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Franz Edelman Award

Healthcare

Artificial Intelligence

Can O.R. combat global warming?

This episode is one of a special series recorded during the 2019 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle. Joining me is Andy Philpott from the University of Auckland to discuss the topic of his keynote session from this year’s Meeting, “Zero Carbon Analytics,” which explored how analytics is being used to plan the transition to a world with net-zero carbon emissions to help combat climate change from global warming.

Tags: Andy Philpott, climate change, global warming, net-zero carbon economy, University of Auckland

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Fighting Poverty and Inequity with O.R.

This episode is one of a special series recorded during the 2019 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle. Joining me is Kamalini Ramdas from the London Business School, to discuss the topic of her keynote session, presented at the 2019 meeting. Her session, “Alleviating Poverty & Inequity: Fresh Challenges for Business Model Innovation,” explored how to use business model innovation to address chronic worldwide issues like poverty and inequity. In particular, we discuss an innovative, and unexpected, new approach to providing healthcare to patients in impoverished communities suffering from chronic illnesses.

Tags: business model innovation, inequity, Kamalini Ramdas, London Business School, poverty

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Data Ethics: Trust but Verify

This episode is one of a special series recorded during the 2019 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle. Joining me is Heidi Livingston Eisips from San Jose State University. She chaired a session at the 2019 Annual Meeting, “Debiasing Decision Making – Ethical Data Mining and Eliminating Algorithmic Bias,” that explored how to balance the benefits of data mining and data analytics in modern society while creating and sustaining a legal and ethical framework to prevent bias.

Tags: data bias, data ethics, data mining, Heidi Livingston Eisips, San Jose State University

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Chatbots, friend or foe?

Chatbots are currently utilized by many well-known companies including Amazon, Domino’s Pizza, American Eagle and Facebook to support a number of tasks including taking orders, providing recommendations, as well as used in customer service and other conversational interactions with customers. But what do customers really think of chatbots, and how do they compare to their human counterparts? Joining me for this episode to provide some insight into the impact of chatbot technology is Xueming Luo of Temple University, whose study “Frontiers: Machines vs. Humans: The Impact of Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Disclosure on Customer Purchases,” was recently published in the INFORMS…

Tags: AI, artificial intelligence, chatbot, customer service, future of workforce, future of workplace, Resoundingly Human

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To retire or not to retire? For academics, this can be a complicated question

In academia, a growing number of PhD graduates are competing for a limited number of academic positions, and with tenured professors often retiring later, the competition for these positions continues to increase. Joining me for this episode to take a deeper dive into this topic is Richard Larson, post-tenure professor in the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In this episode, Professor Larson draws on the results of several recently published papers, all from eight years of NIH-supported research. Most papers have coauthors, representing multiple disciplines and three universities: The Ohio State University, Virginia Tech, and the…

Tags: academics, Resoundingly Human, retirement, Richard Larson, tenure

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Helping businesses up their O.R. and analytics game

Organizations around the world, big and small, in nearly every industry, are implementing operations research and analytics to improve their business operations. But how can an organization tell how well it is using O.R. and analytics? With the INFORMS Analytics Maturity Model! Joining me to help tackle this topic is Norman Reitter, chief analytics officer and senior VP of Analytics Operations at CANA Advisors and chair of the INFORMS Analytics Capability Evaluation Subcommittee. To learn more about the Analytics Capability Evaluation program, contact Norm Reitter at nreitter@canallc.com or Taryn Lewis, INFORMS Director of Education and Industry Programs.

Tags: analytics, analytics capability, Analytics Capability Evaluation Coaching Program, Resoundingly Human

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Online shopping and fast shipping, what happens when things go south?

With online retailers like Amazon delivering nearly everything we could possibly need or want, often within a day or two of ordering it, we’ve become accustomed to and even reliant on the instant gratification that comes from shopping online. But what happens if access to expedited shipping were to suddenly and unexpectedly stop? Well for one online retail platform it did. Alibaba, an international online marketplace with nearly twice as many available products than Amazon, lost access to its shipping service for nearly 48 hours. To provide more insight on what happened, what the fallout was for Alibaba, and what…

Tags: Alibaba, Amazon, FedEx, online retail, online shopping, Ruomeng Cui, SF Express, UPS

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Smart cities and the future of the workforce

Smart cities. At one time, this term would have elicited visions of a Jetsons-type future of flying cars, robot housekeepers and moving sidewalks. And today, while all or our vehicles are still firmly grounded, smart city technology is bringing some once unimaginable concepts to life. It is having an increasing impact our daily lives in ways both big and small, while also helping to tackle some of the biggest issues faced in America’s cities. To take a deeper dive on smart cities, I am joined by Ramayya Krishnan, INFORMS President and the William W. and Ruth F. Cooper professor of Management…

Tags: Carnegie Mellon University, future of the workforce, Ramayya Krishnan, smart cities

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Type II diabetes, why haven’t new treatments resulted in better health?

New research shows that, while there have been significant new advancements in available treatments for type II diabetes, this has not translated to better health for those patients. In fact, the study shows that fewer than one in four Americans with diagnosed type II diabetes have achieved the American Diabetes Association’s recommended care targets … which is no better than 15 years ago. Joining me for this episode is the author of this research, Pooyan Kazemian, instructor in medicine at Harvard University Medical School and a research scientist in the division of general internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Tags: Massachusetts General Hospital, Pooyan Kazemian

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Combatting disasters to save lives, save money and solve problem

From hurricanes and earthquakes, to conflict and disease, these disasters, both man-made and natural, can have a devastating impact causing millions, and even billions in damages, while greatly impacting the lives, health and well-being of the affected populations. But how can we prepare for or respond to events that often can’t be predicted, nor their true impact estimated, in order to save lives, save money, and solve the myriad problems that come as a result? The answer: operations research and analytics. Joining me for this episode is Pinar Keskinocak, the 2019 INFORMS President-elect, professor with the Georgia Institute of Technology,…

Tags: diaster preparedness, disaster response, hurricanes, Pinar Keskinocak

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