The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance (NYS DTF) collects over $1 billion annually in assessed delinquent taxes. The mission of DTF's Collections and Civil Enforcement Division (CCED) is to increase collections, but to do so in a manner that respects the rights of citizens, by taking actions commensurate with each debtor's situation. CCED must accomplish this in an environment with limited resources. In a collaborative work, NYS DTF, IBM Research, and IBM Global Business Services developed a novel tax collection optimization solution to address this challenge. The operations research-based solution combines data analytics and optimization using the unifying framework of constrained Markov decision processes (C-MDP). The system optimizes the collection actions of agents with respect to maximizing long-term returns, while taking into account the complex dependencies among business needs, resources, and legal constraints. It generates a customized collections policy instead of broad-brush rules, thereby improving both the efficiency and adaptiveness of the collections process. It also enhances and improves the tax agency's ability to administer taxes equitably across the broad scope of individual taxpayers' situations. The system became operational in December 2009; from 2009 to 2010, New York State increased its collections from delinquent revenue by $83 million (8 percent) using the same set of resources. Given a typical annual increase of 2 to 4 percent, the system's expected benefit is approximately $120 to $150 million over a period of three years, far exceeding the initial target of $90 million.

Future climate projections of warming, drying, and increased weather variability indicate that conventional agricultural and production practices within the Northern Great Plains (NGP) will become less sustainable, both ecologically and economically. As a result, the livelihoods of people that rely on these lands will be adversely impacted. This is especially true for Native American communities, who were relegated to reservations where the land is often vast but marginal and non-tribal operators have an outsized role in food production. In addition, NGP lands are expected to warm and dry disproportionately relative to the rest of the United States. It is therefore critical to identify models of sustainable land management that can improve ecological function and socio-economic outcomes for NGP communities, all while increasing resilience to a rapidly changing climate. Efforts led by Native American Nations to restore North American Plains bison (Bison bison bison) to tribal lands can bring desired socio-ecological benefits to underserved communities while improving their capacity to influence the health of their lands, their people, and their livelihoods. Ecological sustainability will depend on the restoration of bison herds and bison’s ability to serve as ecosystem engineers of North America’s Plains. The historically broad distribution of bison suggests they can adapt to a variety of conditions, making them resilient to a wide range of management systems and climates. Here we review bison’s ecological, cultural, and economic value using four case studies from tribal communities within the NGP. We discuss the potential contributions of bison to food sovereignty, sustainable economies, and conservation of a working landscape with limited protections and significant risk of conversion. The ecological role of bison within this setting has potential due to cultural acceptance and the vast availability of suitable lands; however, it is critical to address tribal needs for funding support, enhanced community capacity, and solving complex landownership for these goals to be achieved.

As the first stewards and scientists, Indigenous Peoples have collected data on land relationships across homelands since time immemorial. Settler-colonial experiences have associated data and maps as tools of dispossession, disparity, and disempowerment. Today, however, Indigenous-led statistics and mapping efforts yield powerful tools for Nations in addressing the interconnected wellness of Indigenous biosystems, lands, and people while honoring collectively held knowledge and community protocols. This article details both quantitative and qualitative Indigenous research, with geospatial methodologies of the Amskapi Piikani (Blackfeet Nation), in the creation of the Amskapi Piikani Nation’s first well-being index. The Piikani Well-being Index (PWI), generated by this project, is grounded in cultural values and informed by traditional and current knowledge(s) defining 80 variables. The PWI encompasses areas of human health, agriculture and food sovereignty, cultural systems, social and educational lifeways, environmental stewardship, institutions and governance, economics, and land tenure to include traditional land use and Native land revitalization after centuries of systematic oppression, assimilation policies, structural inequities, and trauma. This project navigates data sovereignty challenges while mobilizing data generated by the Nation’s first Indigenous land use census. Offering new insights for our Tribal leaders and organizations at nation, local, and watershed scales, the PWI represents an Indigenous system view to better build community research agendas and action. This article discusses the challenges incurred in data collection and use while identifying areas of future work determining metrics and tools to cover the environmental, social, economic, and health research needs of Indigenous communities through data sovereignty.

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