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                         Short BIO Full CV

Please find my complete academic CV below. For a short non-academic biography tailored to forecasting practitioners please click on [Short BIO] .

Curriculum Vitae

Profile

                                                 Sven F. Crone  (Dipl.-Kfm.)

Date of birth:    24 May 1971
Marital Status:  Single
Nationality:       German
Address:           15 The Roundhouse
                        Nelson Street
                        Lancaster, LA1 1AF, UK
Phone:              +44.7840.068119
E-Mail:             s.crone@lancaster.ac.uk

Academic Positions

 

 

                               07/2006-present   Lecturer (Assistant Prof.), Lancaster University, UK
Management School, Department of Management Science

 

                               07/2004-06/2006 Research Associate, Lancaster University, UK
Management School, Department of Management Science,
Research Centre for Forecasting, Prof. Robert Fildes

 

                               10/2002-06/2004 Research & Teaching Assistant, University of Hamburg, GER
Department of Business Administration & Economics,
Institute of Information Systems, Prof. Stefan Voß

 

                               09/2003-11/2003 Visiting Research Fellow, University of Stellenbosch, RSA
Stellenbosch Business School, Institute of Operations Research,
Prof. Wim Gevers
[SFC2] 

 

                               04/2003-09/2003 Visiting Research Scholar, George Mason University, USA
School of Public Policy, Centre of Policy Analysis & Information Engineering,
Prof. Thomas Gulledge

 

                               01/2001-10/2002 Research & Teaching Assistant, University of Hamburg,
Department of Business Administration and Economics
Institute of Business Information Systems, Prof. Dieter Preßmar

 

                               01/2000-12/2000 Undergraduate Lecturer, University of Hamburg, Germany
Department of Business Administration and Economics,
Institute of Business Information Systems, Prof. Dieter Preßmar

 

                               10/1994-04/1996 Tutor, University of Hamburg, Germany
Department of Business Administration and Economics,
Institute of Applied Statistics, Dr. Heiner Seibt

 

Education

                               2001 - present      PhD in Business Administration & Information Systems
University of Hamburg,
Germany, Department of Business Administration, Institute of Business Information Systems,
Prof. Prof. e.h. Dr. Dr. hc. D.Preßmar
Degree:        PhD (under examination)
Grade:        summa cum laude (with highest honour)

                                                           Research:    Neural Networks for simultaneous Forecasting and
                   Decision Making in Inventory Management

 

                               1994 - 1998        Postgraduate Studies in Business Administration & Economics
University of Hamburg, Germany
Degree:       Diplom-Kaufmann (MBA equivalent)
Grade:         2,1 (within top 10%)
Topics:        Management, Economics , Information Systems,
                   Marketing, Information Science

 

                               1991 - 1994        Undergraduate Studies in Business Administration & Economics
University of Hamburg, Germany
Grade:         2,0 (within top 10%)
Topics:        Management, Statistics, Mathematics, Finance, Accounting,
                   Information Systems, Taxation, Law, Sales, Organisation,
                   Production, Logistics, Economics

 

                               09/1998-10/1998 Pre-sessional Course, London School of Economics, UK

                                                           Degree:       Certificate in academic English

 

                               1977 - 1991         Grammar School, Gymnasium Marienthal, Hamburg
Degree:       Abitur (GCSE A-levels) with county distinction

                                                           Grade:         1,5 (within top 5 %)

 

                               1987 - 1988         High School, Poway High School, San Diego, USA
Degree:       Certificate of Merit (International Student Exchange)

 

Society Memberships

IIF                        International Institute of Forecasters

IBF                       Institute of Business Forecasting

IEEE-CIS              Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Computational Intelligence Society

INNS                    International Neural Network Society

ACM-SIG-KDD    Association for Computing Machinery, Special Interest Group on Knowledge Discovery in Databases

UK-KDD              UK Artificial Intelligence Association, Special Interest Group on Knowledge Discovery in Databases

ORS                     Operational Research Society UK

GOR                     German Operations Research Society

ORSSA                 Operations Research Society of South Africa

GI-IS                    German Informatics Society, Information Systems Group

IASTED               International Association of Science and Technology for Development

 

 

 

 

RESEARCH

 

Refereed Publications                                                                                               (ō ISI indexed)

 

Journals

2007                    R. Fildes, S. Crone, K. Nikolopoulos, A. Sythetos Forecasting and Operational Research: A Review, invited paper to the Journal of the Operations Research Society, JORS, (under review)

2006                    S. Crone, S. Lessmann, R. Stahlbock (2006) The Impact of Preprocessing on Data Mining: An Evaluation of Support Vector Machines and Artificial Neural Networks, European Journal of Operations Research, Vol. 173, No.3, pp. 781-800ō

06/2005               S. Crone (2005) Stepwise Selection of Artificial Neural Network Models for Time Series Prediction, Journal of Intelligent Systems, Vol. 14, No. 2-3, 2005, pp. 99-122

05/2003               S. Crone (2003) Künstliche neuronale Netze zur betrieblichen Entscheidungsunterstützung, WISU – Das Wirtschaftsstudium, Vol. 32, No. 4, 2003, pp. 452-458

 

Refereed Conference Proceedings

07/2007               S. Crone, R. Dahwan (2007) Forecasting Seasonal Time Series with Neural Networks: A Sensitivity Analysis of Architecture Parameters, Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, IJCNN’07, Orlando, USA, IEEE: New York, in press ō

07/2007               S. Crone, S. Pietsch (2007) A Naļve Support Vector Regression Benchmark for the NN3 Forecasting Competition, Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, IJCNN’07, Orlando, USA, IEEE: New York, in press ō

02/2007               S. Crone, N. Kourentzes (2007) Input variable selection for time series prediction with neural networks – an evaluation of visual, autocorrelation and spectral analysis for varying seasonality, Proceedings of the 1st European Symposium on Time Series Prediction, ESTSP’07, Helsinki, Finland

08/2006               S. Crone, J. Guajardo, R. Weber (2006) A study on the ability of Support Vector Regression and Neural Networks to Forecast Basic Time Series Patterns, Artificial Intelligence In Theory And Practice, Proceedings of the IFIP World Congress in Computation, WCC’06, Santiago, Chile, Vol. 217, Springer: New York, pp.149-158 ō

07/2006               S. Crone, S. Lessmann, S. Pietsch (2006) Forecasting with Computational Intelligence - An Evaluation of Support Vector Regression and Artificial Neural Networks, Proceedings of the World Congress in Computational Intelligence, WCCI’06, Vancouver, Canada, IEEE: New York ō

07/2006               S. Lessmann, S. Crone, R. Stahlbock, N. Zacher (2006) An Evaluation of Discrete Support Vector Machines for Cost-Sensitive Learning, Proceedings of the World Congress in Computational Intelligence, WCCI’06, Vancouver, Canada, IEEE: New York ō

07/2006               S. Lessmann, R. Stahlbock, S. Crone (2006) Genetic Algorithms for Support Vector Machine Model Selection, Proceedings of the World Congress in Computational Intelligence, WCCI’06, Vancouver, Canada, IEEE: New York ō

06/2006               S. Crone, J. Guajardo, R. Weber (2006) The Impact of Preprocessing on Support Vector Regression and Neural Networks in Time Series Prediction, Proceedings of the International Conference on Data Mining, DMIN’06, Las Vegas, USA, CSREA, pp.37-42 ō

06/2006               S. Crone, S. Lessmann, S. Pietsch (2006) Parameter Sensitivity of Support Vector Regression and Neural Networks for Forecasting, Proceedings of the International Conference on Data Mining, DMIN’06, Las Vegas, USA, CSREA, pp. 396-402 ō

02/2006               S. Crone, D. Preßmar (2006) An extended Evaluation Framework for Neural Network Publications in Sales Forecasting, Proceedings of the IASTED International Conference on Applied Artificial Intelligence and Applications, AIA’06, Innsbruck, ACTA Press: Calgary, pp. 179-186 ō

08/2005               S. Crone, S. Lessmann, R. Stahlbock (2005) Utility Based Data Mining for Time Series Analysis - Cost sensitive learning for Neural Network Predictors, Proceedings of the International Workshop on Utility-based Data Mining, ACM Conference on Knowledge Discovery in Data, KDD'05, Chicago, pp. 59-68

07/2005               R. Stahlbock, S. Crone (2005) Evolutionary Neural Classification for the Evaluation of Retail Stores and Decision Support, Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, IJCNN’05, Montreal, Canada, IEEE: New York, Vol. 3 , pp. 1499- 1504 ō

07/2005               S. Lessmann, R. Stahlbock, S. Crone (2005) Genetically constructed kernels for support vector machines, Proceedings of the Conference of the German Operations Research Association, GOR'2005, Bremen

06/2005               S. Crone, D. Soopramanien (2005) Predicting Customer Online Shopping Adoption for Market Modelling using Artificial Neural Networks, in: H. Arabnia; R. Joshua; Y. Mun (eds.): Proceedings of the International Conference on Data Mining, DMIN’05, Las Vegas, CSREA Press: Athens, pp. 47- 58[SFC3]  ō

06/2005               S. Lessmann, R. Stahlbock, S. Crone (2005) Optimizing Hyperparameters of Support Vector Machines by Genetic Algorithms, in: H. Arabnia; R. Joshua; Y. Mun (eds.): Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, ICAI’05, Las Vegas, CSREA Press: Athens, Vol. 1, pp. 74-80 ō

06/2005               R. Stahlbock, S. Lessmann, S. Crone (2005) Evolutionary Neural Classification Approaches for Strategic and Operational Decision Support in Retail Store Planning in: H. Arabnia; R. Joshua; Y. Mun (eds.): Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, ICAI’05, Las Vegas, CSREA Press: Athens, Vol. I, pp. 60-66 ō

07/2004               S. Crone, H. Kausch, D. Preßmar (2004) Prediction of the CATS benchmark using a Business Forecasting Approach to Multilayer Perceptron Modelling, in: D. Wunsch et al. (eds.): Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, IJCNN’04, Budapest, Hungary, IEEE: New York, Vol. 4, pp. 2783-2788 ō

07/2004               S. Crone, S. Lessmann, R. Stahlbock (2004) Empirical Comparison and Evaluation of classifier Performance for data mining in Customer Relationship Management, in: D. Wunsch et al. (eds.): Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, IJCNN’04, Budapest, Hungary, IEEE: New York, Vol. 1, pp. 443-448 ō

06/2004               S. Crone (2004) A Business Forecasting Competition Approach to Modelling Artificial Neural Networks for Time Series Prediction, in: H. Arabnia; R. Joshua; Y.Mun (eds.): Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IC-AI’04, Las Vegas, CSREA Press: Athens, Vol.1, pp. 207-213 ō

06/2004               S. Crone, P. Grafeille (2004) An Evaluation Framework for Publications on Artificial Neural Networks in Sales Forecasting, in: H. Arabnia; R. Joshua; Y. Mun (eds.): Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IC-AI’04, Las Vegas, CSREA Press: Athens, Vol.1, pp. 221-227 ō

07/2003               S. Crone (2003) Prediction of White Noise Time Series using Artificial Neural Networks and Asymmetric Cost Functions, in: D. Wunsch, M. Hasselmo, K. Venayagamoorthy, D. Wang (eds.): Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, IJCNN’03, Portland, July 20-24 2003, IEEE: New York, Vol. 4, pp.2460-2465 ō

06/2003               S. Crone (2002) Artificial Neural Networks for Time Series Prediction - a novel Approach to Inventory Management using Asymmetric Cost Functions, in: H. Arabnia; R. Joshua; Y. Mun (eds.): Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IC-AI’03, Las Vegas, June 23-26 2003, CSREA Press: Athens, Vol 1, pp. 193-199 ō

11/2002               S. Crone (2002) Training Artificial Neural Networks using Asymmetric Cost Functions, in: L. Wang; J.C. Rajapakse, K. Fukushima, S.-Y. Lee, X. Yao (eds.): Computational Intelligence for the E-Age, Proceedings of the International Conference on Neural Information Processing, ICONIP’02 2002, Singapore, IEEE: New York, Vol.5, pp.2374-2380 ō

 

Book Chapters

05/2005               S. Crone, S. Lessmann, R. Stahlbock (2005) Support Vector Machines versus Artificial Neural Networks - new potential in Data Mining for Customer Relationship Management?, in: D. Wang (ed.): Neural Network Applications in Information Technology and Web Engineering, Sarawak, Malaysia

03/2003               S. Crone (2003) Forecasting in Inventory Management using Artificial Neural Networks – a novel approach through Asymmetric Cost Func-tions, in: J. Geldermann, H. Rommelfanger (eds.): Einsatz von Fuzzy Sets, Neuronalen Netzen und Künstlicher Intelligenz in industrieller Produktion und Umweltforschung, 2003, VDI: Düsseldorf

 

Journal &  Book  Editorships

forthcoming          Co-Editor of a special issue on "Forecasting with Neural Networks” in the International Journal of Forecasting (IJF), Elsevier

forthcoming          Co-Editor of a special issue on "Forecasting with Computational Intelligence” in Neurocomputing, Elsevier

forthcoming          Co-Editor of a special issue on "Data Mining” in Annals of Information Systems (AoIS), Springer

forthcoming          Co-Editor of "Advances in Business Forecasting with Artificial Neural Networks" in "Advances in Soft Computing", Invitation by the Series Editor and by Springer, forthcoming publication
 

Proceedings Editorships

06/2007               Co-Editor of the Proceedings of the 2007 International Conference on Data Mining, DMIN’07, CRSEA Press

06/2006               Co-Editor of the Proceedings of the 2006 International Conference on Data Mining, DMIN’06, CRSEA Press

06/2005               Associate editor of the Proceedings of the 2005 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, ICAI’05, CSREA Press

06/2004               Associate editor of the Proceedings of the 2004 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IC-AI’04, CSREA Press

 

Other Media

01/2006               S. Crone: Definition of “Data Mining” for the website “Principles of Forecasting”, S. Armstrong, www.forecastingprinciples.com

11/2005               S. Crone: Definition of “Neural Networks” for the website “Principles of Forecasting”, S. Armstrong, www.forecastingprinciples.com

 

 

Presentations

 

Keynote Speeches

11/2006               Keynote speech on “Forecasting the impact of Events” at the 2006 Baltic Annual Logistics Conference on Demand Management, Pärnu, Estonia

06/2006               Keynote speech on “Forecasting Events” at the SAS F2006 conference on Forecasting, Cary, USA

06/2006               Conference track keynote speech on “A Roadmap to Supply Chain Forecasting of Marketing Promotions, Weather”, Demand Planning Track, APICS’06 conference of the Association for Operations Management, Orlando, Florida

Invited Speeches

03/2007               Invited speech on “Forecasting Retail Sales with Calendar Events, Promotions and Weather – a Neural network Approach” at the 2007 GOR German OR Society Forecasting Workgroup Conference, Hamburg, Germany

04/2007               Invited speech on “Model Specification with Neural Networks and Support Vector Regression – a Meta Experiment” at the 2007 Oxford Forecasting Workshop, Oxford, UK

05/2006               Invited speech on “Forecasting Events – Problems and Remedies” at the 2006 IBF Institute of Business Forecasting conference on Supply Chain Forecasting, London, UK

12/2005               Invited lecture “Predicting Customer Online Shopping Adoption -  an Evaluation of Data Mining and Market Modelling Approaches”, Chilean NSF “Millenio” Project, by Prof. Andrés Weintraub, Department of Industrial Engineering, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile

Tutorials

11/2006               Tutorial on “Statistical Forecasting”, Institute of Business Forecasting, IBF’06 International Conference on Supply Chain Forecasting, Amsterdam, Netherlands

12/2005               Invited tutorial on “Neural Networks for Forecasting” at the 2006 IEEE summer school on Computational Intelligence, Santiago, Chile

08/2005               IBF’05 Tutorial on “Neural Networks for Business Forecasting”, International Institute of Business Forecasting, Chicago, USA

06/2005               IBF’05 Tutorial on “Neural Networks for Business Forecasting”, International Institute of Business Forecasting, Boston, USA

08/2004               IBF’04 Tutorial on “Neural Networks for Business Forecasting”, International Institute of Business Forecasting, Boston, USA

 

Conference Research Presentations

08/2007               IJCNN’07, IEEE & INNS International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, Orlando, USA

06/2007               ISF’07, International Symposium on Forecasting, Annual Conference of the International Institute of Forecasting, New York, USA

01/2007               ESTSP’07, European Symposium on Time Series Prediction, Helsinki, Finland

07/2006               IJCNN’06, IEEE & INNS International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, part of the 2006 World Congress on Computational Intelligence, WCCI’06, Vancouver, Canada

06/2006               DMIN'06, International Conference on Data Mining, Part of the World Congress of Applied Computing, Las Vegas, USA

06/2005               ISF’06, International Symposium on Forecasting, Annual Conference of the International Institute of Forecasting, Santander, Spain

02/2006               AIA’06, IASTED International Conference on Applied Artificial Intelligence, Part of the 24th International Multi-Conference on Applied Informatics, Innsbruck, Austria

08/2005               ACM KDD’05, International Conference on Knowledge Discovery in Databases, Chicago, USA

07/2005               IJCNN’05, IEEE & INNS International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, Montreal, Canada

06/2005               ISF’05, International Symposium on Forecasting, Annual Conference of the International Institute of Forecasting, San Antonio, USA

06/2005               ICAI'05, International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Part of the Multiconference in Computer Science and Computer Engineering, Las Vegas, USA

06/2005               DMIN'05, International Conference on Data Mining, Part of the World Congress of Applied Computing, Las Vegas, USA

07/2004               IJCNN’04, IEEE & INNS International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, Budapest, Hungary

06/2004               ISF’04, International Symposium on Forecasting, Annual Conference of the International Institute of Forecasting, Sydney, Australia

06/2004               ICAI'04, International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Part of the Multiconference in Computer Science and Computer Engineering, Las Vegas, USA

09/2003               ORSSA’03, Operations Research Society of South Africa’s Annual Conference, Pretoria, South Africa

07/2003               IJCNN’03, IEEE & INNS Inter-national Joint Conference on Neural Networks, Portland, USA

06/2003               IC-AI’03, International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, International Multiconference in Information Science, Las Vegas, USA

03/2003               GOR’03, German Operations Research Association - Fuzzy Logik, Neuronale Netze & Künstliche Intelligenz, Karlsruhe, Germany

11/2002               ICONIP’02, Asian Pacific Neural Network Society’s International Conference on Neural Information Processing, Singapore

 

Professional Activities

 

Editorial Boards

From 06/2006      Member of the editorial board of the European Journal of Industrial Engineering (EJIE) for Forecasting, production planning and control.

Journal Reviewer

                            Computers & Operations Research (C&OR), Elsevier

                            Computational Management Science (CMS), Springer

                            Decision Support Systems (DSS), Elsevier

                                      European Journal of Operational Research (EJOR), Elsevier

                                      IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, IEEE

                             International Journal of Computational Intelligence Research (IJCIR), Research  India Publications

                            International Journal of Forecasting (IJF), Elsevier

                                     Neural Computing & Applications, Springer

                            Soft Computing, Springer

 

Conference Publication Reviewer

2006                    International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, ICANN’07, jointly organised by ENNS and INNS

2006                    IEEE 2007 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, IJCNN’07, jointly organised by IEEE and INNS

2007                    European Symposium on Time Series Prediction, ESTSP’07, Helsinki, Finland

2007                    IEEE 1st Conference on Computational Intelligence and Data Mining, CIDM’07, Hawaii, USA

2006                    Conference on Sciences of Electronics, Technologies, Information and Telecommunications, SETIT’06, Hammamet, Tunisia

2006                    APNNA 2006 International Conference on Neural Information Processing ICONIP’06, Hong Kong, China

2006                    IEEE 2006 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, IJCNN’06, World Congress on Computational Intelligence, WCCI’06, jointly organised by IEEE and INNS

2006                    International Conference on Multidisciplinary Information Sciences and Technologies, InSciT2006, Merida, Spain

2006                    Special session on "Forecasting in Logistics of Production and Inventory" held at the 2006 12th IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing, INCOM’06

2005                    IEEE 2005 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, IJCNN’05, jointly organised by IEEE and INNS

2004                    IEEE 2004 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, IJCNN’04, jointly organised by IEEE and INNS

 

Committee member

2006                    Programme Committee of the 2006 1st IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Data Mining, CIDM’07, Hawaii, USA

2006                    Programme committee of the 2006 World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Applied Computing, WORLDCOMP’06

2006                    Programme committee of the 2006 Conference on Sciences of Electronics, Technologies, Information and Telecommunications, SETIT’06, Hammamet, Tunisia

2006                    International advisory board of the 2006 International Conference on Multidisciplinary Information Sciences and Technologies, InSciT2006, Merida, Spain

2005                    Technical programme committee for the 2005 Second World Congress on Lateral Computing, WCLC 2005

2005                    Programme committee of the 2005 International Multi-Conference in Computer Science & Computer Engineering, IMCSCE’05

2005                    Programme committee of the 2005 World Congress on Applied Computing, WCAC’05

2005                    Scientific committee of the 2005 Conference on Sciences of Electro­nics, Technologies, Information and Telecommunications, SETIT’05, Tunis, Tunisia

2004                    Programme committee of the 2004 International Multi-Conference in Computer Science & Computer Engineering, IMCSCE’04

 

Chairman

2007                    Workshop chair and organiser of the “NN3 Neural Network & Computational Intelligence Forecasting Competition” at the 2007 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, IJCNN’07, Orlando, USA

2007                    Session chair and organiser of the “NN3 Neural Network & Computational Intelligence Forecasting Competition” at the 2007 International Symposium on Forecasting, ISF’07, New York, USA

2006                    General conference co-chair of the 2007 International Conference on Data Mining, DMIN’07, Las Vegas, USA

2006                    General conference chair of the 2006 International Conference on Data Mining, DMIN’06, Las Vegas, USA

2006                    Chair and organiser of the conference Track on “Artificial Neural Networks for Forecasting” at the 2006 International Symposium on Forecasting, ISF’06, Santander, Spain

2005                    Invited chair and organiser of the conference track “Artificial Neural Networks for Forecasting” consisting of 7 special sessions and 37 presentations, held at the 2005 International Symposium on Forecasting, ISF’05, San Antonio, USA

                        -    Chair of special sessions on “Neural Network Theory for Forecasting” and “Neural Network Applications in Forecasting”

                        -    Chair of special session and organiser of the “IIF Neural Network Forecasting Competition” at the ISF’05 Neural Networks Track

2005                    Invited chair and organiser of the special session on “Computational Intelligence for Business Intelligence” at the 2005 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IC-AI’05, Las Vegas, USA

2005                    Invited chair of special sessions on “Classification and Prediction” and “Data Mining Algorithms” at the 2005 International Conference on Data Mining, DMIN’05, Las Vegas, USA

2005                    Invited co-chair of conference track on “Neural Networks for Forecasting” at the 2005 Second World Congress on Lateral Computing, WCLC 2005, Bangalore, India

2004                    Invited Chair of the special session on “Artificial Neural Networks for Business Intelligence” at the 2004 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IC-AI’04, Las Vegas, USA
 

Other Positions

2007                    Invited Competition Task force Chair, IEEE Technical Committee on Data Mining, IEEE Computational Intelligence Society,

2007                    Invited Member of the IEEE Technical Committee on Data Mining, IEEE Computational Intelligence Society,

since 2006            Founding Member of the IEEE Technical Committee on Data Mining, IEEE Computational Intelligence Society,

since 2006            Webmaster ‘IEEE Technical Committee on Data Mining” Responsible for the content and layout of the web of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society, Committee on Data Mining

since 2004            Webmaster on Neural Networks ‘Principles of Forecasting’
Responsible for the webpages relating to Neural Networks at the most prominent forecasting website www.principlesofforecasting.com, hosted by Scott Armstrong, Wharton University, USA

 

 

07/2006               WCCI’06, 2006 IEEE World Conress on Computational Intelligence, Best session presentation award, Vancouver, Canada

 

Research Projects

since 2005            Information Portal on Forecasting with Neural Networks
Creator, developer and webmaster of www.neural-forecasting.com, an interdisciplinary online portal on neural forecasting. The portal attracts 4,000 unique visitors / 10,000 page loads per month, and has build a specialist community of over 800 academics, practitioners and students interested in forecasting with neural networks.

since 2003            Software Simulator for forecasting with Neural Networks
Development of an academic software package for large scale empirical experiments with neural networks for forecasting. The software is developed using a rapid prototyping approach for over 3 man-years. Since 2005 it is supported through an externally funded, full-time Research Assistant for software development.

 

Grants & Funding

 

Research Grants

2005/2006           2005/06 SAS & IIF Forecasting Research Grant
Joint grant awarded by SAS and the International Institute of Forecasters for a large scale empirical forecasting competition on neural network forecasting in 2006/07. Results are to be presented at the 2007 International Symposium on Forecasting in New York, and published in the International Journal for Forecasting, IJF
(jointly with K. Nikolopoulos, University of Manchester, UK).

2004/2005           Lancaster University, recipient of priming grants
Funding for high performance hardware and software for neural network experiments in forecasting and data mining.

2003                    Joint Research Fellow Grant
Universities of Stellenbosch & University of Hamburg joint funding for academic research fellowship to visit USB.

 

Funded Research  

2007                    BEIERSDORF ag, Hamburg, Germany
Providing a 3 custom made, in-house training courses for international Demand Planning teams of 28 forecasters, teaching statistical forecasting methods, systems and organisation using SAP’s Advanced Planner and Optimiser (APO), Demand Planning module (DP).

2006                    ITV plc, London, UK
Forecasting of TV viewership in the UK using Neural Networks. Pilot study conducted to develop suitable models for forecasting of TV ratings in order to enhance advertising pricing decisions.

2006                    TESCO plc, Cheshunt, UK
Analysis of the impact of weather variables for forecasting retail store demand of fresh products, providing statistical analysis and in-house training (project extension expected 07/2006 to 07/2008).

02/2006-03/2006 TESCO plc, Cheshunt, UK
Pilot study on the impact of calendar events on forecasting distribution centre deliveries with statistical and neural network models for human resource scheduling at warehouses in the UK
(with Lancaster PhD student Chen).

2006                     BEIERSDORF ag, Hamburg, Germany
Providing a custom made, in-house training course for international Demand Planning team of 18 forecasters, teaching statistical forecasting methods, systems and organisation using SAP’s Advanced Planner and Optimiser (APO), Demand Planning module (DP).

12/2005                CODELCO sa, Santiago, Chile
Workshop on using neural networks to forecast copper and commodity prices for the world’s largest produced of copper.

05/2006               TESCO plc, Cheshunt, UK
Forecasting software selection for event based forecasting in retail store and distribution centre demand planning.

2005                    TESCO plc, Cheshunt, UK 
Pilot study on the analysis of the impact of weather and event variables on retail sales for forecasting (in addition to two MScOR master student project providing £4,200.- for department)

2005                    TESCO plc, Cheshunt, UK
In-house forecasting course & ForecastPro software training for hierarchical distribution centre sales forecasting.

2005                    Business Intelligence Lab, Hamburg, Germany
Attracted 12 months funding of full-time Research Assistant at Lancaster University for the development of a neural network software simulator for large scale empirical forecasting experiments.

 

Funded Research    (at Hamburg University, 02/2000-07/2004)

                     2002 - 2004         In-House Training on Business Forecasting with SAP APO-DP
Beiersdorf AG, Germany & Netherlands - Initiation, acquisition and supervision of workshop series for leading international consumer products manufacturer, teaching time-series analysis, decomposition, method selection, parameterisation and evaluation to Sales Forecast Team for application in the SAP-APO Demand Planner. Consultant on internal blueprint for organisational implementation of forecasting processes and exception reporting for international roll-out.

                 2003 - 2004         Design of Forecasting & Inventory Decision Support System Tobaccoland, Germany - Design of forecasting support system for the world’s largest operator of vending machines, analysing various forecasting methods for implementation in handheld terminals.

                     2003 - 2004t        Data Mining for Customer Relationship Management
Gruner & Jahr, Germany - Acquisition and project leader in team of 3 faculty members for data mining project with Germany’s leading publishing house, using various neural network methods & support vector machines for cross selling in competition to SPSS Clementine.

                     04-05 / 2003        Data Mining for tactical Direct-Marketing Activities
AOL Time Warner, Germany - Acquisition and project leader of data mining project with leading international Internet-Service-Provider, classifying churn-rates in large databases with neural networks.

                     04-06 / 2001        Process Analysis for Standard Software Selection
ALD Autoleasing Deutschland AG, Hamburg – Detailed process analysis and eEPK process modelling using ARIS process modeller.

                     01-06 / 2000        Process Analysis in retail & Wholesale logistics Network
Hungarotabak-tobaccoland Rt., Budapest, Hungary - Acquisition and project leader in team of 5 for process analysis & redesign of supply logistics for Hungarian market-leader in tobacco wholesale and retail.

 

 

TEACHING  & ADMINISTRATION

 

Teaching Philosophy

 

I am a firm believer in active learning, and I try to facilitate a lively and interactive classroom. To me, teaching is less about lecturing to students, but relating theories, concepts, empirical material and my enthusiasm in engaging current problems in Management Science to students. In each of my classes, I emphasize critical thinking and explore real-world applications of the concepts and issues in theory as in hands-on computer labs using state-of-the-art information technology. I try to engage students with examples from my personal consultancy experience in predictive modelling and information systems, as well as through case studies from ongoing corporate research and recent student projects. This is also reflected in quantitative course work and written assignments.

Consequently, I do not see a rigid dividing line between research and teaching. Good teachers, who are actively researching at the cutting edge of recent scholarship, may enable students to see the dynamism of our work. Management Science is less a collection of facts, but rather a constantly evolving area of research that is alive with puzzles and new areas of inquiry. I welcome the opportunity to supervise independent student projects, and have encouraged students to participate in research through their coursework, e.g. the international data mining competition or the use of benchmark data from current forecasting competitions.

While I have gained confidence in teaching, I have been inspired by evaluations of my teaching quality by students, peer observation in classes and initial courses in a teaching development programme, which I hope to continue to further my knowledge of teaching skills and styles.

 

Lectures

Lancaster University Postgraduate Teaching                      Contact        No. of
                                                                                   hours        Students

                     Spring 2007           Forecasting                                                        16 h         25 st.
50% course lectures & lab (with R.Fildes & K.Holden)

                     Spring 2007           Multivariate Statistics for Data Mining      10 h         20 st.
50% course lectures & lab (with C.Kirkbride)

                     Fall 2006               Demand Planning & Revenue Management    10 h         40 st.
50% couse lectures & lab (with J.Meissner)

                     Fall 2006               Introduction to OR & its Context                  10 h         20 st.
Supervision of case studies (with G.Rand)

                     Spring 2006           Forecasting                                                        16 h         40 st.
50% course lectures & lab (with R.Fildes & K.Holden)

                     Spring 2006           Multivariate Statistics for Data Mining      10 h         25 st.
50% course lectures & lab (with C.Kirkbride)

                     Fall 2005               Introduction to OR & its Context                  10 h         20 st.
Supervision of case studies (with G.Rand)

                     Spring 2005           Multivariate Statistics for Data Mining      10 h         25 st.
50% course lectures & lab (with D.Worthington)
and development of new lecture material and exams

                     Spring 2005           Forecasting                                                        16 h         40 st.
50% course lectures & lab (with R.Fildes & K. Albertson)
and development of new lecture material and exams

                     Fall 2004               Introduction to OR and its Context              10 h         20 st.
Supervision of case studies (with G.Rand)

 

Lancaster University Undergraduate Teaching

                     Fall 2006               Introduct. to Business Information Systems 2 h          60 st.
MSCi.203 lectures (with N.Hayes & M.Westcombe)

                     Fall 2005               Introduct. to Business Information Systems 2 h          60 st.
MSCi.203 lectures (with N.Hayes & M.Westcombe)

                     Fall 2004               Intro. to Business Information Systems          2 h          125 st.
MSCI.203 lectures (with N.Hayes & J.O’Mahoney)
plus development and correction of 40 assignments (5000 words)

                     Fall 2004               Statistical Modelling for Decision Making 10 h         30 st.
MSCI.311 tutorial & lab support (with D.Worthington)  

 

Hamburg University Postgraduate Teaching

                     Winter 2003           Seminar in Innovation-Management, Prof. Voß
Teaching support & administration for 40 students, supervising 25 assignments (6000 words) and seminar presentations

                     Summer 2003        Information-Management, Prof. Voß
Teaching support & administration for 80 students

                     Winter 2002           Seminar in Computer Aided Planning Systems, Prof. Preßmar
Teaching support & administration for 90 students, supervising 45 assignments (6000 words), presentations and exams

                     Summer 2002        Computer Aided Planning Systems, Prof. Preßmar
Teaching support & administration for 150 students

                     Winter 2001           Seminar in Design & Development of Business Information Systems, Prof. Preßmar, Teaching support & admin. for 90 students, supervising 45 assignments (6000 words), presentations and exams

                     Summer 2001        Design & Development of Business Information Systems, Prof. Preßmar, Teaching Support & administration for 150 students

                     Summer 2001        MBA Final Exams
Design & pre-correction of 20 final diploma-exams in Business Information Systems for the MBA degree

Hamburg University Undergraduate Teaching

                               2000 - 2001           Introduction to Information Systems using MS Office
Undergraduate lectures of 11 compulsory courses (each full courses, 12 modules plus 12 labs, 35 contact hours each, total of 440 students) for undergraduate studies in business administration, course taught in team of four lecturers.

 

- Winter 1999   2 courses Intro to Information Systems, 80 students

- Summer 2000 3 courses Intro to Information Systems, 120 students

- Winter 2000   2 courses Intro to Information Systems, 80 students

- Summer 2001 2 courses Intro to Information Systems, 80 students

- Winter 2001   2 courses Intro to Information Systems, 80 students

 

Other teaching

1995 - 1999         Ski-instructor, Italy (DSV certified Beginners to Advanced Levels) for German tour operator, seasonal part-time

 

Postgraduate Research Supervision

 

                     Summer 2007       MSc in Operational Research, Student Project & Thesis supervision, Lancaster University

                                                  - Customer Relationship Management for Data Mining,
  AXA Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland
- Developing a Challenger Model for Credit Scoring
  Provident Financials, Leeds, UK
- Forecasting and Inventory Management of Textile Sales
  SMD Textiles, Preston, UK
- Evaluation of SAP APO-DP and neural networks for Forecasting
  fast moving consumer products, Beiersdorf, Hamburg, Germany
  BISlab, Hamburg, Germany
- Strategic potential for an Academic Community Software System ,
  BISlab, Hamburg, Germany

                     Summer 2006       MSc in Operational Research, Student Project & Thesis supervision, Lancaster University

                                                  - Evaluating Forecasting Support Systems,   Convatech, BMS, Chester, UK

                     Summer 2005       MSc in Operational Research, Student Project & Thesis supervision, Lancaster University

                                                  -Event based forecasting for distribution centre planning, Tesco, Cheshunt, UK
-Weather based forecasting of fresh products at retail outlets, Tesco, Cheshunt, UK
-Forecasting and Inventory Management for catalogue retailers, Littlewoods Index , Liverpool

                     01/2000 - 6/2001 9 MBA Master thesis supervision, University of Hamburg
Proposal & supervision of 9 desk based master-theses (3-6 months) in various topics on SCM, forecasting, inventory management, decision support systems, neural networks and related topics.

 

 

Administration

                            2005-present        Redesign of webpages for Management Science department
Initiated and guided reorganisation process to redesign the departmental webpages for undergraduate studies.

                            2004-present        External company liason support (with John Ranyard)
Attracting MScOR student summer projects through personal meetings, design of an internet newsletter, successfully acquiring 3 MScOR student projectswith TESCO and LARO.

                            2005                     Redesign of webpages for Research Centre on Forecasting
Redesign, creation and tracking of webpages for the Lancaster Centre for Forecasting, increasing webtraffic by 30%.

                            2005                     Steering committee for SAP University Alliance Network
S
upported decision making process to join the SAP UAN in rejecting hosting the UCC ASP-hosting centre.

                            2001-2004           General administrative at Hamburg University

                                                         ·      Liaison & coordination with university administration in the design & implementation of the first credit-point-system and syllabus for graduate & postgraduate studies

·      Liaison with external recruiting & consultancy companies

·      Fundraising & search of sponsorship-partners for Institute

 

 

PROFESSIONAL CORPORATE EXPERIENCE

 

Professional Non-Academic Work (selection)

                     2002 - present      Managing Director & IT-Consultant, B I3S lab, Hamburg
Initiated & supervised company spin-off from the University’s Institute as “Business Intelligence in Information Systems Laboratory”, attracting various beneficial business cooperations to the University of Hamburg.

 

                     1993 - 2001         Managing Director & Consultant, RSG Software, Hamburg Successfully lead consulting-company and team of 2 full time plus part time employees in IT-systems analysis, design & implementation, in-house training, programming etc. for market leading tobacco wholesalers & vendors in Europe. International projects: (selection)

                                              -  Design of Forecasting System for Vending Machines, 02-10 /1999
Mayfair Services Ltd., Birmingham, UK - Successful design of an IT-system to forecast pack sales at cigarette vending machines for the UK market leader, leading to a UK wide implementation in mobile PCs.

                                              -  Analysis of Forecasting & Supply Chain Processes, 11-12 / 1999
Vendepac Ltd, Basingstoke, UK - Process Analysis of all inventory processes along supply chain of UK’s market leader in beverage vending, showing weak points in organisational implementation of IT-systems.
 

                                          1995-1996             External Consultant: Konsys Unternehmensberatung GmbH, Hamburg, Germany: Participated in various projects in Process Analysis, Redesign of Supply Chains & Software Selection for Retailers in Northern Germany, significantly raising efficiency.

 


 

PERSONAL SKILLS

 

Forecasting & Data Mining Skills

?      Software Knowledge

ą      Forecasting:         Forecast Pro, Autobox, Freefore etc.

ą      Neural Networks: NeuralWorks Prof. II+, SNNS, JNNS etc.

ą      Data Mining:        SPSS Clementine, SAS Data Miner, WEKA,

ą      ERP-Systems:      SAP Advanced Planner and Optimizer,
                           Demand Planning Module 3.0a; certified
                           courses: PLM100, SCM200 & 220 (SAP)

ą      Process Tools:     ARIS Modeller, certified (IDS Scheer AG)

ą      General:               MS Office, Access, SPSS 13.0

?      Business Forecasting Knowledge

ą      Methods: Neural Networks, Support Vector Regression, naļve, averages, single / linear / seasonal / adaptive / intermittent exponential smoothing, ARIMA, intervention modelling, decomposition, various forms of regression etc.

ą      Processes: data pre-processing, outlier detection, automation of the forecasting process, model selection, parameterisation, judgmental correction, organisational implementation etc.

?      Information Systems Skills

ą      Analysis, simulation, design & re-engineering of processes

ą      Standard software selection & integration

ą      In dept knowledge and experience to plan and operate PC-based Information Systems in hardware, software and networks

ą      In-depth experience in various standard software applications
(Microsoft beta-release tester for MS Office 2003 etc.)

ą      Programming knowledge: Visual Basic, Pascal, Foxbase

?      Language Skills

ą      German:    native speaker

ą      English:     fluent, written and spoken

ą      French:      basic knowledge

 

 

 

 

Lancaster, 31 January 2006

 

 

 

ACADEMIC REFERENCES

 

 

Current Employer

Prof. Dr. Robert Fildes

Lancaster Centre for Forecasting

Department of Management Science

Lancaster University Management School

Bailrigg Campus

Lancaster, LA1 4YX

United Kingdom
Email: r.fildes@lanacster.ac.uk

Previous Employer & PhD supervisor
Prof. Prof. e. h. Dr. Dr.hc. D.Preßmar

Institute of Business Information Systems

Department of Business Administration

University of Hamburg

Von-Melle-Park 5

20146 Hamburg

Germany
Email: pressmar@econ.uni-hamburg.de


Research Collaborator in Forecasting

Prof. Fred Collopy

Information Systems Department

Weatherhead School of Management

Case Western Reserve University

Cleveland, Ohio 44106-7235

United States of America

Email: collopy@cwru.edu


Research Collaborator in Data Mining

Prof. Richard Weber

Department of Industrial Engineering

Universidad de Chile

Repśblica 701

Santiago de Chile

Chile

Email: rweber@dii.uchile.cl

 

 

 

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last update: 18.10.2006