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Healthcare

Franz Edelman Award

How video game companies can “level up” their profits

The video game industry is growing at a phenomenal rate, generating a record $43.4 billion in revenue in 2018, an increase of nearly 20 percent from the year before. The largest area of growth within this industry has been in the online gaming community. But with players functioning at different skill levels and an even wider range of interest areas, how can companies ensure players remain engaged and their products continue to grow in popularity? Joining us for this episode to provide new insight into online gamer behavior is Yan Huang from Carnegie Mellon University, whose research which was recently…

Tags: Online Gaming, operations research, Resoundingly Human, Video Games

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Is your favorite restaurant at risk of failing its health inspection?

Has this ever happened to you? Walking up to your favorite local restaurant, looking forward to a delicious meal only to discover … it has failed its restaurant inspection! Yuck. I think there are few events that will convince you to eat at home more. But what if there was a way to anticipate if a restaurant was at risk of failing an inspection well before this actually happened? In this episode, we will hear from James Howard, a scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, whose research has helped identify if a restaurant will fail an inspection before…

Tags: James Hoawrd, Johns Hopkins, operations research, restaurant inspections

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Just how bad for business are your Facebook comments?

More than 60 million companies maintain business pages on Facebook, allowing them to connect with existing customers as well as reach new ones. And with more than 1.62 billion people log onto Facebook daily, this might seem like a great way to reach a nearly limitless audience. However, the Facebook platform which enables consumers to provide comments and feedback, provides companies with very little power to control what is posted on their pages, leaving them open to negative feedback which could have a damaging effect on their brands. To give us insight into the nature of the comments consumers are…

Tags: business pages, Facebook, Mochen Yang, Resoundingly Human

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Tackling the holiday rush at UPS

In the few short weeks between Thanksgiving and the New Year, the number of packages processed, transported and delivered by UPS will more than double to meet the demand of holiday gift giving! Joining us to provide a behind the scenes look at the busiest time of year for UPS is Ranganath Nuggehalli, principal scientist at UPS, to talk about how O.R. helps make the holidays merry!

Tags: Holiday, ORION, Ranganath Nuggehalli, Resoundingly Human, UPS

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A year of advocacy milestones

This episode features my last interview with the 2019 President of INFORMS Ramayya Krishnan, professor and dean with the Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, as we look back over the milestones of his presidency, including INFORMS’ advocacy work, as well as a look ahead to what’s next.

Tags: advocacy, artificial intelligence, Carnegie Mellon University, Ramayya Krishnan, Resoundingly Human

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Detecting Alzheimer’s Disease

This episode is one of a special series recorded during the 2019 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle. Joining me for this episode is Maryam Zokaei Nikoo from Pennsylvania State University to discuss research she shared at this year’s Annual Meeting. Her presentation, “Using Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing to Predict Alzheimer’s Disease,” is based on research to improve early detection of Alzheimer’s, a disease currently impacting 5.8 million Americans and the 6th leading cause of death in the U.S. Want to take a deeper dive? Check out the brief introduction of the research referenced in this podcast below for…

Tags: Alzheimer's disease, interpretable prediction models, natural language processing

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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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