Table Of ContentSpringer Proceedings in Business and Economics
Angelo Sifaleras
Konstantinos Petridis E ditors
Operational
Research in the
Digital Era –
ICT Challenges
6th International Symposium and 28th
National Conference on Operational
Research, Thessaloniki, Greece,
June 2017
Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics
Moreinformationaboutthisseriesathttp://www.springer.com/series/11960
Angelo Sifaleras • Konstantinos Petridis
Editors
Operational Research in the
Digital Era – ICT Challenges
6th International Symposium and 28th
National Conference on Operational
Research, Thessaloniki, Greece, June 2017
123
Editors
AngeloSifaleras KonstantinosPetridis
DepartmentofAppliedInformatics DepartmentofAppliedInformatics
UniversityofMacedonia UniversityofMacedonia
Thessaloniki,Greece Thessaloniki,Greece
ISSN2198-7246 ISSN2198-7254 (electronic)
SpringerProceedingsinBusinessandEconomics
ISBN978-3-319-95665-7 ISBN978-3-319-95666-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95666-4
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2018955699
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Foreword
I am very pleased to introduce this volume of proceedings from the above event,
co-organized by the Hellenic Operational Research Society (HELORS) and the
Department of Applied Informatics of the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki,
Greece.
Thepapersinthisvolumeareasampleofthedynamicandvariedresearchtaking
placeinthebroadfieldsofoperationalresearchandinformaticsinGreece.
Twoofthepapersaddresstheissueofforecastingusingneuralnetworks,onein
the field of energy consumption and the other in the field of employment. Neural
networksareanalternativetothemoretraditionaltimeseriesandeconometrically
basedforecastingmethods,obviatingtheneedformodelspecificationinthelatter
and the inherent risk of misspecification. Neural networks show much promise in
thefieldofforecasting.
Twopapersexaminecloudcomputing,onefromatraditionalandtheotherfrom
a less usual perspective. In the first case, the importance of cloud computing in
e-governmentisexplored.Inthesecondcase,cloudcomputingisseenfromagame-
theoretic-perspective.Pricingstrategiesforcloudsystemscanbeaddressedusinga
game theoretic approach. Both papers show how the two fields of informatics and
operationalresearchcanbeusedjointlytoaddressgovernanceandbusinessissues.
Anotherinterestingpaperholdingtheprospectofinterdisciplinaryresearch,isthat
addressingtheissueofcondition-basedmaintenance(CBM).Itdealswiththevery
issues addressed in servitization where the object traded is not a physical asset,
suchasanaircraftengine,butrathertheserviceofit,withtheengineremainingthe
propertyofthemanufacturerAlinkbetweenCBMandservitizationisclearlyworth
exploringfurther.
There are also in this volume, papers on social media analysis and on digital
currency adoption. These two areas are growing in use exponentially offering
a productive seam for further research. Another paper offering an interesting
perspective is that on the distinction between soft and technical skills and their
importanceforprospectiveemployersofgraduatesfromManagementScienceand
Informaticsdepartments.
v
vi Foreword
Icongratulatetheorganizersonputtingtogetheraninformativeconferenceand
encouragetheauthorsfeaturedinthisvolumetopursuewithvigortheirinteresting
researchagendas.
ProfessorinManagementSciences EmmanuelThanassoulis
AstonBusinessSchool
AstonUniversity
BirminghamB47ET
UnitedKingdom
Preface
ItisourgreatpleasuretointroducethisbookentitledOperationalResearchinthe
Digital Era: ICT Challenges, of the series Springer Proceedings in Business and
Economics, which contains selected, refereed proceedings from the 6th Interna-
tionalSymposium&28thNationalConferenceonOperationalResearch(HELORS
2017).Thisconferenceisanestablishedannualeventattendedbyalargenumberof
operationalresearch(OR)scientists,instructors,andstudents,mainlyfromGreece
butalsofromalloverEurope.
The purpose of the Conference is to disseminate recent scientific advances in
thefieldofoperationalresearchandmanagementscienceinGreeceandtopromote
internationalcooperationamongresearchersandpractitionersworkinginthefield.
Thespecificaimofthisyear’sConferenceistohighlighttheroleandimportanceof
OR in the digital era and the underlying ICT challenges (Operational Research in
theDigitalEra:ICTChallenges).
Three plenary talks were given by eminent researchers in the field of opera-
tional research. Professor John N. Tsitsiklis opened the conference by presenting
an overview of dynamic programming. Professor Georgios Doukidis addressed
businesstransformationstrategiesusingdata-driveninnovationsintheretailsupply-
chains.FinallyProfessorPanosM.Pardalosdemonstratedhowtousequantification
of network dissimilarities and its practical implications in several research areas
that include bioinformatics, climate dynamics, percolation in networks, network
robustness,andmodelselection.
Apart from the funds provided by the co-organizers, the conference attracted
thesponsorshipofwell-knowncompanies,suchasMarathonDataSystems,Open
Technology Services (OTS), ATLANTIS Consulting SA, Egnatia Odos AE, and
Geotechnical Chamber of Greece. Other partners of the conference include the
GreekMinistryofMacedoniaandThrace,OK!Thess,andtheAristotleUniversity
ofThessaloniki.
This year the conference was co-organized by the Department of Applied
InformaticsoftheUniversityofMacedoniaandtheHellenicOperationalResearch
Society (HELORS). It took place in the University of Macedonia, Greece, 8–10
June2017.TheconferencechairswereProfessorM.Vlachopoulou,G.Kalfakakou,
vii
viii Preface
and B. Manos. Around 94 papers were presented in 20 streams, including meta-
heuristics, multicriteria decision-making, data envelopment analysis, supply chain
optimization, etc. Apart from Greece, the conference received submissions from
Algeria,Finland,Serbia,Slovakia,Spain,Turkey,UnitedArabEmirates,theUnited
Kingdom, and the United States. After the reviewing process, the following 13
paperswereeventuallyacceptedforpublication:
Thebookbeginswiththemanuscript“FinalEnergyConsumptionForecastingby
Applying Artificial Intelligence Models” by G.N. Kouziokas, A. Chatzigeorgiou,
and K. Perakis. The authors apply artificial neural networks in order to build
and compare neural network forecasting models for predicting the final energy
consumption.
The second paper presents a short survey of recent game-theoretic approaches
applied in P2P networks and cloud systems, and it is titled “Game theoretic
approaches in cloud and P2P networks: Issues and challenges.” G. Koloniari and
A. Sifaleras provide a classification of game-theoretic approaches dealing with a
variety of problems encountered in the design and deployment of P2P and cloud
systems.
BousdekisandG.Mentzas,inthepaper“Aproactivemodelforjointmaintenance
andlogisticsoptimizationintheframeofIndustrialInternetofThings,”proposea
proactive event-driven model for joint maintenance and logistics optimization in
a sensor-based, data-rich industrial environment. The authors have validated their
approachinarealindustrialenvironment(oilandgasindustry)andalsoevaluated
theirresultsusingacomparativeandsensitivityanalysis.
The fourth paper studies the actual use of digital currency by companies and
freelancers globally with an emphasis in the European Union. I. Roussou and E.
Stiakakis in their paper titled “Adoption of Digital Currencies: The Companies
Perspective”presenttheresultsofanonlineacademicsurveyandapplyacombina-
tionofDiffusionofInnovation(DOI)Theory(mainlyInnovationDecisionProcess
Model, IDPM) and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), in order to investigate
theactualuseofdigitalcurrency.
In the paper by G.N. Kouziokas titled “Unemployment Prediction in UK by
Using a Feedforward Multilayer Perceptron,” the aim is to implement prediction
modelsbyusingartificialneuralnetworksinordertoforecastunemployment.The
authorconsideredseveralsocioeconomicfactorsandevaluatedtheirfindingsusing
realdatacollectedfromtheofficialwebsiteoftheUKOfficeforNationalStatistics.
Thesixthpaperistitled“PerformanceEvaluationofRoutingProtocolsforBIG
Data application” and authored by E. Balasas, K. Psannis, and M. Roumeliotis. It
illustrates how dynamic routing protocols perform in real-time applications. The
proposedstudyassesstheuseofthreeinteriorgatewayroutingprotocolsforvideo
conferencingandVoIP.
S.P. Gayialis, G.D. Konstantakopoulos, and I.P. Tatsiopoulos, in the paper
“Vehicle Routing Problem for Urban Freight Transportation: A Review,” present
a literature review from Scopus scientific database of the vehicle routing problem
(VRP)forurbanfreighttransportation.Theauthorsdiscusssomecriticalinsightsof
thestudyandanalyzethetrendsoftheVRPforurbanfreighttransportation.
Preface ix
The eighth paper is titled “Development of a framework for the assessment of
softskillsintheICTsector”andauthoredbyV.A.Valavosiki,E.Stiakakis,andA.
Chatzigeorgiou.Theauthorsaimtodevelopaframeworkfortheassessmentofboth
technicalandnontechnicalskillsintheinformationtechnologyandcommunications
sector.
In the paper by I. Nanos, V. Manthou, and E. Androutsou titled “Cloud
Computing Adoption Decision in E-government,” the relationship between cloud
computingande-governmentisinvestigated.Theauthorshighlighttheimportance
ofcloudcomputingadoptioninpublicadministrationandofferinsightsontheway
thatcloudcomputingcancontributetothesuccessfuldeploymentofe-government
services.
Thebookcloseswiththemanuscript“Aunifiedframeworkfordecision-making
process on social media analytics” by N. Misirlis and Maro Vlachopoulou. The
authors consider the procedures that have to be followed in order to achieve the
most optimized choice of social media analytics methodology initiating the 4P’s
procedure(people,purpose,platform,andprocess).
Thessaloniki,Greece AngeloSifaleras
Thessaloniki,Greece KonstantinosPetridis
April2018
