Publications

August 2008 (Revised September 2008)
Case

The Flaxil Label (A)

This case focuses on the 2001 negotiation between Mytex Pharmaceuticals and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The outcome of the negotiation would determine the new label for Mytex's blockbuster drug for arthritis, Flaxil. The negotiation is quite... View Details

Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Health Disorders; Product Launch; Negotiation Process; Business and Government Relations; Safety; Pharmaceutical Industry

February 2021 (Revised May 2021)
Case

SafeGraph: Selling Data as a Service

By: Ramana Nanda, Abhishek Nagaraj and Allison Ciechanover

Set in January 2021, the CEO of SafeGraph, a four-year-old startup that sold Data as a Service, looked to the future. His aim was to become the most trusted source for data about a physical place. The company provided points of interest (POI) and foot traffic data on... View Details

Keywords: Data As A Service; Monetization; Pricing; Business Startups; Analytics and Data Science; Consumer Behavior; Analysis; Business Model; Health Pandemics; Information Industry; United States

April 2017
Article

The Effectiveness of U.S. Energy Efficiency Building Labels

By: Omar Isaac Asensio and Magali A Delmas

Information programs are promising strategies to encourage investments in energy efficiency in commercial buildings. However, the realized effectiveness of these programs has not yet been estimated on a large scale. Here we take advantage of a large sample of monthly... View Details

Keywords: Energy Conservation; Green Building; Energy Policy

Find at Harvard

Teaching Interest

Overview

Paul is primarily interested in teaching data science to management students through the case method. This includes technical topics (programming and statistics) as well as higher-level management issues (digital transformation, data governance, etc.) As a research... View Details

Keywords: A/B Testing; AI; AI Algorithms; AI Creativity; Algorithm; Algorithm Bias; Algorithmic Bias; Algorithmic Fairness; Algorithms; Analytics; Application Program Interface; Artificial Intelligence; Causality; Causal Inference; Computing; Computers; Data Analysis; Data Analytics; Data Architecture; Data As A Service; Data Centers; Data Governance; Data Labeling; Data Management; Data Manipulation; Data Mining; Data Ownership; Data Privacy; Data Protection; Data Science; Data Science And Analytics Management; Data Scientists; Data Security; Data Sharing; Data Strategy; Data Visualization; Database; Data-driven Decision-making; Data-driven Management; Data-driven Operations; Datathon; Economics Of AI; Economics Of Innovation; Economics Of Information System; Economics Of Science; Forecast; Forecast Accuracy; Forecasting; Forecasting And Prediction; Information Technology; Machine Learning; Machine Learning Models; Prediction; Prediction Error; Predictive Analytics; Predictive Models; Analysis; AI and Machine Learning; Analytics and Data Science; Applications and Software; Digital Transformation; Information Management; Digital Strategy; Technology Adoption

Article

Detecting Adversarial Attacks via Subset Scanning of Autoencoder Activations and Reconstruction Error

By: Celia Cintas, Skyler Speakman, Victor Akinwande, William Ogallo, Komminist Weldemariam, Srihari Sridharan and Edward McFowland III

Reliably detecting attacks in a given set of inputs is of high practical relevance because of the vulnerability of neural networks to adversarial examples. These altered inputs create a security risk in applications with real-world consequences, such as self-driving... View Details

Keywords: Autoencoder Networks; Pattern Detection; Subset Scanning; Computer Vision; Statistical Methods And Machine Learning; Machine Learning; Deep Learning; Data Mining; Big Data; Large-scale Systems; Mathematical Methods; Analytics and Data Science

2022
Working Paper

Machine Learning Models for Prediction of Scope 3 Carbon Emissions

By: George Serafeim and Gladys Vélez Caicedo

For most organizations, the vast amount of carbon emissions occur in their supply chain and in the post-sale processing, usage, and end of life treatment of a product, collectively labelled scope 3 emissions. In this paper, we train machine learning algorithms on 15... View Details

Keywords: Carbon Emissions; Climate Change; Environment; Carbon Accounting; Machine Learning; Artificial Intelligence; Digital; Data Science; Environmental Sustainability; Environmental Management; Environmental Accounting

SSRN

February 1994 (Revised May 1999)
Case

Manville Corp. Fiber Glass Group (C)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Sarah Gant

Manville Corp.'s senior managers are surprised when Japanese government officials advise them not to go forward with their plan to add a cancer warning label to diatomaceous earth (DE) products sold in Japan. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has ruled... View Details

Keywords: Management Teams; Ethics; Conflict of Interests; Health; Safety; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Policy; Japan

December 2003
Case

Manville Corporation Fiber Glass Group (C) (Abridged)

By: Lynn S. Paine

Manville Corp.'s senior managers are surprised when Japanese government officials advise them not to go forward with their plan to add a cancer warning label to diatomaceous earth (DE) products sold in Japan. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has ruled... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Moral Sensibility; Safety; Government Administration; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Decision Choices and Conditions; Ethics; Announcements; Industrial Products Industry; Japan

30 Nov 2009
Research & Ideas

Tracks of My Tears: Reconstructing Digital Music

At the dawn of the digital music era, record labels went along with a pricing scheme devised by Apple that they are still paying for today. The idea to "unbundle" albums into separate tracks sold for 99 cents each suddenly... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Music

18 Apr 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, April 18, 2018

and Leslie John Abstract—Governments have proposed text warning labels to decrease consumption of sugary drinks—a contributor to chronic diseases like diabetes. However, they may be less effective than more evocative, graphic warning... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 2012
Article

Food Choices of Minority and Low-Income Employees: A Cafeteria Intervention

By: Douglas E. Levy, Jason Riis, Lillian M. Sonnenberg, Susan J. Barraclough and Anne N. Thorndike

Background: Effective strategies are needed to address obesity, particularly among minority and low-income individuals.

Purpose: To test whether a two-phase point-of-purchase intervention improved food choices across racial, socioeconomic (job... View Details

Keywords: Working Conditions; Safety; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Competitive Advantage; Cost

2023
Working Paper

In-Context Unlearning: Language Models as Few Shot Unlearners

By: Martin Pawelczyk, Seth Neel and Himabindu Lakkaraju

Machine unlearning, the study of efficiently removing the impact of specific training points on the trained model, has garnered increased attention of late, driven by the need to comply with privacy regulations like the Right to be Forgotten. Although unlearning is... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Copyright; Information

2008
Thesis

Being B-Boys: Style, Identity, and Respect Among New England and Miami Street Dancers

By: Curtis K. Chan

This study examines the phenomenon of a street dance known as "b-boying" to explore how dancers locate, negotiate, and perform identities, as well as the tensions that occur concomitantly. Drawing on data from participant-observation, interviews, and diverse archival... View Details

Keywords: Social Psychology; Identity; Negotiation; Social and Collaborative Networks; Boundaries; Conflict and Resolution; Arts; Northeastern United States; Miami

28 Sep 2010
First Look

First Look: September 28, 2010

of their corporate governance, placing them within the wider context of the economic and social history of Germany. Based on both quantitative data and archivally based case studies, this book explores how the relationship between the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2021
Case

VideaHealth: Building the AI Factory

By: Karim R. Lakhani and Amy Klopfenstein

Florian Hillen, co-founder and CEO of VideaHealth, a startup that used artificial intelligence (AI) to detect dental conditions on x-rays, spent the early years of his company laying the groundwork for an AI factory. A process for quickly building and iterating on new... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Innovation and Invention; Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Digital Platforms; Entrepreneurship; AI and Machine Learning; Technology Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; North and Central America; United States; Massachusetts; Cambridge

2019
White Paper

Impact-Weighted Financial Accounts: The Missing Piece for an Impact Economy

By: George Serafeim, T. Robert Zochowski and Jennifer Downing

Reimagining capitalism is an imperative. We need to create a more inclusive and sustainable form of capitalism that works for every person and the planet. Massive environmental damage, growing income and wealth disparity, stress, and depression within developed... View Details

Keywords: Impact-Weighted Accounts; IWAI; Background; Economic Systems; Economy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Measurement and Metrics; Financial Statements

2023
Working Paper

PRIMO: Private Regression in Multiple Outcomes

By: Seth Neel

We introduce a new differentially private regression setting we call Private Regression in Multiple Outcomes (PRIMO), inspired the common situation where a data analyst wants to perform a set of l regressions while preserving privacy, where the covariates... View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Mathematical Methods

October 2010 (Revised November 2010)
Background Note

Plavix: Drugs in the Age of Personalized Medicine

By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Mara G. Aspinall and Rachel Gordon

PIavix, one of the world's best selling drugs in 2010, appears to have a limited future. Its patent was due to expire soon, and recently new data had been discovered that indicated that a small subset of the population would be at risk for stroke, heart attack, or even... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Product Positioning; Business and Government Relations; Genetics; Competitive Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry