Lawrence C. Rafsky (Larry Rafsky), is an American
data scientist
Data science is an interdisciplinary field that uses scientific methods, processes, algorithms and systems to extract or extrapolate knowledge and insights from noisy, structured and unstructured data, and apply knowledge from data across a bro ...
, inventor, and entrepreneur. Rafsky created search algorithms and methodologies for the financial and news information industries. He is co-inventor of the Friedman-Rafsky Test commonly used to test goodness-of-fit for the
multivariate normal distribution
In probability theory and statistics, the multivariate normal distribution, multivariate Gaussian distribution, or joint normal distribution is a generalization of the one-dimensional ( univariate) normal distribution to higher dimensions. One ...
.
Rafsky founded and became chief scientist for Acquire Media, a news and information syndication company, now a subsidiary of Moody's.
Research
Rafsky invented the Friedman-Rafsky Test, along with
Jerome H. Friedman, now a fundamental procedure in multivariate data. This
Multivariate normality test checks a given set of data for goodness-of-fit to the multivariate
normal distribution
In statistics, a normal distribution or Gaussian distribution is a type of continuous probability distribution for a real-valued random variable. The general form of its probability density function is
:
f(x) = \frac e^
The parameter \mu ...
. The
null hypothesis
In scientific research, the null hypothesis (often denoted ''H''0) is the claim that no difference or relationship exists between two sets of data or variables being analyzed. The null hypothesis is that any experimentally observed difference is d ...
is that the
data set A data set (or dataset) is a collection of data. In the case of tabular data, a data set corresponds to one or more database tables, where every column of a table represents a particular variable, and each row corresponds to a given record of the ...
is a sample from the normal distribution, therefore a sufficiently small
''p''-value indicates non-normal data. In 1981, Rafsky outlined this algorithm in a study published by the Journal of the American Statistical Association. Rafsky and Friedman qualified their test in a 1983 publication in collaboration with
Stanford University and Gemnet Software.
The two asserted that interpoint-distance-based graphs are capable of being used to define measures of association that extend Kendall's notion of a correlized co-efficient. For this research, Rafsky was granted the Theory and Methods Award from the
American Statistical Association
The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest continuousl ...
in 1981. Rafsky also holds ten US patents, focused on the syndication, delivery, and aggregation of news content. He has a scholar h-index of 15, a g-index of 37, and an Erdos number of 3.
Business
Gemnet Software and FAME
In 1982, Rafsky founded
Gemnet, the creator of the
FAME (Forecasting Analysis and Modeling Environment)
time series database
A time series database (TSDB) is a software system that is optimized for storing and serving time series through associated pairs of time(s) and value(s). In some fields, ''time series'' may be called profiles, curves, traces or trends. Several ea ...
. Rafsky established Gemnet's operations initially in Ann Arbor, Michigan, but was later moved following Citicorp's acquisition of the company. The first version of the software was delivered to Harris Bank in 1983, with a focus on creating a time series-oriented database engine and the 4GL scripting language.
This would eventually become known as the FAME model, or Forecasting Analysis and Modeling Environment. In 1984, the company was bought by Citicorp, which led a series of new developments with the FAME program until selling off the unit to
private equity
In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a t ...
firm
Warburg Pincus
Warburg Pincus LLC is a global private equity firm, headquartered in New York, with offices in the United States, Europe, Brazil, China, Southeast Asia and India. Warburg has been a private equity investor since 1966. The firm currently has over ...
in 1994.
Later ventures
In the 1990s, Rafsky research and management positions at Bell Labs, Citicorp, the IDD Information Services, and ADP. Rafsky worked with future
Baidu
Baidu, Inc. ( ; , meaning "hundred times") is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products and artificial intelligence (AI), headquartered in Beijing's Haidian District. It is one of the l ...
founder and chief executive officer
Robin Li
Robin Li Yanhong (; born 17 November 1968) is a Chinese software engineer and billionaire internet entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of the search engine Baidu. As of March 2022, his net worth was estimated at US$8.5 billion.
Li studied inform ...
, who helped pioneer early search engine algorithms. IDD, a division of Dow Jones focused on financial news and information's relation to securities pricings. Rafsky partnered with ADP and Townsend-Greenspan, the consulting firm of US economist
Alan Greenspan
Alan Greenspan (born March 6, 1926) is an American economist who served as the 13th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. He works as a private adviser and provides consulting for firms through his company, Greenspan Associates LLC. ...
.
In 1998, Rafsky founded Gari Software, which he later sold to Wavephore Labs. He subsequently formed Acquire Media, a digital content syndication company in 2001. He retired from full-time work at Acquire Media in 2018, and currently serves the firm part-time doing research in Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, and statistical modeling of the business news ecosystem.
He also serves as Director of Research for my4, an organization dedicated to investment analytics focused on ESG -
Environmental, social and corporate governance
ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) data reflect the negative externalities (costs to others) caused by an organization with respect to the environment, to society and to corporate governance.
ESG data can be used by investo ...
.
Personal life
Rafsky was born in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
. He is the brother of
Robert Rafsky, author and AIDS rights activist known for his televised confrontation with Bill Clinton during the
1992 Presidential Election.
Having spent most of his life living in
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
, he now resides in
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...
,
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
.
Awards
Rafsky received the Theory and Methods award from the
American Statistical Association
The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest continuousl ...
following his work in the development of the Friedman-Rafsky Test. He was also a finalist for the Lifetime Achievement Award from the
Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA).
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rafsky, Lawrence C.
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
American scientists