Financial decision support system development usually involves a number of recognizable steps: data preparation – cleaning, selecting, making data suitable for the predictor; prediction algorithm development and tuning – for performance on the quality of interest and evaluation – to see if indeed the system performs on unseen data. But since financial prediction is very difficult, extra insight...

CONTINUING MEDICAL EDUCATION (CME) IS A MULTIbillion-dollar industry. In 2006, the CME providers accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) had a total income of $2.38 billion. In 1998, the income was $889 million, and most had come from the registration fees of participants or sponsoring organizations. Since 2003, however, most of the income for CME provid...

Attention in conflict-afflicted societies is often focused on violence, ethnic animosities and territorial disputes, rather than the economic costs. Can exposure to financial markets, that align individuals’ risks and returns with those of the broader economy, also lead individuals to reevaluate the costs and benefits of conflict and peace initiatives? Can this happen even in the context of a p...

A successful financial decision support system presents many challenges. Some are encountered over again, and though an individual solution might be system-specific, general principles still apply. This work is twofold aiming to provide a survey of data enhancing techniques, performance improvements, evaluation hints and pitfalls to avoid as well as to exploit them by using a prototype tool tha...