexts of established urban emergency service systems. Simultaneously, current evidence from the field suggests that far more work remains. In this paper, we review the operational research (OR) foundation in emergency response so far, highlighting the fact that most of what has been accomplished addresses the well-structured problems of emergency services. This, in turn, offers an explanation for some paradoxical challenges from the field: most of emergency response itself is semi-structured, at best. While OR has traditionally focused on the management of an organization, emergency response ultimately requires the management of disorganization, suggesting an important OR growth area for the next 50 years.     

Two Models for K-12 Hypermediated Earth System Science Lessons Based on Internet Resources

An immense collection of daily and archived earth and space science digital images and database information sources are readily accessible to K-12 teachers through the Internet and the World Wide Web. However, these abundant electronic resources are designed for scientists and often need to be modified to benefit students. Advances in hypermedia as an instructional tool for earth system science education provide a mechanism for designing user-friendly and structured classroom units based on this available data. Two models proposed as a foundation for materials development are the Learning Cycle Model and the Investigation/Experimentation Model. A high demand for Internet-based curricular materials development to take advantage of the current technology suggests an educational research agenda to determine which lesson formats are most effective for learners.     

A propagation model with defensive measures for PLC-PC worms in industrial networks

Programmable logic controllers (PLCs) are important components of industrial control systems (ICSs), which are digital electronic devices with microprocessors and lack network security considerations. With the explosion of cyber-attacks on the ICS network, the concept of the worm known as PLC-PC worm that can spread between the Internet and ICS network has attracted a great deal of attention. In this paper, for the first time, we propose a propagation model to explore the spread behavior of PLC-PC worms across the PLC-PC coupled network. Theoretical analysis of the model shows the disease-free and endemic equilibriums of the network with defensive measures. And the stability of the model is examined by an epidemic threshold value. Several numerical and simulation experiments are presented to illustrate the analysis. Based on the results, some ideas for restraining the spread of PLC-PC worms or reducing the security threats of the ICS network are suggested.     

Strategic interactions between channel structure and demand enhancing services

In this paper, we investigate how opportunities to invest in demand enhancing services for a product line affect the interactions between a manufacturer and her dealer. Many demand enhancing services, e.g. after sales support, warranty repair etc. can be provided either by the manufacturer or they can be delegated to the dealer. We first show that when a manufacturer retains control of such services, the dealer will have an incentive to choose a decentralized organizational structure as a means of committing to non-product line pricing since this will encourage the manufacturer to invest more in demand enhancing services. We then consider a game that is played between the manufacturer and the dealer in which the dealer chooses between centralized (product line pricing) or decentralized (non-product line pricing) operations, and the manufacturer chooses between insourcing the services, i.e. providing them herself, or outsourcing them to the dealer. We find that the equilibrium depends on which, if any, channel partner has the ability to act as a Stackelberg leader. If the dealer can move first, then the equilibrium will always be outsourced services and centralized dealer operations. However, if either the manufacturer moves first or if neither partner can move first, then the equilibrium can be either insourced services and decentralized dealer operations or outsourced service and centralized dealer operations.