Words from the new chair of working committee of POP

I am honored to succeed Professor Masao Fukushima as the working committee chair of Pacific Optimization Research Activity Group (POP) with the recommendation of the POP working committee and the POP board.

Masao has served in this position since 2006. Under his leadership, POP has achieved much in past years. In particular, POP has successfully sponsored the ICOTA conferences and the Sino-Japanese Optimization Meetings (SJOMs). Our flagship journal, Pacific Journal of Optimization, has become a favorite publication place among researchers in this region. Our newsletter, ORB, is popular among our members, continuing to provide timely information for us. We thank Ms Eva Yu for her contribution in managing our website.

POP now has about 560 members from 40 countries and regions. We have experienced a fast growth in early years, and the number of membership becomes steady in recent years. As the new chair, I hope to hear from you about how this organization can better serve its members.  I am open to your comments and suggestions.

A new step in this direction is to change the name of SJOM to Pacific Optimization Meeting to reflect the truly international nature of this conference series. With this change, it will be possible to enlarge the organizing bases of this conference and to encourage more participants and organizers from Asia, Europe, Oceania, North and South America. I am happy that the Steering Committee of SJOM has approved this proposal.

To encourage exchanges among young members of POP, we intend to provide information on Master/PhD fellowships and Post-Doctor Fellowship in future issues of ORB. We are grateful to Professor Yamashita, the editor of ORB, for his support in this matter.

With the retirement of Eva, we also plan to move the website from Hong Kong to Singapore. Thank the support of School of Business at National University of Singapore, we have established a mirror site in Singapore. You can use either the old or the new website to obtain information on POP. The new website is at

http://bschool.nus.edu/DecisionSciences/NewsEvents/Activities.aspx

After thorough test of the new website, we will formally move our website to this new address.

Ms Lee Chwee Ming ( chweeming_Lee@nus.edu.sg) of Department of Decision Sciences, National University of Singapore, will help in administrating this new website. Welcome on board, Chwee Ming!

I look forward to hearing from you. Together, let us make POP a great place for our research and friendship.