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Currently, local utilities in the U.S. generate 12 percent more energy than they anticipate needing. Otherwise, if they experience a brownout or blackout, utility companies face heavy penalties from the government. “Most of that extra energy is going to waste,” WNCG Prof. Brian Evans states. “If utility companies had access to better information, they could predict user demand and how it evolves over the day. They could reduce energy waste by around four-to-six percent.”

In August, WNCG Professor Francois Baccelli co-organized a workshop at the Issac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cambridge (UK) with Venkat Anantharam (Berkeley), Sergey Foss (Heriot-Watt) and Peter Glynn (Stanford). The workshop was titled Stochastic Processes and Communication Science. The workshop was focused on probabilistic techniques for the analysis of networks, with central applications in communications, social networks and energy systems. The meeting concentrated around three major mathematical themes: stochastic networks, big data analysis, spatial stochastic models.