BALTIMORE, MD, May 24, 2025 – Most anti-human trafficking efforts focus on breaking up sex sales; however, new research in the INFORMS journal Manufacturing & Service Operations Management is turning its attention to where trafficking truly begins – recruitment. Using machine learning to analyze millions of online ads, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have uncovered patterns that link deceptive job offers to sex trafficking networks. By mapping the connections between recruitment and sales locations, the study reveals a hidden supply chain – one that can now be exposed and interrupted earlier in the trafficking process.
Drugs being explicitly developed to treat rare diseases are getting more expensive.
Old technology is behind the recent ongoing delays and cancellations at Newark Liberty International Airport, but newer technology will be an important part of the solution.
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Brenda L. Dietrich, former INFORMS president who leads the data science function of IBM Business Analytics Insights as a Service unit, was named as one of the top nine women leading the pack in data analytics.
By studying nearly nine million domestic flights, INFORMS members Mazhar Arikan, University of Kansas; Vinayak Deshpande, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and Mark Ferguson, University of South Carolina, found that by not charging checked bag fees Southwest Airlines could be impacting their flights' ability to depart on time. Their findings were published in the INFORMS journal Management Science.
The LA Times explores garbage orbiting earth and how to clean it up, including a 2009 paper by INFORMS member Lawrence Wein and coauthor Andrew Bradley, both researchers at Stanford University.
Two INFORMS members from the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business, doctoral student Bhupesh Shetty and Associate Professor Jeffrey Ohlmann, in conjunction with Professor Gary Gaeth, developed an optimization model to improve Monday Night Football schedules. By analyzing every Monday night game played between 1993 and 2008, the researchers discovered three factors that have the greatest impact on generating high ratings: games played by Super Bowl champions, teams with high profile players or coaches joining the team, and teams with high-powered offenses.
Using data from a Washington Post comprehensive report, two INFORMS members investigated the impact of technology on police performance and practice. Professors Min-Seok Pang and Paul Pavlou, both from Temple University’s Fox School of Business, found that the use of analytics and smartphones to access intelligence led to decreased instances of lethal force by police, whereas wearable video cameras were linked to an increase in lethal force on civilians by police.
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