This volume contains a selection of papers presented at the Symposium on Operations Research 2000 (OR 2000) held at the Dresden University of Technology, September 9-12, 2000. This international Symposium was organized by the German Operations Research Society GOR in the series of its annual conferences. The Symposium had 354 participants from IS countries around the world. The 210 lectures reflected the broad spectrum of Operations Research and its interdisciplinarity, involving economics, mathematics and computer science. The volume is arranged in 14 Sections, like the conference, and a special section with the papers of the winners of the GOR Diploma Thesis award. The 86 papers have been selected by the chairpersons of the sections and the editors. Compared to previous conferences, the number of sections has been reduced by combining some overlapping sections: The former sections for linear and nonlinear programming are now contained in the 'Continuous Optimization' Section, the graph theory has been included in the 'Discrete and Combinatorial Optimization' Section. The traditional application fields are growing together in the scope of the current 'Supply Chain Management' thinking. This is considered in a corresponding section. Its high number of papers at the conference and in this volume underlines the importance of Operations Research for this modem management concept. For the first time, the conference included a section on 'Didactics of Operations Research', which found a great echo and is represented by four papers in this volume.

The volume contains a selection of manuscripts of lectures presented at the International Symposi- um on Operations Research (SOR 96). The Symposium took place at the Technical University of Braunschweig, September 3-6, 1996. SOR 96 was organized under the auspices of the two German societies of Operations Research, Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Operations Research (DGOR) and Gesellschaft fur Mathematik, Okonomie and Operations Research (GMOOR) in cooperation with the Working Group Discrete Optimization of the IFIP (WG7.4). Since 1995, DGOR and GMOORjointly prepare the Symposium as a common annual conference. In particular, the annual general meetings of the DGOR, the GMOOR and the WG7.4 took place during the conference. The Symposi~m had 527 participants from 32 countries around the world, including 92 partici- pants from Eastern Europe. The Symposium obviously attracts an international audience of workers fully covering the broad spectrum of Operations Research and related areas in economics, mathema- tics and computer science. The importance of a highly interdisciplinary field as Operations Research is increasing owing to the growth in applications in related disciplines. Technological advances in computer science and algorithmic mathematics are crucial for attacking the great challenges waiting in the areas of applications of Operations Research effectively. As a participant of SOR 96 one could well observe the current pace of achievements. Many of these results are in these proceedings. The program consisted of two plenary, 17 semiplenary, and 335 contributed lectures in 18 sections.

An insight into the latest results from the world of operations research - a wide-ranging field, as is shown by the book's 24 sections, corresponding to the conference program itself. Although problems of a primarily methodological nature are discussed, the emphasis is placed firmly on practical subjects, such as reports from the fields of healthcare, environmental protection, logistics and traffic engineering. This selection also clearly illustrates the extent to which OR is spreading into and already interwoven in other scientific disciplines.

This proceedings volume contains extended abstracts of talks presented at the 18th Symposium on Operations Research held at the University of Cologne, September 1-3, 1993. The Symposia on Operations Research are the annual meetings of the Gesellschaft fiir Mathematik, Okonometrie und Operations Research (GMOOR), a scientific society providing a link between research and applications in the areas of applied mathematics, economics and operations research. The broad range of interests and scientific activities covered by GMOOR and its members was demonstrated by about 250 talks presented at the 18th Symposium. As in l'ecent years, emphasis was placed on optimization and stochastics, this year with a special focus on combinatorial optimization and discrete mathematics. We appreciate that with sections on parallel and distributed computing and on scientific computing also new fields could be integrated into the scope of the GMOOR. This book contains extended abstracts of most of the papers presented at the con ference. Long versions and full papers of the talks are expected to appear elsewhere in refereed periodicals. The contributions were divided into sixteen sections: (1) Theory of Optimization, (2) Computational Methods of Optimization, (3) Combinatorial Optimization and Dis crete Mathematics, (4) Scientific Computing, (5) Decision Theory, (6) Mathematical Economics and Game Theory, (7) Banking, Finance and Insurance, (8) Econometrics, (9) Macroeconomics and Economic Theory, (10) Stochastics, (11) Production and Lo gistics, (12) System and Control Theory, (13) Routing and Scheduling, (14) Knowledge Based Systems, (15) Information Systems and (16) Parallel and Distributed Compu ting."

Network flow and matching are often treated separately in the literature and for each class a variety of different algorithms has been developed. These algorithms are usually classified as primal, dual, primal-dual etc. The question the author addresses in this work is that of the existence of a common combinatorial principle which might be inherent in all those apparently different approaches. It is shown that all common network flow and matching algorithms implicitly follow the so-called shortest augmenting path. This can be interpreted as a greedy-like decision rule where the optimal solution is built up through a sequence of local optimal solutions. The efficiency of this approach is realized by combining this myopic decision rule with an anticipant organization. The approach of this work is organized as follows. For several standard flow and matching problems the common solution procedures are first reviewed. It is then shown that they all reduce to a common basic principle, that is, they all perform the same computational steps if certain conditions are set properly and ties are broken according to a common rule. Recognizing this near-equivalence of all commonly used algorithms the question of the best method has to be modified - all methods are (only) different implementations of the same algorithm obtained by different views of the problem.

This volume contains the proceedings of the 1997 International Symposium on Operations Research (SOR' 97) held at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universitat Jena, Sep tember 3-5, 1997. The symposium was organized under the auspices of the two German societies on Operations Research, namely the Deutsche Gesellschajt fur Operations Research (DGOR) and the Gesellschajt fur Mathematik, Okonomie und Operations Research (GMOOR). During their annual business meetings, the DGOR and GMOOR members unanimously decided that their societies should be assimi lated by the newly founded Gesellschajt fur Operations Research (GOR). The SOR' 97 meeting was attended by 521 participants from 31 countries. The presentation of 360 papers was organized in 16 sections, each of which also saw semiplenary lectures by prominent invited speakers. Plenary lectures by J.K. Lenstra and P. Mertens as well as a panel discussion on the role of new communication media represented major academic events of the symposium. 131 papers were submitted for publication in the present volume. The space limitation and the advice of the section chairpersons only allowed for the inclusion of 85 contributed papers in the proceedings. Additionally, written versions of seven semiplenary lectures could be included in the volume. The abstracts of all 360 papers presented at the symposium can be obtained in electronic form from the WWW at http: //www.wiwLuni-jena.de/sor97.html."

Das Buch enthalt ausgewahlte Vortrage, die anlasslich des Symposiums uber Operations Research (SOR'95) in der Zeit vom 13.-15.9.1995 an der Universitat Passau gehalten wurden. Der Leser erhalt einen Einblick in neueste Forschungsergebnisse auf dem Gebiet des Operations Research. Der Sammelband demonstriert eindrucksvoll das weite Spektrum der vom Operations Research heute behandelten Thematiken. Neben primar methodischen Fragestellungen bilden praxisorientierte Themen wie Anwendungsberichte aus der Praxis, im Umweltschutz, der Logistik und Verkehrsplanung einen Schwerpunkt. Deutlich wird auch die Ausstrahlung des Operations Research in andere wissenschaftliche Disziplinen wie Informatik, Okonomie und Wirtschaftsinformatik."

In diesem Band werden zentrale Themen und neuere Entwicklungstendenzen auf dem Gebiet des Operations Research (OR) behandelt.
Gegenstand sind die Vortrage, die anlasslich der 22. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft fur Operations Research (DGOR) und der Nederlandse Stichting voor Operations Research (NSOR) in der Zeit vom 25.-27.8.1993 an der Freien Universitat von Amsterdam gehalten wurden.
Das Buch ermoglicht dem Leser einen Einblick in neueste Forschungsergebnisse auf dem Gebiet des Operations Research. Neben primar methodischen Fragestellungen bilden praxisorientierte Themen, wie z.B. Anwendungsberichte aus der Praxis und der Bereich Produktionsplanung und -steuerung, einen Schwerpunkt in diesem Band."