Jeta Gjana

http://www.wsj.com/articles/provider-of-personal-finance-tools-tracks-bank-cards-sells-data-to-investors-1438914620

An incorporation, Yodlee is a company that provides online finance tools for 11 of the 20 biggest banks in the country. Yodlee also has an alternative way to make money, which I found very interesting. They sell their data to investors and research firms in order to help them make smarter choices with investments. It allows them to get a better understanding of different trends.

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/flights/

This article I found was a interactive data set that allowed you to pick a city in the United States and then gave you the data on the flight times. The data given were figures such as how much time the airport added on to your travel time or which specific trips took longer. I thought this was interesting data because I plan to travel when I’m older and seeing that there is data that can help me plan my trips accordingly to save myself the frustration of waiting at an airport is great!

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/worried-about-the-stock-market-whatever-you-do-dont-sell/
The article I chose was published on August 24th. This article talks about the falling stock market. The article talks about how this could be because people are worried about China’s economy faltering. The author of the article goes on to offer advice about what you should do and why you should do it. The author says that whatever you do, you should not sell. He says this because most people are invested in the stock market for saving for future expenses like college, or buying a house. He goes on to talk about how often the stock market has seen drops like this since the 1950s. Lastly, the author provides a really good example of why you should not sell. He say, “imagine two people who each invested $1,000 in the S&P 500 at the beginning of 1980. The first one buys once and never sells. The second one is slightly more cautious: He sells any time the market loses 5 percent in a week, and buys back in once it rebounds 3 percent from wherever it bottoms out. At the end of last week, the first investor’s holdings would be worth $18,635. The second investor would have just $10,613.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffthomson/2013/11/12/emerging-big-data-opportunities-for-cfos/

Emerging Big Data Opportunities For CEOs was published on November 12,2013 in Forbes magazine. According to this article, big data is one of the most influential technology trends for the accounting profession. To explore this trend, Jeff Thomson interviewed Carlos Passi, assistant controller of IBM. Some of the questions answered in this article are: how do CFOs harness big data; what new types of data have emerged that CFOs should pay attention to; what are some examples of CFOs incorporating data from social media sites and online forums as part of their integrated financial reporting responsibilities; what typical roadblocks do CFOs face using big data to drive strategy; how will the way CFOs use big data change in the next five years.
In summary, CFOs will become more effective advocates for change by building and communicating business cases based on big data findings.

The majority of American Twitter users see the platform as a news source as well as an entertainment source. Within the article “How do Americans use Twitter for news?” one can fine that 54% of the Pew Research Sample tweeted about the news during the 4 week observation period. This is important to understanding the primary usage of each for of social media, and what content is the most well-received. In addition noting the frequency of an individual’s tweets allows researchers to understand how active each member of the twitter community is, in regards to original content creation, reposing of tweets, and replies to tweets. Overall the three most common topics were Entertainment News (28%), Sports News (25%), and Government & Political News (17%). Within the sampled tweets 39% of content included the users personal opinion. Overall this can provide a better understanding of how this form of social media is used, and the type of content which is most effectively shared via Twitter.

How do Americans use Twitter for news?

How do Americans use Twitter for news?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2015/09/08/4-ways-big-data-will-change-every-business/
The article I chose was posted today on September 8th, 2015. It talks about how Big data will help improve businesses, and also how companies should start using Big data right away to improve their customer experience, products, and other business operations. I thought this was interesting because we just learned what big data is in class. I also found it interesting because it can relate to big or small businesses. Doesn’t matter what type of business you have, big data can improve all of them.

http://football-players.pointafter.com/stories/5435/re-picking-2011-nfl-draft-jj-watt-richard-sherman?utm_medium=cm&utm_source=outbrain&utm_campaign=ao.cm.ob.dt.5435&utm_term=dt#2-Cam-Newton

I chose this article for a few reasons. First, I do not think that people usually think of sports when they think of data, but there is plenty of it. Height, weight, statistics, what pick you were taken are all examples of data. As a sports fan and marketing major ideally I would like to be in a teams marketing department. I also have always found the concepts of redrafts fascinating. They use players stats including touchdowns, interceptions, acts etc. to determine who was the best player that year. For me, this is a relevant piece of data that made me think outside of the box.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2015/09/08/4-ways-big-data-will-change-every-business/

The article I chose lists the top four ways that big data will change every business. The author really emphasized that big data isn’t just for executives of large companies, but that it is for all employees and for all businesses of all sizes. It talked about how for business to grow and for them to be successful, they will need to learn how to acquire data on their customers and their business and use that information to improve their methods. It’s promising for me, being an MIS major, to hear that data is becoming more and more important for the success of a business and that there is increasing demand for people who can collect and analyze this data.

http://priceonomics.com/which-major-has-the-most-expensive-textbooks/
The article I chose lists which major has the most expensive textbooks. According to the data sets, economics and physics have the most expensive text books. Their data also shows that music books have the most resale value and accounting and economics are the lowest ones. They also have another data set that shows the percent change in educational books, medical services, new home purchases, and consumer price index. I found this data set very interesting because it shows that the cost of textbooks increased 812% since 1978, 237% more than the increase of medical services. This data applies to everyone in college and it’s interesting to see how the expenses of textbooks extremely rose over the years.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/236108
This article talks about how big data has changed the business landscape. I found this article interesting because it talks about how big data is being primarily used by big corporations since small businesses cannot afford to analyze that kind of complex and large data within their traditional IT systems. The article then focuses on how small businesses can benefit and make use of big data to improve their overall productivity and profitability. Thus, this article provides a sort of guideline to small businesses on how to make efficient use of the voluminous and often intimidating big data.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/public-transit-should-be-ubers-new-best-friend/

This article presents an analysis of Uber usage in New York City by average household income and access to public transportation. The conclusion that they come up with is that good access to public transportation, along with a higher income, make a person more likely to travel more frequently with Ubers and taxis. It may seem a bit counterintuitive that people in areas without good access to public transportation don’t take advantage of these car services, but the argument that this article makes is that people living in those areas are more likely to own cars. People who live in areas with good public transportation are able to combine private car rides with public transportation, making the combination more affordable than owning a car.

As someone who lives in a city and doesn’t own a car, I take advantage of both public transportation and private car services such as Uber frequently. As a mathematical economics major, it is interesting to see how and why people make financial decisions about something relevant to me.

http://www.businessinsider.com/8-common-degrees-among-top-earning-cfos-2015-8

This article, published on August 27th, lists the most common college degree of top-earning CFOs. It has relevance to me because my major (Economics) is the 4th most common major for Chief Financial Officers in various industries. One part of the article that particularly peaked my interest was that both BS and BA Economics degrees were the tied for 4th and 5th most common, respectively. It’s fascinating that both science-based and art-based sides of the degree were nearly tied, despite focusing on different aspects of the economy,

This article that was published yesterday basically talked about how mothers in the workplace feel forced to leave there jobs since there are not enough jobs with flexible working periods. This is a huge problem that occurs in Human Resources, which is my major, as Human Resources makes the ultimate decision on the time frame for when mothers can come back to work and what there hours have to be. It’s absolutely appalling that 62% of mothers end up changing their role whether it is in the company or through another organization. Managers should be a lot more sympathetic to the overall process of mothers being in the workplace and handle certain tasks accordingly, considering that they complete all of their work adequately.

http://www.benzinga.com/pressreleases/15/09/p5819330/launch-alert-onpoint-sports-delivers-the-most-intelligent-nfl-sports-da
The article I chose is pertinent to my major, Sports Management. This article is about the debut of a new app that will revolutionize fantasy football data analysis, called OnPoint Sports. By providing real-time data with over 1000 individual statistics at their disposal, the app allows fantasy football players to make more educated decisions on who to start and who to sit on their fantasy teams. While the article doesn’t discuss this aspect, access to this data has big implications on sports betting and one day fantasy football leagues such as DraftKings and FanDuel. Data in sports is becoming more and more of the norm. Sports data analytics are now used at the professional level to make executive and roster decisions. All in all, the trend of using data in sports is on the rise, and it’s not going to stop any time soon.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/science-isnt-broken/
The world as we know today has been made through science. What we know about the origins of this world and how things came to be is all related to science. But issues that we face today such as politics or even something like what car manafacturer has the higher quality cars; can these questions be answered by scientific means? Christie Aschwanden goes on to talk about that we can manipulate data to perhaps get a biased answer or to steer the wheel towards what that particular data is headed. He also mentions that we get results from the data, but not necessarily the answer. It must sound like a broken record when someone says there’s no right or wrong answer, but different observations/data yields different results and that’s why it is rather hard to find “the answer.” It’s fascinating that data can be used manipulate information, an example being in the linked article. Hopefully there will be a way in the near future to find these answers that we are missing and fill in the gaps that plague or benefit society.

http://www.businessinsider.com/us-news-and-world-report-best-universities-ranking-2015-9
This article is posted on 9/10/2015. it is a list of the world best universities ranking. it is about data because this list includes input from both academic peers and high school guidance counselors and also graduation and retention rates.

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/datablog/2015/sep/09/global-age-watch-index-2015-elderly-people-invisible-helpage-international
This data set shows where is the best place for the elderly to live. Many countries do not collect data or monitor the well-being of their elderly thus making them “invisible”. The data set ranks the countries from best to worst and shows the value of the systems they have in place to care for the elderly. What was most interesting was that on average people in the top ten countries live an average of 7.3 years longer than those in the bottom ten.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/jeb-bushs-tax-plan-is-pretty-weird/

This FiveThirtyEight piece by Ben Casselman delves into Jeb Bush’s early positions on economic policy, more specifically on his tax code propositions. In order to play foil to several different opponents on two political fronts, he has taken several stances that would all be seemingly be contradictory. When blended into a whole (assuming he holds to all of his promises) Jeb’s policies would all at once reduce taxes for the rich, help the working poor, make the tax code simpler, keep older americans in the work force, and overhaul business taxation. If these policies are proven to be able to co-exist, it will be hard to counter Jeb on an economic front.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-12-months-of-record-setting-temperatures-looks-like-across-the-u-s/
In this article, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a report claiming that this past year has been the warmest across the U.S. ever. Using info from a New York Times chart from the past, they were able to confirm that we have never had a warmer January-June. Cities such as Seattle, Charlotte, and Los Angeles have all set multiple record high heat temperatures this year.

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/law-rankings?int=a1d108

The article I chose was the ranking of top-tier law schools in the U.S. This statistics provided are very important for you can calculate the average LSAT scorce with any school, you can also compare GPA as well. As a finance and legal studies major I plan on attending Law School after graduation so this information is really important to me

The 3 Major Industries AI and Big Data Will Reshape This Decade

The name of the article I read is The 3 major industries AI and Big Data will reshape this decade. This article was published on Sept. 7th, 2015.
According to this article, old systems will collapse as entrepreneurs figure out how to optimize and reinvent inefficient businesses, products, and services to provide consumers with things better, faster and cheaper.
Three major industries are featured as being affected by big data- healthcare, finance, and insurance.
In the insurance industry, an explosion of startups accurately and cheaply gathering massive amounts of data will reinvent every aspect of the industry.
In finance, using big data the service will read through social media posts from the past couple of years and determine from sentiment analysis which industries and values you like and which you don’t.
In healthcare, big data will enable healthcare options to be free or near-free, and better, that people will forgo traditional medical care in favor of these superior options.

An example of conventional wisdom is that getting a degree (high school, baccalaureate, or beyond) increases one’s salary. To test this, I would survey a diverse group of people throughout different industries, asking questions about salary, benefits, years of employment, industry, etc. Then I would see if there is a strong correlation between holding a degree (and the level of degree) and one’s salary.

An example of conventional wisdom is that boutique stores charge more per item than average. In order to test this one may gather the pricing logs from various boutique stores and compare their costs to similar items in other, non-specialty shops. This comparison will likely indicate that boutique stores have higher priced items than non-specialty stores for similar items.

An example of conventional wisdom is that violent video games will affect children’s behavior in a negative way. To test this I would have to observe children who play violent video games, such as call of duty, grand theft auto, etc, on a daily day for a decent amount of time. This will help me receive enough information to see if children do show aggression and or violent acts towards others. Then I would observe the children who don’t play violent video games, to see if playing violent video games does affect children’s behaviors in a negative way.

An example of conventional wisdom I have come across is that people with high GPA’s in college earn more than those with lower GPA’s. Although this could be tested in numerous ways, the simpler method would be to evaluate the top income earners in the world and compare their GPA’s in relation to their income. Using this data we could infer the impact of a persons college GPA to their future income.

An example of conventional wisdom is that the more education you’ve received, the higher your salary will be. This could be determined by gather data on how much schooling a person has received and what their annual income is. I would predict that on average, the people who’ve received more education will have higher salaries.

There is always a misconception about highly rated subjects, such as films or restaurants. If people don’t know what their getting into, then finding a review of a film or a restaurant will give them impressions of the subject. Depending on what the people read, they will go into this ‘subject’ with a impression of it being good, bad or average and this is a very subjective thing. People should use the information of reviews to give them an idea of what their getting into, not influence how they feel about the subject. A way to test how people actually feel about say a very mixed critiqued film or restaurant is to have people experience the subject and ask them a few questions such as if they enjoyed the subject and do the reviews of subject really judge the subject accurately? Of course personal opinions is what matters most and its a “not for everyone” kinda experiment.

examples of conventional wisdom is money can’t buy happiness/money can buy happiness. The data i would collect to test it are surveies from both the rich and poor, and see if they are happy or not, and what are their thoughts on this problem.

I would test the conventional wisdom of “Money can’t buy happiness”. I would test this by collecting data and surveys on the morale of wealthy people versus poor people and middle class people. The data should represent some correlation between being happy and having wealth or not having wealth.

An example of conventional wisdom is the common phrase that society throws around stating that “the harder you work, the more successful you will be. If we really wanted to figure out whether or not that this statement is true, we would have to collect data from several different people. Information such as their yearly salary, how much debt they’re in, their productivity numbers at work, and the amount of education they have. All of these things are indicators of how much hard work an individual has done and how much success they have gotten in return.

One example of conventional wisdom is that the more you study, the better you do on test. I would test this by taking a group of students in the same class, and then ask them to record how long they study for that class each day. I would then average all of their individual test scores and observe the performances of each student.

One example of conventional wisdom that I have heard often is “white men can’t jump” typically used when referring to white basketball players I know this is often not true. I would test this by finding the vertical leaping height of multiple white basketball players and compare them with a pool of players of other races to see how they compare.

An example of conventional wisdom is the commonly accepted belief that money cannot buy happiness. This can be tested by giving people a certain amount of money and letting them purchase whatever they desire. We would record their purchases and also record their emotion and pleasure after their purchase. A good example would be buying a new and better mattress because it would improve their rest and overall happiness. I would use the data of their purchases and emotions to make a correlation between money and happiness.

A piece of conventional wisdom that is accepted as fact by both laymen and the more medically savvy alike is that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer. This is, in fact, entirely speculatory and false. In order to test such a claim, you would simply measure the large-scale incidence of lung cancer in those regularly exposed to secondhand smoke against those who are not regularly exposed. Other factors, such as length of exposure, age when exposed, and previous conidtions could also come into play.

An example of conventional wisdom is when people say, if you drink water on a daily basis, then your skin will be clear. I would collect the data from the conditions of people’s skin based on who drinks water regularly and who does not. From this data you can infer if drinking water on a daily basis benefits your skin as much as people says it does.

An example of conventional wisdom is that eating too much fast food isn’t good for your health. To test this idea you would need two groups of people. The first group of people would just have a normal diet that does not include fast food. The second group would have to eat fast food at least 3 times a week. Before the experiment starts everyone should go to the doctor to see how healthy they are. After the experiment everyone must go back to the doctor to see if their health has become worse.

One example of conventional wisdom I heard was people who attend better colleges generally do better in the job market. I don’t think I ever paid much attention to it because it can be very discouraging. However if I wanted to test it I will collect the job placement rates from one lower-tier school and one higher-tier school and also collection information from similar students, such as same grades, similar organizations, and similar interest to see if this wisdom is true or false

Hello everyone, this summer I worked at Ernst and Young in their Risk Assurance practice. My primary work included travel to various client sites to perform external audits on their IT departments. I tested IT general controls including Logical Security, Manage Change and Computer Operations, along with testing different application controls relating to the companies ERP system. I was expected to interact with the clients and help my team complete the audits in a timely manner, along with spotting and documenting any issues that we deemed inappropriate for the audit. I also sat in for IT general control meetings and took notes to assist my team with documentation for walkthroughs.

Hi everyone,
This past summer I interned at Walmart Home Office in Bentonville, Arkansas. I worked in the Global Back Office Solution department, which streamlines back end operations to save money for customers all over the globe. More specifically, I was on the on Integration Management team under Data Strategy and Governance. My project was a proof of concept of the SAP Cross Database Comparison tool. I was able to work with the SAP tool to create a comparison report to measure data quality between different environments. Another project I worked on was the Hack Days project. I worked with 7 other leverage interns on an “Endless Isle” project where we looked at the problem of bridging the gap between digital and physical that Walmart faces today and came up with a solution for it. I also was able to gain insight on many other areas of the business including IT Audit, Project Management, Business Intelligence, User Experience, and the Data Cafe. To work for a Fortune 1 company for my first internship was a very interesting and beneficial experience.