It has been a while since I posted here.  A lot has been going on.  I have been doing research work on two fronts - at work, as a Research Data Scientist and a Tech Lead for capacity and efficiency data science at Facebook.  

In 2020, I started developing transitive-resource-usage causal models.  Cannot disclose anything here, for obvious reasons.

With the amazing colleagues, we presented a queueing-based power model that we have developed and put into operation at the WWW '21: The Web Conference 2021 Ljubljana Slovenia April 19 - 23, 2021 (it was virtual, we did not go to Slovenia; maybe next time!).  The paper that became the foundation of the presentation became published in the ACM Digital Library.

At the same time, I made three presentations at INFORMS - 2019, 2020, and 2021 - as part of my Doctoral research at Stevens.  The links to the slides are here:

• INFORMS 2019: Machine Learning and Data Mining in Identification of Unhappy Communities

• INFORMS 2020: Using Machine Learning to Identify the Factors of People's Mobility

• INFORMS 2021: Social Cohesion and Emotion Analysis of Media During 2020 Wildfires: a Case Study

I also passed my Qualifying Exam and officially became a PhD Candidate.  I flew to defend it on campus at Stevens in March 2020.  My flight back home was one day before NYC went into lockdown.

I also published a paper in an academic journal: 

Gilgur, A., Ramirez-Marquez, J.E. Using Deductive Reasoning to Identify Unhappy Communities. Soc Indic Res 152, 581–605 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-020-02452-2

 The offprint is available on request.  The INFORMS 2019 talk was on the same topic, but in a more "live" form.

Other than work and research - we (Sophia and I both) got our ASA 104 (Bareboat Cruising) certificates; sailed in British Virgin Islands (BVI) in December 2019 - right before COVID struck; sailed in Croatia in September 2021.

Cheers!