News

October 19, 2017

"A Tree-based Approach for Addressing Self-Selection in Impact Studies with Big Data" at INFORMS Data Science Workshop

On Saturday morning, I'll present a talk on "A Tree-based Approach for Addressing Self-Selection in Impact Studies with Big Data" at the 1st INFORMS Workshop on Data Science in Houston, TX. I'll describe our proposed tree-based approach as an alternative to propensity scores, which has several advantages over PSM. This is joint work with Inbal Yahav and Deepa Mani, published in MISQ in 2016.

When: Saturday, Oct 21, Session 1A (9:00 – 10:30)
Where: Hilton Americas-Houston, Level 3, Room 344


October 19, 2017

"Researcher Dilemmas using Behavioral Big Data in Healthcare": Keynote at INFORMS DMDA Workshop

This coming Saturday I'll deliver a keynote talk on "Researcher Dilemmas using Behavioral Big Data in Healthcare" at the 12th INFORMS Workshop on Data Mining and Decision Analytics in Houston, TX.

When: Saturday, Oct 21, 13:45-14:30
Where: Hilton Americas-Houston, Level 3, Room 339

Abstract:
Behavioral big data (BBD) refers to very large and rich multidimensional data sets on human and social behaviors, actions, and interactions, which have become available to companies, governments, and researchers. A growing number of researchers acquire and analyze BBD for the purpose of extracting knowledge and scientific discoveries. However, the relationships between the researcher, data, human subjects, and research questions differ in the BBD context compared to non-BBD and even traditional behavioral data. Researchers using BBD face not only methodological and technical challenges but also ethical and moral dilemmas. In this talk, I will discuss several dilemmas, challenges, and trade-offs related to acquiring and analyzing BBD in healthcare research.


September 6, 2017

R edition of Data Mining for Business Analytics textbook now available!

Wiley just notified us that our new textbook Data Mining for Business Analytics in R is out! Thanks to all those who've encouraged us to write the R edition, to the beta testers, and to the many folks who've been holding their breath. And thanks to Professors Gareth James and Ravi Bapna for writing wonderful Forwords!

The R edition covers the same topics as the 3rd edition of Data Mining for Business Analytics with XLMiner that came out last year. This Fall I am teaching a course that allows students to choose between the two editions.

As with the other editions, all datasets (and R code!) are available at www.dataminingbook.com. Adopting instructors can get access to instructor materials that include slides, solutions to end-of-chapter problems and cases, and more.


June 29, 2017

"Research Dilemmas with Behavioral Big Data" now published

My paper Research Dilemmas with Behavioral Big Data now appears in the new issue of Big Data journal. This is part of a special issue on Social and Technical Trade-Offs, guest edited by Barocas, boyd, Friedler & Wallach, and includes multiple important papers for data scientists, dealing with issues of ethics, bias, fairness and related topics.


June 17, 2017

Keynote at 2017PLS on "When Prediction Met PLS"

This morning I delivered the opening keynote address at the 9th international conference on PLS and related methods (2017PLS), in Macau, on "When Prediction Met PLS: What We learned in 3 Years of Marriage". My slides are now publicly available on Slideshare. Two more sessions today were dedicated to prediction, and even outside those sessions there were several talks focusing on prediction and PLS models.


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