In many grocery stores throughout the country, the acronym “WIC” accompanies a number of the food items on the shelves. The letters stand for the federal “Women, Infants and Children” program that provides nutritional food to pregnant women and their young children who are in need. While this is a
One would expect analytics in government to be a hot topic at a SAS government event. What the crowd didn't see coming was Margaret Weichert, Acting Director of the US Office of Personnel Management and Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget, touting her ability to
Artificial intelligence often seems misunderstood, especially in fraud. The same is true of machine learning. One of the amazing things about them is they ask the unasked questions. This occurs as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) go about their daily work. So, what is the unasked question? Too
An abundance of data does not equal an abundance of wisdom. At the SAS Government Leadership Forum, leaders from federal, state and local agencies will discuss how analytics can bridge the gap between data and wisdom to make meaningful changes in how government operates. Analytics, however, is not just about
About two-thirds of the way through her Analytics Experience presentation, Dr. Tricia Wang showed a video from Frans de Waal, a world-renowned primatologist. The video showed two monkeys receiving rewards for giving a researcher a rock. Each time a monkey handed over a rock it received a piece of cucumber.
Nothing says you are wasting your time and energy more than referring to a process as plowing a field with a fork. I liked to use this phrase as a manager and auditor, especially in government. Good data analytics makes a big difference in problem solving. Does anyone think a
People across the country (and world) are not getting the care they need. There are many data efforts to address that, but I personally believe traditional analytics are short-sighted, too illness-focused, and remarkably negative. We need to take a more holistic approach to data, policy, and health care, including traditional
Soccer has been on my mind since the recent tournament in Russia, and fraud is always on my mind. Fighting fraud today means thinking about artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). Everyone says so. Like me, you probably wonder how AI and ML work – especially in fraud. What
The headline from the Newark Star-Ledger tells the story: “N.J. drug overdose deaths in 2018 on a record-shattering pace.” The opioid crisis continues to grow in New Jersey. From July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017, the state saw a 34.7 percent increase in the number of opioid-related deaths, a
Bloomberg Government reported in the 2017 fiscal year that federal agencies could commit more than $1 billion on countermeasures for insider threats. Whether that number turned out to be accurate or not, it highlights the priority that the federal government is placing on protecting its information and data from being
