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The University of Southampton
CORMSIS Centre for Operational Research, Management Sciences and Information Systems

Beale Lecture taking place in London Event

Date:
27 February 2020
Venue:
The Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AG

Event details

The OR Society's Beale Medal is awarded in memory of the late Martin Beale and gives formal recognition to a sustained contribution over many years to the theory, practice or philosophy of OR in the UK, or to some combination of those areas.

Beale Medal Winner 2018

Title: The Enigma of Choice – When is a Good Decision Possible?

In recognition of increasing use in OR of computer-intensive simulation approaches, such as data-driven analysis and AI, I shall examine my own mathematical interests by asking the question ‘Is modelling using classical mathematics therefore obsolescent?’.

Not, I argue, without clearly agreeing right at the outset the purpose of an OR study.  ‘Enigma’ in my talk title highlights in our old slogan ‘The Science of Better’, the question this slogan so clearly begs: ‘Better What?’

My talk discusses the importance of deciding objectives, especially in examining complex organisational systems, where problems become political even when not openly admitted.

Additionally, I argue that use of mathematical methods importantly clarifies genuine paradoxes that do arise in decision making, illustrating how these can be related to non-standard statistical inference, which I covered in my book (2017).

 

Speaker information

Professor Russell Cheng, Emeritus Professor of Operational Research at the University of Southampton, has an MA and the Diploma in Mathematical Statistics from Cambridge University, England. He obtained his PhD from Bath University. He is a former Chairman of the UK Simulation Society, a former Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and Its Applications. His research interests include design and analysis of simulation experiments and parametric estimation methods. He was a Joint Founding Editor of the IMA Journal of Management Mathematics. He was awarded the INFORMS Simulation Society Lifetime Professional Achievement Award in 2016.

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