Year: 2017

Old Dominion University (ODU) Assistant Professor of Economics Dr. Berna Demiralp presented at Optimal Solutions Group’s, LLC, (Optimal’s) Brown Bag on Friday, March 25. Dr. Demiralp’s paper, titled, “Wealth, Human Capital, and the Transition to Entrepreneurship,” co-authored by Dr. Johanna Francis (Fordham University), explores the importance of liquidity constraints in the entrepreneurial choice decision and whether it varies across individuals with different levels of human capital. » Read more

A researcher for the Maryland Institute for Policy Analysis and Research, gave a presentation on the subject of his dissertation, “Does prevalence matter?” at Optimal Solutions Group, LLC’s Brown Bag on Wednesday, March 30. Dr. Kaiser spoke about the role of prevalence in health care disparities among rare and non-rare cancer groups, specifically comparing Blacks and Whites in areas of mortality rates, quality of care and access to preventative, primary and follow-up care. » Read more

University of Maryland alumnus Dr. Calvin Johnson of the Court Services & Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA) led Optimal Solutions Group, LLC’s (Optimal’s) first Real-Time Policy Seminar with his presentation, “Business Intelligence and Predictive Analytics in Criminal Justice: Assessing the Risk of Failure While Under Community Supervision,” on Friday, February 4. Dr. Johnson explained how CSOSA uses predictive analytics from a Screening and Assessment through Quality Assurance processes. He demonstrated a CSOSA dashboard in use and detailed the level of coordination involved across multiple agencies needed to collect required data. The presentation was followed by a panel discussion and audience Q&A session that focused on identifying trends as a way to prevent crime. The panel discussed how a multidisciplinary approach works best for crime prevention. » Read more

As Optimal Solutions Group, LLC (Optimal) incorporates software development into its real-time framework in public policy, it has initiated the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) training necessary to achieve the maturity levels required to provide its clients with solid applications and data-driven solutions.  According to the Software Engineering Institute (SEI, 2008), CMMI helps “integrate traditionally separate organizational functions, set process improvement goals and priorities, provide guidance for quality processes, and provide a point of reference for appraising current processes.”  » Read more

The University of Maryland, College Park recently hosted its 2^nd Annual International Conference on Social, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling and Prediction.  Speakers from academia, government agencies and various other industries gathered for tutorial workshops, discussions, a cross-fertilization workshop, and poster session. » Read more

The 36th Annual Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP) Conference was held in late March.  The conference focuses on encouraging multidisciplinary research on salient education finance and policy issues, broad-based dialogue concerning policy, practice, and research, and bridging the gap between research and application and to broaden the focus of education finance and policy. Attending this conference was Optimal Solutions Group, LLC (Optimal) researcher Mark Partridge, who presentated on the implementation of a longer (7-hour) school day throughout the nation. » Read more

The University of Maryland (UMD) School of Public Health (SPH) awarded the Mark and Tracye Turner Scholarship to Family Science (FMSC) student Dara Winley with at the 6th Annual Dean’s Scholars Dinner on April 7, 2011. Optimal Solutions Group, LLC (Optimal) CEO Mark Turner and COO Tracye Turner attended the award ceremony to present their scholarship to Ms. Winley, who was unanimously nominated by the department.   » Read more