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An Interesting Christmas Gift
Over the holidays, the New York Times delivered an unusual juxtaposition of headlines and content, and apparent lack of self-awareness, to illicit such a hearty chuckle from its readers as to make the cheerful Old Saint jealous.
More »Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Energy Expenditure from Santa’s global tour
In a few weeks, Santa Claus will embark on his annual Christmas eve ritual, delivering presents to the good little boys and girls around the world. In this article, I look at the net energy expenditure and greenhouse gas emissions...
More »Congratulations to Dr. Max Henrion for Decision Analysis Society's 2014 Best Practice Award
I want to offer my congratulations to my colleague here at Lumina Decision Systems, our CEO Dr. Max Henrion. The annual INFORMS conference took place this week in San Francisco, where Max gave a presentation on the
More »Latin Hypercube vs. Monte Carlo Sampling
In a recent post on Linked In, David Vose argues that the advantages of Latin Hypercube sampling (LHS) over Monte Carlo are so minimal that "LHS does not deserve a place in modern simulation software." [1] He makes some interesting...
More »The Value of Knowing What You Don't Know
Few of us really like uncertainty. It fills us with dread. It frustrates our planning efforts. It makes analyzing its effects complex. After all, where in a spreadsheet do you put uncertain values for revenue or costs? Admittedly, accounting for...
More »Announcing Analytica 4.5
Lumina Decision Systems has announced the release of Analytica 4.5. One change that is sure to garner lots of attention is the new Analytica Free 101 edition. That's right -- there is now a fully functional edition of Analytica that you can...
More »Fast Times to the Core
I remember a time when my driver’s license was just a learner’s permit, tater tots were the best part of lunch, my Great Gatsby book report was due on Friday, and physics was all about stick figures and...
More »Salesforce Performance Attributes and Prediction
Running the sales arm of a company has its mix of regular client communications and stressful growth seeking periods. Good management of the salesforce and expectations from executives to salespeople demands understanding attributes of salesforce performance. Imagine needing to ramp...
More »Smart Grid Electricity Management and Decision Analytics
To smart or not to smart, that is the question! Except, despite what our TV offerings often display, going smart is always the best choice. Like any human-made system, we should aim toward smart designs, and we need this for...
More »Climate Change Effects and Econometric Electricity Demand Forecasting
Whether you find global warming as an ethereal notion only worthy of banter or, like many scientists, a real phenomenon to be studied, the effects pose difficulty for practitioners to forecast the behavior of commodities like electricity and...
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