Old Projects

Lists of student course projects

2017

Sports and Games

Bryan Alcorn: How to win playing Dominion.
Achilleas Ghinis: Elo ratings and Prediction in the Cypriot Soccer League.
Julian Franz Gruber: CARMELO Ratings and Player Performance Predictions in the NBA.
Dibya Ghosh and Maxwell Weinstein: Swing or Take: Decision Making under Uncertainty Based on Visual Information.

Finance

Andy Ko: Probability of the success of Merger and Acquisition deals in the United States.
Robert McIlhatton: Unconventional Success Analysis: Asset Allocation after the Financial Crisis.
Tomas Villena Concha: Market Power in Financial Markets.
Xiaoli Sun: The risk in prediction of market.
Kevin Attiyeh: Probability in Merger Arbitrage Models.
Qing Guo: Risk Management in Financial Institutions.
Dodo Qian and Yixin Shen: Design and analysis of an online investment game.
Zhifei Cai: Research and prediction of the CPI in China.

Business

Daniel Stephens: Advertisements: using probability to assess how they impact our decisions.
Nga Pui Leung: Consumer Profiling in the Online Marketplace: A New Era of Price and Race Discrimination?
Peter (Haochen) Zhou: Predicting the success of Kickstarter campaigns.
Hang Gao: Trouble of Celebrities: Should I expand my business to other areas?
Grant Hayes: Bumbling, Tinding, and Grinding : An investigation into the economics of hookup apps.

Society

Shang Hao Huang: The social media paradox: Does social media make you more sociable in real life?
Tsz Chung Mak: Marriage or single, what's most of American attitude?
Peirang Xu: How do Americans spend their time on one day?

Science

Serena Jiang: Growing Language Trees.
Alexander Pearson: Finding patterns in breast cancer mutations: Statistical analyses of site frequency spectrums.
Zhixin Li: Nuclear power: benefits and risks.
Ben Chiu: Spurious Correlations and their Sustainability.

Misc

Laura Kim: Slim chance?: 1 in a million chance in real life.
Shicheng Huang: Small Data, exploring ways to use data to understand, predict or even transform oneself.

2016

Sports

Christopher Liu: Sequencing in Baseball.
Kent Chen: Modeling Defensive Abilities in Major League Baseball.
Andrew Soncrant: MLB: Why we should use the bullpen differently.
Pui Fung Lam: Statistical Breakdown of the annual Big Game.
Canzhi Ye and Shashank Bhargaca: Data-driven Analysis of NBA Draft Adages.
Justin Kim: Who Will Qualify to Represent USA Swimming in 2016 Rio Olympic Games?
Dong Kyun Kim and Sukhyun Park and Ilsung Lee: The truth behind PGA tour players' scores.
Zhenyang Zhang and Xinyang Geng: Analysis on prediction based on different rating systems.

Games

Shane Barratt: Expectimax Applied to the Game 2048.
Shichang Zhang: Rationality of Strategies in Game Theory.

Finance and economics

Rahul Shankar: Forecasting currency exchange rates.
Xiaochen Yang: Arbitrage Opportunity in a 14-Day Time Window Using Daily Signal.
Grace Deng: Predicting the Success of Start-ups.
Daniel Saedi: Analysis of Hedge Fund Risk Metrics and mVaR.
Hanquan Yang: The X Factor In Insurance Decision.
Kingsley Xuan and Leanne Lee: Projections of U.S. Oil Reserves and Gas Price Stabilization.

Human society

Ellen Chan: Presidential Elections and the Stock Market.
Chuyue Frances Huang: 2016 Presidential Primary Polling: Accuracy and Primary House Effect.
Ling Yang: Gender Differences in Risk Perception.
Hanying Mo: Racial Discrimination in the Sharing Economy: a Study on Airbnb.

Data and prediction

Renjun Zhu: The Prediction of the Oscar Best Picture Winner.
Tongzhou Wang: Structural Analysis on Punctuations in Online Reviews.
Weidong Qin: Prediction of PM2.5 air pollution in Shanghai.
Albert Lee: Predicting Economic Sentiment Through Analyzing Tweets by Multiple Machine Learning Technologies.
Grace Bian and Connie Zhang: Should You Avoid Certain Airlines When Planning Your Trip?

Science topics

Nadav Tadelis: Violating Rubin's SUTVA through Compositional Bias while using a Proxy.
Qianhui Wan: Multivariate Arabidopsis Project.
Jin Cho: Probability theory in Monte Carlo Simulation.

Probability models

Anshuman Dewangan: The (Facebook) Friendship Paradox.
Nicholas Hancock: The Optimal Design of a Hypothetical Hyperloop System.

2014

Sports and Games

NUNEZ, JOSEF CONRADO: Optimizing a Fantasy Football Lineup.
HUANG, JUSTINE: Applying Elo ranking and PageRank to tennis players.
HE, TIANYANG: Predicting the Winner of the World Cup --using the Power of Probability.
KILAMBI, ANIRUDH SRINIVAS: Modeling Baseball's Free Agency Period.
WINARTO, ANLIN: Blackjack Counting Cards Simulations.
ASUNCION, ALBERTO INIGO and PATEL, RAJARAM ASHOK: The Hot Hand in Basketball - Fact or Fiction?
CHO, HYE SOO and KIM, MINGYO: Winning strategy of the Nim game.
CHO, HAE HYUN and TAN, RYAN: Using probability to win at Risk.
CHON, WILLIAM SHIN-YU: Near misses.

Finance, business

LI, BIYING and YE, SIDA: Twitter Sentiments and IPO Price Movements.
LEE, JI HUN: Risk Measurement from Twitter Activity.
GUO, YICHEN: Predicting volatility for biotech stocks.
SIMONIAN, JOSEPH NISHAN: Are there markets where an average mutual fund outperforms an index?
QIN, JIAYU and XU, MENGYAO: Which is the most relevant factor for hotel price on Kayak?

Human society

WEI, YIWEN: Is there discrimination in the job market?
MIZUNO, YOSHIKI: The Relationship between Suicide Rates and Tax Rates in Japan.
YOUSUF, IMRAN M: Big Data and its association with Social and Search Networks.
GADGIL, TEJOMAY: Public Shootings.

Miscellaneous

WALLSTEDT, NICOLE RENEE: Ebola: The Essence, The Excitement, and The End.
DENG, XU and HU, YUFAN and SHEN, PATTY YUQIU: Probability in Music.
FLANNERY, BRANDON JOHN: Bible Code and Religious Probabilities.
ALCH, JENNIFER RACHEL: Examining US Linguistic Trends Using Probabilistic Algorithms.

2011

Sports

LATH, PUNEET and MACHADO, ANTONIO: Breaking the BCS rankings.
HUNG, KA WA and CHAN, HONG NAM: Predicting soccer results.
XIN,TIM CHENG: Random-walk model for per-possession outcomes of NBA games.
DHAR, AMRIT: Predicting success for wide receivers in the NFL draft.
SCHAFFER, JOSHUA: Stratification and Trends in the MLB Draft.
THOMAS, CONNER REGAN: Home Field Advantage and Betting on the NFL.
CHEN, YIFU: Boom or Bust: Drafting Stars in the NFL
MOACANIN, MAX JOVAN: Analysis of the Effectiveness of PageRank in Ranking Sports Teams.

Finance/economic prediction

LIU, SANDY KATHLEEN and CHUNG, SANG HOON: Predicting Stock Prices from Twitter.
BONG, STEVEN RILEY: Using NVIDIA-CUDA architecture to price stock options.
RYU,SOO-BIN: Examination of US Gas Prices: Deciding when to Put Gas.
WAN,ALBERT CALVIN When is the best time to buy an airline ticket? The Bing airfare predictor.
LEE, IN HYE: External factors affecting box office success.

Insurance/Health

YANG, QINXIN (Christina) and ZHANG, MENGYUN (Amy); Crime and Insurance rates.
DAI, YAN and DONG, WENJUN and ZHANG, WANYUE: Insurance Probability: Comparison and Analysis of Consumer Psychology and Pricing Strategy in U.S. and China.
LI, ZHAOFENG and CHEN, YI WEN: Accidents and Fatalities by Flight.
NGUYEN, CHELSEA TUYET-NHUNG: The probability of getting an uncommon childhood disease.

Politics

SAUNDERS, JAMES PATRICK III: Hotelling's Positioning Game and Democratic Political Institutions.
OBLEA, ERIKA KIRSTIE: Evaluating the Accuracy of Public Opinion Polls with California Propositions.
WONG, ANGELA: How representative are juries?

Physical sciences

MUGISHA, JEAN FABIUS: Earthquake probability in the Bay Area.
LIANG,ALICE YING: Conditional weather probabilities: knowing today what happens tomorrow.
DAO, CECILIA: Asteroid Collisions with Earth: Literature Review on Methods for Estimating Impact Probabilities.

Miscellaneous

HWANG,YOO-SEON: The statistical relationship between generosity and wealth.
AU-YEUNG, CHEUK NAM (Benson) and TSAI, CHENG-FU: Application of Queuing Model---Waiting time in DMV
NI, ZHENG and LIU, LI (Angela): Analysis of freeway traffic.

2008

Sports
Timothy Wong: Probability and the NBA Draft Lottery.
Steven Lea: Tanking in sports.
Wing Yip Fung : Probability on Bowling scoring.
Irwin Liu : NBA Conspiracy Theory.
Andrew Duong: Bias in Olympic scoring?
Kai-An Tsai : NBA Home Court Advantage.
Ankur Bhatia : Greyhound Racing Place Probabilities.
Rami Totari : Bowl Championship Series (BCS).
Jeff Gonda : NFL and NCAA football point spread analysis.
Aaron Solomon ; Beer Pong: The What, How and Why.
Dandan Zhang: Betting on soccer.
Anshul Shah : The Study of Prediction Markets.
David Klein: Statistical analysis of baseball prediction markets.

Finance
Shan Shan Hou and Allen Ly : Stock Market.
Joyce Wong : Examining the stock market using the random walk model.
Lilei Yuan and Le Yin : Kelley Strategy and Its Efficiency.
Ryan Chang and Tianqi Zhu and Chris Lin : Credit Risk Management.
Ying Yip and JingZhuo-Kyle Jiang : Six Sigma.

Movies
Alec Kennedy : Predicting Box Office Success
Nate Lorenzen: Movie critics and their ratings.
Nicki Wells : Likeminded Movie Opinions.

Elections
Aneesh Kadakia: Election Result Predictor models.
Laura Williams : The Bradley effect.

Miscellaneous
Deviyani Gurung: Structure of networks.
Hing Lun (Steven) So and Samuel Li : Psychology of probability.
Shirley Liu and Janet Luo and Jerry Wang : Chinese-Character Input system.
Li Ma : Choosing the Smallest Number.
Bernard Niu and Maddie McCarthy and Danny Chia: Truth or Myth: Planes are always late! (A Statistical Analysis of Flight Delays).
Jack Andrzejewski : Environmental Actuaries: The Probability of Tree Survival.

2006

Sports
Jonathan Lee: NCAA final four: predictable or random?
Andrew Park: The 2006 NCAA basketball tournament: predictions, results and statistical factors.
Dennis Moy: Luck in major league baseball playoffs.
Gloria Wu and Lei Zhang: Predicting NBA basketball results.
Tommy Lu and Angela Zhang: Strategies in fantasy NBA basketball.
Ming Wu: Randomness within soccer games.

Risks

Sonah Kang: Risk - cancer.
Jennifer Cheng and Wing Tam: Risk of infant mortality.
Jason Yim: Asteroids: risk in perspective.

Simulation studies

Tammy Lee: Simulation of artificial ant networks.
Omar Jabri and Kent Wong: Self-organized criticality: simulation and application.
Itamar Landau. The evolution of cooperation:the spatial public goods game.
J. Chris Campbell: Adaptive strategies for the Swedish Lottery game.

Psychology and probability

Rosanna Li: The psychology of luck.
Jennifer Huang and Christine Lin and Michael Tsang: A "finding money" experiment.
Rose Cendak and Rebecca Graff: Risk aversion in games of chance.

Stock market

Timothy Wu: Monte Carlo simulation in option pricing and risk management.
Chris Chow and Kevin Li: Predicting the S&P 500.
Jiho Han: Time-variant CAPM: learning about factor loading.

Miscellaneous

Nicholas Gowdy: Beliefs, actions and philosophy: an examination of philosophy through statistics.
Ricky Sun: Risk modelling and decision making trees.
Fayd Shelley: Collaboration graphs.
Arpine Paltajian: Can you mix business cards by shaking a box?
Bao Nguyen and Alex Young: Predicting box office receipts.
Ivy Lin: Does astrology work?
Anastasiya Denisova and Denis Lankin: Life in the Universe.