Back to school, learn about the latest developments in Operations Research

We live in increasingly networked world; we are connected with each other through various networks, while the enabling technologies are networks-based as well. Due to their overwhelming scale, the design, maintenance and operations of such networks is a highly non-trivial task. In addition, in many situations the underlying structure is highly dynamical - think of the evolution of social networks.
These development pose new challenges to our field of expertise. Importantly, operations research can be of great help here. The issues to be addressed often have a combinatorial flavour, when it comes to various design problems, or can be of a more algorithmic nature, when it comes to the operations of the network. At the same time, the circumstances the network is facing are inherently stochastic (think of user behaviour, but also factors such as weather, supply and demand, and all sorts of random events), and that's why stochastic operations research is a crucial tool here as well. Both sides of OR are also prominently visible in the large NWO-project NETWORKS, which was launched last year.
During the upcoming LNMB/NGB seminar we have set up a program with experts from academia and industry, who work on various types of networks using the OR toolkit. The format of the seminar will be as follows. Michel Mandjes, the main applicant of NETWORKS, will start off with a general overview of that project, and sketch the its relations with the topics covered during the rest of the program. These talks cover OR-based studies of various types of networks, with applications ranging from road traffic, communication, and logistics to social networks.

The conference language is English. Registration is possible via the Seminar On-line Registration Form. The conference fee is 100 Euro for LNMB and NGB members, and 150 Euro for others. The conference fee covers lunch, coffee, tea, and the drinks.