b'Research AbstractsRecently Published IBM Center ReportsResponding to Global Health Crises: Lessons from the U.S. Response to the 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola Outbreak Jennifer Widner In 2014, an unprecedented outbreak of Ebola virus in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea shined a spotlight on global capacity to deal effectively with a fastmoving epidemic that crossed international borders. Given the seriousness of the situation, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) deployed a Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART), as an interagency platform for coordinating operations to end the outbreak. The report assesses the DART in four phases. Under each phase, the author details insights and key lessons learned that frame practical advice for effective collaboration across agencies and national governments. From this rich narrative, the author also conveys the actions taken by the DART to ameliorate and transcend core challenges in mobilizing a response to a global health crisis.Integrating Big Data and Thick Data to Transform Public Services DeliveryYuen Yuen Ang In this report, Professor Ang offers a new framework to enhance governments ability to leverage big data for social and economic good by integrating the concept of thick datadefined as rich qualitative information about users, such as their values, goals, and consumption behavior, obtained by observing or interacting with them in their daily lives. The author reviews the differing strengths and limits of big and thick data, and suggests that governments can improve results by combining the breadth of big data with the depth of thick dataan integrative approach that she calls mixed analytics, which can increase accuracy in interpreting big data by adding contextual knowledge about citizen concerns.WINTER 2019 / 2020 IBM Center for The Business of Government 105'