Regarding your last question, in the world of data science there are three types of analytics, descriptive, predictive and prescriptive. Prescriptive analytics

Regarding your last question, in the world of data science there are three types of analytics, descriptive, predictive and prescriptive. Prescriptive analytics techniques, like optimization, tell you what actions to take to achieve a desired outcome. So after descriptive and predictive analytics research activities are done, their outputs become inputs for optimization. After optimization research activity is done we have a complete solution for our problem.