The Spirit Of Technology At INFORMS Annual Meeting

Main Category: Medical Devices / Diagnostics
Also Included In: Psychology / Psychiatry;  Cancer / Oncology;  Conferences
Article Date: 01 Nov 2007 - 6:00 PDT

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Math's surprising triumph fighting prostate cancer and a scientist's practical advice for approaching decisions about career, having a child, and purchasing a home will be among the top presentations at the annual meeting of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®) in Seattle next week.

Operations research is the application of advanced analytical methods to help make better decisions. It is nicknamed the Science of Better http://www.scienceofbetter.org/.

The INFORMS Annual Meeting will take place at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center. Two highlights are: Health Care: Prof. Eva K. Lee of Georgia Institute of Technology and Dr. Marco Zaider, a medical physicist with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, will explain how they used mathematics and operations research to improve the treatment of prostate cancer. Their work, which reduced side effects to men receiving radiation by half and saved over $450 million in health care costs, won the 2007 INFORMS Franz Edelman Award. They will reprise their award-winning work, "Operations Research Advances Cancer Therapeutics," on Sunday, November 4, from 3:10 to 4 PM at the Convention and Trade Center.

Life's Tough Challenges: Dr. Ralph L. Keeney, Research Professor of Decision Sciences at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, and co-author of "Smart Choices, A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions," a Harvard Business School publication, will share decision-making techniques that people can use in their personal lives, at work, and in school. He speaks at the Convention and Trade Center on Monday, November 5 from 11:40 AM to 12:30 PM.

Over 3,500 operations researchers are expected to attend the INFORMS Annual Meeting November 4 to 7 in Seattle. The meeting's theme is The Spirit of Technology. The INFORMS annual meeting includes sessions on topics applied to airlines, health care, the military, information technology, energy, transportation, marketing, and e-commerce. Information about the annual meeting is at http://meetings.informs.org/Seattle07/.

Additional plenary speakers include

* Supply chain: Gang Yu, Director of Worldwide Procurement for Dell

* Global economy: Robert W. Moffatt, jr., Senior Vice President, Integrated Options, IBM

* Homeland security: Ervin Kapos, Director of Operations Analysis for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

The chair of the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle is Zelda B. Zabinsky, Professor of Industrial Engineering at the University of Washington.

The meeting's Seattle-area sponsors include Boeing, Microsoft Research, University of Washington, Lundquist College of Business at the University of Oregon, and the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia.

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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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About INFORMS

The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®) is an international scientific society with 10,000 members, including Nobel Prize laureates, dedicated to applying scientific methods to help improve decision-making, management, and operations. Members of INFORMS work in business, government, and academia. They are represented in fields as diverse as airlines, health care, law enforcement, the military, financial engineering, and telecommunications. The INFORMS website is http://www.informs.org/. More information about operations research is at http://www.scienceofbetter.org/.

Source: Barry List
Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences