Monday, May 15th
Today was our last day visiting the University of Nicosia. We started the day with three lectures covering topics of blockchain, forecasting, and data science. Going into these presentations, I had very little background in any of these fields, so I was very fascinated by what the professors had to say. The first speaker was Antonis Polemitis who is the CEO of the university. He spoke about the concept of blockchain which is an important aspect of everyday life since databases govern everything we do. UNIC actually has one of the first and largest blockchain academic programs in the world, so this was one of the best places to learn about the topic. In the lecture, there was a large focus on the difference between centralized and decentralized services. For example, email is considered to be a decentralized service that is an open-source protocol. This is because there is no person who regulates who gets to open an email account or what emails are sent. There is not one person or group of people who make a final decision for all email like there is with systems like twitter. Blockchain and cryptocurrency are considered to be a decentralized protocol and are not always beneficial to all systems because they may not make sense. Antonis explained that we are very new to the field of cryptocurrency and there is still a significant amount of progress he anticipates in the near future.
The next lecture was given by professor Spyros Makrydakis who has led the way in the field of forecasting. He explained that forecasting identifies established relationships or patterns that are then extrapolated to either predict their continuation, apply judgemental overrides, or assess the magnitude of uncertainty around the forecasts. He believes that forecasting has a crucial place in company success and that it has made impressive advances but is lagging in implementation. 44 percent of businesses do not use forecasting despite the fact that a 1% increase in forecasting accuracy results in a 2% decrease in inventory costs. His lecture made me very interested in learning more about the concept of forecasting because it can have such a large impact on the success of all companies.
The third and final lecture of the morning was from Dr. Demetris Trihinas who works in the artificial intelligence lab through the department of computer science. He spoke to us on data science and its relationship to supply chains with an emphasis on how it applies to us. He began by explaining the importance of data in the world today and even called it “the new oil” because it is the most valuable commodity someone can have. His definition of data science was that it provides a tool for efficient extraction of knowledge, with results being statistically validated so decisions are based on the data in hand. This applies to the supply chain because companies can use data science to perform descriptive, diagnostic, predictive and prescriptive analytics which allows them to plan and act accordingly. I felt that these lectures as a whole improved my understanding of the connection between engineering and business.
We left the main campus of UNIC and went to visit the pharmacy building a few minutes away. We were given a brief explanation of the kind of research they were performing in the labs which was all very interesting. First, they found that the venom of cyprian scorpions is effective in making peptides used in treatments for type two diabetes and obesity. I am so curious as to how they discovered the use of scorpion venom for this case because it is such an unexpected solution. Their method for creating the peptides is also new to me because they use microwaves and ultrasonic waves to generate reaction energy instead of using heat. In chemistry this year, the only way we discussed adding energy to a reaction was through heat, so it was interesting to see another way of doing it. Lastly, and most interesting to me, the UNIC pharmacy is now making skin care products. They discovered that peptides, specifically neuropeptides, from sea cucumbers and other sea life can prevent wrinkles so the pharmacy has partnered with a cosmetic company to produce products like lotions and creams. This is not a realm I foresaw the lab taking part in, but it is really cool that they are using their knowledge and resources to expand into other fields.
