Erika's Innovation Blog

  Scenario Planning definition             According to Schultz Financial Group scenario planning is “The process of visualizing what future conditions or events are probable, what their consequences or effects would be like, and how to respond to, or benefit from them.”   An example would be visualizing the benefits and risks of making 4G communications everywhere.   Many people believe that the radiation created from this can cause cancer and would become a greater risk than reward.   Others feel that this information is false, and we would get a greater benefit than risk in faster telecommunications.   The other side of the coin needs to be examined as well.   What would happen if we continued using 3G and chose not to upgrade?   Would our communications suffer?   Would other countries that utilize 4G gain an advantage over us?   Trying to understand the many scenarios created by dec...

       Inventions are amazing and the people who create them impress me.   They are almost like  magicians  who made something that we had not imagined until it was created.   Sometimes they are  very useful  and a godsend while other times they are blinks in the social timeline, and others  surprisingly last a  long time whether they serve a huge purpose or not.             Viagra has an interesting birth story.  Impotence has been an issue for males for as long as there have been males and affects about 30 million American men (History.com, 2009) .  It is not only a physical issue but a psychological one.  A man’s self-esteem and self-worth can decline when they are unable to perform sexually.  Every species has an innate responsibility to procreate for the survival of the species.  Humans are the same way and even if a man no longer wants to ha...

  Delphi technique             The Delphi method was created by the Rand Corporation in the 1950s.   It gets its name from the Oracle of Delphi, a priestess of Apollo who gave prophecies.   This technique is one that comes to a consensus after speaking to a group of experts (Twin, 2020) .   Multiple rounds of questionnaires are answered, and this information is used to forecast based on a “group response.”   The members are told of the aggregated answers and can change their responses according to how they interpret this “group response.”   Information is also provided by members of the group between these rounds.   Based on the fact that this process takes multiple rounds and members can change their responses, this method seeks to find a correct response through consensus.   Correct meaning a mutually agreed result for the group. Analytic Hierarchy Process     ...

  My name is Erika.  I have two little girls (9 and 11) and am very excited to be a part of the Computer Science – Big Data Analytics Doctorate program.  I started the program in Nov2019 and am currently working in data analytics.  I love programming!  I know VBA for Excel, Python, SQL, R, SAS, and a little bit of XLST, HTML, and CSS.  I also love riddles, forensics, abnormal psychology, and anything related to solving crime.  I have also been known to interpret dreams.  It seems I like anything that requires solving. :) I expect this blog to be about my research interests such as anything related to crime analysis, crime prevention, and recidivism.  If there is a way that I can marry data science with crime data, I am all about it!  I would like a way to utilize my mathematical knowledge in forecasting and new techniques to better predict crime.  Making an impact like that would be a dream come true.   The impact I can ha...

I would love to see better technology for identifying predatory users in social media.  Specifically, child abusers.  It is easy to set up a user account with bogus information such as your age and sex.  A predator could claim to be an 8-yr old girl and any other child in their chat circle (along with their parents) would not be able to tell if they are someone parents need to worry about their child talking to.  It can be very stressful for us parents to ensure our children’s safety when they are online.  If there was an addition to social media and online gaming software that could tell by the chats an older user types, that they are an adult and not a child.  The things predators ask such as grooming questions could be set as triggers to flag users.   I do appreciate that some online games do not allow links or images to be posted in chats.  In a YouTube video, the speed at which predators reach out, enga...