Zanakis, Steve H. (Florida International University)

Topics:

Experiences from a Disputed Statistical Audit of Medicaid Charges
Adherence to proper sampling saves the City of Miami Fire Rescue Ambulatory Services 60% in refunds claimed by the State of Florida. (Elementary)

Data Mining at Work: Detecting Abnormal Pricing (Outliers) in International Trade
Analysis of thousands of harmonized commodity codes and millions of import/export transactions between Greece-USA revealed that Greece is loosing annually about $400 million ($8 billion with all countries or about 4% of its GDP). A filter identified the top 50 income shifting items, an audit of which could capture for the Greek treasury 77% of all income shifted from exports and about 50% of that from all imports. (Elementary, Intermediate)

Global Risk Investing
How the risk assessments of Wall Street international experts for 51 countries were predicted 100% accurately via multicriteria decision analysis and data mining techniques. (Intermediate, Advanced).

Ancient Greeks' Practices in Public and Entrepreneurship Decision Making
Random drawing devices used in 5th-3rd BC Athenian courts for jury selection/allocation, the Delphic Oracle's 9th-3rd BC central intelligence databank, Xenophon’s pioneering 4th BC management ideas, and two 4th-6th BC project management works, a one-kilometer water-supply tunnel drilled from two ends, and a preserved contract for lake drainage. (Elementary)

A Multi-Country Comparison of Tobacco Consumption, Related Deaths and DEA Control Efficiency (Elementary, Intermediate)

Customer Satisfaction Surveys and Six-Sigma Quality
Survey design and analysis pitfalls. How to do it, assessing customer satisfaction, service value and effectiveness for competitive advantage (case of college online learning assessment). Illustrations of disastrous effects of traditional, far from 6 sigma, quality levels and examples from world-class companies, winners of the Deming and Malcom Baldrige TQM award. (Elementary)

Implementing Management Science and Inventory Models: From Math Jungle to Behavioral Hell
Technical and human difficulties affecting successful implementation, do's and don'ts. (Elementary)

Background:

• M.A. Statistics - Pennsylvania State University
• M.B.A. Management Science - Pennsylvania State University
• M.S. Mechanical/Electrical Engineering - National Technical University, Athens, Greece
• Ph.D. Management Science - Pennsylvania State University

Founding Chairman and currently Professor of Decision Sciences and Information Systems, Florida International University. University awards of Excellence in Research (2000 and 1993), Teaching (1991 and 1994), Innovative Education (1991) and Sustained Professional Excellence (1997). Designed and directed an evening IE/OR masters program at the West Virginia College of Graduate Studies. He has served as Associate Editor for Decision Sciences, and Guest-Editor for Management Science ("Optimization in Statistics"), European Journal of Operational Research ("International Applications of Data Envelopment Analysis" and "Operations Research/Statistics Interface: Real World Developments and Applications"), and American Journal of Mathematical and Management Science ("Statistics and Optimization: The Interface"). Co-author of three books: Decision Making: Recent Developments & Worldwide Applications, POMS: Production/ Operations Management Software, and Production Planning and Scheduling. Author of over forty publications in various MS/OR/IE peer-reviewed journals and several micro-computer software. Consultant to industrial, hospital, and state organizations in the United States and abroad. Frequent lecturer in graduate management programs at foreign universities.