The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century Thomas L. Friedman Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005 Thomas Friedman is a widely-acclaimed journalist, foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, and author of four best-selling books that include From Beirut to Jerusalem (1989). His eminence as a journalist is clearly demonstrated in the way he prepared for The World is Flat. He traveled throughout the world, interviewing in depth the political and business leaders who have the most direct, hands-on knowledge of the truly incredible developments occurring in the business structures and technology of globalization. Only a journalist who moves freely at the highest levels could interview the likes of Sir John Rose, the chief executive of Rolls-Royce; Nobuyuki Idei, the chairman of Sony; Richard Koo, the chief economist for the Nomura Research Institute; Bill Gates of Microsoft; Wee Theng Tan, the president of Intel China; David Baltimore, president of Caltech; Howard Schultz, founder and chairman of Starbucks; Nandan Nilekani, CEO of Infosys in Bangalore - and many others, each of whom gave him the inside story of how, specifically, the barriers of time and space separating economies, workforces, sources of capital, and technical abilities are crumbling. The result of this unfolding story, already far along but with much farther to go, according to Friedman, is that "the world is flat." With some notable exceptions in sub-Saharan Africa and the Islamic swathe, everything is connected with everything else on a horizontal basis, with distance and erstwhile time-lags no longer mattering. Friedman describes in detail the galloping globalization that has unfolded in even so limited a time as the past five years. Under the impetus of a worldwide network of interconnectivity, the world economy is much-changed from what it was at the turn of the century a mere half-decade ago. Friedman quotes the CEO of India's Infosys: "What happened over the last [few] years is that there was a massive investment in technology, especially in the bubble era, when hundreds of millions of dollars were invested in putting broadband connectivity around the world, undersea cables," while (Friedman paraphrases him) "computers became cheaper and dispersed all over the world, and there was an explosion of software - e-mail, search engines like Google, and proprietary software that can chop up any piece of work and send one part to Boston, one part to Bangalore, and one part to Beijing...." Microprocessors today have 410 million transistors compared to the 2800 they had in 1971. And now, "wireless is what will allow you to take everything that has been digitized, made virtual and personal, and do it from anywhere." The effect on productivity is revolutionary: "It now takes Boeing eleven days to build a 737, down from twenty-eight days just a few years ago. Boeing will build the next generation of planes in three days, because all the parts are computer-designed for assembly." The most strikingly informative aspect of this book, however, is not about technology. Most especially, Friedman explores the rapidly evolving global business systems, each constantly regenerating itself to keep ahead of the others. These are systems that span the continents seeking the lowest-cost providers of everything from expert scientific and engineering work to the lowliest grunt work. Friedman points out that India produces 70,000 accounting graduates each year - and that they are willing to start at $100 a month. It is no wonder that Boeing employs 800 Russian scientists and engineers for passenger-plane design when "a U.S. aeronautical engineer costs $120 per design hour, a Russian costs about one-third of that." Friedman describes a call center in India where outbound callers sell "everything from credit cards to phone minutes," while operators taking inbound calls do "everything from tracing lost luggage for U.S. and European airline passengers to solving computer problems for confused American consumers. …

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century

OR/MS research in disaster operations management

The aim of this paper is to present a survey of recent optimization models for the most commonly studied rail transportation problems. For each group of problems, we propose a classification of models and describe their important characteristics by focusing on model structure and algorithmic aspects. The review mainly concentrates on routing and scheduling problems since they represent the most important portion of the planning activities performed by railways. Routing models surveyed concern the operating policies for freight transportation and railcar fleet management, whereas scheduling models address the dispatching of trains and the assignment of locomotives and cars. A brief discussion of analytical yard and line models is also presented. The emphasis is on recent contributions, but several older yet important works are also cited.

A Survey of Optimization Models for Train Routing and Scheduling

Introduction to quality engineering : designing quality into products and processes

The problem of optimizing a biconvex function over a given (bi)convex or compact set frequently occurs in theory as well as in industrial applications, for example, in the field of multifacility location or medical image registration. Thereby, a function $f:X\times Y\to{\mathbb{R}}$ is called biconvex, if f(x,y) is convex in y for fixed x∈X, and f(x,y) is convex in x for fixed y∈Y. This paper presents a survey of existing results concerning the theory of biconvex sets and biconvex functions and gives some extensions. In particular, we focus on biconvex minimization problems and survey methods and algorithms for the constrained as well as for the unconstrained case. Furthermore, we state new theoretical results for the maximum of a biconvex function over biconvex sets.

/pdf/biconvex-sets-and-optimization-with-biconvex-functions-a-c8cusyseew.pdf

Biconvex sets and optimization with biconvex functions: a survey and extensions

This paper proposes and analyzes a model for maximizing the profit of a product sold under warranty. The decision variables assumed in the model are the price of the product and the length of the period throughout which the manufacturer is responsible for service. The paper focuses on the dependence of optimal profit on price and protection period for a realistic and general description of a warrantied product. Failures are stochastic and repairs are of constant cost. Demand depends exponentially on price and warranty duration.

After an introduction and literature review, the basic model is presented and assumptions are made about the particular probability law governing product failures. The optimization procedure is then illustrated for certain values of input parameters. Finally, an extensive economic analysis of the sensitivity of the optimal solution to variations in input parameters is provided.

Optimal Price and Protection Period Decisions for a Product Under Warranty

This paper is concerned with the development and analysis of a mathematical model for determining a route that attempts to reduce the risk of low probability—high consequence accidents related with the transportation of hazardous materials. The approach adopted considers trade-offs between the conditional expectation of a catastrophic outcome given that an accident has occurred, and more traditional measures of risk dealing with the expected value of the consequence and the accident probability on a selected path. More specifically, the problem we address involves finding a path that minimizes the conditional expectation objective value, subject to the expected value of the consequence being lesser than or equal to a specified value v, and the probability of an accident on the path being also constrained to be no more than some value η. The values v and η are user-prescribed and could be prompted by the solution to the shortest path problems that minimize the respective corresponding linear risk functions...

Low Probability—High Consequence Considerations in Routing Hazardous Material Shipments

http://yoksis.bilkent.edu.tr/pdf/files/10.1016-j.aap.2007.01.006.pdf

The cost and risk impacts of rerouting railroad shipments of hazardous materials

Foreword Preface Part I: Basic Concepts Probing the Question of Technology-Induced Risk M. Granger Morgan Choosing and Managing Technology-Induced Risk M. Granger Morgan Defining Risk Baruch Fischoff, Stephen R. Watson, and Chris Hope Risk Analysis: Understanding 'How Safe Is Safe Enough?' Stephen L. Derby and Ralph L. Keeney Part II: Risk Comparisons Analyzing the Daily Risks of Life Richard Wilson Rating the Risks Paul Slovic, Baruch Fischoff, and Sarah Lichtenstein Ranking Possible Carcinogenic Hazards Bruce N. Ames, Renae Magaw, and Lois Swirsky Gold Technical Comment: Carcinogenic Risk Estimation Samuel S. Epstein and Joel B. Swartz Response to Samuel S. Epstein et al. Bruce N. Ames and Lois Swirsky Gold Part III: Regulatory Issues Risk, Science, and Democracy William D. Ruckleshaus No Risk if the Highest Risk of All Aaron Wildavsky Cost-Benefit Analysis: An Ethical Critique Steven Kelman Reply to Steven Kelman Gerard Butters, John Calfee, and Pauline Ippolito Part IV: Health Risk Assessment Application of Risk Assessment to Food Safety Decision Making Joseph Rodricks and Michael R. Taylor Assessing Risks from Health Hazards: An Imperfect Science Dale Hattis and David Kennedy A Quantitative Estimate of Leukemia Mortality Associated with Occupational Exposure to Benzene Mary C. White, Peter F. Infante, and Kenneth C. Chu Letter to the Editor: Benzene and the One-Hit Model Jerry L.R. Chandler Letter to the Editor: Assessment of Leukemia Mortality Associated with Occupational Exposure to Benzene Peter F. Infante, Mary C. White, and Kenneth C. Chu Part V: Technological Risk Assessment Social Benefit Versus Technological Risk Chauncey Starr The Application of Probabilistic Risk Assessment Techniques to Energy Technologies Norman C. Rasmussen Assessing the Risk of an LNG Terminal Ralph L. Keeney, Ram B. Kulkarni, and Keshavan Nair Part VI: Risk Communication The Emergence of Risk Communication Studies: Social and Political Context Alonzo Plough and Sheldon Krimsky Getting to Maybe: Some Communications Aspects of Siting Hazardous Waste Facilities Peter M. Sandman Informed Choice or Regulated Risk? Lessons from a Study in Radon Risk Communication F. Reed Johnson, Ann Fisher, V. Kerry Smith, and William H. Desvouges

Theodore S. Glickman

Papers

Optimal Price and Protection Period Decisions for a Product Under Warranty

Low Probability—High Consequence Considerations in Routing Hazardous Material Shipments

The cost and risk impacts of rerouting railroad shipments of hazardous materials

Readings in Risk

Rerouting railroad shipments of hazardous materials to avoid populated areas