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<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b>Encourage your talented students to Participate in<span style="mso-ligatures:none"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b>IISE <span style="color:black">
DAIS Data Analytics Competition</span></b><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b><span style="color:black">2025 IISE Annual Conference & Expo</span></b><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="color:black">May 31- June 3, 2025, Atlanta, Georgia<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="color:black"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="color:black">Dear Colleagues,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black">Please encourage your talented students to participate in this exciting competition.</span><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">IISE Data Analytics and Information systems division (dais) student data analytics competition<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">The Data Analytics Competition is an annual student competition organized by the Data Analytics and Information Systems (DAIS) Division of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE). The main
objective of the competition is to provide the students with the opportunity to learn, showcase, and enhance their data analysis and visualization skills through working on real-world problems with real-sized data sets.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Problem Description (Nursing Home Staffing Hour Prediction Triathlon)<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Nursing homes in the United States provide the most comprehensive set of professional care a person can receive outside hospital. The care includes a range of coordinated medical, personal, and social services
to meet the needs of residents who are chronically ill or disabled. Staffing adequately in a cost-benefit manner is vital to nursing home management in the United States. Since staffing cannot be adjusted in real-time, it is critical for each nursing home
facility to make accurate half-a-month to one-month-ahead prediction on the staffing level from the existing staff, which can help them make intelligent hiring and HR decisions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) provides public data sets, known as Payroll Based Journal Public Use Files (PBJ PUFs), containing daily nursing home staffing levels (often measured by staffing
hours) and resident census data. Nursing homes must submit accurate staffing information, including agency and contract staff, through the PBJ system, based on verifiable payroll data, in a format specified by CMS. Facilities report the number of hours each
staff member is paid to work each day. The quarterly PBJ data files are available beginning with data from the first calendar quarter of 2017. New data files will be uploaded to data.cms.gov on a quarterly basis. The public use files report information on
staffing hours for each day in the quarter. The staffing data in the PBJ PUFs is aggregated to the facility-day. This means that all included facilities have one record (or row of data) for each day in a quarterly file.
<a href="https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdata.cms.gov%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2F2023-06%2FPBJ_PUF_Documentation_July_2023.pdf&data=05%7C02%7Ciefac.list%40mailman.clemson.edu%7Cfb9c79b9bf964e7cf32b08dd00dd7a00%7C0c9bf8f6ccad4b87818d49026938aa97%7C0%7C0%7C638667673457841244%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=oc1bURK1WTGVMC5mBfQBk78TNohiRLEHY9rIHPdexWU%3D&reserved=0" originalSrc="https://data.cms.gov/sites/default/files/2023-06/PBJ_PUF_Documentation_July_2023.pdf" shash="fRkMhxnchemYnGWStPgrwZ0+UZNYROfrstORHzRO8kfx+VEL53meNVHGtIBqZ9e4OsaUnp/qiznoDnENJXWkL2v4IIqPQESGApoYrTNZo4Qs+SJq1AGwjdhSfhIOuXw6/n+UQiKVSxzuntJf2F0B73VK/vL0irdeHGNIaRg+ehw=" target="_blank">
Click here</a> for more details.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Competition Rules<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Training data set</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">. Nursing staff (e.g., CNA, LPN, RN) data files belonging to 100 nursing homes in Indiana and Florida, US (where
the two institutions the competition steering committee chairs are affiliated with are located at) will be released to the participating teams by
<b>January 31, 2025.</b> These files will contain data collected in the first quarter of 2024 (i.e., Q1 2024), the latest period with data available by the time of this announcement. The names of the selected nursing homes will not be released.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Prediction events.
</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Three staffing hour quantities that can be derived from the data files will be announced as the three prediction targets (i.e., “induvial race in a triathlon”) together with several prediction performance metrics will
be announced by <b>November 22, 2024</b>. This is meant to give teams the leads to decide if they want to participate in this competition and perhaps a jump start as well.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Two-Phase Competition.</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> The competition will contain two phases of judging based on the prediction results submitted. From phase
1, we will select four finalists. From phase 2, we will determine among the four finalists a first-prize winner, a second-prize winner, and two honorable mentions.<o:p></o:p></span></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Evaluation Process<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Phase 1<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l5 level1 lfo2"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Judging:</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> After participating teams submit their results for the phase-1 competition, the competition committee chairs will schedule
a virtual meeting with each team to run their model/algorithm trained with the 100 nursing homes on the data of the same period collected from 20 other nursing homes in Indiana and Florida. Those 20 additional nursing homes will not be released to the teams
ahead of time. However, the two chairs will ensure a relative unbiased selection of the 20 nursing homes as test data against the original 100 ones. Phase 1 is about spatial transferability of the prediction tool.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l5 level1 lfo2"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Scoring: </span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">All teams will be sorted based on the performance metrics. The team that has the worst prediction will be given 1 point.
Then every team ranked one spot ahead will be given 1 more point until the top 3 high-performing teams, they will be given 2 more points than the team ranked one spot lower.<o:p></o:p></span></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Phase 2<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l3 level1 lfo3"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Judging:</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> We assume a new data set will be released after the four finalists make their final submission together with the nursing
home names. The two steering committee chairs will schedule a meet with each finalist team at the conference to run their model/algorithm trained with the same 100 nursing homes on the newly available data. Phase 2 is about temporal transferability of the
prediction tool.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l3 level1 lfo3"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Scoring:</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> The four semi-finalist teams will be sorted based on the performance metrics. The four teams will be given 10, 7, 4, 1
based on their ranking in each category of performance metrics. The total score of each team will be the sum of their scores over all categories. The ranking based on the total score will carry 60% of the weight. The other two items will be the final report
(20%) and the final presentation (20%).<o:p></o:p></span></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Eligibility<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l6 level1 lfo4"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Individuals or teams of a maximum of four members (no post-doc/faculty allowed).<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l6 level1 lfo4"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Student members must be either undergraduate or graduate students from higher education institutes in the field of Industrial & Systems Engineering or related fields.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l6 level1 lfo4"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Student members should be enrolled at the time of the submission of the proposal.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l6 level1 lfo4"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">At least one of the team members must be an active member of the Data Analytics and Information System (DAIS) division of IISE.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l6 level1 lfo4"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">A team must submit a notice of intent to be eligible for the competition participation.<o:p></o:p></span></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Competition Process<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Notice of Intent<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">A team must submit a notice of intent to participate in the competition via email to the chairs of the competition steering committee by
<b>Friday, January 17, 2025.</b> The notice of intent needs to include:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<ol style="margin-top:0in" start="1" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l7 level1 lfo5"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">The list of names of team members, their affiliations, and contact information (email and phone).<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l7 level1 lfo5"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">One team member is identified as the main contact.<o:p></o:p></span></li></ol>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">The competition steering committee chairs will share the initial data sets of 200 nursing homes through email to the main contact provided by each team on
<b>Friday, January 24, 2025.</b> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Submission and Judging of the Results<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Phase 1<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">For Phase 1, participating teams or individuals are required to submit their source codes and scripts via email to the chairs of the competition steering committee by
<b>Friday, March 7, 2025.</b> The competition steering committee will evaluate the submissions, and a maximum of top four teams will be selected as finalists. More details about the submission guidelines and review criteria will be released along with the initial
data set. The committee chairs will judge each team in the first two weeks of March. The four finalist teams will be notified by
<b>Friday, March 14, 2025.</b> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Phase 2<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">For Phase 2, the finalist teams will be given the full list of the 200 nursing homes on Monday, March 17, 2025. This will give them more flexibility to adapt and refine their time-series prediction tool for
the demand forecasting. The finalist teams or individuals are required to submit 1) source code and scripts and 2) final report via email to the committee chairs by
<b>Friday, May 8, 2025 </b>(this date may be changed once we have an update on the release date of the data by CMS).
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Final Presentation<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">The selected finalist teams and individuals will present the model motivation, model approach, and results at the<b> 2025 IISE Annual Conference & Expo, May 31 – June 3, 2025,</b> Atlanta, USA. More information
on the final report and presentation contents will be provided to the finalist teams.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Approval of the Notice of Intent<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">The competition steering committee will review and approve or reject the submitted notices of intent to participate based on the eligibility criteria. Approval emails will be sent together with the dataset
by the chair of the committee by <b>Friday, January 31, 2025.</b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Selection of Top Finalist Teams<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">The competition steering committee will select a maximum of four finalist teams. Finalist teams will be notified by email by the chair of the committee by
<b>Friday, March 14, 2025.</b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Selection of Winners<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">The selected finalist teams will run their codes, produce their results, present their products in
<b>2025 IISE Annual Conference & Expo, May 31 – June 3, 2025</b>, Atlanta, USA. A blind vote cast by invited judges will decide the winner after the presentations.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Important Dates (Deadlines)<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l2 level1 lfo6"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Notice of Intent:
<b>January 17, 2025</b><o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l2 level1 lfo6"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Competition challenge datasets are made available:
<b>January 24, 2025</b><o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l2 level1 lfo6"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Deadline for submission for Phase-I judging:
<b>March 7, 2025</b><o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l2 level1 lfo6"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Notification to the finalist teams:
<b>March 14, 2025</b><o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l2 level1 lfo6"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Additional information is provided to the finalist teams:
<b>March 17, 2025</b><o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l2 level1 lfo6"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Deadline for submission for Phase-II judging:
<b>May 8, 2025</b><o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l2 level1 lfo6"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">IISE Annual Conference & Expo:
<b>May 31 – June 3, 2025</b><o:p></o:p></span></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Recognition<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l4 level1 lfo7"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Recognition at the DAIS Town Hall Meeting<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l4 level1 lfo7"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Certificate provided by IISE (either mailed or given at the town hall meeting) for the 1st prize winners.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l4 level1 lfo7"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">2nd and 3rd prize winners will receive a digital certificate.
<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l4 level1 lfo7"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Recognition in ISE magazine<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l4 level1 lfo7"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Recognition on
<a href="https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.iise.org%2Fdetails.aspx%3Fid%3D872&data=05%7C02%7Ciefac.list%40mailman.clemson.edu%7Cfb9c79b9bf964e7cf32b08dd00dd7a00%7C0c9bf8f6ccad4b87818d49026938aa97%7C0%7C0%7C638667673457841244%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=oItY%2BElotc7x%2B%2BUYa7GQUzgh9k%2FRdU9V%2FTiSQtDdMvU%3D&reserved=0" originalSrc="https://www.iise.org/details.aspx?id=872" shash="lX4L6uLUxICJd9r1Rbv2uZsC21eSUbqv4vowM2N6h1S1MN7igX0JhvkWFFPkwbT09JENpbk1yc2+YJ63/Sm8VQVdaDfmgT28sQiG8bvXj+m6XqQ2ZO8So2pXrrts2mQjHOdq66gs6j3GGkQ5Ozcqp7IIvWGv99J4oW7H/wUFgyY=">DAIS webpage</a> and in the newsletter<o:p></o:p></span></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Competition Chairs<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><a href="mailto:xchen325@buffalo.edu" title="Nan Kong">Nan Kong,</a> Purdue University
<br>
<a href="mailto:mingyangli@usf.edu" title="Mingyang Li">Mingyang Li</a>, University of South Florida<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Conflict of Interest<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l1 level1 lfo8"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Societies and divisions must follow standard conflict of interest guidelines. Those guidelines include, but are not limited to:<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l1 level1 lfo8"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Officers and Board members of the S/D should be ineligible for awards during the period of their service, without approval by the Senior VP for Technical Operations (SVP).
Exceptions may only be made by the SVP when awards are time sensitive (i.e., a Student Best Paper Award for a Student Board Member, when the student is graduating), and the impacted board member(s) or officer(s) must recuse themselves from the award process.
For awards that are not time-sensitive, the nominee should wait until their Officer or Board service is complete to be nominated.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l1 level1 lfo8"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">The awards committee (or judging committee) should not include members who have either a personal or professional relationship with the nominees. For example, a faculty member
should not be judging a paper competition where a student from the same university is a nominee for best student paper award.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l1 level1 lfo8"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">The awards committee (or judging committee) should actively change its membership on a rotating basis from year to year to ensure fairness, equity, and diversity. That is,
some members of the judging committee should roll off the committee and new members should roll on.<o:p></o:p></span></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:none">Nan Kong, PhD</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:none">Professor</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:none">Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:none">Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:none">Purdue University</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
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