ICS Blog

Well, this morning started out slow for me. My hotel forgot my wakeup call! Apparently, the construction crews get the day off on Sunday, so they didn't wake me up, either...

It was a cool, cloudy morning in Seattle. The air was chilly and
damp, which is just the way I like it. My wife's feelings are quite the
opposite ... which is why I live in the desert!

I always feel like a kid in a candy shop when I come to an INFORMS meeting. There are so many things to hear about, and so little time... This year, I was planned to attend a "diverse" set of sessions to make this blog more interesting. But, then I realized that there are 60 parallel tracks! Thus, I can only attend less than 2% of the INFORMS sessions...

A Session on Generating Diverse Solutions: Real-world applications often use approximate models. Further, the end-user may have other "undefined" objectives and constraints. Thus, we need to provide a user with a diverse set of solutions that are near-optimal. But, we also need think about sequential screening, since for some problems we can generate more solutions than we can store in memory!

No free wireless at INFORMs. I guess real-time blogging is not going to happen.

INFORMS Dress Code? I was musing over the INFORMS dress code as I walked into the conference center morning. I have been to conferences where I was overdressed in a dress shirt and slacks, and I have been to conferences where everyone but me had a suitcoat and tie ... except
for the women in dresses. INFORMS seems somewhere in between. But, I was surprised this morning to hear Bob Carr complain that someone had critiqued his clothing choice! I'll let you decide...

A Session on System of Systems: This is a buzzword that is increasingly used within the military to describe complex systems that are Composed of many interacting subsystems, especially when these subsystems work independent. SoS models can be categorized by the degree to which these models are coordinated by a central model. However, effective analysis capabilities have not been developed for these models. In particular, core issues have not been addressed, such as resolving equilibrium constraints and analyzing modeling uncertainties. These issues are particularly challenging when subsystems are modeled with third-party models or simulations that are opaque.

A sushi dinner at "Wasabi Bistro" Yum! There was lots of wasabi!

Greetings from Seattle, ICS!

Cindy Phillips and I flew in from Albuquerque this morning. On the way, we passed Mt. Raineir. From 35,000 feet, climbing it looked like a nice day hike!

Cindy and I are staying down the street, at the La Quinta hotel. I think we're going to save the taxpayers several hundred dollars! And they should thank me. Check out the view from my hotel room. The front desk assured me that they would not start working until at least 7:30... LOL

When we got to the conference center, we realized that the INFORMS registration opened up. Instead, there was a Fall Bridal Spectacular. Somehow, I don't think the ladies attending this were going to be fooled into following the INFORMS sign!

I attended a bit of the NSF Workshop on Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation. NSF is trying to reinvigorate their research to take higher risks on transformative technologies. The CDI initiative sounds like a very interesting step in that direction! See http://www.nsf.gov/about/budget/fy2008/pdf/39_fy2008.pdf and
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2007/nsf07603/nsf07603.htm for more information.

I joined Cindy in a tour of U Washington, where we visited her son. The sun came out for a nice walk. We had a great dinner at Ivars Salmon House. I highly recommend this place. The restaurant is a beautiful cedar replica of a Northwest Indian Longhouse. See http://www.ivars.net

Hello ICS!

I am getting ready to start blogging in Seattle.  As John noted, you can send me ideas and photos, and I'll put them up during the meeting!  If you can't find me, email me at wehart@sandia.gov.

I have great, little digital camera, so don't be surprised if I take your picture!

Bill