It’s so nice to see you here in Lisbon. Thanks to our host “New University of Lisbon” for strongly supporting the Eighth International Conference on MSEM. Specially, Professor Machado and Prof. Fernando Santana’s preparation for this conference is so great. Thank you!

Over the past eight years, we tried our best to hold the conferences in Asia, America and Europe. We try to encourage the state-of-the-art research in the field of MSEM. More and more scholars are attending the conference and presenting their notable results. That means this conference gives us an opportunity to work together and make contributions to MSEM.

Although many achievements have been recognized, new changes and challenges never stop. For example, rapid development of information technology allows companies to store every single bit of information about production, inventory, service, and consumer activities. The era of “Big Data” calls for the better integration of optimization, statistics and data mining. These changes provide tremendous opportunities to improve MSEM. We need to develop new experiments, technologies and approaches to promote the research on MSEM.

In order to solve the changes and challenges on MSEM, this conference invites 6 keynote speakers to give us wonderful talks in the following two days, including Prof. Gen Mitsuo, Prof. Asaf Hajiyev, Prof. Nozer Sinpurwalla, Prof. Hossein Safari, Prof. Hu Zhineng and Dr. Alexandra Tenera. Welcome you and hope for your great speeches. And welcome our guests from Portugal, Japan, Spain, Azerbaijan, Germany, and so on. It’s your hard work and efforts that make this conference a success. I hope you will give us great speeches about Intelligent Systems, Decision Support Systems, Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management, Computing Methodology, Project Management, Industrial Engineering and Information Technology. Also, I wish you may enjoy yourselves in Lisbon. It has the beautiful scenery, delicious food, wonderful buildings here. 

It’s the World Cup season in Brazil now, and I am one of his biggest fans, and maybe you are also his fans. Lisbon is actually C. Ronaldo’s home country. I am so happy to be in his hometown. So exciting for his excellent performance in Brazil. 

Also the food of Lisbon, delicious egg tarts, Porto Red Wine, Seafood, Cheese and Rissoles Camaros, we hope that Prof. Machado has prepared these foods for us. If not, we will go out and have a taste after the conference. After this, I will bring some famous souvenirs, including the red wine and Portuguese chicken. You may buy some, too.

After the conference, we will go and see the famous triumphal arch in Lisbon. Then we want to go to Cabo da Roca for the beautiful sunset. We will also go to visit the Liberty Avenue, the longest bridge, the Stadium, the freedom square and so on. 

Before going back to home, female guests can go to the Columbia shopping centers and Da Gama shopping center. I was told that it is wonderful to buy clothes, foods here. 

All in all, this conference will be a feast of academics, culture, and tourism in Lisbon. It will be a grand gathering of friendship and cooperation. We aim to foster more research collaborations in a relaxed atmosphere. Hope you will enjoy it! Thank you again for joining us and making it such a success! I wish you a pleasant journey in Lisbon. 

Prof. Dr. Dr. Jiuping Xu

General Chair

President of the International Society of Management Science and Engineering Management

Academician of International Academy for Systems and Cybernetic Sciences

Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics and Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry

July 21, 2014