1. This site features VBA operations research add-ins for Excel.  These would likely come in handy for small-scale (and not-so-small-scale) O.R. modeling.  Dr. Paul Jensen, Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas, gave a keynote presentation on these tools yesterday at INFORMS 2010.

     
  2. This is an interesting program by Paul A. Jensen at the University of Texas that tracks/forecasts hurricanes using operations research algorithms.  It’s historical data is old, but it’s still worth a look.

    The Hurricane program tracks and forecasts hurricanes in and around the Gulf of Mexico. It accepts data published by the National Hurricane Center (NHC). The tracking program is implemented using VBA modules in an Excel workbook, hurricane.xls.

    The original forecast models were developed in the late 1970s by Bill Lesso, Professor Emeritus of the University of Texas. They were based on using a Markov process to model the movement of a storm, i.e. the next position only depends on the current position. To develop the probability transition matrices, several hundred historic storms tracks dating back to 1886 were used. The result was a simple, fast computer model that could be run on the newly introduced PC’s. On contract the NHC was using several different models that could be described as ‘aerosol physics’ models consisting of several hundred partial differential equations that, at that time took several hours to run.

    (via INFORMS)

     
  3. No more size limits in Excel Solver without paying for the full version, thanks to Open Solver (which is built on the COIN|OR system).

    screenshot

    (via Michael Trick)

     
  4. NaNoWriMo Tracker v.02

    -[ background ]-
     
    This is the sixth year that I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo, and (at least) the third year that I have used a spreadsheet to track my word count. Given that, as any WriMo knows, half (or more) of NaNoWriMo is spent avoiding actually writing one’s novel, I’ve spent far too long on this. The version from 2007 is lost, I’m afraid, but the sheet I created in 2008 has survived (and been tweaked incessantly so far this year). And that, dear reader/writer, is what I’m bringing to you. Behold!

    Why am I “releasing” this? After all, there are over 300,000 hits when one googles “nanowrimo word count.” Not all of these are trackers, but you get the idea. There are web-based trackers and there are other Excel-based trackers.

    Why, you ask? I figured that someone somewhere might find a use for it. Maybe I should have googled this before I built my own, though…but I still like it. Besides, it has given me a way to procrastinate during the past two Novembers.

    Using it should be pretty intuitive, I think, but comment if you need help. It makes several assumptions (ie., dates are for November, total word count goal is 50,000, etc.), though these should be easy to change if you’re familiar with Excel. Perhaps there will be another version later that allows these to be variable. We shall see!

    -[ features ]-

    • Daily and total word count
    • Best day
    • Average day (including zeroes)
    • Average writing day (excluding zeroes)
    • Pace
    • Projected completion date (updated daily)
    • Oodles of other statistics, many of which are redundant
    • Charts!

    -[ screenshots ]-

    Check out these screenshots! See how far behind I am!

    The Tracker Itself

    The Tracker Itself

    Summary Statistics

    Summary Statistics

    Total Chart, showing performance relative to target

    Total Chart, showing wordcount relative to goal for the month

    Daily Chart, showing wordcount relative to goal on a daily basis

    Daily Chart, showing wordcount relative to goal on a daily basis

    -[ license ]-
     
    Creative Commons License
    NaNoWriMo Tracker v.02 by Scumdog Steev is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

    -[ download ]-
     
    [ Excel 2003 version ] | [ Excel 2007 version ]

     
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