A shipment leaving a factory in Groningen, Netherlands, actually takes several days and hops across multiple vehicles before it reaches a consumer in Versailles, via Utrecht, Antwerp, and Paris. 📦 In logistics optimization, "first mile" (producer to hub) and "last mile" (hub to consumer) have been studied for decades. But the segment connecting them, "middle mile," relaying goods between distribution centers at regional or continental scale, has stayed largely unstudied despite its huge operational cost. The reason is simple: logistics companies guard their network topology and demand volumes as trade secrets, leaving researchers without realistic data to work with. 🧭 Google Research's "MilleMiglia: A Realistic Instance Generator for Middle-Mile Logistics" ( fills that gap. Instead of treating middle-mile as just another VRP variant, it reframes it as a multi-commodity flow problem on a space-time graph, folding three non-negotiable hard constraints, fixed schedules, hub throughput limits, and arrival-triggered synchronization, into a single unified file format. 🌍 Using gravity-model hub placement and realistic demand distributions, it generates everything from small academic toy problems to continent-scale industrial instances and large ML training datasets, all while protecting privacy. The goal: become the CVRPLIB of middle-mile research, a standard benchmark the whole community can build on. #LogisticsOptimization# #OperationsResearch#

481 PolyU Scholars Ranked Among World’s Top 2% Most-Cited Scientists 2026 👏 PolyU’s research excellence has once again earned global recognition! In the latest World’s Top 2% Most-cited Scientists list released by Stanford University, 274 PolyU scholars were recognised for their career-long citation impact. Together with those named for single-year citation impact, a total of 481 scholars made the list, ranking second among Hong Kong universities. 📈 Highlights from the career-long citation rankings: 🔹 Six scholars ranked in the global top 10 in their respective fields: - Ir Prof. C.S. POON (Building and Construction) - Prof. Jin-Guang TENG, PolyU President (Civil Engineering) - Ir Prof. T.C. Edwin CHENG (Operations Research) - Prof. ZHU Zi-Qiang (Electrical and Electronic Engineering) - Prof. Qihao WENG (Geological and Geomatics Engineering) - Prof. Jean Claude BÜNZLI (Inorganic and Nuclear Chemistry) 🔹 No. 1 worldwide among universities across three sub-fields: Building and Construction; Operations Research; and Sport, Leisure and Tourism 🔹 No. 1 in Hong Kong across 27 sub-fields^, including Building and Construction, Materials, and Energy Learn more in the comments below. #PolyU# #PolyUResearch# #PolyImpact# #TopScholars# #WorldsTopScientists# ^Including sub-fields in which PolyU is tied with other local institutions

FM Speaker Highlight: Morgan Hsieh Morgan Hsieh is an experienced professor with a demonstrated history in education management, skilled in AI, blockchain, and data analysis, holding a Ph.D. in Operations Research from Stanford University. We can't wait to welcome them to the FM26 stage. FUTUREMODE 2026 📍 Taipei Expo Dome | Sep 4–6, 2026 🌐 🏟 Get Your FM26 Pass Local - International -