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October 2018

Analytica enthusiasts! 

This newsletter highlights key happenings at Lumina from the past month or two. For tips, informal demos, and some of our thoughts on effective modeling, also check out the Lumina blog.

Max Henrion awarded the prestigious Ramsey Medal

The Decision Analysis Society awarded the 2018 Frank Ramsey Medal to Max Henrion, CEO of Lumina and originator of Analytica. The medal is the Society’s highest award. It recognizes distinguished contributions to decision analysis, including decision theory, methods, applications, education, and public awareness. The citation highlights the role of Analytica in bringing methods from decision analysis to a wider audience. Read the full citation.

Meet us at INFORMS 2018: Learn how to engage with your clients

Come meet Max Henrion and Kim Mullins in person if you’re attending INFORMS 2018 in Phoenix, AZ on November 3 to 8. We’re focusing on showing how analysts can achieve greater success by effective engagement with their clients — and how you can use Analytica to help support your engagement. We’d love to see you at our events:

1. Analytica Workshop: How to engage with your clients for more effective analytics, Sat., Nov. 3, 1 to 3:30 pm (Rm 124B). Please sign up using the link.

2. Decision Analysis Awards Session: Come see Max Henrion receive the 2018 Frank Ramsey Medal from the Decision Analysis Society! Mon., Nov. 5, 4:30 to 6:05 pm

3. Analytica Tutorial: Using Analytica to engage with your clients, Tue., Nov. 6, 5:20 to 6:05 pm (Session TE34, Rm 223)

4. Talk: Using software to help engage with clients, Wed., Nov. 7, Nov. 7, 9 to 9:20 am (Session WA40, Rm 226B)

Join the Analytica user group on LinkedIn

We invite you to join the revitalized Analytica users group on LinkedIn if you are not already a member, or check back in if you are. This group links together Analytica users across the globe so they can ask questions, share lessons learned, discuss best practices, and work together to solve issues related to decision modeling and risk analysis. Expand your network in the Analytica community and engage with your peers!

Analytica plays nice with Python

Lonnie Chrisman has put together a series of blogs looking at how the Python programming language can be integrated with Analytica. So far he’s covered: calling Analytica from Python,  calling a Python NumPy package function from Analytica, using the Fiona package from Analytica to parse spatial data in a shapefile.

All of Lonnie’s Analytica and Python posts can be found here.

Tips & tricks: The expected value of information

The Expected Value of Information (EVI), a.k.a. the Value of Information (VoI), is the increase in expected value due to improved decision making after you get information that reduces your uncertainty. Some people claim that you can’t calculate EVI efficiently with Monte Carlo simulation. Actually, you can! Add the new Value of Information library to your Analytica models to use this sophisticated tool for sensitivity analysis