# Introduction into Operations Research

I am a first year graduate student who advisor wants me to learn about operations research and to use stochastic integer programming in my research. He keeps giving me papers to read but they regularly go over my head with there use of notation and lack of putting things into terms that I can understand. Does anyone know of a good INTRODUCTORY work that could get me to a level that I could actually start understanding papers enough to ask more insightful questions here? Preferably something that has numerical examples so that I can follow that math through the process and see the algorithms in action.

-
What is your background? Math/IE/CS? Further, Operations Research $\neq$ Mathematical Optimization although it uses the principles in Optimization a lot. What do you want to learn? Optimization or OR ? –  Inquest Jan 15 at 16:44
@cdhagmann: Taking into account Inquest's comment/question (excellent +1), maybe you can tell us if this sort of book is helpful (it is an amazing book and look at the author's web site for additional materials and code). Optimization in Operations Research by Ronald L. Rardin. I am not sure how much stochastic stuff it has for your particular need (although it has some), but it has plenty on OR and O. Regards –  Amzoti Jan 15 at 17:25