Modern operations research increasingly involves complex decision-making in data-rich environments where contextual information can significantly improve operational policies. This special issue focuses on integrating side information into optimization frameworks, combining advances from optimization, machine learning, and statistical learning. The challenge is to develop methods that go beyond historical averages to create adaptive, personalized solutions that effectively handle high-dimensional data, distribution shifts, and real-time computational demands.
The special issue welcomes contributions that develop novel theories, algorithms, and practical applications merging optimization with machine learning and data analytics. Priority is given to methods that address uncertainty while leveraging contextual information, with emphasis on improving actual decision quality and system performance rather than predictive accuracy alone.