Nov1999

MINUTES of Fall 1999 BUSINESS MEETING

Minutes of the Optimization Section (OS) business meeting during the INFORMS conference in Philadelphia, PA, November 9, 1999: 
1. The meeting was called to order by Michael Ferris, OS chair, at 6:15 PM. Present were: 
Michael Ferris, Gerard Cornuejols, Francois Oustry, Sharon Filipowski, Eva Lee, Mahyar Amouzegar, Khosrow Moshirvaziri, Robert Vanderbei, Florian Jarre, Oktay Gunluk, Siegfried Schaible, Carlton Scott, Thomas Jefferson, Marcia Fampa, Mike Todd, Nelson Maculan, Julia Pet-Armacost, Robert L. Armacost, Raphael Hauser, Vandges Melkonian, Kevin Wayne, Daniel G. Brown, Andreas Wachtes, Sanjay Mehrotra, Brenda Dietrich, Kees Roos, Alexander Malyscheff, David M. Gay, Jan Karel Lenstra, William Christian, Illya Hicks, Pitu Mirchandani, Jonathan Owen, Yupo Chan, Emre Alper YILDIRIM, Nick Sahinidis, Sebastian Ceria, Robin Lougee-Heimer, Matthew Saltzman, Gul Gurkan, Irv Lustig, Javier Pena, Ted Ralphs, Ananth K., Celso Carnieri, Qun Chen, Todd Munson, Michael Wagner, John Birge. 
2. Gerard Cornuejols awarded Francois Oustry with the 1999 INFORMS Optimization Prize for Young Researchers for his paper, "A Second-Order Bundle Method to Minimize the Maximum Eigenvalue Function." Francois was given a plaque along with $1000. The prize committee consisted of Gerard Cornuejols, John Birge, Michel Goemans, Jong-Shi Pang, and Mike Todd. 
3. Outgoing chair's report (Michael Ferris): 
a. The minutes from the Cincinnati OS meeting were approved and are on the OS web page at http://optimization.society.informs.org/99spring.html. 
b. The major event of the year was the awarding of the first INFORMS Optimization Prize for Young Researchers. The prize will be awarded annually at the fall meeting. 
c. Thanks were expressed to the outgoing vice chairs Sebastian Ceria (Integer Programming), Janny Leung (Network Flow Programming), and Yinyu Ye (Linear Programming and Complementarity) for serving the OS. 
d. The set of OS officers effective after the Philadelphia meeting is: 
Gerard Cornuejols: Chair (fall 99 - fall 00) 
Bob Vanderbei: Chair-elect (fall 99 - fall 00); Chair (fall 00 - fall 01) 
Sharon Filipowski: Secretary/Treasurer (fall 98 - fall 00) 
Paul Tseng: Nonlinear Programming (fall 98 - fall 00) 
Chanaka Edirisinghe: Stochastic Programming (fall 98 - fall 00) 
Nick Sahinidis: Global Optimization (fall 98 - fall 00) 
Jon Lee: Integer Programming (fall 99 - fall 01) 
Richard Barr: Network Flow Programming (fall 99 - fall 01) 
Steve Billups: Linear Programming and Complementarity (fall 99 - fall 01) 
See the OS web page for e-mail addresses of the officers. 
Michael reported that the OS Nominating Committee had nominated Bob Vanderbei, Sharon Filipowski, Jon Lee, Richard Barr, and Steve Billups for the respective positions and then asked the OS members present at the meeting if they would like to approve the nominations. Mahyar Amouzegar suggested we have a formal election in the future. Michael Ferris reported that the process of soliciting new officers required a great deal of effort to convince nominees to accept to serve. Mike Todd proposed that the OS elect the new officers, and the motion was approved. 
e. There was a discussion concerning the new format of the INFORMS meetings starting in 2001. The discussion was led primarily by Michael Ferris, Irv Lustig, John Birge, and Robert Armacost. Starting in 2001, the spring meeting will be a "practice meeting" while the fall meeting will have a format similar to the current INFORMS meetings. It appears that many details still need to be worked out concerning the format for the practice meeting. Michael reported that the fall meeting will be the main annual meeting for the OS. 
f. Robert Armacost reported that the INFORMS meeting in the fall of 2001 will be in Miami. Because this meeting will be the first fall meeting under the new format, the Miami planning committee would like to know as soon as possible plans for attendance from the INFORMS sections. Also, the planning committee is looking for new creative ways to run the meetings. If anyone has ideas, contact Robert Armacost (armacost@mail.ucf.edu). 
4. Irv Lustig reported on the INFORMS Computing Society (ICS). The ICS is sponsoring a meeting in Cancun after the first of January of 2000 and OS members are encouraged to attend it. Currently the meeting has about thirty-five sessions over three days. Lustig encouraged members of OS to become members of ICS as many of the ICS activities are optimization-related. 
5. Secretary/treasurer's report (Sharon Filipowski): 
a. The budget report from INFORMS was displayed. In summary: 
(1) The current balance is $5,664.24. 
(2) The revenue to date in 1999 is $2,020.00. 
(3) The expenditures in 1999 have been $1000 for the INFORMS Optimization Prize for Young Researchers, $494.06 for the reception at the Cincinnati meeting, $216.30 for advertising the Optimization Prize for Young Researchers in the SIAM Newsletter, and $10.46 for non-billable labor. The cost for the reception at the Philadelphia meeting is approximately $500.00. 
b. Because current annual revenue is not much greater than annual expense, it was mentioned that the OS might want to raise dues in the future. Currently, the annual dues are $5 for regular members, non-members, and students and retired members. It was decided not to raise dues at this point in time.
6. Michael Ferris introduced Gerard Cornuejols, the new Chair of the OS. Gerard mentioned that he would be happy to answer any questions at the meeting or by e-mail (gc0v@andrew.cmu.edu).
7. Michael asked if anyone had additional business items to discuss. There were no further items.
8. The meeting was adjourned at 6:45 PM. 
Submitted by Sharon Filipowski, OS Secretary/Treasurer.