Data, Analytics & Information Systems  
November 2018 Newsletter
President's Message

Dear IISE Data Analytics & Information Systems (DAIS) Division Members, 

It is my pleasure to serve as your president and provide a quick update on last year's DAIS activities, changes in leadership, and exciting plans and upcoming events for 2018-2019.

Last year, under our past president Hui Yang's leadership, and based on member and board polling, we changed our division name to "Data Analytics and Information Systems" to better align with the interests of our membership and the rising broader popularity of these areas. We had a strong showing for our division at the 2018 Industrial & Systems Engineering Research Conference (ISERC) held at the Loews Royal Pacific Resort, in Orlando FL, with 79 presentations organized in 24 sessions. This growth in interest and activity could not have been accomplished without your support and participation, and the hard work of our board members, so thank you! Special thanks to the board members Chen Xin and Changqing Cheng for serving as track chairs and organizing the Best Paper competitions, and John Usher for organizing the Mobile App competition.

The key activities of the DAIS division planned for 2018-2019 are:
  • IIE-DAIS Mobile/Web App Competition (broadened to include non-mobile web-apps this year)
  • Webinar Series (Winter and Spring)
  • Best Paper Award Competition
  • Best Student Paper Award Competition
  • DAIS Tracks and Town Hall Meeting in the 2019 IISE Conference & Expo
There are also two exciting new additions. First, due to its strong student membership, DAIS has been selected as one of four divisions to participate in the inaugural Student Leadership Boards. The student board will help influence and drive the DAIS mission, and already its members have shown great enthusiasm in their ideas and plans. I would like to welcome your student board leaders Mehrad Bastani (president), Kaan Unnu, John Vasek, Oluwakemi Adio, and Sarah Schwartz, and thank them for their service. Second, we are preparing an inaugural data analytics competition, so please stay tuned for an announcement in the coming months!

I would like to thank our board members for their committed service in making these activities possible (board members are listed here). Please also join me in welcoming our new president-elect, Andrew Yu from the University of Tennessee, and four new directors, Chen Kan from the University of Texas Arlington, Ying Lin from the University of Houston, Sinan Onal from Southern Illinois University @Edwardsville, and Na Zou from Texas A & M. Thank you for participating in the election. If interested in actively contributing, please also consider applying for the DAIS board - the call for nominations will be out in early 2019 and we encourage applicants from both industry and academia. Additionally, I would like to thank our exiting board members for all their hard work and dedication: John Usher, Bimal Nepal, and David Porter.

Finally, the 2019 IISE Annual Conference & Expo will be held May 18-21, 2019, at the Rosen Shingle Creek Hotel in Orlando, Florida. The abstract submission deadline is November 9th - please consider contributing to the DAIS track by submitting an abstract. There are also opportunities to organize invited sessions, panels, and tutorials. Please contact any of the board if you are interested (board members are listed here).

I look forward to your participation in the DAIS division and track of the 2018 IISE Annual Conference and Expo and seeing you there in Orlando in May, and I wish you all a prosperous year!

Sincerely,
Brian Quanz
DAIS Division President, 2018-2019

CALL FOR PAPERS - Best Student Paper Competition
Four finalists for the Best Student Paper Award will be selected to make oral presentations at the 2019 IISE Annual Conference to be held in Orlando, FL, from May 18-21, 2019. All finalists will receive an award certificate. The winner will also receive a plaque. The Best Student Paper Award will be presented at the town hall meeting of the DAIS Track during the 2019 IISE Annual Conference.  
The broad criteria for selecting the recipient of the DAIS Best Student Paper Award are: (a) academic significance (originality, depth, and completeness of the work and its potential impact on future research); and (b) research relevance to DAIS (importance of the problem and its impact on the practice of DAIS). Click here to see the eligibility requirements and application process.   Eligibility Requirements and Application Process here.
If you have any questions, please send an email (with subject "DAIS Best Student Paper Competition") to the coordinators. All submitted papers will be reviewed and ranked by external referees and finalists will be announced on Mar 29, 2019. The winner of the competition will be decided upon the review evaluation and oral presentation.
CALL FOR PAPERS - Best Track Paper Competition
The Data Analytics & Information Systems (DAIS) Division of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering (IISE) announces the  DAIS Best Track Paper Competition
. The purpose of this competition is to honor outstanding papers in research and practice of data analytics and information systems. Eliligibility requirements and application process here.
All eligible papers will be ranked by the sum of the two weighted scores of the external referees. Four finalists for the Best Track Paper Award will be selected based on the final ranking and discussion to make oral presentations at the 2019 IISE Annual Conference to be held in Orlando, FL, from May 18-21, 2019. The committee will select the winner(s) based on the review evaluation and oral presentation . All finalists will receive an award certificate. The winner will also receive a plaque. The Best Track Paper Award will be presented at the town hall meeting of the DAIS Track during the 2019 IISE Annual Conference. Read more of the evaluation process. 
If you have any questions, please send an email (with subject "DAIS Best Track Paper Competition") to the 2019 contest coordinators, Dr. Sinan Onal  and Dr. Chen Kan Late submissions will not be eligible for the contest.
Abstract Submissions - Deadline Nov. 9
 
The Data Analytics and Information Systems (DAIS) Division of the Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers (IISE) is sponsoring the DAIS Track at the 2019 IISE Annual Conference and Expo. As track chairs, we would like to encourage you to contribute to the conference by submitting abstracts with no more than 200 words. Authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to present their work in a session. An author may be the presenter of a maximum of two accepted abstracts. Each session will be 80 minutes and have four presenters. Each speaker will have 20 minutes for his or her presentation.

The  IISE DAIS  Division brings together members from academia, industry and government who share a common interest in topics related to the research and practice of
data analytics and information systems. The  DAIS track in IISE Annual Conference 2019 welcomes abstract in all technical areas relevant to the theory, methodology, and practice of  DAIS,  View list here . Submit your abstract  and  read more about the conference.

In addition to abstract and presentation, a full paper with a maximum of six pages may be submitted and will undergo a double-blind peer review process. Authors may indicate or self-nominate whether the paper should be considered for publication in Conference Proceedings and be considered for Best Student Paper competition and Best Track Paper Competition. Read the important deadlines here.

If your abstract or paper is accepted: (a) the presenting author for the paper must register for the conference by the presenting author registration deadline (presentations/papers without the presenting author being registered for the conference will be withdrawn from the program and the proceedings); (b) the presenting author must attend and present the paper at the conference; and (c) we ask that you be ready to serve as a reviewer for fellow authors and follow review deadlines.
 
There are also opportunities to organize invited sessions or panels. Please contact Dr. Hui Yang or Dr. Sebastian Pokutta directly if you have interest. In addition to research presentations, the annual conference offers many opportunities for attendees, including the Applied Solutions Conference program, plant tours, networking, and keynote speakers

We look forward to seeing you in Orlando! 
2018 IISE Annual Conference & Expo - DAIS Division Activities 

This past spring marked an unprecedented year for the DAIS division in terms of presentations and sessions at the 2018 IISE Annual Conference & Expo. From March 2018, the CIS (Computer and Information Systems) division has a new name of DAIS to embrace both public and community interests in "Data Analytics" and represent what our members really do in the new era. This name change has been unanimously approved by the TVP Board and IISE Board. Also, our new DAIS division had a strong showing at the 2018 Industrial & Systems Engineering Research Conference (ISERC) held at the Loews Royal Pacific Resort, in Orlando FL, with 79 presentations organized in 24 sessions in a variety of topics. We look forward to increasing our presence again in 2019 IISE Annual Conference, Rosen Shingle Creek Hotel, Orlando with your contributions and collaboration in division activities!

At the DAIS Town Hall during the conference, we:
  • Covered the DAIS mission, which can be viewed online.
  • Discussed the status and accomplishments of the DAIS Division. The DAIS Division has been very active and is in excellent condition. Membership as of Spring 2018 stood at 2,582, with 1,588 student members and 992 academic and industry members. In addition to organizing the DAIS conference track, we conducted two webinars, put out Fall & Spring newsletters, organized the Mobile App student competition, and held a best track and best student paper competition.
  • Introduced our new board members and board changes. Hui Yang [Pennsylvania State University] have moved to the Past President position, Brian Quanz [IBM T.J. Watson Research Center] is now serving in the President position, and Andrew Yu [University of Tennessee] has joined the Board as President-Elect. Current Directors in the DAIS Board this year include Chen Kan [University of Texas Arlington], Ying Lin [University of Houston], Sinan Onal [Southern Illinois University@Edwardsville], and Na Zou [Texas A & M], Xin Chen [SIU Edwardsville], Changqing Cheng [Binghamton University], Dongping Du [Texas Tech University], and Saeed Ghanbartehrani [Ohio University]. Many, many thanks to our board members completing their terms: John Usher [Mississippi State] and Bimal Nepal [Texas A & M].
  • Announced the DAIS Best Paper Award winner, which went to Wenjin Tao, Ze-Hao Lai, Ming C. Leu from Missouri University of Science and Technology for their paper "American Sign Language Alphabet Recognition Using Leap Motion Controller"
  • Announced the DAIS Best Student Paper Award winner, which went to Haluk Damgacioglu, Nurcin Celik from the University of Miami for their paper "MR2: A Two-stage Feature Selection Algorithm in High-throughput Methylation Data for Max-relevance and Min-redundancy"
  • Held our 6th annual Mobile App Competition. Competition results were as follows:
    • 1st Place: "Speak For Myself® (SFM)," authored by Nikhil Jagirdar, Pradeep Velur Rajashekaran from University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Hui Yang, Ph.D.
Past President, DAIS Division
 

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Message from The Student Board

Dear IISE Data Analytics and Information System (DAIS) Division members,
I hope that your academic year is going well. It is my pleasure to have an opportunity to serve the community as the president of DAIS Student Leadership Board. First, I thank DAIS board members for creating student leadership board that provides a connection between students and board committee members. I will continuously work with the other board members to keep the connection and consider student demands. I would like to cordially invite students to contribute to DAIS by providing suggestions to student leadership board, following our social media, joining IISE DAIS webinars, and participating in Best Student Paper Competition.
Last but not the least, I would like to thank our new student board members, Kaan Unnu, John Vasek, Oluwakemi Adio, and Sarah Schwartz, and our Technical Vice President John Jackman, for their tremendous efforts and dedicated service to our DAIS division! We look forward to your participation in the DAIS track of 2019 IISE Annual Conference and Expo. Please feel free to contact any of us in order to improve the division. See you all in Orlando FL, May 2019!!
Sincerely,
Mehrad Bastani
President of DAIS Student Leader Board
2019 DAIS Mobile/ Web App Competition
The details of the 7th annual mobile/web app competition are now available. The competition continues to grow and we expect the 2019 edition to be another success. Two-page proposals are due on Monday, November 19, 2018, via email to the competition chair Dr. Andrew J. Yu and Dr. Chen Kan and must include a list of team members and their affiliations, the name of the mobile/web app, a list of features of the mobile/web app, and the target market segment(s) of the mobile/web app. Other critical dates include:
 
Decision on proposals: December 3, 2018.
Mobile/web app submission: February 18, 2019.
Selection of finalist teams: March 11, 2019.
 
Winners will be selected by a panel of judges at the 2019 IISE Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida (May 18 - 21, 2019).
 
Click Here to view a complete description of the details of the mobile app competition.
Upcoming DAIS Webinars

Analysis of Large Heterogeneous Repairable System: Reliability Data in Big Data Environment
Presented by Data Analytics and Information Systems 
Nov. 29, 2 p.m. Eastern time
Presenter: 
Xiao Liu, Ph.D., assistant professor, University of Arkansas
In the age of Big Data, one pressing challenge facing engineers is to perform reliability analysis for a large fleet of heterogeneous repairable systems with covariates. 
Omni-Channel Markdown Optimization

One of the benefits of belonging to a professional society is the opportunity to share knowledge about various topics of interest.

Dr. Markus Ettl and his team at IBM Research have been working on a number of challenging problems in pricing and marketing across multiple domains, including e-commerce. Through a partnership with IBM Commerce, a leading provider of merchandising solutions, they engaged with a major U.S. consumer electronics retailer to address the challenges it faced in its switch to omnichannel operations, and together developed the next generation omnichannel markdown optimization (MDO) system. The retailer operates more than 1,000 stores and an online store. Store inventory is extensively used to fulfill online orders via ship-from-store (SFS) ful fillment option.
Their team developed a data-driven omnichannel system (demand forecast engine, price optimization engine) that:
1. Models demand substitution between the online and store channels.
2. Jointly optimizes omnichannel prices (OCP) and cross-channel fulfillment inventories (X).
3. Handles various business constraints (e.g, price bounds, minimum time between price changes), which they refer to as the OCPX system. A proprietary implementation of OCPX is now commercially available as part of the IBM Commerce Markdown Price Solution. The retailer has been gradually transitioning its clearance pricing to OCPX analytics in a live pilot. A causal model analysis on the live pilot data shows a 12% increase in clearance period revenue with OCPX analytics. Gains from OCPX arise inventory rebalancing using omnichannel prices (more SFS inventories from stores with low sell-through rates) and through better management of channel demands.