Abstracts

The Vital Signs of Building Energy Efficiency

Daniel Arneman
Environmental Specialist, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The buildings in which we live and work are alive with energy: they can breathe, regulate temperature, and even get sick. Their physicians are the engineers who tune performance and treat the symptoms of inefficiency, poor air quality and occupant discomfort. But as extensive metering and data warehousing becomes the norm, IT professionals and analysts are discovering new diagnostic tools to support a more holistic approach to building energy management. Daniel Arneman will show how the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is using data from an 18-million-square-foot campus to save energy and achieve its goal of climate neutrality.

Humanity by the Numbers

Stephen Baker
Author, The Numerati

Every day we produce mountains of data, ready to be mined by the numerati. Billions of personal details that represent our lifestyle preferences are living in databases and cyberspace. The talented few mathematicians and computer scientists who make up the numerati are employed to sift through the details, searching for patterns that tell them “who we are.” This mass accumulation of data has ushered us into the age of the mathematical modeling of humanity. When analyzed properly, the data can help campaigns to reach key voters, retailers to target consumers with focused ads, businesses to decide who to fire based on productivity and government agencies to thwart potential terrorists. Our data is like a valuable precious mineral, perilously positioned for a data mining free-for-all.

Damned Lies and Statistics

Joel Best
Author, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data

“If you had no idea things were so bad, they probably aren’t.”  Although waves of epidemics crash over us in the news, on the Web and from our neighbors, the numbers used to back the barrage of shocking claims are often miscalculated, misinterpreted or misleading. Beware of big numbers. They are an SOS, garnering attention and gaining credibility with repetition. To navigate the information age, we must be statistically literate “stat-spotters” who are able to wade through a swelling sea of information that astonishes, arouses and alarms. We must recognize that statistics are socially constructed. By asking who did the counting and why, what they counted and how, and what they are telling us, we have a field guide for identifying dubious data, and it is a lifesaver.

Data-Driven Decisions for the Diamond

Sig Mejdal
Analyst, St. Louis Cardinals

The baseball industry is going through a paradigm shift. And, as an analyst for the St. Louis Cardinals, Sig Mejdal is right there to experience it. Mejdal tells of his experience as one of the first in this field, shares quantitative problems he’s run up against, and shows off techniques he uses to bring data-driven decisions into the front office of the big leagues.