Dr. Daniel "Brian" Letort is a Fellow and Chief Data Scientist at Northrop Grumman Corporation. He has held various roles in his 18 year tenure, which have spanned software engineering, systems engineering, systems architecture, and chief architect. Throughout the roles, his interest have surrounded the strategic and forward-thinking use of data. Additionally, Brian serves as an adjunct instructor at both Colorado Tech and Southern New Hampshire University. Additionally, he serves as a lead faculty at Southern New Hampshire University.

In this episode of the Inside the Strategy Room podcast, senior partner Michael Bender sits down with Sean Brown to tease out the real meaning of digital-analytics transformations. They also talk through the role CFOs can take on to drive successful change efforts. Welcome to Inside the Strategy Room. Today, we're joined by Michael Bender, a senior partner in our Chicago office and the global coleader of McKinsey Digital and Analytics. We sat down with Michael in London, where he had just presented to our Global CFO Forum on the role CFOs can play in driving digital transformations. We also covered the nature of digital transformations more generally, how digital and analytics go hand in hand, and the challenges companies can face when working to adopt both. Michael, tell us just a little bit more about what is digital? What is a digital transformation? Michael Bender: Sean, it's interesting that we get this question all the time.

Leverage Natural Language Processing (NLP) in Python and learn how to set up your own robust environment for performing text analytics. The second edition of this book will show you how to use the latest state-of-the-art frameworks in NLP, coupled with Machine Learning and Deep Learning to solve real-world case studies leveraging the power of Python. This edition has gone through a major revamp introducing several major changes and new topics based on the recent trends in NLP. We have a dedicated chapter around Python for NLP covering fundamentals on how to work with strings and text data along with introducing the current state-of-the-art open-source frameworks in NLP. We have a dedicated chapter on feature engineering representation methods for text data including both traditional statistical models and newer deep learning based embedding models.

One of the more interesting artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to gain popularity in retail is computer vision. Computer vision solutions automate the process of collecting digital images and analyzing them at an in-depth level to inform decision-making. Essentially, computer vision allows a machine to "see" things and events, make judgments and react accordingly in the same way a human does. Computer vision is having a profound effect on almost every major industry, with retail no exception. In particular, retailers are finding that computer vision solutions are crucial components of the seamlessly blended digital-physical store experience customers seek.

Many well-known companies are using AI to better understand their customers. This allows the company to market directly as well as advertise products and services that reflect customers' shopping and browsing patterns. Amazon is working on another AI powered product: An Alexa-powered wearable device that will read human emotions and help them better interact with others. Doubling in price since 2014, McDonald's Corp. (MCD) has embraced AI solutions and technology, with ordering kiosks and delivery services.

In pop culture, the combination of business interests and artificial intelligence is something to be feared. It brings to mind Skynet, the malevolent neural network from the Terminator movies that goes to great lengths to destroy its human makers. The reality is different, though. We take advantage of it every time we check out new products recommended by Amazon.com, We have fun with it when we browse Netflix, which uses AI to predict what viewers might like to watch next. We're also increasingly likely to encounter it at work, since businesses of all types are finding ways to use it in industrial, retail, and service operations.

We present a probabilistic forecasting framework based on convolutional neural network for multiple related time series forecasting. The framework can be applied to estimate probability density under both parametric and non-parametric settings. More specifically, stacked residual blocks based on dilated causal convolutional nets are constructed to capture the temporal dependencies of the series. Combined with representation learning, our approach is able to learn complex patterns such as seasonality, holiday effects within and across series, and to leverage those patterns for more accurate forecasts, especially when historical data is sparse or unavailable. Extensive empirical studies are performed on several real-world datasets, including datasets from JD.com, China's largest online retailer. The results show that our framework outperforms other state-of-the-art methods in both accuracy and efficiency.

Jeff Bezos wants to colonize space in order to'save the Earth.' At Amazon's inaugural Re:MARS conference in Las Vegas, Bezos broke down how his rocket company, Blue Origin, could play a major role in the future of space exploration. Bezos recently unveiled Blue Origin's lunar lander, which is a key component of the company's plans to conduct space missions and explore the moon's surface. At Amazon's inaugural Re:MARS conference in Las Vegas, CEO Jeff Bezos broke down how his rocket company, Blue Origin, could play a major role in the future of space exploration The comments came during an interview with Jenny Freshwater, Amazon's director of forecasting. The interview was briefly disrupted by an animal rights protester, Priya Sawhney of Direct Action Everywhere, who grilled Bezos on the treatment of chickens at Amazon-affiliated farms, before being briskly whisked off stage.

The sprawling warehouse, which looks big enough to double as an airport hangar, is unofficially known as the "robot highway." Inside Amazon's Denver, Colo., "sortation center," an army of orange robots –– each one about the size of a large suitcase with a small conveyor belt on top –– glides across the concrete floor, picking up and then delivering packages to one of hundreds of chutes that organize each item by Zip code before they're shipped to customers. Though largely unknown to the outside world, the robots, known as Pegasus, have already logged more than 1.5 million miles of driving, according to an Amazon blog post describing work inside the warehouse. Amazon unveiled Pegasus during the keynote session at its first-ever re:MARS conference in Las Vegas this week, devoted to, in Amazon's words, "Machine Learning, Automation, Robotics, and Space." It was there that Amazon revealed that the company already has 200,000 robots working at dozens of distribution facilities around the world.