Category: Events

2018 Joint NZSA and ORSNZ Conference

The New Zealand Statistical Association (NZSA) and the Operations Research Society of New Zealand (ORSNZ) are holding a joint conference hosted by Massey University at their Manawatu campus in 2018. This conference incorporates both the 69th Annual NZSA Conference and the 52nd annual ORSNZ Conference.

The conference presentations and other events will be held from midday Tuesday 27th November to Friday 30th November 2018. However, the ORSNZ sessions will be completed by midday Thursday, followed by an Analytics Forum event on Thursday afternoon (details to be confirmed).

Plenary Speakers

The following plenary speakers have been confirmed for the conference:

Stefan Nickel –  Karlsruhe Institute of Technology;
Ilze Ziedins – University of Auckland;
Alan Welsh – Australian National University; and
Jean Yang – University of Sydney.

You can find additional details here.

Call for Papers

On August 1 2018, you will be able to register and submit an abstract for the 2018 Joint NZSA and ORSNZ Conference. We welcome presentations on any aspect of operations research, analytics or management science, especially practical applications.

Submissions from students and practitioners are greatly encouraged. Abstracts should be submitted using the format outlined here.

Oral presentations will be 20 minutes in length with additional time for questions. All abstracts will be considered by the conference committee, and the authors notified of their acceptance or otherwise.

Note that the abstract submission deadline is October 1. You may additionally submit a full paper to ORSNZ, by November 15, to have it included in the online proceedings; please follow these guidelines.

Registration

Early bird registration closes on November 1. Please see this page for details about the registration fees.

Note that the ORSNZ and NZSA are hosting separate dinners, and there is a separate (additional) fee for each.

ORSNZ Young Practitioners’ Prize (YPP)

OR practitioners and students who are within 5 years of graduation on the first day of the conference (27 November) are invited to compete for $1000 of prizes in the ORSNZ Young Practitioners’ Prize competition. When registering for the conference, competitors should request that their paper be entered for the YPP. Note that a full paper, following these guidelines, must be submitted to ORSNZ by November 15 in order enter the YPP. For further details about the YPP, see here.

Amino – utilising blockchain to provide a global, decentralised infrastructure for sharing computing resources

Amino is a blockchain application that connects idle computers together in order to utilize their computing resources. We are setting up research lab in partnership with the University of Auckland and will provide opportunities for both employment and funded research in the following areas:

  • Artificial intelligence for trading cryptocurrencies, i.e., using BigData and AI technologies to develop an approach for trading in cryptocurrencies;
  • Internet security;
  • Blockchain;
  • Distributed cloud computing, in particular methods for the “logistics” behind distributed cloud computing aka cloud orchestration.

In this seminar we will present the ideas behind Amino as well as answer questions about employment and research opportunities.

Presenters: Felix Xia (Amino) and Dr Michael O’Sullivan (Department of Engineering Science, University of Auckland)
When: TOMORROW, Thursday 7 June 2018, 1-2pm
Where: Rooom 201, 70 Syomnds St

Business optimisation through data science, AI, and mathematical algorithms…

Dr. Amit Garg, a Guinness world record holder in mathematics, as well as the CEO & founder of ORMAE – Operations Research, Machine Learning and Analytics Experts, is visiting New Zealand and is giving a talk about business optimisation through data science, AI, and mathematical algorithms.

When: Thursday 17 May 2018, 6:15 – 8:30pm
Where: Sir Paul Reeves Building, AUT

For more information and to buy tickets:
https://www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/business-optimisation-through-data-science-ai-and-mathematical-algorithms-tickets-45550653230?utm_term=eventurl_text

ORSNZ Special Interest Groups

At the ORSNZ AGM in December Special Interest Groups (SIGs) were approved. The following SIGs have been established:

Each of these SIGs has its own website, and you can opt-in to receiving news and information about upcoming events. (Generally, all news and events from ORSNZ and the SIGs that you subscribe to will be integrated into a single email.)

Signing up for News and Events

To sign up for the ORSNZ mailing list click here; however, if you’re already signed up, you can ‘update your preferences’ by clicking the link at the bottom of any email you’ve received from ORSNZ. (By checking ‘ORSNZ’ you will receive notifications of news and events posted on the main ORSNZ website, and you can select to receive news from as many SIGs as you like.)

Upcoming events

Note that the ENR SIG is supporting an event with a seminar by Prof. Michael Ferris in Wellington on March 21. You can find more detail about the event here.

Also there are two seminars in Auckland next week, the first on March 7: Queueing Models for Healthcare Capacity Planning by Peter T. Vanberkel, and the second on March 9: Computational Modelling and Data Science by Simon Dunstall.

Applied Math Practices (AMP21) Events

Prof. Kenneth Chelst and Prof. Thomas G. Edwards from Wayne State University in Detroit Michigan are hosting a series of free professional development workshops for high school teachers on mathematical modelling and algebra.

You can find out more details about, and register for the events at the links below. The final date for registrations differ for each event.

Auckland
Mathematical Modelling – 22 February
Percentages and Algebra – 23 February

Wellington
Mathematical Modelling – 28 February
Percentages and Algebra – 2 March

Christchurch
Percentages and Algebra – 8 March

You can also find out more about Kenneth and Thomas here.

VUW Seminar: Insights from a Simulation Model of Disaster Response

The School of Management at Victoria University is hosting the following seminar on Thursday, 1 February 2017 from 12.30 – 1.30pm.

Title: Insights from a Simulation Model of Disaster Response

Speaker: Prof. Jose Julio Gonzalez from the Centre for Integrated Emergency Management, University of Agder, Norway

Location: RH207, Rutherford House, Pipitea Campus, Wellington

Disasters do not follow scripts and the literature strongly indicates that management of disasters requires the responder team to act as “emergent organization”.

The talk presents a system dynamics simulation model of the management of a major landslide that occurred 2005 in Norway as an outlier of Katrina. The model describes a disequilibrium-experimenting-emergence process, whereby the responder team manages the disaster as an emergent organization, proceeding from disequilibrium, to experimentation to self-organization.

A feedback analysis of the system dynamics model shows that a set of vicious reinforcing feedback loops caused by following standard organizational procedures initially increases errors in response. Eventually learning and sensemaking in an improvisation/experimentation process leads to new emergent dynamics, whereby the loops act virtuously.

We discuss to what extent the model can describe large scale disaster responses of different types and how it relates to the wider disaster response literature. We discuss what types of levers, such as policies and training, are available to decrease the vicious loops and speed the transition from errors to successful innovation.

Presenter: Jose Julio Gonzalez is Professor for Information and Communication Technology at the Department for ICT, University of Agder, Norway. He also was adjunct professor 2005-2017 at the Centre for Cyber and Information Security, NTNU Gjøvik, Norway. He has a doctor degree in natural sciences (mathematical physics) and a doctor degree in technology (polymer science). He has published in various areas of natural sciences, technology and social sciences. Since 1999, his areas of interest are security management, management of emergencies and critical infrastructure protection, where he has led and cooperated successfully in various international projects. He led the project “A Model-based Approach to Security Culture (AMBASEC)”, running 2005-2010, concerned with protection of Norwegian offshore oil & gas infrastructure. In addition, he has participated as PI in several EU projects funded by CIPS, FP7 and Horizon2020. Currently he acts as scientific coordinator for the EU Horizon2020 project Smart Mature Resilience http://smr-project.eu/home/. During the last two years he has collaborated with Auckland University of Technology in a project targeting Disaster eHealth. He was founding director of the Centre of Integrated Emergency Management (http://ciem.uia.no) at the University of Agder 2011-2014. Dr Gonzalez was awarded the Research Prize from the Agder Academy of Science and Letters in 2012 for his research on Critical Infrastructure Protection, crisis and disaster management and security.

This will be followed by refreshments.

ALL WELCOME

Any queries please email: [email protected] or [email protected]