LIDA Seminar Series 2nd May 2018

The Leeds Institute for Data Analytics is pleased to present the following seminar in collaboration with the CDR (Centre for Decision Research) and COSCR (Centre for Operations and Supply Chain Research).

Abstract

Professor Kostas Nikolopoulos will present a brief history of forecasting and predictive analytics and through a series of cases from his research with industry will demonstrate the challenges and gains in using hierarchical – especially temporal – forecasting in practice. There will be a lot of focus on the things that remain under-researched and rarely discussed in the theory and practice of forecasting such as:

• Risk
• Black and grey swans
• Intermittence
• A holistic framework to bring all these together from a risk perspective.

The first case study is looking into spatiotemporal hierarchies to support preparation and response to major earthquakes. This case study focuses on mitigating risks from rare events, the so-called Black Swans. The second one at an insurance application, while the third and fourth come from highly regulated industries in healthcare and food processing.

About the speaker

Professor Kostas Nikolopoulos holds the Chair in Business Analytics in Bangor Business School and is the Director of the forLAB forecasting laboratory (www.forLAB.eu); he also has several years of experience in the UK and Greece as Consultant and Software Engineer in projects with Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, DoH, RevOil and the Treasury and Home Office (in Greece).

Kostas believes that efficient and effective Decision Making should be driven from accurate Forecasts and an understanding of the Uncertainty around them: he actively researches on the latter two topics.

You can read about Kostas Nikolopoulos here.