Folgender Gastvortrag am Mi., 15.12.2021, 15 Uhr, ist (auch) Teil der iTIME-Vortragsreihe:

Titel des Vortrags: How does my neighbour think? Mental models and opinion dynamics update rules

Abstract:

Most models in opinion dynamics are created from simple ad-hoc rules. Different models match distinct applications better and very little work exists on how they relate to each other. In this talk, I will show how we can define general models from a framework for how agents communicate and how we can obtain update rules from agent mental models and simple uses of the Bayes theorem. That allows us to easily include specific aspects of any applications we might be interested in as well. And we can also understand, up to some underdeterminacy, which mental models seem to correspond to each of the update rules we find in the literature.

Bio:

André Martins is currently Associate Professor at the Universidade de São Paulo in Brazil. Having his roots in Physics, his current research areas are sociophysics, statistical mechanics, evolutionary models and simulation of social and biological systems. André will join Bielefeld University in 2022 and will be part of the project "InChangE – Individualisierung in sich ändernden Umwelten".

Bei Interesse, an der Veranstaltung teilzunehmen, wenden Sie sich bitte an christian.stummer@uni-bielefeld.de.

The next International Conference on Challenges in Managing Smart Products and Services (CHIMSPAS) will take place on August 25 & 26, 2022, in a hybrid format, that is, participation is possible onsite in Bielefeld (Germany) or online.

Abstracts for talks can be submitted until April 3, 2022.

Conference Website: https://chimspas.de/

Call for Abstracts:  https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/fakultaeten/wirtschaftswissenschaften/tagungen/chimspas-2022/call-for-abstracts.xml

Call for Papers

Opening conference of the Research Group
“Economic and Legal Challenges in the Advent of Smart Products”
OCTOBER 4-6, 2021

The Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) at Bielefeld University is pleased to announce the opening conference of its new Research Group “Economic and Legal Challenges in the Advent of Smart Products”. The conference aims to provide a platform for both disciplinary and interdisciplinary exchange on topics related the development and legal regulation of smart products, as well as factors determining their acceptance and diffusion. Questions of particular interest include:

- How are innovation activities of firms affected by the legal environment?
- How do data privacy concerns affect the behaviour of consumers, firms, and policy makers?
- How do specific features of smart products (such as autonomous activity, data collection, opacity as a result to deep learning) affect consumers’ trust in these products and their willingness to adopt?
- Which empirical and theoretical approaches are suitable for analyzing the (expected) diffusion of smart products?
- How to deal with the major regulatory challenges arising in age of smart products?

We are mainly inviting papers with an economic and/or legal perspective on such questions (thereby using various methodological approaches), but we also welcome submissions from other disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, and data sciences. Apart from contributed sessions, the conference will also feature two keynotes, as well as a panel discussion with policy makers and industry leaders.

Keynotes: Eric Talley (Columbia University) and Mireille Hildebrandt (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)

Organizing committee: Herbert Dawid (Bielefeld University), Sabine Gless (University of Basel), Gerd Muehlheusser (University of Hamburg)

Fees, costs and registration: There is no participation fee, but participants need to register for the conference in advance. ZiF will cover the cost for travel and accommodation for presenters and discussants according to its regulations.

Conference format: As of now, we plan that the conference takes place in person at ZiF. Should travel restrictions still apply by then, we will be able to switch to a hybrid or even fully online format.

Submission: Please submit either a full paper or an extended abstract (written in English, preferably in PDF) by MAY 1, 2021 to smart-products@uni-bielefeld.de

Contact: Nadine Sutmöller (ZiF), Methoden 1, 33615 Bielefeld, nadine.sutmoeller@uni-bielefeld.de

To learn more about the Research Group and to obtain up-to-date information concerning the conference, please visit: https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/(en)/ZiF/FG/2021SmartProducts/index.html

Call for Papers "Managing Smart Services and Smart Service Systems" for a Special Issue in the SMR Journal of Service Management Research

Guest Editors:
Nicola Bilstein, Professor of Management of Smart Products
Christian Stummer, Professor of Innovation and Technology Management

Submission Deadline: October 15th, 2021

We welcome empirical and analytical papers using a variety of methods to addressing meaningful research questions in this context. We also invite conceptual papers offering a strong theoretical contribution to the management of smart services and smart service systems.

Topics of interest to the Special Issue might stem from various fields such as those exemplarily listed in the following:

• Service Management (e.g., developing smart transformative services, value co-creation within smart service systems, understanding value creation with smart services in various fields of application such as smart home, smart health, smart mobility)
• Strategic Management (e.g., new business model, importance of data, open or closed system)
• Marketing (e.g., designing proper offers of smart services and smart service systems, communicating them to customers, branding, distribution channels)
• Innovation and Technology Management (e.g., user innovation/co-creation in developing smart services, drivers and barriers to smart service adoption and diffusion)
• Entrepreneurship (e.g., creating sustainable business models for smart services, collaboration with startups in developing smart services)
• Business Information Systems Engineering (e.g., establishing smart service platforms)
• Human Resource Management (e.g., smart services in the working context, new skills required)
• Organization (e.g., usage of smart services on various organizational levels down to the team level)
• Logistics and Supply Chain Management (e.g., smart services for continuous tracking of products w.r.t. location, current condition, environment)
• Production (e.g., predictive analytics enabling service innovation in manufacturing, industry 4.0)
• Sustainability (e.g., smart services as a means to foster sustainability)

Folgender Gastvortrag am Do., 14.1.2021, 14 Uhr, ist (auch) Teil der iTIME-Vortragsreihe:

Titel des Vortrags: Bayesian Decision Making

Abstract:

There are often high expectations on the business impact that data science can produce. Unfortunately, various barriers often hinder the full realization of that impact, starting with communication challenges between different parts of the organization with different backgrounds. To bridge this chasm, data scientists and stake-holders should agree on a business relevant loss function to optimize. This way, any improvements in the model can directly be measured in their impact on the bottom line.
In this talk, I will show how probabilistic programming frameworks like PyMC3 can be used to solve an applied problems with an example from capital allocation. This approach allows us to accurately and flexibly map a real-world problem to a statistical model that can be quickly iterated and improved on. I will then show how the results of such a model, which are usually arcane and non-actionable posterior probability distributions, can be coupled with a loss function based on business mechanics, to (i) derive business related outcome measures, and (ii) suggest the optimal decision to make, rather than inform it.

Bio:

Thomas Wiecki is the Chief Executive Officer at PyMC Labs. Prior to that Thomas was the lead data science researcher at Quantopian, where he used probabilistic programming and machine learning to help build the world's first crowdsourced hedge fund. Among other open source projects, he is involved in the development of PyMC—a probabilistic programming framework written in Python. A recognized international speaker, Thomas has given talks at various conferences across the US, Europe, and Asia. He holds a PhD in Computational Cognitive Neuroscience from Brown University.

Titel des Forschungsvorhabens:
The innovation effect of cooperating with a startup: Exploring consumers' innovation perception of incumbent firms

Forschergruppe: Prof. Nicola Bilstein, Melina Schleef, Prof. Christian Stummer 

Title: The person brand effect and the role of product innovation: Consumers' stereotypes influence evaluations of persons and their products

Abstract: A series of field and laboratory experiments found that consumers' stereotypes influence perceptions of a person who creates a product (i.e., a person brand) as well as post-trial evaluations of the product. Consistent with schema congruity theory, consumers evaluated a product created by a person who was counter stereotypical on one dimension (e.g., gender but not ethnicity) more positively than the stereotypical creator's product. Consumers' cognitive resources during trial are a boundary condition on improved evaluations of a unidimensional deviate’s product. In contrast, consumers evaluated a product created by a person who was counter stereotypical on two dimensions (e.g., gender and ethnicity) most negatively. Product innovation moderated these effects such that an innovative product created by a bidimensional deviate was evaluated similar to that of the stereotypical creator's product. These findings have implications for branding, product innovation, schema congruity theory and stereotyping.

Das Video zur diesjährigen Konferenz CHIMSPAS ("Challenges in Managing Smart Products and Services") ist nun verfügbar. Erhalten Sie hier Eindrücke in die erste Konferenz, die sich explizit mit dem Management intelligenter Produkte und Dienstleistungen befasst. Die Konferenz wurde vom iTIME und dort von Prof. Dr. Christian Stummer und J.-Prof. Dr. Nicola Bilstein organisiert.

Title: Integration of Machine Learning and Optimization for Supply Chain Optimization

Abstract: We are trying to develop the AI techniques that can be explained by an automatic synthesis of decision-making models through the integration of machine learning and optimization. By constructing a feedback loop of machine learning and optimization, a closed-loop data-driven system that can improve the machine learning accuracy and significantly reduce the computational time required for optimization through machine learning methods even in a shortage of teaching data. From the viewpoint, our recent topics on dynamic multi-commodity network design problem, virtualization of supply chains, mass customization of product design and supply chain planning, inverse optimization for scheduling problems, imitative learning will be discussed.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Frederik Schulte (TU Delft)

Date: 16.10.2019
Time: 16:00 - 17:00
Room: FaKo Raum (U3-140)

Title: Platform Operations Research: Foundations and the Cases of Coup Scooter Sharing and Quicargo Collaborative Trucking

Abstract: Over the last decade, platforms have emerged in numerous industries and often transformed them, which poses new challenges for operations research. Platform providers mostly do not have immediate control over the physical resources to move people or goods. They often operate in a multi-sided market setting where it is crucial to design clear incentives to motivate a third-party to engage in an adhoc kind of collaboration. As a consequence, collaboration incentives become an integral part of decision support models for platform providers, and they need to be developed on an operational planning level to be applied in a dynamic way. Naturally, this involves a trade-off between the interests of platform provider, customers, and various transportation service providers. In this work, we investigate the real-word case of Coup scooter sharing and propose a dynamic pricing approach that engages users in fleet management operations such as charging and repositioning of vehicles. First results indicate that this approach effectively increases vehicle utilization and revenues. As a second real-world case, we look at the platform provider, Quicargo, who operates as an intermediary between shippers and carriers in a less-than-truckload (LTL) business. We introduce a planning model that minimizes the price this platform pays to its carriers and enforces collaboration incentives for carriers. We explore possible policies to be implemented by the platform and find that their business even remains profitable when the platform guarantees increased profit margins to their carriers as incentives.

Am Donnerstag und Freitag (22./23. August 2019) findet erstmalig die internationale Konferenz zum Thema Challenges in Managing Smart Products and Services (CHIMSPAS) statt. Organisiert wird die Konferenz vom iTIME – Ko-Organisator*innen sind J.-Prof'in Nicola Bilstein und Prof. Christian Stummer.

Ein Interview mit den Organisatoren lesen Sie hier: https://50jahre.uni-bielefeld.de/2019/08/20/wie-smarte-produkte-unternehmen-herausfordern/

Alle Informationen zur Konferenz finden Sie über folgenden Link: chimspas-2019.de

Speaker: Prof. O.P. Vyas, Professor, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad-India 

Date: Wednesday 05.06.19 from 16:00 to 17:00
Place: FaKo Raum (U3-140)

Title: Data driven Business Intelligence: From Predictive to Prescriptive Analytics

Abstract:
Business Data analytics has gathered a lot of attention during the last years. Although descriptive and predictive analytics have become well-established areas, prescriptive analytics has just started to emerge with a different paradigm. Prescriptive analytics aims to prescribe decisions on the basis of the predictive analytics outcomes and involves an interdisciplinary approach with advances from Optimization and Decision Sciences.
Referred to as the "final frontier of analytic capabilities," prescriptive analytics suggests decision options to take advantage of the results of descriptive and predictive analytics.  Prescriptive Analytic approaches propose to help businesses make better decisions by factoring in knowledge of possible situations, available resources, past performances and current happening as well.
The Prescriptive Analytics assumes special significance as the huge amount of Businesses moving from traditional "brick and mortar" shops to Online Enterprises warranting to have recommendations in rather more prescriptive ways. The proposed talk aims at exploring the opportunity and challenges involved, owing to introduction of "optimization" in "Business Analytics" arena with the novel paradigm of Prescriptive Analytics.

An der Fakultät für Wirtschaftswissenschaften wird am 22.+23. August die International Conference on Challenges in Managing Smart Products and Services (CHIMSPAS) stattfinden. Ausführliche Informationen bietet die Konferenz-Website. Wir bieten bis zu zehn Studierenden die Möglichkeit zur kostenlosen Teilnahme an der Konferenz. Informationen zur Bewerbung um einen dieser Plätze finden Sie hier.