HOW: Ask "why?" questions in response to five consecutive answers.
WHY: This exercise forces people to examine and express the underlying reasons for their behavior and attitudes.
Q: Why do you exercise?
A: Because it's healthy.
Q: Why is it healthy?
A: Because it raises my hear rate.
Q: Why is that important?
A: So that I burn more calories.
Q: Why do you want to do that?
A: To lose weight.
Q: Why are you trying to lose weight?
A: I feel social pressure to look fit.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Create Positive Energy at Work
The excitement and positive energy we felt could have made ourselves move
mountains and achieve anything. Because the energy will give you best
shot.
When you just work for boss, your battery level may only be 6 out of 10; when you work for your dreams, the battery level could 20 out of 10. Why not work for your passion, for your dream? Get away those negative energy and creat positive energy at work to greatly improve our productivity.
Love what we do, and be grateful for everything we have! Always make plans, exercise more, contribute more, and being grateful and forgiven, most importantly look forward!
When you just work for boss, your battery level may only be 6 out of 10; when you work for your dreams, the battery level could 20 out of 10. Why not work for your passion, for your dream? Get away those negative energy and creat positive energy at work to greatly improve our productivity.
Love what we do, and be grateful for everything we have! Always make plans, exercise more, contribute more, and being grateful and forgiven, most importantly look forward!
方校长毕业典礼致辞
亲身经历 才是最真实的感受， 方校长算是一个好校长，宋院长是一个好人，一辈子值得感激的人， 祝福你们都能够好人一生平安！ 牢记我是一个北邮人。
——方滨兴校长在2013届本科生毕业典礼上的讲话
同学们，大家上午好！（掌声）
今天，我们在这里举行一年一度的本科生毕业典礼，虽然每年的校历都镌刻着这个日子，对教师们来说习以为常，但对你们来说却非同寻常。因为这是你 们人生中一个重要的标志，是你们人生征途中的一个里程碑。不瞒你们说，这次毕业典礼对我来说也是极为特别的，因为这次毕业典礼恰逢本届校行政领导班子履职 期满，这是本届领导班子最后一个本科生毕业典礼。（掌声）几个月来我一直在想，我该在这最后一次的演讲中向你们传达一些什么信息？我回想起我毕业后的工作 与生活，回顾了我的人生轨迹。今天，我在最后一次以校长名义所做的毕业典礼演讲中，要向毕业生们奉送一个锦囊，以陪伴你们行走四方。这也是我今天的演讲题 目：“临行奉送锦囊，人生追求‘六好’”。
“第一好”是指要有个好品德。“地势坤，君子以厚德载物”，北邮校训的第一个词语就是“厚德”。因为“德”是做人之本，也是指导我们思维、行事 的灵魂所在。一个人的善或恶、好或坏、成或败、瘦或硕，无不源自于其品德。要注意你所想的，你的想法会变成你的语言；要注意你所说的，你的语言会变成你的 行动；要注意你所做的，你的行为会变成你的习惯；要注意你的习惯，你的下意识会变成你的性格；要注意你的性格，你的本性会左右你的命运。而所有这一切，其 源头就是取决于你的品德。我个人对自己的要求是：“举事为先、待人以诚，开拓进取、善善恶恶”。当然，我也知道“善善恶恶”并不适合于领导者，因为做领导 的不能简单地爱憎分明，而需要普惠众生，包容丑恶；领导者可以“善人以善”，却不宜“恶人以恶”。
“第二好”是指要有个好本事。“本事”何来？是从学中来，从干中来。北邮校训第二个词语就是“博学”。《礼记?儒行》云：“儒有博学而不穷，笃 行而不倦”，就是说学者应该学无止境，锲而不舍；要苦于学习，勇于实践。当今时代是知识爆炸的社会，是新知识、新技术层出不穷的时代。量子计算、3D打 印、自动内容识别、自动驾驶、自然语言问答、语音翻译、大数据、NFC支付、手势控制、物联网安全、云安全、高级持续威胁（APT）等等，都在等待我们去 探索，你们需要去选择性地掌握这些知识。但是，只有拥有真本事才能驾驭这些领域。英雄气概是以“本事”为资本的，敢说“可上九天揽月，可下五洋捉鳖，谈笑 凯歌还”，那是需要有真本事的！
“第三好”是指要有个好谋划。北邮精神的第二条是“追求卓越”。要做到追求卓越，首先就是要善于规划自己，不能浑浑噩噩，做一天和尚撞一天钟。 《礼记?中庸》云：“凡事豫则立，不豫则废。言前定则不跲，事前定则不困，行前定则不疚，道前定则不穷”。没有事前的准备与计划，就不能取得期望的成果。 你们应该想清楚今年我要做什么，要达到什么目标？要谋划好在现在这个岗位中要如何做，应该追求什么目标？所谓“人无远虑，必有近忧”，也是指没有长远谋 划，做事必定没有章法，势必以疲于奔命的方式来应付眼前遇到的每一件事情，不能做到“有所为，有所不为”。荀子曰：“计胜欲则从，欲胜计则凶”，就是告诉 我们这个道理：谋事在先就会顺利，随心所欲行事极易失败。
“第四好”是指要有个好态度。好态度首先表现在奉献和敬业中。北邮精神的第一句是“崇尚奉献”，北邮校训的第三句是“敬业乐群”，这就是号召大 家对事业要严谨、认真，要有奉献精神。荀子曰：“凡百事之成也必在敬之，其败也必在慢之，故敬胜怠则吉，怠胜敬则灭”。就是说，是否敬业将会决定你自己事 业的成败。宋代大儒程颐说：“所谓敬者，主一之谓敬；所谓一者，无适之谓一”。就是说，凡是做一件事，便要专心于一件事，将全副精力集中到这件事上头，心 无旁骛，这便是敬。梁启超先生说：“所以敬业主义，于人生最为必要，又于人生最为有利”。敬业包含爱业、勤业、精业、创业等多种境界，我们应该具备为社会 发展而奉献的价值观。
“好态度”也可用于诠释“团结、勤奋、严谨、创新”的北邮校风。在此，“创新”是第一要义，开拓进取是我们努力追求的目标；“严谨”是核心， “规格严谨、功夫到家”是锤炼优秀科研人员的基石；“团结”是基本要求，团结协作是能干成大事的前提条件；“勤奋”是根本方法，兢兢业业是获得成功的根本 保证。你们应该做到“眼勤、脑勤、手勤、腿勤”，要热爱岗位、笃学求精、献身创新，在平凡的岗位上做出不平凡的事业来。
“第五好”是指要有个好心气。这就是你们一定要有一个健康的心理，要提高自己的抗压、耐挫能力。我作为校长始终倡导我们的教职员工“对待学生要 像对待朋友的孩子一样”加以关怀，所以我一直对你们就像敞开我的邮箱一样敞开心扉，有言必达、有信必回。但是，我的这一要求并没有得到教职员工的广泛认 同。不赞成者认为学生从家庭到大学，就是走向了社会，他们需要认识社会，需要感受社会残酷的一面。这个残酷现实的主要表现就是，你已脱离了家庭的中心地 位，社会上无人会拿你当宝，甚至能够认可你的存在就不错了。如果我们把学校仍旧打造成一个温室，温室的花朵今后焉能承受住社会的风霜雨雪？从真空进入大气 中，焉能有抗毒能力？有个毕业生回校感言：“老师，过去你们对我们太好了，我以为社会上都是这样子。工作后我做了甲方，没想到乙方居然敢跟我拍桌子瞪眼。 你们为何不早些告诉我社会是这个样子呢？”
我收到过一个学生的邮件，向我抱怨说“学校的大叔大妈为什么总是大吼大叫的？”我在向他表示需要改善学校服务态度的同时，也告诉他要学会不受干 扰，不要让此类事情烦心自己，别忘了自己的本意是来读书的，不是来生气的。其实与人打交道是一种学问，既要追求自己有个好心情，也要给对方一个好心情。我 身边有这样一个真实案例：两个人去喝咖啡，每一杯咖啡赠送一包薯条。其中一个人想再要薯条，但不要咖啡，可是服务员说薯条只赠不卖。这个人就拿出钱来协 商，同意只要比买咖啡便宜就行。服务员正在犹豫到底该收多少钱好？这时另一个人冲过来说，“象征性收一些就行了，你这个人怎么这么死脑筋呢？”服务员立即 把钱退回说：“我不是死脑筋，按照规定就是不能卖！”这一来单买薯条是不可能了，相信你们也明白了其中的缘由。
总之，凡事一定要清楚自己原本的目的是什么，要学会掌握心理抗压的能力，要让自己在任何情况下都能hold住。你们好比是高速运行中的星体，不 要让飞来的石子改变自己的轨道。要记住：不被他人所激怒也不去激怒他人是一种包容力，“海纳百川，有容乃大”；不被他人所左右不随意改变既定目标是一种定 力，要善于步入“不管风吹浪打，胜似闲庭信步”的儒雅境界。
“第六好”是指要有个好身体。健康是人类的财富，要注意锻炼身体、劳逸结合，要养成良好的生活习惯。我很赞成这样的说法：人生是一个巨大的数 字，其中身体健康是最前面的1，人的事业、荣誉、地位、财富、家庭、朋友等等都是1后面的0，显然0越多数值就越大。但是，一旦前面的1没有了，这个数字 就真的成为零了。只有保持住了身体的这个1，后面的0积多了才有意义，才能体现出其价值。我们说“身体是人生的本钱”。本钱是用来投资的，不是用来挥霍 的。所以你们不要随意突破自己的身体极限，任意浪费自己的本钱。不仅如此，你们还要努力增加自己的本钱。我曾经有一个很好的身体，轻易就能连续自由泳两千 米。但由于过度透支自己的身体，同时也没有拿出足够的时间来补充，所以一场大病让我失去了能够熬夜奋战的资本，不能再像过去一样双肩同时挑起学术、管理两副重担。这也是我向主管部门提出不再连任北邮校长职务的原因。没有一个健壮的身体，我只有放下一副担子。而你们都有着长远的未来，有着家庭、事业、孝敬父母等多副担子，所以一定要爱惜自己的身体，一辈子都要健健康康的！（热烈掌声）
同学们，今天我想跟你们说的主要意思就是：要想做人，就要有好品德；要想做事，就要有好本事；要想成大事，就要有好谋划；要想取信于人，就要有 好态度；要想取信天下，就要有好心气；要想勤耕不辍，就要有好身体。希望你们记住：凡事要沉稳，要避免草率决策；做事要恒心，要勇于承担后果。
同学们，我愿意最后一次以校长的名义告诉你们大家：我会永远用真心祝福你们！（掌声）我，爱你们！
——方滨兴校长在2013届本科生毕业典礼上的讲话
同学们，大家上午好！（掌声）
今天，我们在这里举行一年一度的本科生毕业典礼，虽然每年的校历都镌刻着这个日子，对教师们来说习以为常，但对你们来说却非同寻常。因为这是你 们人生中一个重要的标志，是你们人生征途中的一个里程碑。不瞒你们说，这次毕业典礼对我来说也是极为特别的，因为这次毕业典礼恰逢本届校行政领导班子履职 期满，这是本届领导班子最后一个本科生毕业典礼。（掌声）几个月来我一直在想，我该在这最后一次的演讲中向你们传达一些什么信息？我回想起我毕业后的工作 与生活，回顾了我的人生轨迹。今天，我在最后一次以校长名义所做的毕业典礼演讲中，要向毕业生们奉送一个锦囊，以陪伴你们行走四方。这也是我今天的演讲题 目：“临行奉送锦囊，人生追求‘六好’”。
“第一好”是指要有个好品德。“地势坤，君子以厚德载物”，北邮校训的第一个词语就是“厚德”。因为“德”是做人之本，也是指导我们思维、行事 的灵魂所在。一个人的善或恶、好或坏、成或败、瘦或硕，无不源自于其品德。要注意你所想的，你的想法会变成你的语言；要注意你所说的，你的语言会变成你的 行动；要注意你所做的，你的行为会变成你的习惯；要注意你的习惯，你的下意识会变成你的性格；要注意你的性格，你的本性会左右你的命运。而所有这一切，其 源头就是取决于你的品德。我个人对自己的要求是：“举事为先、待人以诚，开拓进取、善善恶恶”。当然，我也知道“善善恶恶”并不适合于领导者，因为做领导 的不能简单地爱憎分明，而需要普惠众生，包容丑恶；领导者可以“善人以善”，却不宜“恶人以恶”。
“第二好”是指要有个好本事。“本事”何来？是从学中来，从干中来。北邮校训第二个词语就是“博学”。《礼记?儒行》云：“儒有博学而不穷，笃 行而不倦”，就是说学者应该学无止境，锲而不舍；要苦于学习，勇于实践。当今时代是知识爆炸的社会，是新知识、新技术层出不穷的时代。量子计算、3D打 印、自动内容识别、自动驾驶、自然语言问答、语音翻译、大数据、NFC支付、手势控制、物联网安全、云安全、高级持续威胁（APT）等等，都在等待我们去 探索，你们需要去选择性地掌握这些知识。但是，只有拥有真本事才能驾驭这些领域。英雄气概是以“本事”为资本的，敢说“可上九天揽月，可下五洋捉鳖，谈笑 凯歌还”，那是需要有真本事的！
“第三好”是指要有个好谋划。北邮精神的第二条是“追求卓越”。要做到追求卓越，首先就是要善于规划自己，不能浑浑噩噩，做一天和尚撞一天钟。 《礼记?中庸》云：“凡事豫则立，不豫则废。言前定则不跲，事前定则不困，行前定则不疚，道前定则不穷”。没有事前的准备与计划，就不能取得期望的成果。 你们应该想清楚今年我要做什么，要达到什么目标？要谋划好在现在这个岗位中要如何做，应该追求什么目标？所谓“人无远虑，必有近忧”，也是指没有长远谋 划，做事必定没有章法，势必以疲于奔命的方式来应付眼前遇到的每一件事情，不能做到“有所为，有所不为”。荀子曰：“计胜欲则从，欲胜计则凶”，就是告诉 我们这个道理：谋事在先就会顺利，随心所欲行事极易失败。
“第四好”是指要有个好态度。好态度首先表现在奉献和敬业中。北邮精神的第一句是“崇尚奉献”，北邮校训的第三句是“敬业乐群”，这就是号召大 家对事业要严谨、认真，要有奉献精神。荀子曰：“凡百事之成也必在敬之，其败也必在慢之，故敬胜怠则吉，怠胜敬则灭”。就是说，是否敬业将会决定你自己事 业的成败。宋代大儒程颐说：“所谓敬者，主一之谓敬；所谓一者，无适之谓一”。就是说，凡是做一件事，便要专心于一件事，将全副精力集中到这件事上头，心 无旁骛，这便是敬。梁启超先生说：“所以敬业主义，于人生最为必要，又于人生最为有利”。敬业包含爱业、勤业、精业、创业等多种境界，我们应该具备为社会 发展而奉献的价值观。
“好态度”也可用于诠释“团结、勤奋、严谨、创新”的北邮校风。在此，“创新”是第一要义，开拓进取是我们努力追求的目标；“严谨”是核心， “规格严谨、功夫到家”是锤炼优秀科研人员的基石；“团结”是基本要求，团结协作是能干成大事的前提条件；“勤奋”是根本方法，兢兢业业是获得成功的根本 保证。你们应该做到“眼勤、脑勤、手勤、腿勤”，要热爱岗位、笃学求精、献身创新，在平凡的岗位上做出不平凡的事业来。
“第五好”是指要有个好心气。这就是你们一定要有一个健康的心理，要提高自己的抗压、耐挫能力。我作为校长始终倡导我们的教职员工“对待学生要 像对待朋友的孩子一样”加以关怀，所以我一直对你们就像敞开我的邮箱一样敞开心扉，有言必达、有信必回。但是，我的这一要求并没有得到教职员工的广泛认 同。不赞成者认为学生从家庭到大学，就是走向了社会，他们需要认识社会，需要感受社会残酷的一面。这个残酷现实的主要表现就是，你已脱离了家庭的中心地 位，社会上无人会拿你当宝，甚至能够认可你的存在就不错了。如果我们把学校仍旧打造成一个温室，温室的花朵今后焉能承受住社会的风霜雨雪？从真空进入大气 中，焉能有抗毒能力？有个毕业生回校感言：“老师，过去你们对我们太好了，我以为社会上都是这样子。工作后我做了甲方，没想到乙方居然敢跟我拍桌子瞪眼。 你们为何不早些告诉我社会是这个样子呢？”
我收到过一个学生的邮件，向我抱怨说“学校的大叔大妈为什么总是大吼大叫的？”我在向他表示需要改善学校服务态度的同时，也告诉他要学会不受干 扰，不要让此类事情烦心自己，别忘了自己的本意是来读书的，不是来生气的。其实与人打交道是一种学问，既要追求自己有个好心情，也要给对方一个好心情。我 身边有这样一个真实案例：两个人去喝咖啡，每一杯咖啡赠送一包薯条。其中一个人想再要薯条，但不要咖啡，可是服务员说薯条只赠不卖。这个人就拿出钱来协 商，同意只要比买咖啡便宜就行。服务员正在犹豫到底该收多少钱好？这时另一个人冲过来说，“象征性收一些就行了，你这个人怎么这么死脑筋呢？”服务员立即 把钱退回说：“我不是死脑筋，按照规定就是不能卖！”这一来单买薯条是不可能了，相信你们也明白了其中的缘由。
总之，凡事一定要清楚自己原本的目的是什么，要学会掌握心理抗压的能力，要让自己在任何情况下都能hold住。你们好比是高速运行中的星体，不 要让飞来的石子改变自己的轨道。要记住：不被他人所激怒也不去激怒他人是一种包容力，“海纳百川，有容乃大”；不被他人所左右不随意改变既定目标是一种定 力，要善于步入“不管风吹浪打，胜似闲庭信步”的儒雅境界。
“第六好”是指要有个好身体。健康是人类的财富，要注意锻炼身体、劳逸结合，要养成良好的生活习惯。我很赞成这样的说法：人生是一个巨大的数 字，其中身体健康是最前面的1，人的事业、荣誉、地位、财富、家庭、朋友等等都是1后面的0，显然0越多数值就越大。但是，一旦前面的1没有了，这个数字 就真的成为零了。只有保持住了身体的这个1，后面的0积多了才有意义，才能体现出其价值。我们说“身体是人生的本钱”。本钱是用来投资的，不是用来挥霍 的。所以你们不要随意突破自己的身体极限，任意浪费自己的本钱。不仅如此，你们还要努力增加自己的本钱。我曾经有一个很好的身体，轻易就能连续自由泳两千 米。但由于过度透支自己的身体，同时也没有拿出足够的时间来补充，所以一场大病让我失去了能够熬夜奋战的资本，不能再像过去一样双肩同时挑起学术、管理两副重担。这也是我向主管部门提出不再连任北邮校长职务的原因。没有一个健壮的身体，我只有放下一副担子。而你们都有着长远的未来，有着家庭、事业、孝敬父母等多副担子，所以一定要爱惜自己的身体，一辈子都要健健康康的！（热烈掌声）
同学们，今天我想跟你们说的主要意思就是：要想做人，就要有好品德；要想做事，就要有好本事；要想成大事，就要有好谋划；要想取信于人，就要有 好态度；要想取信天下，就要有好心气；要想勤耕不辍，就要有好身体。希望你们记住：凡事要沉稳，要避免草率决策；做事要恒心，要勇于承担后果。
同学们，我愿意最后一次以校长的名义告诉你们大家：我会永远用真心祝福你们！（掌声）我，爱你们！
Thursday, November 29, 2012
"Five Commandments of Decision Making Under Uncertainty" by Roger Pielke
Referring to: (Roger Pielke, Jr.
)
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.sg/2012/09/five-commandments-of-decision-making.html
In a paper presented yesterday at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium (a history of the symposium is here in PDF), Andrew Haldane and Vasileios Madouros recommend "Five Commandments" of decision making under uncertainty. The paper is titled "The Dog and the Frisbee" and in it they describe these "five commandments":
1. "Complex environments often instead call for simple decision rules"
One important point to note is that their paper uses two conflicting definitions of "uncertainty." One definition of uncertainty is equivalent to "risk" or the odds of a particular outcome from a known distribution of outcomes. If I bet $1,000 that the next roll of a die will turn up 6, I am taking a risk on an uncertain outcome. A second definition of uncertainty ("Knightian uncertainty") is equivalent to what I typically call "ignorance" following from the work of John Maynard Keynes, as discussed in The Honest Broker. These two definitions are obviously not referring to the same concept, and thus are subject to confusion unless care in taken in the interpretation. (I discuss uncertainty-as-ignorance at length in this recent paper in PDF).
Academics and policy makers typically like to focus on uncertainty-as-risk rather than uncertainty-as-ignorance as the former is more readily subject to easy quantification and manipulation. This focus reinforces the values of academia (where physics-envy runs rampant through the social sciences) and the desire of politicians to make concrete-looking claims backed by authoritative-sounding expertise. The result can be to create a zone of ignorance surrounding our decisions. Not surprisingly, bad decisions can result.
Haldane and Madouros apply their analysis to financial regulation, but the heuristics that they introduce have a much broader applicability. The entire paper just scratches the surface of this important topic, but it is a readable and valuable contribution. Have a look (PDF).
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.sg/2012/09/five-commandments-of-decision-making.html
In a paper presented yesterday at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium (a history of the symposium is here in PDF), Andrew Haldane and Vasileios Madouros recommend "Five Commandments" of decision making under uncertainty. The paper is titled "The Dog and the Frisbee" and in it they describe these "five commandments":
These are “Five Commandments” of decision-making under uncertainty. That description is apt. Like disease detection, frisbee catching, sports prediction and stock-picking, living a moral life is a complex task. The Ten Commandments are heuristics to help guide people through that moral maze, the ultimate simple rules. They have proven remarkably robust through the millennia. Less has been more.The "commandments" are summarized below, based on my distillation of the text of their paper, and frequent readers of this blog are going to find much in them that is familiar:
1. "Complex environments often instead call for simple decision rules"
The simplest explanation is that collecting and processing the information necessary for complex decisionmaking is costly, perhaps punitively so. Fully defining future states of the world, and probability-weighting them, is beyond anyone’s cognitive limits. Even in relatively simple games, such as chess, cognitive limits are quickly breached. Chess grandmasters are unable to evaluate fully more than 5 chess moves ahead. The largest super-computers cannot fully compute much beyond 10 moves ahead (Gigerenzer (2007)).2. "Ignorance can be bliss"
Most real-world decision-making is far more complex than chess – more moving pieces with larger numbers of opponents evaluated many more moves ahead. Simon coined the terms “bounded rationality” and “satisficing” to explain cost-induced deviations from rational decision-making (Simon (1956)). A generation on, these are the self-same justifications being used by behavioural economists today. For both, less may be more because more information comes at too high a price.
Too great a focus on information gathered from the past may retard effective decision-making about the future. Knowing too much can clog up the cognitive inbox, overload the neurological hard disk. One of the main purposes of sleep – doing less – is to unclog the cognitive inbox (Wang et al (2011)). That is why, when making a big decision, we often “sleep on it”.3. "Probabilistic weights from the past may be a fragile guide to the future"
“Sleeping on it” has a direct parallel in statistical theory. In econometrics, a model seeking to infer behaviour from the past, based on too short a sample, may lead to “over-fitting”. Noise is then mistaken as signal, blips parameterised as trends. A model which is “over-fitted” sways with the smallest statistical breeze. For that reason, it may yield rather fragile predictions about the future.
Experimental evidence bears this out. Take sports prediction. . .
John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern established that optimal decision-making involved probabilistically-weighting all possible future outcomes (von Neumann and Morgenstern (1944)). Multiple regression techniques are the statistical analogue of von Neumann-Morgenstern optimisation, with behaviour inferred by probabilistically-weighting explanatory factors.4. "Other things equal, the smaller the sample, the greater the model uncertainty and the better the performance of simple, heuristic strategies"
In an uncertain environment, where statistical probabilities are unknown, however, these approaches to decision-making may no longer be suitable. Probabilistic weights from the past may be a fragile guide to the future. Weighting may be in vain. Strategies that simplify, or perhaps even ignore, statistical weights may be preferable. The simplest imaginable such scheme would be equal-weighting or “tallying”.
The choice of optimal decision-making strategy depends importantly on the degree of uncertainty about the environment – in statistical terms, model uncertainty. A key factor determining that uncertainty is the length of the sample over which the model is estimated. Other things equal, the smaller the sample, the greater the model uncertainty and the better the performance of simple, heuristic strategies.5. "Complex rules may cause people to manage to the rules, for fear of falling foul of them"
Small samples increase the sensitivity of parameter estimates. They increase the chances of inaccurately over-fitting historical data. This risk becomes more acute, the larger the parameter space being estimated. Complex models are more likely to be over-fitted. And the parametric sensitivity induced by over-fitting makes for unreliable predictions about the future. Simple models suffer fewer of these parametric excesssensitivity problems, especially when samples are short.
There is a final, related but distinct, rationale for simple over complex rules. Complex rules may cause people to manage to the rules, for fear of falling foul of them. They may induce people to act defensively, focussing on the small print at the expense of the bigger picture.A focus on simple vs. complex analyses and decisions that are based on heuristics rather than optimization runs counter to the grain of conventional wisdom across many areas, from financial regulation to environmental protection.
Studies of the behaviour of doctors illustrate this pattern (Gigerenzer and Kurzenhäuser (2005)). Fearing misdiagnosis, perhaps litigation, doctors are prone to tick the boxes. That may mean over-diagnosing drugs or over-submitting patients to hospital. Both are defensive actions, reducing risks to the doctor. But both are a potential health hazard to the patient. For example, submitting patients to hospital increases significantly their risk of secondary infection. Hospitals are, after all, full of sick people.
Doctors unencumbered by a complex rulebook will have fewer incentives to act defensively. They may also be better able to form their own independent judgements when diagnosing medical problems, using their accumulated experience. That ought to more closely align a doctor’s risk incentives with their patient’s. The same is likely to be true of other professions, from lawyers to policemen to bank supervisors.
One important point to note is that their paper uses two conflicting definitions of "uncertainty." One definition of uncertainty is equivalent to "risk" or the odds of a particular outcome from a known distribution of outcomes. If I bet $1,000 that the next roll of a die will turn up 6, I am taking a risk on an uncertain outcome. A second definition of uncertainty ("Knightian uncertainty") is equivalent to what I typically call "ignorance" following from the work of John Maynard Keynes, as discussed in The Honest Broker. These two definitions are obviously not referring to the same concept, and thus are subject to confusion unless care in taken in the interpretation. (I discuss uncertainty-as-ignorance at length in this recent paper in PDF).
Academics and policy makers typically like to focus on uncertainty-as-risk rather than uncertainty-as-ignorance as the former is more readily subject to easy quantification and manipulation. This focus reinforces the values of academia (where physics-envy runs rampant through the social sciences) and the desire of politicians to make concrete-looking claims backed by authoritative-sounding expertise. The result can be to create a zone of ignorance surrounding our decisions. Not surprisingly, bad decisions can result.
Haldane and Madouros apply their analysis to financial regulation, but the heuristics that they introduce have a much broader applicability. The entire paper just scratches the surface of this important topic, but it is a readable and valuable contribution. Have a look (PDF).
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Find the right partner
Will he be a good partner? or even co-founder? We often ask ourselves the same question when working with or even co-found a company with someone.
Here are several pictures to tell whom you should trust and work with.
-------- Definitely No!!!!!!
what he is thinking is to take others down and have most shares of current "CAKE".
-------- Worthwhile!
We want collaboration and make the current "CAKE" twice bigger or more rather than focus on how much share we get today! Future is the utter most goal and a much bigger "CAKE".
Here are several pictures to tell whom you should trust and work with.
 |
| From "Outclassing Sourcing Champions" by Karan Girotra |
what he is thinking is to take others down and have most shares of current "CAKE".
 |
| From "Outclassing Sourcing Champions" by Karan Girotra |
 |
| From "Outclassing Sourcing Champions" by Karan Girotra |
We want collaboration and make the current "CAKE" twice bigger or more rather than focus on how much share we get today! Future is the utter most goal and a much bigger "CAKE".
Why business analytics?
"Scientist often do science for the sake of science, while practitioners
in a busy environment tend to rely on gut feel rather then utilizing the
opportunities of analysis. When will the two unite bringing science to
Supply Chain Management in similar ways that have boosted fields like
medicine, finance and aviation?" ---- Bravo Lucy
Friday, September 7, 2012
Optimization Challenges
Optimization itself is never isolated, and without data it is just a skeleton without flesh. Data, not toy data, but real industrial data, large scale. Otherwise our work means nothing! Agree ?
"A world in which the primary industries—transportation, healthcare, energy—were becoming more instrumented and interconnected, and intelligent, producing data that could be used to improve the quality of our lives and our work across a variety of industries"
"A world in which the primary industries—transportation, healthcare, energy—were becoming more instrumented and interconnected, and intelligent, producing data that could be used to improve the quality of our lives and our work across a variety of industries"
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