Decision Science Digest: January 11, 2022

BALTIMORE, MD, January 11, 2022 –

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Decision Science Digest is a periodic communique highlighting recent peer-reviewed research published by INFORMS, the largest association for the decision and data sciences, across its 17 journals. This issue highlights four press releases based on the findings of new peer-reviewed articles.

• New Model Predicts Patient Outcomes to Breast Cancer Treatments (INFORMS journal Information Systems Research)
• The Impact of Augmented Reality Games on Local Businesses (INFORMS journal Information Systems Research)
• Analysis of Past Customer Service Caller Behavior Provides Insight, Shorter Wait Times (INFORMS journal Management Science)
• The Impact of Ride-Hailing on Traffic and Carpooling (INFORMS journal Transportation Science)

New Model Predicts Patient Outcomes to Breast Cancer Treatments, Helping Patients Choose a Path Forward

Breast cancer remains the leading cause of cancer deaths among women around the globally. New research in the INFORMS journal Information Systems Research identifies a model that predicts how a patient will do on a specific treatment plan based on clinical and patient characteristics. The model then optimizes the treatment plan based on predicted outcomes. The paper, “Designing Personalized Treatment Plans for Breast Cancer,” details experiments showing that treatment plans generated from the model consistently outperform those from the existing practices in balancing the risk of local tumor recurrence and radiation-induced adverse effects. This in turn reduces treatment costs associated with these adverse effects. Link to full article.

New Research Looks at the Impact of Augmented Reality Games on Local Businesses

New research in the INFORMS journal Information Systems Research looks at the impact of augmented reality games, in this case Pokémon Go, on local businesses. The mobile game utilizes augmented reality technology and combines geospatial elements with gamification practices to incentivize user movement in the real world. In this study, “The Impact of an Augmented-Reality Game on Local Businesses: A Study of Pokémon Go on Restaurants,” the researchers find that restaurants associated with Pokémon Go have a higher level of consumer engagement and more positive consumer perception. The characteristics of a restaurant significantly impact these effects. Link to full article.

Analysis of Past Customer Service Caller Behavior Provides Insight, Shorter Wait Times

New research in the INFORMS journal Management Science looks at how callers’ past wait times and abandonment/redialing decisions affect their current abandonment and redialing behavior. The paper, “Personalized Priority Policies in Call Centers Using Past Customer Interaction Information,” concludes that call centers can improve customer service by implementing personalized priority policies. These policies have the potential to decrease average waiting times by up to 29% or increase system throughput by reducing the percentage of service requests lost to abandonment by up to 6.3%. Link to full article.

The Impact of Ride-Hailing Services on Traffic Congestion

Ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft are increasing in popularity. But questions remain about their impact on traffic volumes. New research in the INFORMS journal Transportation Science looks at monthly microdata from more than 9,000 vehicle detector station units deployed across California. In the paper, “The Heterogeneous Effects of P2P Ride-Hailing on Traffic: Evidence from Uber’s Entry in California,” the researchers show that Uber’s effect on traffic (either pooling or crowding) depends on various contextual factors. There is some evidence of pooling effects on weekdays; however, Uber’s entry leads to significant crowding effects on weekends. This is amplified on interior roads and in areas characterized by high population density. Although ride-hailing seems to have a substitution effect on public transportation, the authors find that ride-hailing services may have a complementary effect for carpooling users. Link to full article.

About INFORMS  

INFORMS advances and promotes the science and technology of decision making to save lives, save money, and solve problems. As the largest association for the decision and data sciences, INFORMS members support organizations and governments at all levels as they work to transform data into information, and information into insights that lead to more efficient, effective, equitable and impactful results. INFORMS’ 10,000+ members are comprised of a diverse and robust international community of practitioners, researchers, educators, and students from a variety of fields.

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Contact:

Ashley Smith

443-757-3578

[email protected]