MADRID, January 19 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The winners of the Society for Statistics and Operational Research (SEIO)-BBVA Foundation 2022 Awards were convinced that despite its growing importance and ubiquity, data science still remains “invisible” to a large part of society.
“In our daily work we use mathematics, we are immersed in it and we don’t understand it,” said Justo Puerto, awarded in the category Best Methodological Contribution in Operations Research for proposing a new optimization technique that serves, for example, to minimize risk and maximize benefit from financial investment, as SEIO and BBVA Foundation reported this Thursday.
At the awards ceremony, Professor Puerto explained that when a purchase is made on an online e-commerce platform, there is an algorithm that suggests which offers are of greatest interest, and when the platform automatically accesses streaming music or video, for your needs they have given earlier, recommendations have been received. “All these problems come down to the algorithms behind the search engine,” Professor Puerto emphasized.
Jessica Rodríguez-Pereira, awarded in the category of best applied contribution in operations research, said that her work is “unknown, especially if you compare it to other fields such as technology or medicine where society is clear about what is being researched and what is being achieved”.
This scientist, whose work made it possible to optimize the distribution of drinking water after the impact of two serious earthquakes in Nepal, pointed out that the goal of Operational Research is the application of mathematics “for effective decision-making, in the context of a pandemic, climate change, lack of resources. “Having these tools is important because they can be used more effectively for the benefit of society,” he stated.
During his speech at the event, Professor Antonio Cuevas, awarded in the category of the best applied contribution in statistics, emphasized the importance of “increasing the scientific culture of the population in statistics, in the same way as it has been achieved in other fields such as public health, medicine, information technology,” since research in this area “is of interest to the general population, as it affects issues of everyday life, and issues that most people are very interested in. up close”.
“LIFE SAVING” STATISTICS
For his part, Virgilio Gómez Rubio was awarded in the category of best contribution in statistics and operational research applied to data science and big data, for his book on “Bayesian inference with INLA”, a new method that allows the calculation of probabilities assigned to different events much faster than previous techniques.
“Doctors save lives, but also statistics, in the sense that they allow us to decide whether a treatment is effective or not. If it is effective and we use it, we save lives. If it is not effective, we prevent someone from being given a treatment that will not lead to improvement “, emphasized Gómez Rubio.
Verónica Álvarez, awarded in the category of the best applied contribution in statistics, appreciated this scientific discipline in facing the challenge of energy efficiency. The team led by this researcher at BCAM in the Basque Country has made significant progress in this area by developing an artificial intelligence technique capable of forecasting electricity demand: “We propose methods that obtain accurate forecasts and reliably estimate forecast uncertainty. Accurate forecasts are crucial for planning and adjustment of electricity production.”
EXCEPTIONAL ACADEMIC TRAJECTS
At this ceremony, SEIO also presented its annual medals to Ricardo Cao, Professor of Statistics and Operations Research at the University of A Coruña, for outstanding contributions in multiple areas of statistics such as survival analysis and statistical analysis of large datasets, with applications in genomics, neuroscience, epidemiology and oncology, among others; and Ángel Corberán, retired professor from the Department of Statistics and Operational Research of the University of Valencia, for a pioneering scientific career in Spain in operations research, focused mainly on the optimization of vehicle routes, in which he became an international reference. .
In his speech, Ricardo Cao emphasized the “great impact” that data analysis has had in the fight against Covid-19, as well as its fundamental role in treatment models in oncology, for example “to model problems related to cardiotoxicity in treatments that are effective in women with breast cancer, but may cause adverse effects on the heart.”
Similarly, Professor Ángel Corberán, awarded for his career in route optimization for delivery vehicles, also emphasized the value of Operational Research in the face of a major environmental challenge: “Optimize consumption, reduce emissions, help sustainability in the distribution of goods, all these things, in times of energy crisis , for example, which has been exacerbated in recent months by the war in Ukraine, makes very evident the help that our research can provide for the betterment of society.”
THE GOLDEN PERIOD
“Statistics is experiencing a golden period, it is the result of the combination of development in this scientific field with progress in artificial intelligence and in the analysis of massive databases or big data, creating an interdisciplinary field of data science, application in all scientific disciplines and in all spheres of society, from economy to transport, including energy, the environment and health,” stated BBVA Foundation director Rafael Pardo in his speech.
For her part, the president of SEIO, Begoña Vitoriano, stated: “Statistics and operational research are today at the center of the development of a society where technology allows us to collect, store and transmit large amounts of data (or not so large). ) from which information is extracted for understanding, forecasting, making better decisions and optimizing the functioning of the system.”
The SEIO-BBVA Foundation Awards, awarded with 6,000 euros in each of its five categories, are awarded annually from 2020 for a pioneering contribution to a university or scientific center in Spain. Its goal is to encourage the work of the best researchers in the field of statistics and operational research, as well as to project the importance of their work for society.