Dr
Andrew J. Masons  |
Check out the Siren software that we have developed for emergency services with Optima, and the older simulation and rostering work this is based upon.. |
 |
Optima's expertise was recognised as a joint winner (with Telemetry Research) at the 2006 PricewaterhouseCoopers New Zealand Hi-Tech Awards. |
 |
During sabattical in Sweden, I worked with colleagues on a column generation model for supply chain optimisation in the pulp industry. This work won the 2001 Euro Award for Excellence in Practice. An early presentation and forthcoming paper are available below. |
| Cyclic
Roster Builder V4.xls RosterBuilderV8.xls |
Wanting to build a cyclic roster (cyclic schedule) for
your staff? This free
scheduling spreadsheet may help you construct your roster. There is
also a more advanced version RosterBuilderV8.xls
which allows you to freely modify your planned cyclic roster to reflect
staff requests etc. |
Info on EngSci course restructuring
In 2008, first semester, I am teaching in Stats/Eng 255 FC/SC, EngSci 760 (Algorithms in Optimisation), EngSci 761 (Computational Optimization in Operations Research), EngSci 762 (Advanced Topics in OR). I also teach in EngSci311 (MM3).
Other courses I have been involved with include:Engsci791
Advanced Linear Optimisation
(ALO)
Engsci311 SC MM3
Engsci460 FC Operations
Research (Year 4)
Engsci450 & 451
FC Computational Techniques 3A/B (Year 4)
Practical
Set
Partitioning and Column Generation (Linköping, Sweden 1999)
Mathematical Modelling 2
Stats255 Introduction to
Operations Research
Engsci255 Modelling in
Operations Research (Special
EngSci TSP material)
Heuristics
Databases
Computer Systems
(archived here)
Stats391
Optimisation in
Operations Research
Engsci391
Optimisation in
Operations Research
Engineering Design ST
All Eng Sci courses
Check out http://www.bruceeckel.com
for an
excellent C++ resource.
Do you suffer from the knack? (287k WAV audio file) Also available with pictures (2.3M mpeg file)
Interested in more details on our rostering work? Read our Capability Statement. Click here for resources on rostering, including call centres, sleep issues etc, and a free staff scheduling spreadsheet to help you construct your cyclic roster..
I am interested in mathematical programming and
optimization theory,
Combinatorial optimization, genetic
algorithms and other heuristic solution methods; personnel scheduling,
rostering and
network models; column generation and simulation techniques.
I am the developer for OpenSolver, www.opensolver.org, an enhanced,
Solver-compatible open source linear and integer programming optimizer
for Excel. OpenSolver uses the COIN-OR CBC optimization engine. OpenSolver is typically
faster than Solver, can solve larger problems, and does so more
reliably. OpenSolver also allows you to easily view your optimisation
directly on your spreadsheet, making it much easier to check your model
design.
I am currently a Council member (and
de-facto Webmaster) in the Operational
Research
Society
of
New
Zealand
As a member of INFORMS, I support their Analytics publication.
I enjoy sailing, and entered the Carson Challenge with a group of work colleagues; check out Margot's pictures. This movie (.avi, 963 KB) shows some of the yachting simulation work we do. I also enjoy tramping; I took this picture of the Mackinnon Pass on a recent trip through the Milford Track.
We did a bit of scrambling during the 2001 ORSNZ conference in Christchruch; Hala Jasim took some pictures: one, two (left to right: Kavinesh Singh (Yr 4), Faram Engineer (Yr 4), Portia Cerny (Masters), Matthias Ehrgott (staff), Andrew Mason (staff)), three (Faram, Andrew, Matthias, Hala Jasim, Kavinesh).
I have developed Windows software "Parallel Port Monitor 2000" (ParMon 2000) for monitoring and controlling the parallel port used in our Computer Systems course (archived here).
We went walking
out
on
the
West
Coast in 2007 during Professor
Linda
Green's visit to Auckland. Linda is from Columbia University,
New York, and works in healthcare.
Yacht Instrumentation
and Software
We are developing open source software for working with
NMEA 2000 (N2k) and NMEA 0183 messages. This complements existing open
source navigation software (that has minimal N2k support), including:
Did you know that the Department of Theoretical and Applied Maths (TAM) was formed in 1963, and had its first students (in their 2nd year - known as '1st Professional' - of a 4 year degree) in 1964? These students graduated in 1966, and included well known academics such as Peter Jackson (now at Canterbury University). You can read more about the history of the Engineering Science department in a humorous mock interview written by one of our early staff members, Mervyn Rosser, in 1992. Although the degree was always called "Engineering Science", the department only changed its name to this 1989.
You can view an advertising brochure
from
1988 and
another from 1992 (p1,
p2).
(These dates are approximate.) Also check out the 1988 Field Trip
information sheet, our student
version of this, and the 1987 student
information sheet.
Historic photos. EngSci
Field Trip 1993 EngSci Tramp
1993 TAM
2nd
Pro
1986 TAM
Graduation
in 1988
A. Mason, 1987, Speaker Matching, A
3'rd Pro Project in Engineering Science
Main
PDF, Appendix
PDF, Main
compressed postscript, Appendix
compressed
postscript.
Andrew Mason and Andy Philpott, 1988, Speaker
Pairing using Matching Algorithms,
Asia Pacific Journal or Operations Research, 5,
p101-116
PDF
file, Compressed
postscript file [0.5Mb].
Andrew J Mason, 1991, Partition Coefficients, Static
Deception and Deceptive
Problems for Non-Binary Alphabets, in R.K. Belew, and L.B.
Booker, editors, Proceedings
of the Fourth International Conference on Genetic Algorithms,
Morgan Kaufmann, San
Mateo, CA
PDF
file, Compressed
postscript file.
Andrew J Mason, 1995, A Non-Linearity Measure of a
Problem's Crossover Suitability,
IEEE International Conference on Evolutionary Programming,
Perth
Viewable
files, PDF
file, Compressed
postscript file [0.5Mb].
Andrew J Mason and Mikael Ronnqvist, 1996, Solution
Methods for the Balancing of Jet
Turbines, Computers and Operations Research
24(2):153--167
PDF
file,
Postscript
file,
Data
Files
Kevin Broad, Andrew J Mason, Mikael Ronnqvist, Mark Frater, 1996, Optimal Robotic Component Placement, Journal of the Operational Research Society, 47:1343--1354
Andrew J. Mason, David M. Ryan, David M. Panton, 1998, Integrated
Simulation,
Heuristic
and
Optimisation
Approaches
to
Staff
Scheduling, Operations
Research,
Vol 46, Number 2, pp161-175
PDF
file [0.5Mb], Compressed
postscript file [0.5Mb].
Shane Henderson, Andrew J. Mason, 1998, Rostering by
iterating integer programming
and simulation in Proceedings of the 1998 Winter
Simulation Conference, edited by D. Medeiros and E. Watson,
Washington DC, December 13-16, 1998
PDF
file , postscript
file [104k]
Andrew J. Mason, Mark C Smith, 1998, A Nested Column
Generator for solving Rostering
Problems with Integer Programming in International
Conference on Optimisation :
Techniques and Applications, L. Caccetta; K. L. Teo; P. F.
Siew; Y. H. Leung; L. S.
Jennings, and V. Rehbock (eds.), Curtin University of Technology,
Perth, Australia,
p827-834, April 1998
PDF
file , Zip
compressed postscript file
Andrew J. Mason, David Nielsen, 1999, PETRA : A
Programmable Optimisation Engine and
Toolbox for Personnel Rostering Applications presented at the
15th Triennial
International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS)
Conference IFORS
99,
August 16-20, 1999, Beijing, China; available as School of Engineering
Technical Report
593
Powerpoint
Presentation
of
talk (online), Technical report: Zip
compressed postscript file (293k) PDF file,
Shane G. Henderson, Andrew J. Mason, Ilze Ziedins, Richard
Thomson, 1999, A
Heuristic for Determining Efficient Staffing Requirements for Call
Centres, School
of Engineering Technical Report 594, August, 1999
Zip
compressed
postscript file
(420k) PDF
file
Shane G. Henderson, Andrew J. Mason, 1999, Estimating
Ambulance Requirements in
Auckland, New Zealand, "Proceedings of the 1999 Winter Simulation Conference",
Phoenix
Arizona,
December
1999
Postscript
file (984k) Zip
compressed postscript file (385k) PDF file
(See also our St John page.)
Andrew J. Mason, 1999, Branch and Cut and Integer
Programming for Cyclic Rostering,
"Proceedings of the 1999
Nordic MPS
Conference", Västerås, Sweden, September 1999
Powerpoint
Presentation (online), Postscript
file (1476k) Zip
compressed
postscript file (431k) PDF file
Shane Henderson, Andrew J. Mason, 2000, Development
of a Simulation and Data
Visualisation tool to assist in Strategic Operations Management in
Emergency Services ,
School of Engineering Technical Report 595, January 2000
Postscript
file
(5.7M) Zip
compressed postscript file (582k) PDF file
(363k)
Andrew
J. Mason, Mikael Ronnqvist, 2000, Supply
Chain Optimisation in the Pulp Mill Industry, presented at ANZIAM
2000, Waitangi,
New Zealand, January 2000
Presentation
Andrew J. Mason, Andy B. Philpott, 2000, Stochastic
Yacht Routing, presented at ANZIAM
2000, Waitangi,
New Zealand, January 2000
Presentation
Toby Allsopp, Andrew Mason, Andy Philpott, Optimising
Yacht Routes under Uncertainty,
invited APORS session presentation, in Proceedings of the 2000 Fall
National Conference of
the Operations Research Society of Japan, Tokyo, September 2000,
pp176-183
Postscript
file
(1.3M) Zip
compressed
postscript file (282k) PDF
file (254k)
Toby Allsopp, Andrew Mason, Andy Philpott, Optimal
Sailing Routes with Uncertain
Weather, in Proceedings
of
the
The
35th
Annual
Conference of the Operational
Research
Society
of
New
Zealand, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand,
1-2 December, 2000, pp
65-74
Postscript
file (1,400k) Zip
compressed postscript file (293k) PDF
file (265k) Presentation
(HTML)
Full Masters Thesis (1132k PDF)
Andrew Mason, Shane Henderson, BartSim: A Tool for
Analysing and Improving Ambulance
Performance in Auckland, New Zealand, in Proceedings
of the The 35th Annual
Conference of the Operational
Research Society of New Zealand, Victoria University of
Wellington, New Zealand, 1-2
December, 2000, pp 57-64
Postscript
file
(1,400k) Zip
compressed postscript file (293k) PDF file
(265k)
Andrew Mason, Andy Philpott, Optimising Yacht Routes
under Uncertainty, in
Proceedings of the 15th
Chesapeake Sailing Yacht Symposium [abstract],
January
2001,
Annapolis,
Maryland,
10p
Postscript
file
(2,900k) Zip
compressed
postscript
file
(596k) PDF
file
(596k)
Andrew
J. Mason, 2001, Elastic Constraint
Branching, the Wedelin/Carmen Lagrangian Heuristic and Integer
Programming for Personnel
Scheduling. An updated version of this is available as
"Elastic
Constraint Branching, the Wedelin/Carmen Lagrangian Heuristic and
Integer
Programming for Personnel Scheduling" in Annals of
Operations Research, 108(1), pp239-276, Nov 2001.
PDF
file (372k) Postscript
file (2092M) Zipped
Postscript
file (588k) DVI
file
(143k)
David
Bredstron, Jan T. Lundgren, Mikael Ronnqvist, D.
Carlsson, Andrew J. Mason, 2001, Supply Chain
Optimisation in the Pulp Mill Industry --IP models, column generation
and novel constraint branches,
European Journal of Operations Research,
Volume 156, Issue 1,
Powerpoint
Presentation Postscript
file (3,9570k) Zip
compressed postscript file (497k)
PDF
file (596k) (coming soon)
This paper won the 2001
Euro Award for Excellence in
Practice
Tim Watson, Colin Christian, Andrew Mason, Murray Smith, Maintenance
of
Water
Distribution
Systems, in Proceedings
of the The
36th Annual
Conference of the Operational
Research
Society
of
New
Zealand, University of Canterbury,
New Zealand, 30
November - 1 December, 2001, p57-66
PDF
file
(172k)
Andrew J Mason, Andy B Philpott, Development of FIDO
- A Network Design
Tool for Fibre Cable Layout, in Proceedings
of the The
36th Annual
Conference of the Operational
Research
Society
of
New
Zealand, University of Canterbury,
New Zealand, 30
November - 1 December, 2001, p120-129
PDF
file
(172k)
Tim Watson, Colin Christian, Andrew Mason, Murray Smith,
Renate Myers, Bayesian-based
Decision Support System for Water Distribution Systems, in Fifth
International Conference on Hydroinformatics, Cardiff
University, UK, 1-5
July 2002 [mistakenly left out of proceedings]
PDF
file (172k)
Joseph K. L. Wong, Andrew J. Mason, Michael J. Neve and Kevin
W. Sowerby, An
improved integer programming formulation for indoor base station
placement,
2002
PDF
file (172k)
Andy Philpott, Andrew J. Mason, Advances in
optimization in Yacht
Performance Analysis,
2002, High
Performance Yacht Design Conference 2002, Auckland, NZ, December 2002,
p229-236
PDF
file (172k)
Mason, Andrew J; Panton, David,
Cyclic Rostering Using Branch
and Cut in Proceedings of the
37th
Annual
ORSNZ
Conference, University of Auckland, 29-30
November 2002, p287-296
PDF
file
(149k)
Mason, A., P. Day, S. G. Henderson, J. Meyer, J. Snowdon, and
J. Waite. 2003.
Development of a simulation package for modelling emergency
medical service operations. Proceedings of the 8th Annual
International Conference on Industrial Engineering Theory, Applications
and Practice, 556-559.
PDF
file (114k)
David Panton, Maria John, Stephen Lucas, Andrew Mason, Flight test data cycle map optimisation, European Journal of Operational Research 146 (2003) 486-497
Philpott, A.B., Mason, A.J., Davenport, J., "FIDO:
Telecom's Best Friend", OR/MS Today, 30, pp 36-41, April 2003
HTML
copy
Henderson, S.G., Mason, A.J., Ambulance
Service Planning: Simulation and Data Visualization, in
Brandeau, M.L., Sainfort, F., and W.P. Pierskalla, Eds.,
Operations
Research and Health Care: A Handbook of Methods and Applications,
, Volume 70, Kluwer Academic
Publishers, pp77-102, 2004
PDF file
(318k)
T. G. Watson, C. D. Christian, A. J. Mason, M. H. Smith and R. Meyer, Bayesian-based pipe failure model, Journal of Hydroinformatics 6 (2004) 259-264
Butt,
S.E.,
Fredericks,
T.K.,
Mason,
A.J.,
Ryan,
D.M.,
Fernandez,
J.E.,
Mital,
A..
Eds,
Proceedings of the 9th Annual
International Conference on Industrial Engineering Theory, Applications
and Practice. Nov 27-30, Auckland, New Zealand, 2004.
www.ijienet.org/ijie04/
Mason,
A.J., Ed., Proceedings
of
the
39th Annual Conference of the Operational
Research Society of New Zealand, Nov 28-29, Auckland, New
Zealand, 250pp, 2004
http://www.esc.auckland.ac.nz/Organisations/ORSNZ/conf39/index.html
Panton D, John M, Mason A, An Integer Programming Model for the Optimization of Data Cycle Maps, in Integer Programming - Theory and Practice, John K. Karlof, CRC Press, Florida, 2005, pp195-220, ISBN: 0-8493-1914-5 [Amazon.co.uk]
Joseph K. L. Wong, Andrew J. Mason,
Michael J. Neve and Kevin W. Sowerby, Base Station Placement
in Indoor Wireless Systems Using Binary Integer Programming,
IEE Proceedings - Communications, 153,
771 (2006)
Reference
PDF
File
from
IEE
(171kb)
Mason, A.J., Siren:
An Ambulance Simulation System,
presented at
Mathematical Models for Optimizing Transportation Services,
The University of Auckland, 19 - 22 April 2005
PDF
file (652k)
Mason, A.J., Technology
Transfer - Successfully Delivering Operations Research Software,
presented at
Informs
Practice Conference, Palm Springs, USA, 17 - 19
April 2005
PDF
file
(4,216k)
Mason,
A.J., Emergency
Vehicle
Trip
Analysis
using
GPS
AVL
Data:
A
Dynamic
Program
for
Map
Matching,
in Proceedings of the 40th Annual
Conference of the Operational Research Society of New Zealand,
ISSN 0114-6602, 2-3 December 2005, Wellington, New Zealand, p295-304,
2005
PDF
file
(1872k)
Watson, T., Mason, A., A Hierarchical
Bayesian Model For The Maintenance Of Water Pipe Networks,
7th International Conference on Hydroinformatics “HIC 2006,” Nice,
France, pp8, 2006
PDF
file (199k)
Mason,
A.J., Faster
Map Matching for Emergency Vehicle Trip Analysis,
in Proceedings of the 41st Annual
Conference of the Operational Research Society of New Zealand,
ISSN 0114-6602, 30 November - 1 December 2006, Christchurch, New
Zealand, p19-28, 2006
PDF file
(474k)
Andrew
Mason, A Survey of Map Matching Algorithms, Engineering Technical
Report TR664, School of Engineering, University of Auckland, 2008
A few of our students have headed off
to Barclays,
UK,
for
a
great
introduction
to
finance
and
IT.
To
quote
Paul
Hunnego,
"You have to
have the right to
work in the UK; either a passport from any EU country or you can claim
patriality and get
a 4 year visa if your grandparents were English.. I think?!" Sam Tuck, sam.tuck@barclayscapital.com,
one
of
our
graduates
from
1997,
has
pointed
out
you
can
receive
over
$100,000;
check
out
http://www.barcap.com/graduatecareers/nzsa/job.shtml.
If you are interested in IT, check out this report
on the IT job
market in the USA. IT is not as much in demand as people like to think.
For a great example of what our students can do, check out www.derceto.com. One of my masters students, David Geary, has been a major contributor to this water optimisation project.
George Dantzig invented the Simplex Algorithm in 1947. One of the first applications of the simplex algorithm was to the determination of an adequate diet that was of least cost. In the fall of 1947, Jack Laderman of the Mathematical Tables Project of the National Bureau of Standards undertook, as a test of the newly proposed simplex method, the first large-scale computation in this field. It was a system with nine equations in seventy-seven unknowns. Using hand-operated desk calculators, approximately 120 man-days were required to obtain a solution. ... The particular problem solved was one which had been studied earlier by George Stigler (who later became a Nobel Laureate) who proposed a solution based on the substitution of certain foods by others which gave more nutrition per dollar. He then examined a "handful" of the possible 510 ways to combine the selected foods. He did not claim the solution to be the cheapest but gave his reasons for believing that the cost per annum could not be reduced by more than a few dollars. Indeed, it turned out that Stigler's solution (expressed in 1945 dollars) was only 24 cents higher than the true minimum per year $39.69. [ref]
The electricity market in NZ uses linear programming to decide how to optimally distribute electricity around NZ, and what prices should be paid for the electricity. A linear programming model is solved every 5 minutes to give up to date information on pricing and electricity flows.
| Email: | a.mason@auckland.ac.nz |
| Telephone: | +64 9 3737599x87909 |
| Fax: | +64 9 3737468 |
| Room: | 439.319, Level 3, 70 Symonds St |
| Post: | Dept of Eng Sci, School of Engineering, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand |
Did you know that the American National Security Agency (NSA) can read any encypted message sent by Netscape or Internet Explorer, read any fax and listen to any telephone call made overseas? And your NZ taxes help make this possible. Check out this EU "Echelon" report.
Cool
optical illusion
Entertaining springs
So,
Bill,
which
way
does
the
world
go
around?
You can download my Excel/VB Sudoko
solver
You may wish to download the simple Visual Basic.net Countdown Timer (plus Visual Studio 2007 source,
and optional installer)
we
use
in
our
student
talks.
We
also
have
an
older
Visual
Basic
6
count
down
timer
(plus source) .
(Requires VB libraries.)
Thought for the Day
| Death |
|
| The return journey | |
| back to the port | |
| we once departed | |
| in a ship | |
| we know | |
| as Birth |
Best
experienced with
Click here to start.
