March 2010

Hello Analytica Users!

By popular demand, we are restarting the Analytica newsletter. It will keep you up-to-date with special Analytica tips and hints, new features and releases, webinars and coaching, interesting applications and case studies, and books or seminars on modeling. We would appreciate your comments, requests, or contributions.

Thanks,
Paul Sanford
Analytica Newsletter Editor

Analytica 4.2.3 patch release

Release 4.2.3 offers some valuable new features. Notably, you can choose to display an ancestor list across the top of each diagram.  This allows quick access to other diagrams and helps keep you oriented in large models with  complex hierarchy structures.  This upgrade is available to all users with current support and takes only a minute or so to download and install. Check the Analytica Wiki pages for more.

Latest recorded Webinar: Large Sample Library

On Feb. 18th Lumina CTO, Lonnie Chrisman, hosted a webinar on the Large Sample Library. Large sample sizes on large models can often exceed available RAM, triggering time-consuming swaps to virtual memory. This Library lets you break the run into small batches to keep within memory limits and improve processing speed.

Archives of this and all Webinars in the Analytica Skill Building Series are available in the Analytica Wiki for users with current support.

Upgrading Analytica Optimizer to run the most powerful solver engines

In addition to using Premium Solver from Frontline Systems as a standard built-in feature in Analytica Optimizer you can now purchase an upgrade, choosing among some of the most powerful third-party solver engines available anywhere. These include Express for LP, QP, and MIP; Knitro for NLP; and the new Gurobi LP and MIP engine, which is world-record holder on some benchmarks. For more, see Solver Engines.

Sam Savage's Risk Modeling Seminar

Sam Savage is a Consulting Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford and developer of the DIST™ distribution string in collaboration with Oracle Corp, SAS Institute, Frontline Systems, and Lumina. His new book, The Flaw of Averages, breaks new ground on practical ways to help businesses manage uncertainty -- in his entertainingly witty style. This spring, he's offering one-day seminars on 21st Century Risk Modeling in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and London. He's been called "the Ed Tufte of risk". Analytica users will find his book and seminar insightful, especially on how to use humor to convince clients and executives on why and how to take uncertainty management seriously.

See www.21stCenturyRisk.com for details. Analytica users get a 5% discount on the seminar using promotion code lu9p8x, or 15% discount for groups of 5+ using lu9z74.

SIPs & SLURPs

Professor Savage and his colleagues have termed SIPs (Stochastic Information Packets) and SLURPs (a coherent bundle of SIPs) as key concepts on the subject of Probability Management in organizations. According to Professor Savage, "Without using the terminology [of SIPs and SLURPs], Analytica has been providing what I would call a full Probability Management solution from the beginning."  Lumina CTO Lonnie Chrisman has made substantial contributions to the development of the DIST™ 1.1 standard which allows decision makers to share probabilistic data in SIP form. Read more about how Analytica supports better decision making through Probability Management.