Operational Research: methods and applications

Fotios Petropoulos, Gilbert Laporte, Emel Aktas, Sibel A. Alumur, Claudia Archetti, Hayriye Ayhan, Maria Battarra, Julia A. Bennell, Jean-Marie Bourjolly, John E. Boylan, Michèle Breton, David Canca, Laurent Charlin, Bo Chen, Cihan Tugrul Cicek, Louis Anthony Cox Jr, Christine S. M. Currie, Erik Demeulemeester, Li Ding, Stephen M. DisneyMatthias Ehrgott, Martin J. Eppler, Güneş Erdoğan, Bernard Fortz, L. Alberto Franco, Jens Frische, Salvatore Greco, Amanda J. Gregory, Raimo P. Hämäläinen, Willy Herroelen, Mike Hewitt, Jan Holmström, John N. Hooker, Tuğçe Işık, Jill Johnes, Bahar Y. Kara, Özlem Karsu, Katherine Kent, Charlotte Köhler, Martin Kunc, Yong-Hong Kuo, Adam N. Letchford, Janny Leung, Dong Li, Haitao Li, Judit Lienert, Ivana Ljubić, Andrea Lodi, Sebastián Lozano, Virginie Lurkin, Silvano Martello, Ian G. McHale, Gerald Midgley, John D. W. Morecroft, Akshay Mutha, Ceyda Oğuz, Sanja Petrovic, Ulrich Pferschy, Harilaos N. Psaraftis, Sam Rose, Lauri Saarinen, Said Salhi, Jing-Sheng Song, Dimitrios Sotiros, Kathryn E. Stecke, Arne K. Strauss, İstenç Tarhan, Clemens Thielen, Paolo Toth, Greet Vanden Berghe, Christos Vasilakis, Vikrant Vaze, Daniele Vigo, Kai Virtanen, Xun Wang, Rafał Weron, Leroy White, Tom Van Woensel, Mike Yearworth, E. Alper Yıldırım, Georges Zaccour, Xuying Zhao

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

17 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

Throughout its history, Operational Research has evolved to include methods, models and algorithms that have been applied to a wide range of contexts. This encyclopedic article consists of two main sections: methods and applications. The first summarises the up-to-date knowledge and provides an overview of the state-of-the-art methods and key developments in the various subdomains of the field. The second offers a wide-ranging list of areas where Operational Research has been applied. The article is meant to be read in a nonlinear fashion and used as a point of reference by a diverse pool of readers: academics, researchers, students, and practitioners. The entries within the methods and applications sections are presented in alphabetical order. The authors dedicate this paper to the 2023 Turkey/Syria earthquake victims. We sincerely hope that advances in OR will play a role towards minimising the pain and suffering caused by this and future catastrophes.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)423-617
Number of pages195
JournalJournal of the Operational Research Society
Volume75
Issue number3
Early online date27 Dec 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2024

Funding

Laurent Charlin and Andrea Lodi would like to thank Didier Chételat and Mizu Nishikawa-Toomey for reading and commenting on drafts of their subsection (§2.1) and the CIFAR AI Chair and the CERC programs for funding. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) played a vital role during the pandemic in monitoring infection rates. The Coronavirus (COVID-19) infection survey estimates how many people across England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland would have tested positive for a COVID-19 infection, regardless of whether they report experiencing symptoms. This study was a collaboration with academic partners and funded by Department of Health and Social Care. This major study involved asking people up and down the country to provide nose and throat swabs on a regular basis. These are analysed to see if they have contracted COVID-19. In addition, some adults are also asked to provide blood samples to determine what proportion of the population has antibodies to COVID-19. Further details of the methodology can be found in Office for National Statistics (). David Canca’s work was supported by the University of Sevilla, the Regional Government of Andalucia (Spain) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under grant US-1381656. Silvano Martello, Paolo Toth and Daniele Vigo were supported by Air Force Office of Scientific Research under Grants no. FA8655-20-1-7012, FA8655-20-1-7019, FA9550-17-1-0234 and FA8655-21-1-7046. Rafał Weron’s work was partially supported by the National Science Center (NCN, Poland) grant no. 2018/30/A/HS4/00444. Salvatore Greco wishes to acknowledge the support of the Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Universita e dellaRicerca (MIUR) - PRIN 2017, project “Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis and Multiple Criteria Decision Theory”, grant 2017CY2NCA. Dimitrios Sotiros’s work was partially supported by the National Science Center (NCN, Poland) grant no. 2020/37/B/HS4/03125.

FundersFunder number
CIFAR AI Chair
Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Universita e dellaRicerca
Air Force Office of Scientific Research FA8655-20-1-7019, FA9550-17-1-0234, FA8655-20-1-7012, FA8655-21-1-7046
Air Force Office of Scientific Research
Universidad de Sevilla
Department of Health and Social Care
Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca2017CY2NCA
Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca
National Science Centre2018/30/A/HS4/00444, 2020/37/B/HS4/03125
National Science Centre
European Regional Development FundUS-1381656
European Regional Development Fund
Junta de Andalucia

    Keywords

    • Review
    • decision making
    • encyclopedia
    • models
    • optimisation
    • practice
    • principles
    • programming
    • simulation
    • systems
    • theory

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty
    • Modelling and Simulation
    • Strategy and Management
    • Management Science and Operations Research

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