Recent Publications in the Popular Press

Recent Publications

  • "Weapons of Mass Instruction - Connecting the seat of the intellect to the
    seat of the pants", OR/MS Today, August 03
  • The Flaw of Averages, Harvard Business Review, November 2002.
  • Accounting for Uncertainty, Journal of Portfolio Management, Fall 2002
  • The Flaw of Averages
    Soapbox Column in San Jose Mercury News, October 8, 2000. For article click here. For animations and downloads click here.
  • Blitzograms - Interactive Histograms
    Informs Transactions on Education. Fall 2000. http://ite.informs.org/vol1no2/Savage/Savage.html
  • Financial Consequences of Distribution Elections from Total Return Trusts
    with Patrick Collins and Josh Stampfli, Real Property, Probate and Trust Journal of the American Bar Association. Summer, 2000.
  • Holistic vs. Hole-istic Exploration and Production Strategies
    with Ben C. Ball, Journal of Petroleum Technology. Sept 1999.
  • "Notes on Exploration and Production Portfolio Optimization" co-authored by Ben C. Ball (197K in Adobe pdf format). This is a companion piece to Holistic vs. Hole-istic above. It discusses the application of portfolio theory to the selection of exploration and production (E&P) projects in the petroleum industry. The classic Markowitz approach to Modern Portfolio Theory used in the financial community, has been generalized using stochastic linear programming to accommodate arbitrary probability distributions and asymmetric risk penalties. A prototype Exploration and Production Portfolio Optimization model, EPPO (95K in Microsoft Excel format) is also available for download.
  • Equivalence of Linear Deviation about the Mean and Mean Absolute Deviation about the Mean Objective Functions
    with Chris Kenyon and Ben C. Ball, Operations Research Letters. June 1999. volume/issue: 24/4 pp: 181-185 Click here for abstract.
  • Statistical Analysis For The Masses
    In Statistics in Public Policy, Bruce Spencer, ed.,Oxford University Press 1998. Download Pre-print in Adobe Acrobat PDF file.
  • The DNA of Decision Science
    This paper explores the evolution of Decision Science in terms of Richard Dawkins' concept of 'memes', a sociological analog of the gene. In 'Education in a Research University', Richard Cottle, Ingram Olkin, eds., Stanford University Press 1995. Download Pre-print in Adobe Acrobat PDF file.
  • The Bad Seeds - A Random Number Generation Problem Weeded Out Long Ago, Crops Up Again
    Co-authored by L. Schrage, P. Lewis and D. Empey, this paper describes a potential flaw encountered when generating parallel streams of random variables with linear congruential generators. Submitted to 'ORSA Journal on Computing'

Recent Books/Software

  • Decision Making with Insight( includes INSIGHT.xla II), - Text and Software – (Duxbury Press, 2002)
  • INSIGHT.xla Business Analysis Software for Microsoft Excel , a book/software package – (Duxbury Press 1998)
  • FAST POM, Fundamental Analytic Spreadsheet Tools for Production and Operations Management - ( McGraw Hill, 1994).
  • FAST QM, Fundamental Analytic Spreadsheet Tools for Quantitative Management - Text and Software ( McGraw Hill, 1993).
  • What'sBest! (General Optimization Inc., 1985)
    Co-developed with Linus Schrage, What'sBest! Was the first widely distributed analytical software package for spreadsheets, bringing the power of linear programming to Lotus 1-2-3. It was awarded the PC Magazine Technical Excellence award in 1986.

SHMUZZLES

Complete List of Publications and Presentations

  • Risk Management & Financial Engineering, a one-day seminar developed for the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Presented on an ongoing basis since 1995.
  • Management Science in Spreadsheets, one and two-day seminars developed for the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Presented on an ongoing basis since 1990.
  • Scientific Decision Making in Health Care, a two-day workshop developed for the Stanford University Department of Operations Research. Other presenters included Alain C. Enthoven, William P. Pierskalla. Presented September 14 - 15.
  • Statistical Analysis For The Masses, to appear in Statistics in Public Policy, Bruce Spencer, ed.,Oxford University Press 1996.
  • The DNA of Decision Science, to appear in Education in a Research University, Richard Cottle, Ingram Olkin, eds.,Stanford University Press 1995.
  • OLAP (On Line Analytical Processing) - Logical Generalization of the Spreadsheet? Presented at the IFORS Special Conference (SP3), Santa Monica, January, 1995
  • Consumer Stochastics, OR/MS Today, Dec. 1994, Vol 21, No. 6, pp. 39-43
  • Operations Research for Managers, a multi-day workshop developed for the Stanford University Department of Operations Research. Presented on an ongoing basis since 1993.
  • Lotus Improv as a Mathematical Modeling Language, Presented at the 15th International Symposium on Mathematical Programming, Ann Arbor, August 1994
  • Introduction to Optimization: What If vs. What'sBest, Presented at the 15th International Symposium on Mathematical Programming, Ann Arbor, August 1994
  • Spreadsheet-based Optimization for Natural Gas Contract Portfolio Planning, (co-authored by C. Yu and J. Jacobs), Presented at the 15th International Symposium on Mathematical Programming, Ann Arbor, August 1994
  • Improv Analytics, A software package for performing optimization and other analytical techniques in Lotus Improv. Partially funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under SBIR Phase I. July 1994.
  • Spreadsheets: The New Vernacular of MS/OR, Invited Session at the Joint National Meeting of TIMS/ORSA, Boston, April 1994.
  • Ready - Fire - Aim: New Tactics for New Technologies, Sponsored Session on Interactive Optimization at the Joint National Meeting of TIMS/ORSA, Boston, April 1994.
  • OR/MS for the Masses: How Far Can It Go?, Tutorial at the Joint National Meeting of TIMS/ORSA, Boston, April 1994.
  • Mathematical Optimization in Lotus Improv, presented at 36th Joint National Meeting of TIMS/ORSA, Phoenix, November 1994.
  • FAST POM, Fundamental Analytic Spreadsheet Tools for Production and Operations Management - Text and Software published by McGraw Hill March 1994.
  • The Bad Seeds - A Random Number Generation Problem Weeded Out Long Ago, Crops Up Again (co-authored by L. Schrage, P. Lewis and D. Empey) Submitted to ORSA Journal on Computing, September 1992 and delivered 35th National Meeting of TIMS/ORSA, Chicago, April 1993.
  • FAST QM, Fundamental Analytic Spreadsheet Tools for Quantitative Management - Text and Software published by McGraw Hill April 1993.
  • OR/MS Instruction Using Spreadsheets, a full day workshop delivered at 32nd and 34th Joint National Meeting of TIMS/ORSA, Aneheim, November 1991, San Francisco, 1992.
  • Optimization vs. Intuition, Lotus Magazine, April, 1992.
  • Quantitative Management Tools for Spreadsheets, a short course aired over the Stanford Instructional Television Network (SITN), February 5th, 1992.
  • "Simulation and Optimization", a two-day seminar co-sponsored by Metropolitan State University and United Power Association, Minneapolis, MN, December, 9-10, 1991
  • The Spreadsheet as an Interface Between Petroleum Management and OR Specialists, presented at 32nd Joint National Meeting of TIMS/ORSA, Aneheim, November 1991
  • Beyond What If, a one day workshop presented to Missouri Public Service, Kansas City, MO, October 23rd, 1991
  • A Random Walk Model of Algorithm Convergence (co-authored by V. Mahrotra), Stanford Department of Operations Research Report, November 1990.
  • OR in Spreadsheets - a Survey, presented at 31st Joint National Meeting of TIMS/ORSA, Nashville, May 1990
  • Mathematical Modeling in Databases, presented at 29th Joint National Meeting of TIMS/ORSA, Las Vegas, May 1990
  • Math for the Rest of US, PC Computing, October 1988
  • Extending the Analytical Power of 1-2-3, presented at Third Annual Lotus Developers Conference, Lotus Development Corp., Cambridge MA, May 1988
  • Spreadsheet Based Optimization Systems, presented at 25th Joint National Meeting of TIMS/ORSA, Washington, DC, April 1988
  • The Electronic Spreadsheet as an Interface to Other Methodologies, presented at the Sixth International Conference on Mathematical Modeling, Washington University, August 1987
  • The ABC's of Optimization using What'sBest!, General Optimization Inc., 1985
  • Hey Dad I'm Getting a Disk Read Error, COMPUTE Magazine, Sept. 1982
  • A Probabilistic Approach to the Design of Heuristics for Decision Problems, Report #7807, Center for Mathematical Studies in Business and Economics, University of Chicago, 1978
  • Toward a Theoretical Framework for Heuristic Generation (co-authored by David B. Weinberger) Presented to the ORSA/TIMS Miami Joint National Meeting, Nov. 1976
  • Some Theoretical Implications of Local Optimization, Mathematical Programming, Vol. 10, 1976, pp. 354-366
  • Neighborhood Search Algorithms for Finding Optimal Travelling Salesmen Tours Must be Inefficient (co-authored by P. Weiner and A. Bagchi), Journal of Computer and System Sciences, Vol. 12, No. 1, 1976, pp. 25-35
  • Statistical Indicators of Optimality, presented to the 14th Annual Symposium on Switching and Automata Theory of the IEEE, October, 1973
  • Convergent Local Search (co-authors: P. Weiner and M.J. Krone), Yale University, Department of Computer Science Research Report #14, 1972
  • Towards a Theory of Convergent Local Search (co-authors: P. Weiner and M.J. Krone), Proceedings of the 6th Annual Princeton Conference on Information & Systems, 1972