Alumni Committee column
The following is a question and answer ses-
sion held with Dr Rajesh Ganesan, an alumna
of IMSE-USF. Dr. Ganesan, graduated with a
Ph.D. in IE from USF in 2005 and is currently
an Assistant Professor in the Systems Engi-
neering Department at George Mason Univer-
sity, Faifax, VA. Dr. Das served as his major Advisor during
his Ph.D. and M.S. at USF. Dr. Ganesan recently received a
$3 Million grant from the NSF’s GK-12 program. During his
stay at USF, Dr. Ganesan served as the project manager for
our own GK-12 project at IMSE, USF called STARS.
Could you describe the kind of research areas you are
involved in at GMU?
I specialize in stochastic control. The most interesting
aspect of this research area is its wide spectrum of methods and
numerous applications. Process control is a crucial aspect of
many engineering systems such as air transportation, robotics
and nano-manufacturing. Depending on the context, the control
problem can be perceived as a sequential decision making proc-
ess in a stochastic environment. Of particular interest to me is the
control of real-world problems that are large-scale, non-linear,
complex, adaptive, and stochastic for which process models do
not exist. The challenge in these problems is to design innovative
model-free methods to predict uncertainties and find solutions
that provide the end user with optimal sequential decisions
(control laws), which adapt to the changing environment. Two of
my major research application areas include control of semicon-
ductor manufacturing processes, and sequential decision making
to effectively manage air traffic flow. In my research, such se-
quential decision making or control problems are cast in the
framework of stochastic dynamic programming, and solved using
artificial intelligence. Particularly, the solution strategy involves a
method known as reinforcement learning, which falls under the
class of approximate dynamic programming methods. I have
termed such solution algorithms as Intelligent Decision Support
(IDS) algorithms.
Describe briefly your doctoral dissertation work.
My dissertation research was focused on testing a machine learn-
ing based control strategy. The control problem is modelled as a
Markov decision process (MDP), and solved using a stochastic
approximation method known as reinforcement learning (RL).
The approach also incorporates data filtering using wavelet
based multiresolution analysis to extract significant process de-
viations. The controller's performance was tested on a multivari-
ate chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) process of semi-
conductor wafer polishing. Results showed that the RL based
controller outperforms the EWMA based controllers for strongly
autocorrelated processes, and disturbances like temporary
changes in the mean. The innovative part of this research lies in
harnessing the potentials of wavelets and reinforcement learning
to enhance the design and use of model-free control systems.
See Alumna on page 2.
A Newsletter from Student Chapter of INFORMS @ IMSE, USF
Outsourcing: Is it necessary for a busi-
ness?
Outsourcing has, in the last couple of decades,
become a global phenomenon. To a layman,
outsourcing means taking away jobs that could
be performed by “our own country men”. Lately,
to a politician, outsourcing-bashing has become a vote hunting
technique.
Outsourcing refers to the divesture of non-core operations
from internal production to an external entity that specializes in
the management of these operations. Outsourcing utilizes ex-
perts from outside the entity to perform specific tasks that the
entity once performed itself.
It is supposed that over the past decade, America has lost an
average of 7.71 million jobs every quarter to outsourcing. The
most alarmist prediction of jobs lost to outsourcing, by Forrester
Research, estimates that 3.3 million service jobs will be out-
sourced between 2000 and 2015—an average of 55,000 jobs
outsourced per quarter, or only 0.71 percent of all jobs lost per
quarter. This may sound as pronouncing doom to the labor mar-
ket. But this leads to the questions: “how much of a factor is out-
sourcing to the countries employment rate? Is this effect negative
or positive?” Reports show that the household employment sur-
vey of Americans indicates that there are 1.9 million more Ameri-
cans employed since the recession ended in November 2001.
There are 138.3 million workers in the U.S. economy today—
more than ever before. We may infer here that both outsourcing
and employment rates have been on the increase in the past
decade1.
The following are some of the reasons for outsourcing:
1. Outsourcing means economies of scale to both the outsourcer
and the outsourced.
2. Sharing of risks, also coined as portfolio effects. A business
entity can add leverage to the portfolio by outsourcing the risk-
free asset. Markowitz, an influential economist won the 1990
Nobel Prize in Economics in this area.
3. Accommodation of peak loads: Businesses are advised to
protect their staff from the fluctuations caused by the peaks and
valleys in demand, by staffing the valleys and contracting the
peaks.
Other advantages include reducing the lead time, access to a
larger talent pool, commodification and operating across time
zones which ensure 24-7 service provision.
1.http://www.heritage.org/Research/TradeandForeignAid/wm467.cfm#_ftn4.
By Wilkistar Otieno (Ph.D. Student, IMSE)
Volume 1,
Issue 3
Fall 2007
e:
e t h is issu ling
Insid odels ms Mode
ediction m r vent Syste
Survival p Discrete E
News Feature
The Case for Survival Prediction Models

Put yourself in the following situation, you ing heavily in the subjective opinion of physicians). Nowa-
are facing a terminal illness, God (or who- days, sick people are living longer and the survival variabil-
ever you believe in or don’t believe in) ity within patients suffering from the same illness cannot be
forbid, and you have the chance of being entrusted to physicians who usually based their judgment
informed with a 95% confidence or higher in the last case they have seen or in the most common
about how much longer you will live. If I case they have seen.
am asked to choose, I would prefer to How can we, Industrial Engineers, help? The avail-
know and have time to share with my ability of big databases, namely Cancer Registries at state
loved ones and maybe spend some potential savings (if the level and the latest developments regarding the identifica-
disease has not left me bankrupt) traveling or doing some- tion of genetic markers for a host of diseases provide a
thing that I had always wanted to do. On the other hand, I favorable backdrop to make use of data mining techniques
have heard people saying that they would prefer not to to build prediction models based on significant factors
know, and thus, avoid the associated anxiety and stress. (demographic, treatment-related, behavioral, genetic, etc)
Whatever your opinion is, there are more people related to survival for each disease.
interested in accurately knowing when you will be passing The road is still bumpy though, databases do not
away in case you got a terminal illness. Who? You are provide all the measurements you would desire, in particu-
probably wondering. Well, the answer is hospice providers lar for some interesting biomarkers, and even though there
and the usual suspect, the government (which is not a bad is consensus between practitioners about some factors
thing). The New York Times on November 27th reports that related to survival for particular diseases, these is no
hundreds of hospice providers across the country are fac- agreement for some others. But, that is exactly the reason
ing “the catastrophic financial consequence (a 60 patient they need Industrial Engineers. Therefore, an accurate
hospice had to pay the government $900,000) of what survival predictive model besides adding an extra decision
would otherwise seem a positive development: their pa- for terminal patients to make (about knowing or not how
tients are living longer than expected”. longer they will live), it will also help hospice providers and
The government-sponsored Medicare Hospice Pro- the government to reassess their budget and make the
gram was originally designed for those with less than six necessary adjustments. By Patricio Rocha (Ph.D. Stu-
months to live (these six months calculated using actuarial dent, IMSE)
survival according to the type of disease and probably rely-

Alumni (Continued from Page 1) Some tips while interviewing on-site for an aca-
demic position:
Based on your experience, what courses do you think Read the faculty pages before going and connect with the
IMSE Ph.D. students must take from outside our depart- individual faculty. Ask about their research and express
ment that will serve them well in the future as academi- your interest to collaborate by finding a common ground
cians or in Industry? between your research and theirs during the conversation.
The courses must cover both depth and breadth. Some If you know that there is nothing in common then talk about
courses are needed for research purpose and one should go the university, cost of living, the local school district, com-
into depth in such courses. Courses must cover significant mute etc. Find out from the dept chair about the goals of the
breadth such as core IE, statistics, mathematics, computer department (new research areas) and any concerns such
languages, economics (particularly if you are dealing with cost- as enrollment, funding that are presently there. Also check
benefit analysis or pricing in your dissertation), and those spe- how supportive the dean is to your new department. Ask
cific to research (application-domain-related such as OR, Bio, the dean about tenure process and what his/her advise
finance, etc..). would be to a new faculty. Ask about the vision that the
Other than courses, is there something you wish you dean has for the school and for your dept. Many times the
learnt as a student? interview includes dinner(s). Don't go overboard on alco-
holic beverages. It's better to abstain or limit to just a bit of
I learnt Matlab which is an important scientific computing it. Your 1 hour presentation is key. Keep some time for Q
language, I wished I had also learnt a few others such as C++ and A. Talk about future research goals, teaching, funding
and JAVA. I also wish that in addition to the nanomanufactur-
sources for your research and possible collaborators in your
ing applications which I studied in my dissertation, I should
slides. The research part should be a good balance be-
have also simultaneously developed at least two other applica-
tion domains for my research methods. It is possible that the tween descriptive and mathematical aspects.
university that hires you may not have the entire necessary lab
infrastructure and often you will have to find new application Responses for this column were solicited by Vishnu Nanduri (Ph.D. Candi-
arrears that are of national interest. date, IMSE, USF) via email. INFORMS USF would like to thank Dr. Rajesh
Ganesan for his contribution to the OR Times.

2
Research Corner
Discrete Event System Modeling of Demand Responsive Transportation Systems

Demand responsive transportation (DRT) is a variable route service of passengers or freight from spe-
cific origin(s) to destination(s) in response to the request of users. Typically, DRT systems are consid-
ered complimentary to the existing public transportation systems where passengers from lower density
areas use DRT service as transportation to transit centers or to other transfer stations. Other highly dy-
namical and complex applications of DRT cover the domains of dynamically dispatching of cargo trucks,
chartered planes, and courier services. Examples of mission critical applications of DRT are transporta-
tion of people with disabilities, military aero-medical evacuation of patients to medical treatment facilities
and routing vehicles in large-scale emergencies.
DRT operational planning encompasses the methods to provide efficient service to the passengers and to the system
operators. These methods cover the assignments of vehicles to transportation requests under various constraints such as
environmental conditions, traffic limitations, preferences of the passengers, and operation limitations.
Recent approaches of DRT operational planning are based on “closed information loop” and achieve a higher level of
automation, increased flexibility and efficiency. Advance in the information and communication technologies, such as the
Internet, mobile communication devices, GIS, GPS, Intelligent Transportation Systems has led to a significantly complex
and highly dynamical decision making environment. The online service allows real time information gathering and concur-
rent communication of the customers with several vehicles. These technological advances change the manner in which
DRT is planned where passengers’ assignments to the vehicles and the fleet’s routing are made in real time. Intelligent
and effective use of the available information in such complex decision making environment requires the use of formal
modeling and control approaches which are robust, modular, and decentralized.
In my research we propose the representation of DRT systems as a Discrete Event System (DES) where the model
captures both the low level dynamics (such as infrastructure conditions, current status of vehicles) and high level dynam-
ics (such as service demand requests) of system evolution in a modular manner. The mathematical foundation of DES
Theory facilitates logical analysis of these complex systems and provides the necessary framework for the development of
planning tools for real time scheduling and decision making.
This study is focused in the application of Supervisory Control Theory based on Finite Automata in DRT real time plan-
ning. The developed approach is capable in finding the non-blocking behavior of a DES that represents DRT operation.
The algorithm is based on the following three groups of elements: plant – the model of DRT system to be controlled, speci-
fications – the constraints of the passengers’ and fleet’s behaviors, and synthesis of supervisory controller – the required
sequence of events of the desired system operation. Two Case Studies are presented based on air-taxi service operation
and on emergency aero-medical evacuation. Centralized, modular and decentralized supervisory control architectures are
developed with discussions for deriving inferences for obtaining real time solutions.
By Daniel Yankov (Ph. D. Student, Daniel is advised by Dr. Ali Yalcin).
Column solicited and organized by Diana Prieto, Ph.D. student, IMSE.

IMSE Students at the INFORMS annual conference in Seattle, WA, Nov 3-7, 2007

L to R: Ozan Ozcan (Ph.D. student, IMSE), Dr. Kingsley Reeves Wilkistar Otieno (Ph.D student IMSE)
(Asst. Prof, IMSE), Arka Bhattacharya, and Swati Verma
(IMSE students)
3
 Did you Know???
USF Academic Computing provides students with high performance computing resources for research purposes. Along with
benefits in computing some of the advantages I experienced are: submitting multiple jobs, parallel or series, saves me a lot of
time; 50GB storage for students (100 GB for faculty) lets me process my large data files with ease; does not keep my desktop
tied up; and access to many software. Information on getting an account and using the resources is provided at the ‘Resource
Computing’ website https://rc.usf.edu/ (Contributed by Chaitra Gopalappa Ph.D. Student, IMSE)

 US Dollars are not made out of paper, they are made out of cotton.
 The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp (marijuana) paper.
 The dot over the letter I is called a "tittle."
 A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.
 There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.
 Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the Book most often stolen from Public Libraries.”
Source: http://www.emmitsburg.net/humor/archives/interesting_facts/interesting_facts_11.htm

JOB POSTINGS
Volume 1, Issue 3

1. FACULTY POSITIONS at Department of Systems and Industrial Engineering

The University of Arizona
2. FACULTY POSITION in the Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering --University of Missouri - Rolla
3. FACULTY POSITIONS in the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
VIRGINIA TECH
4. FACULTY POSITION IN ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering
The School of Engineering and Applied Science of The George Washington University
5. FACULTY OPENING
Rochester Institute of Technology
Industrial and Systems Engineering Department (ISE)
6. FACULTY POSITION
McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences
Northwestern University

For details and more job see http://informs.eng.usf.edu/jobs.htm

(compiled by Vishnu Nanduri)

PUZZLE
Fall 2007

Which one is correct; your mind or your calculator? The committee and members of
1. Take 1000 and add 40 to it.
2. Now add another 1000 and then add 30. INFORMS-USF student chapter wish you
3. Add another 1000 and add 20. happy holidays and a prosperous
4. Now add 1000 and another 10.
Is the answer 4100, or is it 5000? 2008
Contributed by Wilkistar

Vishnu Nanduri Diana Prieto

President Laila Cure
Publicity
Patricio Rocha
Vice President Andres Uribe
Webmaster
Wilkistar Otieno
Ozan Ozcan Alcides Santander
Treasurers IMSE Shaoqiang Chen
4202 E. Fowler Ave. ENB 118 Social activities
Athina Brintaki Tampa FL, 33620
Secretary Tel: (813) 974-5591 Wilkistar Otieno
Laila Cure
Chaitra Gopalappa
Fax: (813) 974-5953 Editors
Dayna Martinez informs@eng.usf.edu
Logistics