Tag: coronavirus

2022 Franz Edelman Competition: Janssen

This podcast is part of a special series featuring the 2022 finalist teams for the INFORMS Franz Edelman Award for Achievement in Advanced Analytics, Operations Research and Management Science, the most prestigious award for achievement in the practice of O.R. and advanced analytics. For more than four decades, the Edelman Award has recognized contributions that are transforming how we approach some of the world’s most complex problems. Finalists for the Edelman Award have contributed to a cumulative impact of more than $336 billion since the award’s inception, as well as countless other nonmonetary benefits. The winner of this year’s award…

Tags: clinical trials, coronavirus, COVID-19, Janssen, Johnson & Johnson, pandemic, vaccine

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Responding to COVID-19: What we (should have) learned from SARS

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented global event that for more than a year now has completed transformed nearly every aspect of our day-to-day lives. For most of us, the pandemic is unlike anything we’ve ever experienced, with comparisons frequently made to the Spanish Influenza outbreak more than a century ago. But in certain parts of the world, the potential danger presented by the coronavirus was identified and responded too far earlier than in others. And it wasn’t only government officials and decision-makers sharing these realizations, but average people, like you and me. My guest for today’s episode is Hong…

Tags: coronavirus, COVID-19, Hong Ru, pandemic, SARS

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COVID-19 testing: Accuracy vs. availability, where is the balance?

From the moment the earliest cases of the coronavirus were detected in the U.S., the ability to test for and track infection rates and cases has been one of the most significant tools in combatting the virus, and played an essential role in developing guidelines and policies to reduce its spread. And today, testing paired with increasing access to vaccines, continues to play an important role in our gradual reopening and return to normal. To take a look back over the types of testing, their levels of accuracy, how they developed and their impact, I am pleased to welcome my…

Tags: accuracy, coronavirus, COVID-19, Kimon Drakopoulos, Ramandeep Randhawa, testing

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Virtual queues: How managing wait time information can improve the customer experience

No one likes waiting in lines, it’s a fact. Whether at the grocery store checkout searching desperately for the shortest line, or watching the clock tick while waiting our turn at the dentist’s office, or at an amusement park, looking at the long lines and deciding how badly we really want to ride our favorite ride, most of will do everything we can to avoid waiting. And even since the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, when so many aspects of our lives are now conducted virtually, we still find ourselves waiting in lines, or in this case, in virtual queues,…

Tags: coronavirus, Georgia Tech, Qiuping Yu, virtual queues, waiting in lines, waiting rooms

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Approaching COVID-19 reopening as an O.R. problem

As the country begins to reopen, we are seeing restrictions put in place to counteract the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic begin to loosen. I think many of us are battling conflicting emotions: excitement at the idea of a return to something closer to normal as well as uncertainty and anxiety, with each state reopening at a different rates and even inconsistencies in requirements regarding the use of face masks. And with some states seeing new spikes in infection rates, it begs the question, in a desire to return to normal are we moving too quickly, or perhaps simply going…

Tags: coronavirus, COVID-19, operations research, pandemic, reopening, University of Texas, Victoria Chen

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Preparing for a second wave of COVID-19

It seems surreal to think that at the start of this year, few of us were aware of the threat of a novel new virus gaining momentum overseas. Now, only a few months later, the coronavirus or COVID-19, is a global pandemic, the effects of which have impacted nearly every aspect of our day-to-day lives. As the number of cases in the U.S. continued to grow, states enacted restrictions to enforce social distancing efforts, with stay at home orders, business closures, and for businesses deemed essential, establishing guidelines to ensure customer and employee safety. At the heart of this was…

Tags: coronavirus, COVID-19, flatten the curve, infection rates, Julie Swann, North Carolina State University, social distancing

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Data privacy vs. data security: Overcoming our fear of sharing data

We are living in an increasingly digital world. Never has this been more apparent than our current reality of social distancing, as we are forced to commit to conducting more and more of our daily lives online, from business meetings, to shopping, to interacting with our families. In this new normal, questions and concerns regarding maintaining the security and privacy of our data have moved even further into the spotlight. For this episode I am joined by Rachel Cummings, professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech to discuss the relationship between data…

Tags: 2020 U.S. Census, coronavirus, COVID-19, data privacy, data security, data sharing, Georgia Tech, pandemic, Rachel Cummings

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How O.R. is helping our first responders combat the coronavirus epidemic

From EMTs and hospital staff, to firefighters and police, our first responders are continuing to provide essential and often life-saving services to protect our health and security, despite serving on the front lines of the pandemic response. I’m joined by Laura Albert, professor of industrial & systems engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to discuss her research regarding emergency response during mass casualty incidents, and how operations research can provide valuable insight to support the efforts of our first responders.

Tags: coronavirus, COVID-19, emergency response, EMS, first responders, Laura Albert, mass casualty event, University of Wisconsin-Madison

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From products to people: The growing impact of supply chain interruptions during the coronavirus pandemic

Throwback to March 18, 2020. In the past week alone, much has occurred in regard to the growing impact of the coronavirus, or COVID-19, in the U.S. As the number of confirmed cases of the virus across the country continues to increase, travel to the U.S. from Europe has been significantly restricted and state and local governments are taking equally assertive precautions. In the INFORMS home state of Maryland alone, the governor has issued a state of emergency that includes closing schools and other public institutions, banning large gatherings, and instructing people to isolate themselves from others. As these restrictions…

Tags: Carnegie Mellon University, coronavirus, COVID-19, Johns Hopkins University, Sridhar Tayur, supply chain disruptions, Tinglong Dai

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A look inside the rapid spread of the coronavirus, what are we missing?

In December 2019, the first cases of the coronavirus were identified in Wuhan, China. As the number of infections and subsequent patient deaths has continued to rise, the struggle to treat and contain the spread of the virus has become a worldwide concern for both medical professionals and world leaders. For this episode I am joined by Richard Larson, post-tenure professor in the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose recently published article with the INFORMS magazine OR/MS Today, “The 2019-nCoV Coronavirus: Are there two routes to infection?” looks at the possible reasons this…

Tags: coronavirus, disease transmission, infection, MIT, Richard Larson

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