Beale Lecture


Operational Research through Seven Decades

Robert Dyson

2023's Beale Lecture, which was held on 16 February, covered Prof Robert Dyson's seven decade career in OR. Beginning in the 60s with work in the glass industry coinciding with a PhD at Lancaster and a first encounter with the professional membership debate. The 70s included a brief encounter with stochastic programming and soft OR which recurred throughout the decades and the start of research into strategy support. The latter continued in the 80s and beyond and work on data envelopment analysis began.  In the 90s, a strong DEA team was built at Warwick, and Robert led the development of the Society's fellowship scheme.  In the 2000s a group met regularly at Warwick leading to a book on strategy support, and EJOR editing began.  In the 10s editing continued and work began on the contribution of the founders of OR to soft OR and practice.  Editing wound down in the 2020s and the founders paper was published in the Journal Operations Research.

Bio

Initially a research mathematician and senior systems technologist at Pilkington Plc (1964-70). Joined Warwick Business School in 1970 as a lecturer. Chair (Head) of WBS 1978-81 and Dean 1998-2000. Visiting Fellow at Technische Hogeschool Twente, Enschede (1977) and Visiting Professor at the University of Texas, Austin (1982). Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University 1989-95 and 1999-2005. Chair of the Committee of Professors of Operational Research (1995-7) and President of the UK Operational Research Society (1998 and 99). Elected a Companion of Operational Research (2007). Board Member of the Coventry Partnership (1998-2005). Governor of Kenilworth School 1989-98, Chair of Governors 94-97. An Editor of the European Journal of Operational Research 2006-2020.  Has published extensively in the fields of cutting and packing, stochastic programming, financial modelling, strategy support, data envelopment analysis and performance management and is a fellow of the OR Society.

Watch this year's Beale Lecture

Agenda

14.30   Introduction from The OR Society President
14.40   Doctoral Award winner presentation and Q&A
15.15   Beale Lecture
16.10   Q&A 
16.30   Networking session

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Jake Clarkson

Jake Clarkson is a postdoctoral researcher within NEO team at the Centre Inria d'Université Côte d'Azur. Before joining Inria, he completed his PhD on optimal search for a hidden target in 2020 at the STOR-i Centre for Doctoral Training at Lancaster University, UK. The project was in collaboration with the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He then remained at STOR-i for a 1-year postdoc on the management of perishable-product inventory systems. His research interests involve applying probability and mathematical models to real-world problems, currently queuing models.

Doctoral Award Winner Presentation

Optimal search in discrete locations: extensions and new findings

A hidden object needs to be found in many real-life situations which involve large search costs and significant consequences with failure. Therefore, efficient search methods are paramount. In 1962, Blackwell found that a remarkably simple policy minimises the expected search time for an object hidden in one of n discrete locations. This talk will discuss two major extensions to Blackwell’s problem.

The first, motivated by advanced search technology, allows locations to be searched either slowly or quickly, with the faster search using less time but increasing the probability of overlooking the hidden object. Whilst Blackwell’s result may determine which location to search, it falls short of choosing which speed to use. Our main results find conditions on a location to always prefer the same search speed. Outside of these conditions, we propose a heuristic method to choose a speed that demonstrates near-optimal performance in an extensive numerical study.

The second extension replaces the inanimate object with an intelligent hider who aims to maximise the search duration. The resulting two-person zero-sum search game opens up new applications, such as an intruder or computer hacker. Due to the infinite number of pure search strategies, the game is difficult to solve, with the current literature limited to two locations or locations searched in unit time. We extend much of this existing work to the fully-general search game, in particular the existence of an optimal search strategy.

 

Previous Beale Lectures

If you have never been to a Beale Lecture or have missed a previous lecture and would like to catch up, we have listed a selection here.  

Last year we had a great talk from Professor Russell Cheng, University of Southampton, on the theme of 'The Enigma of Choice – When is a Good Decision Possible?' 

We also have many more videos that you can watch on our YouTube channel.

Visit YouTube Channel Here

Multicriteria Matters

Professor Belton gave our 2022 Beale Lecture on the topic Multicriteria Matters.

View Val Belton's lecture here

The future of OR is present

Mike C Jackson OBE, Emeritus Professor at the University of Hull, gave the 2019 Beale Lecture on The future of OR is present.

View Mike Jackson's lecture here

The fitness and survival of the OR profession in the age of artificial intelligence

Richard Ormerod delivers the Beale Lecture for 2018 on The Fitness and Survival of the OR Profession in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

View Professor Ormerod's Beale Lecture

Opening talk: Heterogeneous location and pollution-routing problems

Dr Çağri Koç gave the opening talk entitled Heterogeneous Location and Pollution-Routing Problems but, before he did so, President John Hopes presented him with his award.

View Dr Çağri Koç's Doctoral talk here
Martin Beale

Memorial Lecture for one of OR's true greats

The OR Society’s Beale Medal is awarded each year in memory of the late Martin Beale.

Evelyn Martin Lansdowne Beale FRS (8 September 1928 – 23 December 1985) was an applied mathematician and statistician who was one of the pioneers of mathematical programming.

Most of Beale’s papers on particular calculations and on particular techniques are noted by amongst others, The Royal Statistical Society, the ORS and the Royal Society as “substantial contributions to knowledge”

Known as Martin Beale, he is probably best remembered for his constant and active interest in the development of mathematical programming systems for applying optimisation algorithms in OR practice.

He once said of OR, that “The most important part of Operational Research is educated common sense, and computers have absolutely no common sense”, but he planned his systems so well that this defect of computers was negligible.

He was one of the first scientists to encourage open publication of useful discoveries.

More details can be found in this short biography of Martin Beale.