Case Studies

Senior Researcher:
The Division of Science Resources Statistics (SRS) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) conducted a research program with NISS that involves SRS data sets arising from the National Survey of Recent College Graduates (NSRCG), the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED) and the Survey of Doctorate... more
Senior Researcher:
Senior Researcher:
Social network theory has produced a wealth of paradigms to describe the nature and evolution of groups of people who interact, possibly in subgroups, with one another. Social networks can be as simple as a friendship or as complex as a terrorist network.  Two competing classes of models have been... more
Senior Researcher:
How could the city of Chicago find a way to reduce waiting times at traffic signals and help reduce traffic congestion?
Senior Researcher:
Despite its ubiquity, the World Wide Web is poorly understood. As a consequence, many sites are difficult to navigate, hard to use and have confusing structure, to the extent that users may be unable to find content and abandon the site. Essential needs are to relate user behavior to website... more
Senior Researcher:
Federal statistical agencies are the nation's largest gatherer and consumer of data. They are supposed to disseminate information and also protect the privacy of individuals and establishments that are described by the data. It is hard to find ways to get enough data to the people who need to make... more
Senior Researcher:
There is a shortage of effective and feasible procedures for validating microscopic, stochastic traffic simulation models. Many times when the micro-simulators are used on real networks, it has led to traffic gridlock, or to simulation failures. The failures could provide clues about where there... more
Senior Researcher:
Automotive manufacturer General Motors needed an unbiased third party to help them evaluate their computer models and to implement a strategy on test bed problems. Using a good model can help save the company time and money by designing an energy efficient car that performs well in safety testing... more
Senior Researcher:
Over time, software code can lose quality and begin having errors and problems working properly. It is more difficult to keep changing the code and has become much more expensive as well. Eventually the hardware fails and there is no way to update or port the software to newer tools. Lucent... more
Senior Researcher:
With increased pressure from the political spectrum, the importance of statistics in environmental science is undisputed. The planning of experiments, sampling strategies and analysis of highly complex data are fundamental to carrying out environmental policies and research. There is increasing... more
Senior Researcher:
Educational policy at the national, state, school district and even school levels depends on the large education data bases that are publicly available, especially those of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Making sure that interpretations of these data are accurate and that the... more