Each year, more than $3 billion is wagered on the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament. Most of that money is wagered in pools where the object is to correctly predict winners of each game, with emphasis on the last four teams remaining (the Final Four). In this paper, we present a combined logistic regression/Markov chain (LRMC) model for predicting the outcome of NCAA tournament games ...

Governments and healthcare providers are moving to electronic health records (EHRs) to lower the cost of healthcare, improve patient care, and reduce medical errors. A critical issue in the transition to EHRs is the privacy, confidentiality, and security of the information stored. This issue has made some patients and healthcare providers reluctant to accept electronic records. To help motivate...

This paper discusses an analytical approach to explaining a nearly constant high job approval rating of president Clinton between January, 1998 and February, 1999. Despite all the controversy and massive information exposure to mostly unflattering news about Mr. Clinton; the public, in nearly all major opinion polls expressed their wish that Mr. Clinton be allowed to complete his second term in...

The Bradley effect concerns the discrepancy between opinion polls and actual election outcomes that emerges when candidates do not exhibit ideological, sexual or racial mainstream features. This was first observed during 1982 for Governor of California resulted in a significant loss black Democratic candidate, Tom Bradley, despite him being ahead polls. It has been argued poll respondents may t...