Predictive analytics–based staffing solutions can save hospitals millions.

While we wait to see how insuring more of the population affects healthcare costs for patients, hospital groups are also working hard to reduce the cost of healthcare. Some hospitals are reducing unnecessary department labor costs — in some cases staff hours have been reduced by up to 8% — by using solutions that analyze Big Data to predict patient inflows. With accurate patient forecasts, hospitals can optimize scheduling to better match supply (nurses) to demand (expected patients). Not only does this reduce costs, it makes their hospitals more efficient and even increases patient satisfaction.

Think you know English? Think again. See if you have what it takes to teach a computer how to understand humans.

Anyone who has tried to learn English as a second language is only too familiar with its many — many — challenges. In addition to idioms, sarcasm, and a wide array of meanings when combined with various prepositions (think: make up, make out, make it, and of course, makeup), there’s also pop culture, trends, products, and more to keep straight. Luckily for us, we’re human, and even those well established in their native languages will be able to speak and decipher English with enough practice and exposure. But what about machines? How do we even begin to program them in a way that they can read and understand sentiment? Answer: very carefully. The process requires machine learning data scientists to use Natural Language Process (NLP) techniques, a form of advanced analytics. They use these techniques to build models that can decipher sentiment and weed out the meaningful information among the noise. 

Opera Solutions recently hosted the New Jersey Technology Council’s FinTech Conference. This post is a reflection of our observations from that day.

A new report, featured in The New York Times, highlights the benefits of Big Data and machine learning in the airline industry and beyond.

The travel industry has always been a vast data collector. Every airline reservation, every hotel booking, every car rental ends up in a conventional database of structured data. But today Big Data — the unstructured data that includes ratings on blog sites, likes on social media, conversations with call centers, customer clickstreams, and more — is becoming increasingly important in determining how travel companies keep customers coming back.

Gartner's 2013 Cool Vendor in Analytics report is now available.

We're pretty excited about earning a cool-factor nod from Gartner with its Cool Vendors in Analytics¹, 2013 report.  Each year, Gartner identifies a select number of new Cool Vendors in key technology areas and publishes a series of research reports explaining companies that offer technologies or solutions that are innovative, impactful, and intriguing. According to the report, five vendors were chosen from a shortlist of 15 vendors nominated by analysts in Gartner's analytics research community.

While some users are just now getting their footing in Big Data, two — healthcare management and fraud prevention experts —are already successfully using predictive analytics to deliver unprecedented results. And so it makes sense that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid are turning to Big Data predictive analytics solutions to prevent fraud and enhance operational controls in the new health insurance exchanges that form the centerpiece of the program.

Shipping costs can easily get away from managers, but help is on the way.

Have you ever shipped a package across town and accidentally paid for overnight air to get it there? Or negotiated a contract with a shipping company only to have the contract ignored or forgotten about a week later? Or paid to have something arrive by 10:00am only to find out that it didn’t arrive until 3:00pm?  

We never really thought of ourselves as cool, but we're sure glad somebody does! Gartner, Inc. has named us a "Cool Vendor" in its Cool Vendors in Analytics, 2013 report. Each year, Gartner identifies a select number of new Cool Vendors in key technology areas and publishes a series of research reports highlighting these companies and their products and services. For the Analytics designation, Gartner evaluated dozens of potential candidates to whittle it down to five final designees.

Big Data Republic has announced that Opera Solutions (@OperaSolutions), a global leader in Big Data, machine learning, and advanced analytics, has been voted one of the top 100 most influential Big Data Twitter accounts.

Opera Solutions’ Arnab Gupta explores the vast opportunities in Big Data on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

"The Big Data phenomenon is so vast, it can support 50 IBMs."

That was just one of the thought-provoking statements Opera Solutions’ CEO, Arnab Gupta, made during his appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” as he spoke with hosts Andrew Ross Sorkin, Becky Quick, and Joe Kernen on April 24^th.