June 2010

Hello Analytica Users!

Here is the June edition of the Analytica Newsletter, the place to stay up-to-date with Analytica tips and hints, new features and releases, training opportunities, and modeling resources. As you may recall from the May edition, there was no May edition. This was due to a bizarre undocumented lunar phenomenon, but we will continue to publish monthly as often as astrophysically possible. We appreciate the encouraging comments we have received on our first two installments. Please keep your requests and contributions coming.

Thanks,
Paul Sanford
Analytica Newsletter Editor

Henrion introduces "Koomey's Law" at Uptime Symposium

Chances are you've heard of Moore's Law, the famously reliable pace at which semiconductor devices improve in terms of transistor density and computational capacity per dollar.  But if your task is to manage an energy intensive datacenter, you might be equally concerned with the energy efficiency of your devices.  Last month at the Uptime Symposium 2010 in New York, Lumina CEO Max Henrion presented a decision analysis for datacenter capacity planning using historical data on computations-per-kilowatt recently collected by Stanford professor Jon Koomey and his colleagues.  Trends in datacenter energy efficiency, including long-lived elements such as power conditioning and cooling equipment, follow what Henrion terms "Koomey's Law," a key concept for capacity planning.  Henrion's analysis uses ADCAPT (Analytica DataCenter Capacity Planning Tool), an innovative decision model that incorporates key uncertainties including demand, cost of electrical power, and the future performance of datacenter equipment.

Analytica Handy Hint: Discover the automatic alignment features

Do your influence diagrams get compliments from curators of abstract art?  Has your mother ever demanded that you tidy them up before dinner?  If you are in the habit of aligning and re-sizing your nodes one-by-one you should know there is an easier way.  Analytica allows you select multiple nodes and re-position them en masse.  When you select multiple nodes you will notice that one of them has solid black anchor points while the others have hollow points.  The one with the solid points serves as the position reference.  The Diagram menu includes commands that will help you Align or Size the multiple selection to match the reference node.  You can also Evenly Space the multiple selection either vertically or horizontally.  If you need to designate a different reference node, simply de-select it from the group and re-select it (holding down the Ctrl key).  The reference node is always the last one selected.  Start by placing your nodes roughly where to want them.  Then experiment with these convenient positioning commands. Your nodes will be aligned and sized quickly, and with perfect precision. To facilitate fastidious influence flow even faster, don't be afraid to free your fingers from Die Fledermaus and find the friendly keyboard commands next to the menu items.  (I'll feel foolish if that phrase has fallen flat.  Forgive me.)

Gentle Introduction to Uncertainty webinar series continues

After mentioning Lonnie Chrisman's Introduction to Uncertainty webinar series in last month's newsletter,  we were pleased find that some of these sessions had record attendance.  If you missed these live events or want to view them again, they are available for download on the Analytica Wiki for customers with current support. User Group Webinar Archive. Past topics in the Gentle Introduction to Uncertainty series include:  Modeling Probability, Probability Distributions, Monte Carlo Simulation, and Measures of Risk and Utility.

On Thursday, June 24th, at 10:00am PDT, Lumina CEO Dr. Max Henrion will host the next session of the series: Expert Assessment of Uncertainty. Please register here if you would like to attend.

More upcoming topics include: Cognitive Biases and Methods for Overcoming Them, and Hypotheses Testing and Classical Statistics. By popular demand, future webinars will be extended from 60 to 90 minutes.

Attention authors: Please join our publication list!

We maintain a (long) list of publications where Analytica was used.  If you've published an article based on modeling work you've done with Analytica, we'd like to add it to the list.   You can add it to the Wiki yourself (Articles that refer to Analytica) or send us the citation and we'll add it.  Include the URL if it's available online.  If not, send us a PDF and we will be happy to post any non-copyrighted material.