A few weeks ago after JohnMcCain announced SarahPalin as his running mate Iread the following headline:Sarah Palin vs Polar Bears.The headline referred to anop-ed piece Mrs. Palin (thegovernor of Alaska) wrotefor the New York Times this past January in which sheexpressed her opposition toadd polar bears under theEndangered Species Act.Some environmental groupshad claimed that globalwarming and the reductionof polar ice severelythreaten the bears’ habitat and their existence. Mrs. Palincountered that the current population of polar bears is higher than it was 40 years ago.Why am I bringing this up? I decided to do someresearch about the topic and this is what I found out. In 2007the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) was asked to come upwith studies projecting polar bear population in the futureand possible impacts of sea ice projections in their habitat.The USGS team included scientists from within the USGS, polar bear scientists from Canada and other scientists fromacademia and the private sector. The overall conclusion is-sued in September 2007 was that “projected changes in fu-ture ice conditions, if realized, will result in loss of approxi-mately 2/3 of the world’s polar bear population by the mid21

century”. They also added that this estimate was conser-vative.In May of this year the polar bears were effectivelylisted under the Endangered Species Act. However, there isanother chapter to this story. In May 2008 a group of re-searchers; J. S. Armstrong (UPenn), K. C. Green (MonashUniversity, New Zealand), and W. Soon (Harvard) publisheda paper in

Interfaces

(an INFORMS Journal) taking issuewith the methodology used by the earlier studies commis-sioned by USGS. Armstrong et al. claimed that none of thestudies employed scientific forecasting methodology and thatall of them were products of complex sets of assumptions.Furthermore, they found out that none of the studies includedreferences to scientific works on forecasting methods. (TheUSGS studies are not peer- reviewed by the way). Armstronget al. also pointed out that the recommendations made by theUSGS studies (listing polar bears as endangered species) donot follow from their research unless they would have as-sumed that global warming will occur and will reduce theextent of summer sea ice, which is something Armstrong,Green, and Soon basically do not agree with. In fact, after “googling” the authors’ names I learnt that one of them, Wil-lie Soon, is one of the most prominent scientists against thethesis that global warming is man-made.This story reveals pretty interesting facts about theuse of data driven models to set public policy, some of whichare: 1) It seems a bit weird to me that reports intended to set public policy are not peer-reviewed, 2) It is hard for research-ers to avoid infusing their beliefs with respect to a subjectmatter when setting assumptions to build models for whichthe consideration of that particular subject is crucial. Ideally, people who are neutral about the subject should work on suchmodels, but this is an oxymoron. A researcher can hardly beneutral about a topic he/she has knowledge of (and he/sheneeds to be an expert on the topic to build the model). 3) It isfine to be in favor or against Sara Palin’s column. (After all,Armstrong et al. just criticized the USGS models, without proposing a suitable model of their own). However, I do notthink she had some sort of study in her hands when she wrotethe piece, 4) I bet polar bears do not really care about all thisscientific-ideological debate and are happy to be listed asEndangered Species.

By Patricio RochaPhD. Student, Industrial Engineering

Successful Dissertation Defense:

Athanasios Tsalatsanis (Sakis)

Successful Proposal Defense:

Vishnu Nanduri

Completed Candidacy:

Athina BrintakiWilkistar Otieno

V ol ume 3, I ssue 1 F al l 20 0 8

News Feature

OR vs Polar Bears: The Ensuing Controversy

A Newsletter from Student Chapter of INFORMS @ IMSE, USF

I nsid e t his iss ue:

Bio na notec h nolog y co m p utatio nal Geo m etr y O R Vs Polar Bears S G S yste m Co m ple xities A n n ual I N F O R M S Co nfere nce

We know that understanding how systemswork is a vital part of system modeling.Systems are everywhere, and most of them are enormously complex. For usengineers, it can sometimes be harder tomodel systems that don’t lend themselvesto a mathematical model. ‘Real-world’systems, especially those outside of manufacturing, can be much vaguer and thus more difficult tomodel. What an interesting lesson to learn when starting anEquestrian Club!I’ve never thought of a student club as a system. It iscertainly an organization with a clear managerial hierarchy,financial basis, set of users, etc. The interactions that this or-ganization has with its supplier (in this case, Student Govern-ment [SG]) can be extraordinarily complex and multi-faceted.As I’ve learned, finding the right information, paper work,and other ‘data’ is extremely difficult in a real-life situation.In addition, the organization’s complexity is further mani-fested by the changes within the SG departments and person-nel, as seniors graduate and others are employed/elected/nominated to fill in the vacant positions. Talk about systemdynamics!For me, this has been an extremely practical examplein modeling and optimizing a dynamic, relatively complexsystem. Understanding the most successful structure of thesystem, maximizing system resources’ utilization (my utiliza-tion is currently about 115%), defining relationships withinthe system, and controlling system interactions are all heavily present. More business-oriented aspects are also present, in-cluding extensive human relations, delegation of tasks, andalways a little PR-damage control when mistakes are made. It just goes on to show that systems are everywhere and thatunderstanding and beneficially manipulating the structure of systems make vast advancements. Who knew, this even ap- plies in the horse world, as far away from statistical analysisas you can get!

Meredith Bounds

Systems of Students

A topic that is being seriously discussed nowadays is theissue of limiting greenhouse gases (GHGs) (

its about timeisn’t it?

). A phrase you might have heard thrown around inthe ongoing presidential campaigns as a tool to limit emis-sions is “cap-and-trade.” What does it mean and how does itwork?Cap-and-trade (C&T) mechanisms have been used inthe past to control and gradually reduce the SO

and NO

emissions as part of the Acid Rain Program of the Environ-mental Protection Agency. This, along with thesuccessful operation of a C&T market in theEuropean Union, have motivated 10 of thenortheastern states to launch an ambitious C&Tmarket known as the Regional Greenhouse GasInitiative (RGGI-pronounced Reggie). The ambitious goal of RGGI is to reduce the CO

emis-sions by 10% by the year 2018. The mechanismis actually quite simple. A cap is set for the totalamount of greenhouse gases that can be emittedinto the atmosphere by electric power generators. The cap isset in thousands of tons of CO

that can be emitted. Then,allowances are given to power generators based on their his-torical emissions information (generators are required to re- port this to government). Each generating company can pol-lute only as long as they have allowances. Severe penaltiesare assessed on those generators that exceed the number of allocated allowances. Each allowance is generally equal to aton of pollution. For example, if a generator emits 10 tons of CO

, then that generator surrenders 10 of its allowances. Sothat’s the “cap” portion of the C&T mechanism.If a generator does not use up all the allowances, itcan “trade” them in an open market or “bank” them for futureuse. Generators who have used up all their allowances can buy them from the open market to avoid high penalties. Sowhat’s the incentive to reduce pollution? Here’s the catch.The cap is reduced each year successively, making it difficultfor polluting generators to continue their old ways. It forcesgenerators to embrace cleaner, greener, and more efficientgenerating technologies, if they want to remain competitive.The cap is progressively reduced over a period of 5-10 yearsto “roll back” GHG emissions to old levels.Economists, policy analysts, and environmental-ists strongly believe that a cap-and-trade mecha-nism has to be a fundamental component of anylong term climate change policy.Is it really that simple?Well…not really. There are several issues to beaddressed.Who should be subjected to the cap-also knownas the point of regulation? Upstream: where the fuel is actu-ally produced; or Downstream: where the fuel is consumed?Should the allowances be distributed free of cost or auc-tioned?If auctioned, which type of auction-uniform price or discrimi-natory auction?Frequency of these allowance auctions? Monthly, quarterly,or yearly?How to distribute these auction revenues?Watch out for this space next time to get your dose of energy policy!!!

By Vishnu Nanduri

What’s all the Ruckus About Cap-and-Trade?

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

•

Okogbaa, G, Otieno, W., IIE Trans, Vol-ume 40(10) October 2008, 971 – 983

•

Savachkin, A., and Das, T.” IIE Tran, 40(9),2008, 893-905

•

Brintaki, A., and Lai-Yuen,

SME Journal, NAMRC 36

(36), 153-160, 2008.Bionanotechnology (BNT) is the new frontier in research and technology and is vital for therealization of biomedical and nanoscale prod-ucts. Biologically-inspired design and nano-scale engineering are the means to achieveBNT and consists of manipulating biologicalmolecules to create complex structures or devices with new mo-lecular arrangements. By controlling, manipulating and assem- bling molecules we will be able to create lighter and stronger manufacturing materials, enhanced textiles and precise nano-scale devices with new capabilities for diagnosis and treatmentof diseases. It is estimated that within the next 10 years, “atleast half of the newly designed advanced materials and manu-facturing processes will be build at the nanoscale” [NIH].For the realization of BNT, it is crucial for researchers to beable to visualize the interactions between the various nanocomponents in real-time during the design stage, so that fully func-tional nanoscale products can be designed and evaluated prior to actual fabrication. A main key for enabling the visualizationof the nanocomponents is the understanding, the effective mod-eling and the design of the behavior of biological molecules. Toachieve a realistic molecular representation in real-time entailsusing rapid molecular tools that comprise molecules flexibilityor, in other words, their ability to attain different shapes. A mo-lecular conformation is a potential shape that a flexible mole-cule can adopt while searching for a stable molecular state.Molecules achieve stability by reaching a feasible (with nooverlapping atoms) molecular conformation that contains theminimum possible internal energy value. The major challengehowever, of modeling flexible molecules (or molecular confor-mations) lies on the exponential explosion in computationalcomplexity as the molecular size increases and a large number of degrees of freedom (DOF) are considered to represent theflexibility of the molecules. Therefore, modeling in real-timethe molecular behavior remains the main challenge in molecular design, making the modeling of molecular performance a highlyintensive computational task with unlimited room of improve-ment.In recent years, computational geometry hasa resourceful role in molecular design since important con-straints influencing molecular behavior can have geometricalinterpretation. Incorporating within the molecular design thegeometric information that lies within the inter-atomic interac-tions (intramolecular energy), allows to approximate molecules’ performance rapidly and efficiently. Speeding the modeling andreducing the time associated with molecular design is a crucialstep towards the enablement of molecules’ manipulation in avirtual environment (real-time molecular design) and for therealization of BNT. Therefore, computational geometry is thecenter of attention in this research work.From a geometric point of view, a molecule can bemodeled as a highly articulated body with hundreds or eventhousand DOF. Given that the number of possible molecular conformations grows in proportion to the power of the number of torsion bonds (DOF), identifying feasible molecular confor-mations remains the main difficulty in molecular design. Toaddress this challenge, our research work presents an enhancedBiologically-Inspired Geometric Filter called

eBGF genericmethodology

, which incorporates certain chemical-motivatedassumptions regarding atoms’ connectivity and molecules’flexibility for study chemical-feasible molecular conformations.The proposed work geometrically interprets the chemical infor-mation that lies within the intramolecular energy to force thegeometric constraints under which a molecular conformation isconsidered feasible and is accepted as a candidate molecular state. Our proposed molecular modeling tool aims to analyzechemically-feasible behaviors efficiently for molecular struc-tures with any size, shape and topology. The

eBGF genericmethodology

, targets to realistically represent the intramolecular interactions, to minimize molecular conformational search andto speed collision detection queries. Finally, the proposedmodel can also be functional in areas such as molecular dockingor assembly and protein folding where a rapid collision detec-tion scheme for highly deformable objects is essential.

By Athina BrintakiPhD. Candidate Industrial Engineering

Research corner

Enabling Biologically-Inspired Design and NanoscaleEngineering Through Computational Geometry

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USF Bull’s Football Schedule: FIU (Sept 20), NC State (Sept 27),Pittsburg (Oct 02), Syracuse (Oct 18), Louisville (Oct 25), Cincinnati (Oct30), Rutgers (Nov 15), UConn (Nov 23), West Virginia (Dec 03).

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INFORMS Member volunteering at the Gandhi day of service (Oct 4)

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USF Home Coming week: Oct 13-18

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University Lecture Series (ULS) Present Ben Stein on Life: Nov 04,

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ULS & CCEV Present Hoops of Hope Key note Address by Austin Gut-wein

Upcoming USF Activities: Fall 2008