I’m no expert, but I know that when it comes to choosing a type of vehicle to drive, a lot of different factors are considered.  Safety and fuel efficiency are probably two of the largest deciding factors. 
 
Is it more economical to drive a gas-guzzling vehicle or purchase a brand new fuel-efficient car?  According to […]

Recently officials in New York have developed a new method to solve cases that have stumped law enforcement for years.  Inmates in fifty-eight county jails across the state will receive playing cards with pictures of people who are missing in hopes of finding information about what happened to these people.  The story can be read […]

In a NY Times article, Kenneth Arrow, a Nobel laureate and Stanford professor suggests that how much you get paid depends on the number of connections you have, rather than your technical skills. He argues that if labor markets are truly efficient, then there would not be such a significant gap in income between workers […]

UIL allows questionable ’stacking’ in tennis
Game theory, the idea of choosing between strategies offering different payoffs considering the actions of other players, is a common phenomenon in our lives. We can hardly go through a day without witnessing its ubiquitous effects.
In a dual team tennis match with x players on each team, the […]

Marketing professionals have been interested in Word of Mouth communications and the spread of information about products and services since the early 1960’s.  More importantly, these professionals are concerned with the influence these communications have on the social networks in which they occur.  The evolution of Word of Mouth techniques has led to a new […]

The idea of chemistry is often used to describe players’ interactions on and off the court in the world of sports.  In its context, it is in an organization’s best interest to bring in players who will find the best “chemistry” amongst themselves in order to win a championship.  In reality, promoting chemistry on sports […]

As an employee of Campus Information and Visitor Relations here at Cornell University, I have noticed that the job that we students perform is, in reality, to act as gatekeepers for the university itself and provide a local bridge between people who wish to know more about the campus and the information they seek.  Our […]

A study at Leicester University and Exeter University has found that the traditional view that decision makers only act in their own interest is incorrect – in some instances, decision makers act in the best interest of their team, often at their own expense. Classical game theory predicts that people act out of their individual […]

John Lamberth, in his paper Driving while black: A Statistician proves that prejudice still rules the road (1998) discussed the idea that police officers pulled black drivers more often than white drivers.  In his research based on data from Maryland State police searches he discovered that, “although blacks were searched with greater frequency than whites, […]

8 weeks ago, the financial markets faced a great problem when news spread that Bear Stearns was running out of cash. On Thursday, March 13th, lenders refused to let Bear Stearns borrow any more cash to cover their assests. News spread like wildfire. Overnight, complete confidence in Bear Stearns ability to back […]