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As this month of February closes and as the new year becomes less of a new year, I cannot help but reflect on how fast time is truly flying. Taking a moment to slow down, to contemplate, to learn, and to reflect seems awfully simple yet awfully hard, given the busyness of our lives and the stress of real-world concerns. However, it’s important to not let the lessons of February - Black History Month - get overtaken in the day-to-day details of life. We at CANA wanted to offer some ideas to continue to recognize and learn Black History throughout the year with the following ideas and suggestions. Visit a museum History comes alive in our Nation's museums, and many of these institutions had events, conferences and celebrations surrounding Black History Month. Most have excellent exhibits that will extend throughout the year. Get out there and see first-hand our Nation's collective historical treasures. An obvious choice in our Nation’s backyard is the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History (https://nmaahc.si.edu/). Also, many institutions, including the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASAALH) as well as the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, offer digital programming for those who are not able to leave home. Read and reflect Libraries, bookstores, used bookstores (my favorite!) — not to mention online repositories and booksellers — are overflowing with interesting and engaging works of literature, history, and biography. Take a break, find a book about a part of Black History that you were previously unaware of and get educated. Take some time to then share and reflect with your friends, family, and colleagues. One single topic can turn into a tapestry of honest discussion. Seek and you shall find...on the internet There are expansive digital resources available online, which continue to provide easy access to Black History Month collages, anthologies, and profiles on Black leaders, historical figures, authors, poets, artists, teachers and more. A really engaging compilation published by Google can be found here under its Google Arts & Culture page -https://artsandculture.google.com/project/black-history-and-culture. It takes a mere three seconds (depending upon how fast you type!) to type the words “Black History” into your search engine, and your world will explode with accessible content! Stay civically engaged One of the best ways to stay engaged and to help contribute to a better society is by contacting members of Congress, whether local, state or federal. Ask them what they did to celebrate Black History Month and what specific legislative actions they plan or are planning to take to ensure your community remains committed to providing opportunities for each and every person. It may not necessarily be part of your routine nor always comfortable to reach out to elected officials, but it is important to share your voice and be informed on what our government leaders are doing and planning. Be part of the process! Lastly, an idea - write a blog! It makes you stop, ponder and realize, oh yes, thinking and learning about and understanding Black History should not be limited to the month of February - it can happen every day. In closing Like Ferris Bueller famously once said, “[l]ife moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it.” Let’s find those moments to stop and look around. Black history is interwoven throughout the past, present, and future of our Nation. Let’s see where we’ve come from, and where we need to go! Liz Cranston Liz Cranston is the Chief Executive Officer & Chief Financial Officer of CANA Advisors. You can contact her via email at ecranston@canallc.com.

In early December of 2020, several CANA team members participated in the virtual MORS Emerging Techniques Forum (ETF). Norm Reitter and Renee Carlucci acted as judges for the Visco Prize competition. Walt DeGrange helped with the organization of the event and led a Birds of a Feather discussion on adapting when analytics projects don’t go as planned. Several CANA members, myself included, enjoyed attending briefs and networking throughout the event. A Timely Theme by Lucia Darrow Emerging techniques are often the product of a pressing need for innovation. In 2020 there was no shortage of challenges that required fast and thorough analytical solutions. As such, it was no surprise that the ETF incorporated these ideas into this year’s theme: “2020 ETF seeks advancements in tools and techniques that enable decisive action in complex environments.” Tracks covered topics such as predicting irregular events and measuring resilience, with many talks addressing uncertainty and risk management. Coming from a graduate research background in systems resilience, I was particularly interested in talks within the Systems in Crisis track. It was fascinating to see how the MORS community approached risk management questions with data-driven solutions using methods such as optimization and predictive modeling. The conference talks were accompanied by several fantastic plenary and keynote speakers covering topics from analysis during the pandemic to cybersecurity. Visco Prize Competition by Renee Carlucci In addition to the various tracks, Norm Reitter and I judged the Visco Price competition. The Eugene P. Visco prize was established in March 2019 to honor and to memorialize Gene Visco, FS, who was an ardent supporter of collaboration within the international operations research community and for years represented MORS during the ISMOR. Gene was also a constant supporter of MORS junior analysts and a champion for quality presentations. The purpose of this prize is to promote collaboration between the international operations research community and MORS by providing a high-quality presentation selected at the annual Emerging Techniques Forum (ETF) to the International Symposium on Military Operational Research (ISMOR) every year. This prize will provide a Junior Analyst the opportunity to present at the ISMOR, held in the United Kingdom every summer. The selected presenter will be provided admission to the ISMOR along with housing and travel expenses. Gene Visco was well represented in spirit through six great presentations featuring junior analysts at this year’s virtual ETF. A common theme seemed to be artificial intelligence since machine learning was a featured technique in four of the six presentations. MAJ Jaison Desai, Ph.D., had the winning presentation on “Determination of Influential Factors on Roadway Bridge Sufficiency Using Inspection Data and LASSO: A Proof-of-Concept”. While most existing work using data on our aging bridge infrastructure has focused on optimizing the use of bridge inspectors, MAJ Desai’s work used machine learning to determine what factors are most important for bridge management. In summary Altogether the MORS ETF delivered! Delivered interesting and engaging tracks, delivered opportunities for leadership and participation to this CANA team, and most of all delivered consistency - even though virtual - in providing yet another high-quality conference. If you are interested in learning more about MORS events and conferences, you can visit their website at https://www.mors.org/events. MORS UPCOMING EVENTS: -Designing Tactical Games -Certificate in Cyber Wargaming Tuesday, 9-11 February 2021 Monday, 15-19 March 2021 -Acquisition Analytics for Counter UAS Workshop -Certificate in Survey Process Tuesday, 2-4 March 2021 Tuesday, 27-29 of April 2021 Tuesday, 4-5 of May 2021 Lucia Darrow Is a Senior Operations Research Analyst at CANA Advisors and can be reached through her LinkedIn profile, or via email at ldarrow@canallc.com Renee Carlucci Is a Principal Operations Research Analyst at CANA Advisors and can be reached through her LinkedIn profile, or via email at rcarlucci@canallc.com

2020 was...well, it’s in the past now! It brought us quarantine, working from home, and a whole lot of sitting in front of a screen. Now 2021 is here and your body AND MIND are probably feeling the repercussions of 2020. Here at CANA Advisors we’re used to working from home, it’s how we roll and how we’ve rolled since our founding day over 12 years ago! So, we know a little about an abundance of screen time, desk sitting, and seclusion in one place all day every day. What we also know about, a lot about, are the most beneficial ways to avoid the mental, emotional, and physical stress and strains that come along with these, what our world now calls, new norms. Our Mind Let’s start with the mental and emotional effects of working from home. You no longer have to leave your house for work, and with online shopping, home grocery delivery, telehealth, and the like, you may very well not be leaving your house for much of anything. Along with staying at home likely comes not changing your clothes, not fixing your hair, and… psst… did you brush your teeth today? Plus, ladies, no-make Monday is now 7 days a week, right? Losing a daily routine might seem nice at first, a little time-saving, and maybe it even reduces the stress of your morning, especially if you’re not an early bird like this night owl here. But a routine, especially a morning routine, is so important! In a world that throws so much uncertainty at us, we need to have something solid, something steady in our lives to keep us grounded and sane. For some of us, coffee is the one thing we must have before we can proceed on with the rest of the day. For others, a few minutes in a good personal development book or devotional can set your day on the right path. For me, nothing wakes my soul in the morning like music and my nutritional supplements. It gets me ready for the day's work and workouts! Remember, I’m a night owl, not an early bird! If you don’t have that “it factor” in your morning yet, try one of these to see what works for you. If nothing else, get up, change your clothes, and brush those teeth! You’ll thank yourself all day long! Our Body Alright, that body! It is sitting, staring, slouching, for hours on end. It goes from bed to desk chair, to lunch/dinner chair, likely to the couch, and right back to bed. If you squeeze some exercise in there, you’re rocking it already but you can always do more! If you’re not exercising, it’s easier than you think! I want to share two things with you: basic daily movement and simple exercises suitable for nearly every BODY. Let’s actually start with exercises because it really doesn’t need to be fancy and complex. Number one recommendation… walk! Walk around your room, throughout the house/office, if it’s nice (or if you don’t mind a little weather) take your walk outside. You don’t even need to leave your yard, just get those legs moving. You’re so busy though, right? You’re too swamped at work to leave your desk let alone the house. First of all, that’s an entirely separate blog about not becoming too “busy” and understanding what “busy” really is and is not, but I digress. Second of all, I get it, sometimes you’re in an all-day training, conference call, review session, and that’s understandable. Walk before work, walk after you’re done working for the day, or place that phone on speaker and walk in place during your meetings. I promise, it’s doable. Want something more? Squats, lunges, pushups, planks, are all basic exercises* that can be done right at your desk and can be modified to suit any physical limitations. A fantastic idea to help you stay accountable, and promote corporate wellness at the same time, is to engage your co-workers in these exercises. Here at CANA Advisors, nearly every meeting is a video teleconference. On several occasions, CANA team members have shut their cameras off for a few moments and engaged in some motivational, mid-day push-ups. When they come back on screen, their blood is flowing, their face a bit pink, and their mind is ready to get back in the game. It’s just one part of the CANA culture that I love! Still focusing on that body but let’s talk about movement. Something as simple as just getting out of that chair for two minutes every hour can make a world of difference. Movements involving stretches can relieve body stresses, muscle strains, and (shoutout to mental and emotional benefits) can reset your clarity and focus. Any movement, even rotating your ankles while still seated in your chair is beneficial but there are two focus areas that suffer the most from extended periods of sitting and computer work: shoulders/neck and lower back/hips. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “he/she carries the weight of the world.” Do you know where we carry it? We carry so much tension in our shoulders which ultimately affects our neck as well. Do me a favor, right now, just sit back in your chair, roll your shoulders up-back-down, and hold them there. Do you feel that? I bet you took a nice deep inhale and exhale when you rolled those shoulders. You just exhaled stress! Now while those shoulders are relaxed, allowing your chest to rise and fall with more ease, slowly tilt your head side to side, holding for a few seconds on each side. So simple and so effective! These are two phenomenal moves if you find yourself suffering from headaches as well. You’re going to need to push your chair away from your desk for this next part. Our hip flexors are one of the most overused yet overlooked areas on our bodies. Brace yourself, this next movement tip is more challenging and intense. Stand up. Ok, so I exaggerated a bit on the level of challenge and intensity but the level of benefit is definitely high. If you can spend even a small part of your day standing, I encourage you to do so. Once you’re on your feet, be sure to take a few moments throughout the day to hinge at the hips, bending forward to reach for your toes. Then stand tall, reaching your arms overhead, arching back and side-to-side to lengthen along with the hip flexors, obliques, and abdominal muscles. An instant “wake-up” for your body which not only improves your posture, circulation, and muscle health but, again, these stretches improve mental clarity and focus. So whether your work situation has changed over the past 12 months or not, whether working from home is new to you or business, as usual, get dressed, brush your teeth, integrate frequent movement, stretching, and exercise throughout each day, and just take time to breathe. Written by Stephanie Allison, Senior Project Manager at CANA Advisors and also a certified group exercise instructor and wellness coach with over 9 years experience in the health and fitness industry. You can reach Stephanie at sallison@canallc.com and on Linkedin.

We are excited to have Thomas Scully onboard as a part of our growing CANA Team. Thomas is our Sports Analytics intern and will be helping our Analytics Capabilities Section develop CANA eSports and other sports analytics programs. He is currently a second-semester Senior at Loyola University - Chicago, majoring in Sports Management with a Marketing minor. Thomas shared, "I have been blessed with multiple opportunities in the classroom to expand my knowledge of the sporting world and the analytics base that has developed in recent years. Sports has been a passion of mine for many years and it has been a dream of mine to explore the business and technical aspects of the industry, as I enjoy seeing how things work and how I can improve upon them." We can't wait for the fresh perspective Thomas will bring to our eSports and Sports Analytics! Stay Tuned! Thomas can be reached at tscully@canallc.com and Linkedin. “Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming” -John Wooden #teamCANA #CANAAdvisors #CANAConnect #CANAeSports #CANASportsAnalytics CANA Advisors is a veteran-owned, woman-owned, equal opportunity company based out of Gainesville, Virginia in the United States of America.

“Who you are is defined by what you’re willing to struggle for.” ― Mark Manson Kyle joins CANA as a Hiring Our Heroes Corporate Fellow as he transitions from active duty military service to civilian employment. Kyle spent six years active duty in the Navy as an Intelligence Officer where he focused predominantly on a counterterrorism and Middle East portfolio. Additionally, he has experience in program management and advanced analytics. While at CANA, Kyle will be supporting key logistics planning and Artificial Intelligence research. Kyle graduated from the United States Naval Academy with a Bachelor of Science degree in Operations Research. Kyle can be reached at kdurst@canallc.com and on Linkedin. For more on Hiring Our Heroes, visit our Veteran's Page here. CANA Advisors is a veteran-owned, woman-owned, equal opportunity company based out of Gainesville, Virginia in the United States of America.

The New Way of Working as a New Graduate New Year, New Graduate, New Goals... There is probably a lot of newness in your life, and the question is: how do we adjust and conquer the new? Graduates of the past year have had to adjust to working life in a different way - virtually. Being that CANA Advisors has always been a 100% virtual company, I’ve picked up some tips and tricks to working virtually as a new graduate this past year, and to set meaningful goals for 2021. Working Virtually: The New Way of Working When you are coming into the workforce from college life, you always have an idea about what this “adult life” will be like. You would probably wake up, work your 9-5, have your after-work hobbies, and that would be it. Little did we know this new way of working from home and online could change our lives in such a positive way. I adopted the working from home (WFH) lifestyle from the beginning of my professional career with CANA. CANA not only gave me flexibility in my work life, but also taught me to balance work and my personal life. I think this is the beauty of working virtually. My hope for the future is that companies realize how important it is to give their employees that balance so they can work efficiently and effectively. Don’t get me wrong, I know it can be hard to motivate yourself to work in your home, or even leave your bed sometimes when you really don’t want to. Adjusting to working virtually takes time, but once you find your rhythm and boundaries of the virtual work lifestyle, you will realize how healthy it can be, and how much time you can put into other parts of your life as well. Remember that not everyone works the same. Your rhythm and boundaries could be far different than your co-worker. It’s listening to your body and your brain and realizing what is the best way to work efficiently - for you. Some people may be able to work 5 hours in a row, but maybe you are a person who works an hour and then needs a 15-minute break. That’s okay! Part of adjusting to this working virtually lifestyle is making sure you are sustaining your energy and focus because if you neglect your well-being, it can start to affect other areas of your life. New Goals for 2021 A lot of people think their goals have to be something work-related or to make a certain amount of money, but when I think about goals, I think about the all-around accomplishments that are going to make me better as an employee and also better as an individual. These goals can also help you in this new year - Consistency: This is key because oftentimes we overwhelm ourselves or even underwhelm ourselves with our work and personal life. We want to go really hard or be really lazy. Consistency gives you that balance you need to keep going when you don’t want to, but also the balance of giving yourself rest when it’s needed. Rest: Don’t forget about this one. As new graduates, we want to show our employers and co-workers that we were meant for this, and we are willing to go to the extremes to accomplish our jobs, but don’t forget about yourself and your well-being. You can’t perform at your best if you don’t give your body time to rest. This doesn’t mean sitting on the couch watching TV but just stepping away from your computer or apartment in the slightest way. This could be going for a walk, going to your favorite restaurant, or playing a game of pick up basketball! Whatever puts your mind at ease and gets you to take a break from your work headspace - go for it! Confidence: You are you for a reason. As an entry-level employee, sometimes we can be hesitant about stepping on people's toes or be afraid to voice our ideas because we don’t have as much experience. Don’t be afraid! What we don’t realize as the younger generation is that we have a fresh perspective on the world, and we see it through a lens of change and shifting. One idea of yours could change a company for the better, but you will never know unless you share your ideas. You might get shot down a few times, but that’s okay. That’s part of the learning process. You can never fail, you can either win or learn. As far as we know, working virtually is going to be around for a while. Take advantage of the fresh-tech mind you have as a new graduate and run with it! Set those goals and boundaries, get into a rhythm, and don’t forget to share your ideas. This is a new way of working, and you’re the front runner, kid! If you would like to get in touch with Kassie, you can reach her at kassmcrostie@canallc.com or on Linkedin.

2020 is the year of the virtual conference. The INFORMS Annual Meeting is usually an in-person conference with a typical attendance of 6,000-7,000 attendees. This was my 13th straight INFORMS Annual Meeting and the first virtual one. Was it different? Absolutely, but different isn’t necessarily bad. The major difference was that most of the presentations were recorded. If you registered, then you received access to the recorded presentations for the next three months. This is a very nice feature since this is a huge conference. With over 70 tracks and special events occurring at the same time over a five day period, there are always conflicting interesting presentations and you can’t visit them all. Of course, in-person, you may not be able to get from one location to another in time to see a presentation or an event. The virtual conference solves this problem. It also allows multiple attendees to share their favorite presentations with other attendees. These briefs can then be viewed by the other attendees when it fits their schedule. If most of the briefs were recorded then why didn’t INFORMS just post the videos and hold the conference asynchronously? If you did attend the listed time slot for the presentations then you were able to participate in a live chat with the presenters. The element that no virtual conference can replicate is the chance of interaction with new and old acquaintances. There is really no way at a virtual conference to accidentally run into a professor that you took a class from fifteen years ago. . The INFORMS Annual Meeting did try to inject some of that element by having virtual networking floors. These floors had tables and you would randomly be assigned to a table. I hung out on the floors for a few hours and met several interesting students and discussed their research. In that respect, it was a success, although I didn’t catch up with any old acquaintances during the conference unless I had scheduled a discussion time with them in advance. The major topics addressed during the conference were quantum computing, the role that analytics has played in dealing with the COVID response, and how supply chain data and models have been affected over the past year. CANA participated in the conference on multiple levels. Norm Reitter furthered the Analytics Capability Evaluation Committee effort by hosting an informational session. He also presented the “Force Closure Modeling To Support Multi-mission Scenario Analysis” in support of the USMC. Connor McLemore briefed his research work on “Operational Readiness Rollup: Modeling Additive Readiness”, and Rocky Graciani presented his work on “Determining Who Pays For Inventory Optimization Made Easy-r”. Walt DeGrange was a session chair for the SpORts analytics section for a session that included a wide range of topics from analytically testing which Dungeons and Dragons character classes perform the best, to how bye weeks affect team performance in the Canadian Football League, and how to use analytics to draft the perfect NBA team. So, are online conferences the size of the 2020 INFORMS Annual Meeting here to stay? I would personally guess - yes. The pace of effectively dealing with the COVID pandemic will determine when the world will return to in-person conferences. That being said, the ability to interact with attendees around the world given current travel limitations makes this an excellent way to present new analytics. Also, the ability to interact online with presenters and review presentations up to three months post-event is very nice. Perhaps in the near future, we will see a hybrid model that melds in-person and virtual attendance, giving us the best of both worlds.

CANA's Program and Project Management (PPM) team recently conducted a successful virtual offsite event in November. Together, the PPM team members built a vision framework to support the development of strategies and tactics to achieve their mission for the upcoming 2021 year. CANA’s PPM team worked over two days to complete their activities on MURAL. MURAL is a virtual collaboration whiteboard that CANA uses both internally and for client activities. It’s particularly helpful since our team is widely dispersed throughout the U.S. and Canada. MURAL’s boards allow us to add a variety of resources onto the board including pdfs, website links, photos, videos, text, and sticky notes. For more MURAL projects at CANA, you can see our blog here. The PPM team Director, Connie McKissack, led the group in a series of team-building activities that would eventually result in vision framework products. Beginning with the MURAL board below, she used brainstorming techniques to spark creativity within the team and create a flow of ideas to identify team values and behaviors. Each team member independently shared a set of images that were used to shape the team’s purpose and mission. From this foundation, the PPM team developed distinct strategies for the upcoming year. Mural Board Demonstration CANA's team-building, in-person, offsite events are key components in the company's culture. As a virtual company, CANA makes offsite events a priority to bring the employees together face-to-face for team building, strategizing, and of course FUN! Although 2020 introduced some significant challenges, it enabled our PPM "CANA Bunch" to creatively adapt and overcome. We proved the year’s virtual offsite events could be just as productive and enjoyable as ever before! STEPHANIE ALLISON Is a Senior Software Development Analyst at CANA Advisors and can be reached through her LinkedIn profile, or via email at: sallison@canallc.com HANNAH WALLACE Is a Project Manager at CANA Advisors and can be reached through her LinkedIn profile, or via email at: hwallace@canallc.com

The CANA Foundation was established with the purpose of “giving back to our communities.” While giving back looks a little different this year, the pandemic has certainly not diminished the generosity and giving spirit of the CANA family. In fact, the number of initiatives proposed and accomplished through the Foundation has more than doubled over this time last year! From helping a homeless services planning organization build their capacity through better data visualization, to developing and offering a free virtual analytical methods course for veterans, CANAers have continued to give of their time and professional skills to help others. One of the alternatives to in-person charity was to make financial donations to organizations in the actual communities where our CANA employees live. The far-ranging economic impacts of COVID have made the ability to put food on the table a real struggle for many of our neighbors, friends, and even family. The CANA Foundation chose food banks in each of the regions where our employees live, from California to Maine, and gave a cash donation to those select food banks who are providing real hunger relief in our communities. It is hoped that our contribution will bring some relief and help the greater effort to ensure no one goes hungry during this difficult time. Another tradition for CANA Foundation during the holiday season is our annual Give Back Campaign - now in its fourth year. This program offers each CANA employee a certain number of hours of paid time off to volunteer and “give back” in their local community. The CANA leadership wanted to encourage giving back and make it easier for employees to seek out ways they can make a local difference. This has been a favorite way for CANAers to engage with, and show their support to, those in need right where they live. One CANA employee has participated in each year of the Give Back Campaign and partners with her local Rotary and their program called “Wishes of Christmas.” This program grants nominated individuals “a wish” to fulfill a specific, personal need. We’re so thankful for our employee’s generous spirit and that CANA can support her. As we close out what has been a difficult and challenging year in many respects, we at the CANA Foundation want to wish you and your families a blessed holiday season and look forward to seeing you in the new year! Kenny McRostie Kenny McRostie is a Senior Operations Manager and the Manager of the CANA Foundation at CANA Advisors. If you would like to read more on the CANA Foundation and past efforts you can connect with us at CANA Foundation - Giving Back (canallc.com). Or reach out to Kenny at kmcrostie@canallc.com

Use the same code three times, create a function. Use the same function across multiple projects, create a package? At CANA, we use the statistical programming language R across several projects for its ease of creating data-driven applications and reproducible reports. It’s a great option for exploring data, prototyping solutions, or even taking a model to production. This last summer, several R programmers on the CANA team collaborated on an internal package, canaR, to share standard functions and formatting across our R products. In this post, we share some lessons learned from creating an internal package. The DRY Principle Most programmers are familiar with the DRY principle (Don’t Repeat Yourself) which aims at reducing repetition in code. Reasons to follow this principle are abundant: less effort for the programmer, reduced chance for error across multiple uses of the same code, and streamlined testing. In R, this translates to the use of functions and packages as a best practice. Packages are a natural unit to distribute code within a team as they include functions, tests, documentation, and vignettes. The package development process has become increasingly accessible in recent years due to tools such as usethis, testthat, and roxygen2. Package Development Approach The canaR development process was a collaborative effort led by CANA’s R programmers. For our internal package, functions fell into three key categories: style and branding, rounding, and visualizations. Style and branding functions in the canaR package provide uniformity across our R products by creating a standard for document, table, and plot appearance. These offer a jumping off point for tailoring by analysts as they utilize the formatting functions and geoms on different projects. The canaR development team worked with CANA’s graphic designer, Koa Beam, to create custom, color blind-friendly palettes to fit categorical, sequential, and diverging types of data visualizations. Rounding functions are another crucial and often underestimated challenge for standardized results. Working with repetition results of a simulation and/or collaborating with team members that use a different software can lead to some tricky rounding challenges. Sample functions in the canaR package that tackle these challenges perform actions such as aligning rounding results to what is expected in Excel, or controlling rounding for aggregations. Visualization functions in canaR create unique data visuals not covered by existing packages. One of the functions that is helpful for working with dateless planning scenarios is the ‘relative timeline,’ created by CANA team member, Aaron Luprek. This data visualization function creates a time line centered around zero, which allows for showing results that are time-based but not associated with a certain date. Sample Relative Timeline Graphic Once the functions were built, the package development team worked together to create clear documentation, examples, and vignettes for future users. We used the testthat package to streamline our testing approach. The final touch was the package naming convention. In the tradition of some of our favorite tidyverse packages, we saw the opportunity to incorporate a little French (ala magrittr) and an animal reference (ala purrr). Hence, canaR as a sly reference to the ‘canard,’ French for duck, and a diverting duck logo. Resources Interested in creating your own R package? There are many resources available! Here are just a few that our team found helpful in developing canaR: Hadley Wickham and Jenny Bryan - R Packages (Book) Hilary Parker - Writing an R package from scratch (Blog) Malcolm Barrett - Zen and the Art of R Package Development (Video) John Muschelli - R Package Development Series (Video) Lucia Darrow Is a Senior Operations Research Analyst at CANA Advisors and can be reached through her LinkedIn profile, or via email at: ldarrow@canallc.com

I recently had the opportunity to attend the Open Data Science Conference (ODSC) West - one of the premier conferences on data science and the largest applied international data science conference since 2015. Focus areas include open source programming languages (R, Python, Julia, Scala, etc), the latest Machine Learning (ML) techniques, Predictive Analytics, Deep Learning & Neural Networks, DataOps (machine learning pipelines for production applications), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Data Visualization, Artificial Intelligence business use cases, computer vision, and voice recognition. ODSC touches upon virtually all things data. With so many topics and presenters, you really have to focus on what sessions you need to attend, along with the mindset that any sessions missed will have been recorded. Because of the shift to virtual conferences, most material is readily available after the conference. A great added benefit to this data science conference is that most presenters post their code and material on GitHub. It is very easy to go back and catch material that you may have missed earlier. Slack was a great tool for tracking all the presentations and really allowed me to make the most of the conference. Slack with GitHub is a powerful combination! My intent for this conference was to focus on topics relevant to several professional projects involving Natural Language Processing (NLP), serverless computing (AWS Lambda), and my current school research in Personalized Medicine. My starting point was to look for anything to advance my R/python skills, new natural language processing techniques, an overview of Bayesian statistics, and healthcare Artificial Intelligence (AI) use cases for personalized medicine. I was very happy to find a robust selection within the ODSC West, to include: Health AI: What's Possible Now and What's Hard (Suchi Saria - John Hopkins University) Hands-on Reinforcement Learning with Ray RLib (Paco Nathan - Derwen, Inc) Modern Machine Learning in R (Jared Lander - Lander Analytics/Columbia Business School) Deep Learning for NLP with PyTorch (Ravi Ilango - Stealth Startup) The State of Serverless and Applications to AI (Joe Hellerstein - TRIFACTA) The Bayesians are Coming to Time Series (Aric LaBarr - NC State) Bayesian Statistics Made Simple (Allen Downey - Olin College) I took away several highlights from the conference, to name a few: - Patient data and digital health apps. Connecting patient health apps to electronic health records and physician notes is a current technological challenge. Some researchers are using AI with screenshots from digital health apps to train and develop healthcare-related models. - Reinforcement Learning. I have participated in a lot of discussions as to whether to choose simulation or optimization for various business challenges. Optimization is not very flexible, so I have typically leaned more towards simulation. Reinforcement learning is the combination of these two worlds, and I am very excited to see where this technique can go and how it can be applied. - Serverless Computing. I was not able to watch the original presentation by Joe Hellerstein (TRIFECTA) on the State of Serverless and Applications to AI, but after downloading the material, I saw it was an excellent overview of AWS Lambda, functional computing, its strengths, limitations, and challengers. This was an excellent presentation on this technology and where it is going. I highly recommend this conference to both aspiring and seasoned data science professionals. It is good for both sharpening and learning skills, and for tracking the latest and greatest tools in this space. It was very well done in the virtual format and enabled me to see more material than I could have in person. That being said, I definitely look forward to when we can all connect live at the next conference. The list of all the presentations and keynotes are here: https://odsc.com/california/west-2020-prereqs-2/ In most cases, you can check out their GitHub repositories for presentations. Enjoy! Jerome Dixon Is a Senior Operations Research Analyst at CANA Advisors and can be reached through his LinkedIn profile and via his email at jdixon@canallc.com

In this episode of the CANA Connection Podcast our Host Rob Cranston speaks with long time friend and fellow analyst Rachel Stuve the Director of Data Science from Anthem Health Systems about: Smart Cities, A.I, and Data Science Analytics and how they could affect the future of the Healthcare industry. Along the way they may even talk about their favorite electric powered smart cars, so buckle up and enjoy the show. Link to the podcast episode: CANA Connection Podcast - Smart Cities, Analytics, And The Future of Healthcare. A written Transcript of this Episode can be found below. If you would like to learn more about Rachel Stuve, or follow her lively dissuasions on other podcasts you can find her contact information on Linked in at www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-stuve/ To find out more about CANA Advisors or to talk with our analytics professional head on over to our website at canaadvisors.com. While you are there consider signing up for our CANA Connection Newsletter or joining out community forums. And as always remember; Analyze. Assess. and Execute. Our Host: Rob Cranston (rcranston@canallc.com) Guests: Rachel Stuve (rstuve@gmail.com) Click below for a PDF written transcript of this podcast. Rob Cranston 0:01 Welcome to the CANA Connection Podcast. I am here in Alpharetta, Georgia with a good friend and colleague of mine, Rachel (Stuve), today, I'm so excited about this conversation. It's a long time coming, we're gonna have a chance to talk through and discuss all sorts of cool topics in analytics, innovation, human side of analytics and scenarios that are related to operations. And I think we'll probably get into discussion about our favorite cars. Which, maybe, yeah, which, which is the Tesla versus all other electric car discussion. This is again, a great a great honor to have you here, Rachel, and you've been part of a lot of podcasts. And in fact, you (Rachel) were voted 2019 is top voice data science and analytics on LinkedIn, top voices pretty cool. So let's get at it and give us a background discussion on your career in analytics. Rachel Stuve 0:50 Okay, My background, I didn't practice my elevator pitch. But I'll start so, I did go to school for analytics. It wasn't called analytics at the time, it was called advanced excel and information systems. And then I worked my career always been in data analytics for various capacities, law enforcement, so I actually did do it in jail and all the police cars on at the time it was in Michigan, so boats, police boats, around the Great Lakes. I've been in automotive, manufacturing, healthcare, and that's spanned from startup all the way to a fortune 50 company doing different analytics started out as a programmer, but now on his strategy, and digital transformation. Rob Cranston 1:38 Yeah, so you're now been there for eight months or so? But Director of Data Science? Rachel Stuve 1:42 Yes. Rob Cranston 1:44 Tell us about. Rachel Stuve 1:45 So Anthem, big, huge health care insurance providers, almost everyone's familiar with the shield. They operate in 14 different states, very, very large organizations, and what they're really cutting to operationalize back end. Which people don't realize how complicated a healthcare claim. And there's hundreds and hundreds of data points on any healthcare. And so for even for human that can be really overwhelming to adjudicate a claim when you're looking at that many data points. So what we're really looking at is how we can leverage machine learning to predict claim claim action, how can we route through the system to find efficiencies, which not only save the organization money, but really save members from abrasion. So if you think of times that you've gone to a doctor, and you've had a problem with your claim question or something has to get redone, that can be really arduous process. So we're looking to really alleviate that. Rob Cranston 2:48 So let's talk to these claims. I mean, with COVID. Now, and unfortunately, another uptick in full swing, bear this fall going into the winter is their application of different types of AI that's applied to just I guess, the uptake of different types of claims and claims and you think that could be applied to? Rachel Stuve 3:11 Yeah, absolutely. That's a good question. So I'm also really active in the angel investment community. Yeah. And so really, what COVID has done has drastically increased the peace of digital adoption. So things like telehealth where you would have a video chat with your doctor. That's been around for many years, but people were very slow to adopt that. And COVID has just kind of propelled us a year ahead of digital adoption. So that is a trend that is very likely to stay. I see that a lot too in the startup community. There's a lot of startups that are looking at not just telehealth, but we're so if you have a watch can not only give you feedback, but also send that to your healthcare provider. And so there's been a lot of startups that have started or even that maybe we're not getting much attention that are now getting attention, because when we've all been forced to adopt this quickly, because of COVID. Be sure when the pandemic is over, more people will physically go to a doctor, but there's going to be a good population that are still Rob Cranston 4:22 Going to use all of its advantages. Well, it's interesting, we have telehealth and the patient care needs right now within the teller kind of umbrella of services and offerings. I mean, from a from a standpoint of patient care, do you see that increasing, probably becoming more simplistic right, with access to public say, is that something that you guys at anthem, do you guys have a particular set of software that's services, Rachel Stuve 4:50 So I can't I can't speak to them proprietary methods. But I am a big big proponent, and I've talked with other people about Healthcare isn't just what happens when you go and see your doctor, once a year or twice a year, go healthcare is really every day. And so that's where a lot of organizations in the healthcare space are looking at. How do we deliver health care? How do we make it into the wearables is very large segment, looking at wearable technology, another really huge advancement, where companies are looking specifically with machine learning, natural language processing, and NLP, where you have your phone, and you just talking to say, Hey, where's the closest COVID testing site, and your phone app is going to recognize that and give you a list based on your geolocation, where the closest COVID testing, and it's really that I think that kind of making it really intuitive is where a lot of healthcare organizations are going, and where they're really leveraging machine learning. Where you can even look up, hey, here's the symptoms that I have, what might that be? And, of course, you still need to see a healthcare provider, but it's going to look at that and guide you to that might be best for that type of condition. Rob Cranston 6:19 Right. Yeah, that's great. Well said, I think it's interesting is that continues to evolve as a technology that, especially from kind of a geolocation of those other phones that have an app, it's uploaded under some states that are either symptomatic or asymptomatic, or they're willing to share that information. Yeah, absolutely. Rachel Stuve 6:40 Just COVID, there's a lot. We've talked about this. There's a lot that can be done. Especially with when you have wearable technology, your phone is always with you checking in and saying, Hey, how are you? I read a study recently, where the participants in the study had a phone app. And it just random points in the day they message through the app, and they had to go in and respond to what were they feeling? What were they doing in that exact time. And then what the researchers did was they can analyze that data to look at trends in depression, aggression, you know, loneliness. So there's a lot that can be done outside, of course, where we can really leverage analytics and machine learning, and behavioral in cardiac care. You know, I know wearables that can predict your vitals and say, Oh, my gosh, Here, have a heart attack. Oh, and rushed to the hospital. So there's COVID is talking about today. But there's a lot of a lot of different areas where machine learning can really advance healthcare. You know, Rob Cranston 7:55 It's so this is critical just segues into question. And actually, one of the things that really, when we first met, there was, and this is advertised in a lot of podcasts. And I love this statement. And that is Rachel believes that data empowers humans, is what gives us the ability to solve problems and change the world with data, we can close gaps and move boundaries to become more interconnected with each other. I love that. Oh, that is so cool. I mean, that gives that analytics data over to many countries. Right, that application experiment. A little bit more about this empowering, Rachel Stuve 8:31 Empowering data. Yeah. So one of the the challenges that I have in my career, and this has been across every role that I've had, is, there's oftentimes this fundamental belief that machine learning or analytics or AI is going to replace. And so you come into an organization and we want to do an analytics project or machine learning. And you immediately people put up walls and say, I don't want to be automated. Um, I, I can't tell you how many conversations I've had about machine learning that people reference the movie minority, because they think it's gonna know what I'm thinking before. It's gonna knock doors. Right? We see, we see that in hockey. There's so many movies like Minority Report by robot and all of that, where machines take over. But that's really, the thing that I tell people is, it's data analytics, and machine learning is never going to replace humans, it's actually going to free us up to do what we're better at doing, which is really complicated. And so by leveraging machine learning for some of the more mundane tasks like data, data, cleansing, data, pulling, looking at maybe more mundane patterns, that frees humans up to actually use their cognitive power to make decisions and look at a lot of complex different data points, eventually, with machine learning get there? You know, as a technologist, I want to say yes. But as a human, no, I really don't think that there will ever be a true place. So that's where I say, it really does empower us because it takes that load of our processing power so that we can process more complicated thoughts. Rob Cranston 10:26 So that gets into that. And I can add, in our analytics Operations Group, we have Power BI team analytics. Well, that's the human side of that is the power of having data science ops research, subject matter experts and developers all in one bucket that can deliver this fusion of information. Absolutely. Right. And, you know, so but what gets can be tricky, is the translation of all of that into a client that has to understand English math. How do you really explain an analytics project? The back end of that to make sure that return on investment? So what are some of the techniques you use to make sure that your methods and community and community right, yeah, Rachel Stuve 11:07 So I would say, if you sat and thought about the time that you spend doing is a basic data analysis? So how much time do you spend in Excel? How much time do you spend writing emails, answering questions, or sifting through financial statements? If I took all of that off your plate, and we could automate that and cleanse that you did not have to spend that time in Excel? What would you be able to do? And the answer is, I think when I asked that to people, they sit and think, well, Oh, my gosh, I really do spend a lot of time in Excel, or answering just basic emails, I had an executive that actually measured the time and it was hours every day. And he sat and said to me, you know, if I got those hours back, these are the projects that I could do that work for them. And that's what we use, then as the guidance for where our analytics programs targeted, was, if I don't have to sift through all of my inventory, and I just know that I have does all that time now that I can spend really deciding how to better use my than just, for example, so explaining to people in terms of how it's going to impact them. And what the actual deliverable is, is, is where I'm really stressed. I think, technical people have a tendency at times to also be over complicated, and they use really big words. And I've done that we all want it, because it makes us feel smarter. And you know, we can charge more for that. Um, but you really have to sit and look at it through someone else's eyes of how are they actually using it? And what is it going to see? You, for example, when I was working in law enforcement, one of the biggest things that we did that was I got the most feedback about the whole project was that we changed the visual on the laptop screen to accommodate police officers who. So when you think of a police officer that's outside, Sunny, it might be rainy, there could be chaos, they don't have time to sit and click around and read small print, or if it's funny, that changes how they can view. And it's just changed something like changing the way that your analytics and your reporting was displayed on the screen. Make that project adopted my officers, because they actually it was it was it was absolutely operational. Absolutely. Right. Yeah. Rob Cranston 13:43 That's, that's a great example. Um, so last time I was here, we had a chance, or you invited me, which is fantastic to be part of. It was a smart cities discussion. It was just yeah, that for you. We're Atlanta, integrating different types of smart city concepts. And so my question to you, since then, analytics apply to smart cities. Rachel Stuve 14:03 There are so many ways that analytics can apply to smart cities. So one of the biggest impacts is transportation. And so kind of somewhat, the biggest use case is traffic congestion. And looking at analytics of where were my traffic patterns, where are what times of the day. So you can mitigate congestion, but that also really leads to public safety. So if I can reduce congestion at the same time, I can look at safety. So where are my accident? What type of accidents Should I put around about an inch? I could have traffic lighting, you know, Did someone die? Was that a fatal accident, was it offender. You can look at all of those and start looking at infrastructure. From a citizen perspective. Think of You could tell, we have GPS that reroute. But think about if you could tell how fast the cars were coming if you're riding on a bike, and if you already had a warning that a car was coming, so you didn't cross the street and you stayed into the bike lane. So there's a lot that has to do with safety. There's a lot that has to do with that congestion, but even just moving. So a lot of businesses really can be advantaged by smart cities from a perspective of targeted marketing. So if I know that my customers are closed, I can send them a message to say, hey, you're really close to the Starbucks, guess what it's happening our coffees. So there's a lot that you can do, from commerce perspective, from safety from congestion, a lot with even just think of penances. And moving those through our cities more effectively. Rob Cranston 16:04 Do you think that I mean, those are city planners and you know, those the strategists within cities are, are really what they're building the resilience of strategy for the city that applies to what you just brilliant concepts of being smart and efficient, especially in transportation. But I mean, are they really bought into they have? And is the community in the pockets of kind of broken? Question of like, are there? So part of smart cities worries others? Like, oh, Rachel Stuve 16:34 Yeah, so that's kind of what we talked about is, city planners are in a really difficult position. Because there are a lot of advantages to smart cities, from safety, to transportation, to be more efficient, but typically, residents aren't going to sit and say, Yes, I would like my taxes increased, so that I could feel safer when I ride my bike. It's kind of when you look at even the automotive industry kind of went through the same thing. where, you know, there were extra cost to the vehicle for seatbelts and airbags and anti lock brakes, and all these things that are safety. But when they were first rolled out, people didn't want to pay for that. Because what do I need an air? Right, I'd rather have some really fancy wheels. But over time, the automakers had that challenge of adding that safety and that cost in and trying to still balance what consumers would pay for. So from and with the automotive industry, a lot of these really kind of driven by regulation, adoption. So that's where I think city planners have been tough. But that's where I think us in the infrastructure and data industry, that's our job to be kind of evangelists, to people to say, here's the benefits. First, why we might want to one of the really great case for smart cities is public safety, right? Not only can I get my officers more quickly to an incident, but maybe I can actually preemptively place officers where I think there might be Rob Cranston 18:15 And predictive, a little bit of predictive. Rachel Stuve 18:17 Bit of predictive. And that's kind of another story, because there's ethics around that kind of conversation. But do you find what you're looking for? But I think that's where there is a lot that could be an advantage to a smart city from residents. Absolutely. From commerce, absolutely. From logistics. But when we think about safety, efficiency, there's a lot of good cases. We'll get there. It just takes more conversations. Rob Cranston 18:47 Yeah. And that's what we're gonna do next time. You're talking about the automotive industry. So would you tell everybody what the name of your car is? Rachel Stuve 18:55 I'm a huge Tesla fan. We have we have sparred quite a bit. I did, did shed a tear when you bought that Audi. Rob Cranston 19:01 Yeah. And for our audience out there. Rachel does have a Tesla, has a redTesla hat on. But it's a beautiful, beautiful car. And it just, I think, in general, getting back to the discussion of, you know, efficiencies and that smart technology. Most of these companies, although it has a bet ter battery, I mean, then a Tesla... (laughter) Rachel Stuve 19:23 For the audience that can't see I'm very upset by that comment. (laughter) Rob Cranston 19:27 Well, I love it. You are an incredible mind. Huge leader within the analytics community and just the continued growth of where analytics is gonna go. I appreciate you being on this podcast I look forward to more. Rachel Stuve 19:41 Likewise. Yeah, I know CANA is doing some really phenomenal things with not just analytics that can be leveraged today, but I really am impressed with what you're doing to set people up for the future. Like my Thank you for having me for this conversation. All be it a Tesla is better than Audi by a... Rob Cranston 20:05 That'll be what we'll go into. That'll be our different Rachel Stuve 20:08 Different conversation. Yeah, Rob Cranston 20:09 Yeah, we just have those two (cars) and a podcast. Right. Yeah. The facts. Rachel Stuve 20:13 Yeah. I don't know if you wanted to be an analyst by nature... Rob Cranston 20:20 800, I mean 600 lbs heaver. I got a lot more space. Rachel Stuve 20:23 A lot of data. Rob Cranston 20:25 That'd be great. Awesome. For your audience. Is there anything to share? Rachel Stuve 20:29 Yeah, for my audience, I recommend people reach out on LinkedIn is the best platform where I've got some other podcasts published and messages. That's really probably the best way to get a hold of me for good conversation, questions. Always, that's the best way that I can. Rob Cranston 20:49 It's so responsive. Holy cow. I see it firsthand.