April 2019
Analytica Enthusiasts!
For tips, informal demos, and some of our thoughts on effective modeling, check out the Lumina News.
Analytica 5.2 Released - Zoom, Annotate, and Plot Away
Key new features in Analytica 5.2 include zooming to see details in a graph and letting you mix data points and a fitted line in the same graph. The new OnGraphDraw attribute lets you annotate a graph with lines, regions, and labels and so customize the look of your result charts programmatically. It’s like a companion to the Computed Cell Formats we added in 5.0. Library functions let you add Tukey plots, Colored bands, Error bars and Point labels. The library lets you show points, lines, and regions over a Google map (requires Analytica Enterprise). Details here.
Get the 5.2 installer from the downloads page. If you have a 5.1 subscription, it will activate automatically with no need for you to get or enter a new activation code.
“Did I mention I LOVE the new interactive zoom feature in 5.2. I simply can't live without it anymore!”
Causality, Science, and Decision Analysis:
A Fireside Chat with Warner North at DAAG, interview by Max Henrion
We’ve all heard the term “correlation does not imply causation” – but how exactly does causality relate to probabilistic dependence, if at all? Two recent books provide key insights: The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect by Judea Pearl and Dana Mackenzie (NY: Basic Books, 2018), and Causal Analytics for Applied Risk Analysis by L. Anthony Cox, et al. (Springer, Vol. 270, 2018).
Warner North, the distinguished decision analyst, reviewed these books in the March 2019 edition of Risk Analysis. Max Henrion interviewed Warner on this fascinating and controversial topic at the March 8-9 DAAG 2019 Meeting Data + Decisions, in Denver, Colorado. Warner also explains the origin of the influence diagram.
Watch the interview on Youtube
The Battle for the Future of Energy: Decision Analysts’ Perspectives
There is heated debate about the future of the energy industry — driven by the urgency of climate change, radical cost reductions for wind, solar, and batteries, adoption of electric vehicles, and more. Can decision analysts contribute ways to think about this that generate less heat and more light? (No, that isn’t meant as a dig at fossil fuels in favor of solar!) At the same DAAG 2019, Max Henrion moderated a panel discussion on this topic with Professor Eric Bickel from University of Texas at Austin, Larry Neal, recently retired from Chevron, and Charlie Atkins from Eratosthenes. Watch the video on YouTube.
Decision Analysis and Cyber Security
Max Henrion, CEO of Lumina Decision Systems, will discuss how concepts from Decision Analysis, Data Science can support cyber security.
Max will present a toolkit called Analytica SCRAM (Software for Cyber Risk Analysis and Management) that works well with the FAIR model of cyber risk to quantify cyber threat possibilities and the resulting loss..
Steve Nunn, CEO of the Open Group (which developed the FAIR standard) will discuss the role of standards and how practitioner participation in standards development improves the thinking within that industry.
This FREE joint meeting of FAIR and Society of Decision Professionals (SDP) meeting will be April 23 from 4:30-6:30 at the San Jose State University New Student Union. The meeting will be webcast to the Strategic Decisions Group (SDG) office in San Mateo and Chevron offices in San Ramon. Register here.
Air pollution studies published by Kim Mullins
Kim Mullins, Senior Consulting Analyst at Lumina, is making news with her publications in prestigious journals on the impacts of air pollution. One article shows that blacks and hispanics in the US are exposed disproportionately to air pollution while benefiting less from the goods and services that generate the same air pollution. It’s gotten a lot of press – read the NPR coverage, and the PNAS article. A second article evaluates air quality effects on corn (maize) production as well as human health, in Nature Sustainability.
