Applied on a Synthetic Mining Dataset using open source GSLib and Python — Introduction Variograms are used to demonstrate the distance-based variability of spatial data. Understanding and modeling spatial continuity with variograms is important as they are used to estimate point measurements into practical blocks across a wide range of applications such as mining ore grades, oil concentrations, or the environmental contaminants.

Applied to a real cement-blending optimization problem — Introduction Within almost any industry, especially natural resources, it is crucial to make the best decisions possible to maximize the value of each project by optimizing the revenue generated for the required resources spent. Operations research is a discipline where real-world problems are described mathematically and optimized to improve decision-making. The…

A brief introduction with a practical mining application and relevant code — Introduction In industries where element concentrations from particulate materials are relevant for decision making such as mining or environmental applications, it's crucial that representative samples are taken from the volume or lot being considered. If poor sampling practices take place erroneous decisions can be made since typically a tiny proportion of…

A quick 5 min Python tutorial presented with a realistic environmental application — Introduction One of the biggest problems with preferentially sampled geospatial data is the differing area or volume represented by each point. I’ve previously written about some of the challenges when dealing with preferentially sampled geospatial data and how it can be overcome with declustering, if you’re curious you can check out…

A quick, practical approach on how data can be used to inform real-life decisions — Introduction For work I was going to travel from Vancouver, Canada to Antamina mine, Peru with a 4 day stop at Huaraz, Peru to acclimate. The 4,500 m ascent involves nearly a 50% decrease in air density which concerned me more than the 8,000 km flight since the effective oxygen would…

Implementing MATLAB’s Motion-Based Multiple Object Tracking Algorithm on Hovering Airborne Drone Video Footage — Detecting and tracking objects in full-motion video have important applications such as traffic monitoring, security, and video surveillance, among many others. …

How minor figure modifications and visualization decisions can result in clearer, more informative plots — The field of data visualization started with the development of fundamental graphical designs by William Playfair in the late eighteenth century and has advanced to the point where trillions of images of statistical graphics are published every year. …

A Python tutorial for dealing with the biased sampling of spatial data with a realistic example from the environmental industry — Often times several decisions regarding a site or region are made based on statistical analyses of irregularly scattered geospatial data. The values of variables of interest for different applications are often impacted differently due to heterogeneities throughout a site. …

Quantifying the effects of varying different inputs, applied on a gemstone dataset with over 50K round-cut diamonds — Sensitivity analyses involve varying a system’s inputs to assess the individual impacts of each variable on the output and ultimately provide information regarding the different effects of each tested variable. Sensitivity analyses are typically used in a variety of disciplines such as in business for financial modeling, or in engineering…