Welcome to the GAMS World

This is the home page of the GAMS World, a web site aiming to bridge the gap between academia and industry by providing highly focused forums and dissemination services in specialized areas of mathematical programming.

Substantial progress was made in the 1980s and 1990s with the development of algebra based modeling systems, algorithms, and computer codes to solve large and complex mathematical programs. The application of these tools, however, was less than expected. The abstraction, expression, and translation of real world problems into reliable and effective operational systems requires highly specialized and domains specific knowledge. The process of acquisition and dissemination of this knowledge is complex and poorly understood and the number of "good modelers" is much less than we all hoped for. Similarly, the process of transforming a new algorithm into a reliable and effective solution system is a slow and expensive process and there are few "good implementers". This web site hopes to address some of these problems by helping with the collection and dissemination of domain specific information and knowledge that is outside the established channels because of its content or form.

For example, model structures and results get published in commercial and academic papers but it is virtually impossible to reproduce any of those results or lift model components and data from one study to be used in some other study. Algorithm implementers face a similar dilemma when trying to get their hands on real world data models and data to test and refine their systems. This web site offers a few, well focused and maintained services to help with the dissemination of problms and solutions.

The GAMS World Forum is associated with GAMS World.