Truly excited about teaching a course on Markov Decision Processes #MDPs after a gap of 8 years. #Gratitude to many for making this happen. Am making the notes from the first module publicly available here (comments welcome): simoptim.com/course-notes...

Please join us tomorrow for a timely panel & discussion on #supplychains & #vulnerabilities, thanks to The Democracy Forum, Lord Bruce & @humphreyhawksley.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyqP... @isenbergumass.bsky.social @umassamherst.bsky.social @informs.bsky.social @theorsociety.bsky.social

Scary: abcnews.go.com/US/passenger...

Plane crash: Ahmedabad, India, to London, UK www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcn...

New addition to website optimization4all.com devoted to operations research, a repository for freely available material on #ORMS. Here is our latest case study w/ codes included for airline revenue management: airline-revenue-managment-or.streamlit.app Detailed write up: github.com/adhikaripraj...

An interesting new website just launched for folks in the optimization community. optimization4all.com

There has to be something wrong about a President openly taking a gift from a foreign entity.

The last week of classes for me. It has been a long semester. The last few months have not been easy for me or my siblings due to the passing of our mom. I'm looking forward to the summer now.

"Life is too short for wasting energy on anything that isn't mutual. I don't fear growing old. I fear losing myself just to please others. At this point in my life, I choose peace ---above everything else" Meryl Streep

The pandemic stole about two years from our life. Does anybody feel that way?

Do any of you in #ORMS take the journal impact factor into consideration when submitting a manuscript for peer review? I'm also v. interested in knowing what the younger generation is thinking for--let's face it--they are the future 😃

Interesting thoughts on research productivity from Higgs: www.theguardian.com/science/2013...

The Woman of the Campus Award, which is something very special & unique to Missouri S&T, will be announced today. Unfortunately, I have a lab scheduled for my Layout course at the same time. Please to attend if your schedule permits: econnection.mst.edu/2025/03/atte...

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I get almost no reaction here anymore. Is it just me or has interest in Blue Sky diminished?

Difficult news from Myanmar about the #earthquake & the devastating death toll. Many buildings were not designed to withstand an earthquake. Do you know we also have such buildings in St. Louis, MO, which is in an earthquake zone? #disaster simoptim.com/main/paper_d...

Overwhelming volunteer response to the EF2 tornado that struck Rolla recently, bringing the situation under control! #DisasterResponse www.phelpscountyfocus.com/news/article...

It's truly nice how my Yahoo calendar nicely synchs with my smartphone calendar, but I've never gotten the MS Outlook calendar to do the same 🤦‍♂️

Fantastic news for reinforcement learning and the Bellman equation! This McKinsey report shows they used #RL within a digital twin for process improvement! www.mckinsey.com/capabilities...

Fantastic news for reinforcement learning and the Bellman equation! This McKinsey report shows they used #RL within a digital twin for process improvement! www.mckinsey.com/capabilities...

The 72-hr period after the disaster is not a good time to collect data on disaster response, especially by physically visiting the affected area or even using drones. Let the cleanup & repair crews finish their work. Power is needed to save lives. Data on damage can be gathered later.

Lessons learned from the EF2 tornado that struck Rolla, MO on March 14: Downed electric lines on the roads are dangerous and have to cleared rapidly; plus, roads need to remain blocked until that happens. Best to minimize driving in the area until power is restored and all debris is cleared!

Last Chance to Book for #SW25! Join the 12th #Simulation Workshop (31 March – 2 April 2025) at Mercure Rougemont Hotel, Exeter. Highlights: 🔹Keynotes & panels 🔹Tutorials 🔹Networking & dinner 🔹Latest in simulation software Book now: https://f.mtr.cool/lcfoakyjws

Power has returned to many parts of Rolla but it's on & off in some areas. RMU folks have advised people to stay away from the streets, so they can finish their work. Terrible tragedy in other parts of MO where lives were lost.

"I believe that very soon — probably in 2026 or 2027, but possibly as soon as this year — one or more A.I. companies will claim they’ve created an artificial general intelligence, or A.G.I."

Anyone who needs a shelter for tonight can reach: First Baptist Church Ministry Center on 10th and Cedar. Temps will be nearly 33 at night, so if power is not restored by then, this is an option.

Never thought I would actually see a 🌪️ in my life. Rolla-ites stay safe! Watch on until 11 pm.

The Turing Award for Sutton and Barto is a well-deserved acknowledgment of their foundational contributions to reinforcement learning, particularly their work on actor critics and TD(λ), both of which have directly shaped modern RL. A day to celebrate and ignore critics of #RL and Bellman equation.

Joining us for #2025Analytics? Make sure to reserve your hotel room by March 13. #analytics #orms #datascience #AI #ML meetings.informs.org/wordpress/an...

The Turing Award for Sutton and Barto is a well-deserved acknowledgment of their foundational contributions to reinforcement learning, particularly their work on actor critics and TD(λ), both of which have directly shaped modern RL. A day to celebrate and ignore critics of #RL and Bellman equation.

Congrats Andrew and Rich, well deserved!! apnews.com/article/turi...

For those questioning academic research: I have ventured into industry to get some funding. FWIW: The science of preventive maintenance has roots in academic work. In airline revenue management: both DAVN (Glover et al in UC Boulder) and EMSR (Belobaba in MIT) models were derived in academia.

With #2025Analytics just around the corner, we kick off our Resoundingly Human coverage with an interview w Keynote Dick den Hertog, University of Amsterdam, who shares a look behind the scenes at his session, #Analytics for a Better World. #wickedproblems #hope hubs.ly/Q038LQ_z0

I'm looking forward to grading my first set of lab reports for the Layout course I teach. It's unusual to have labs in a Layout course, I know, but over the years, I've grown to like them---as I come to know all the kids well, and coz they see #ORSM in a hands-on manner 😃

In the early part of my career, many said to me: all your work in RL & MDPs will never see applications. They were so wrong...most modern robots are based on RL. And about 1/3rd of the talks at the last INFORMS were on RL and the Bellman equation.

If you're an NSF PI, you've probably received this. If not, nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/TRO-NY... This is only for existing grants though from what I can tell and is temporary. We will have to see how things unfold.

I think this is a remarkable development at #Euro2025 I wish they also had a conference proceedings, as it makes it easier to get reimbursed for an international conference: euro2025leeds.uk/2025/01/29/e...

"We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love... and then we return home." — Australian Aboriginal (from FB)

Join us at the 12th Simulation Workshop! 🗓️ 31 March – 2 April 2025 📍Mercure Rougemont Hotel, Exeter Discover the latest in #modelling & #simulation with: ✨Keynote presentations and panel discussions ✨Networking opportunities ✨Exhibits of cutting-edge tools Book now: www.theorsociety.com/sw25

#ORMS peeps, does anyone know much about Euro 2025, which is in Leeds, UK this year? My question is: Do they have a proper conference proceedings, or consideration for publication of the extended abstracts in special issues later? + seeking to get the #ORMS folks to be active on this platform, 😃🙏

Here's an interesting paper that explains why careful tuning of the exploration parameters helps in RL. First rigorous proof, I believe, and it needs Borel-Cantelli lemma. Also, proves Bradtke's conjecture. Enjoy reading if you're interested in obtaining Bellman optimality: arxiv.org/pdf/1808.00245

If anybody is aware of literature on supply chains with very few suppliers, I will appreciate it if you can point me there. Thanks in advance!

We are working on Python-based case studies for static simulation-based optimization. Check out the website for my book on Simulation-Based Optimization: www.simoptim.com Algorithms for both static and dynamic (restricted to Markov control) discrete-event systems are described in detail. 🙏

The low is 6F tonight and it's going to get colder over the next two days!

I love the multi-lingual posts on LinkedIn. Do you? I think we should have them here too.

American homeowners in places most exposed to climate disasters are increasingly dropping home insurance as premiums rise, leaving them exposed to financial ruin as climate threats intensify, according to sweeping new government data.

Hi. We're new here. 👋 We're excited to try Bluesky and share the latest in ORMS, analytics, AI, ML, and data science. Stay tuned for insights, research highlights, and more from the world of INFORMS. Let's connect and innovate together! 🚀📊 #INFORMS #OperationsResearch #Analytics #ManagementScience

Wishing a Happy New Year and a great start to the semester to all my academic colleagues—both those working full time and those semi-retired! May all your wishes come true, and may any unfinished work be completed successfully!

Truly excited to announce the acceptance of our paper on relative actor critics for average reward: simoptim.com/main/rac.pdf Codes have been uploaded on Harvard metavers.