Adjusted Plus-Minus for NHL Players using Ridge Regression with Goals, Shots, Fenwick, and Corsi

Regression-based adjusted plus-minus statistics were developed in basketball and have recently come to hockey. The purpose of these statistics is to provide an estimate of each player's contribution to his team, independent of the strength of his teammates, the strength of his opponents, and other variables that are out of his control. One of the main downsides of the ordinary least squares regression models is that the estimates have large error bounds. Since certain pairs of teammates play together frequently, collinearity is present in the data and is one reason for the large errors. In hockey, the relative lack of scoring compared to basketball is another reason. To deal with these issues, we use ridge regression, a method that is commonly used in lieu of ordinary least squares regression when collinearity is present in the data. We also create models that use not only goals, but also shots, Fenwick rating (shots plus missed shots), and Corsi rating (shots, missed shots, and blocked shots). One benefit of using these statistics is that there are roughly ten times as many shots as goals, so there is much more data when using these statistics and the resulting estimates have smaller error bounds. The results of our ridge regression models are estimates of the offensive and defensive contributions of forwards and defensemen during even strength, power play, and short handed situations, in terms of goals per 60 minutes. The estimates are independent of strength of teammates, strength of opponents, and the zone in which a player's shift begins.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figures, 7 table

Why contests improve philanthropy

Knight Foundation has supported nearly a dozen open contests, reviewed almost 25,000 applications and chosen more than 400 winning ideas. This report discusses what the Foundation has learnt from this experience about how good contests work, what they can do, and what the challenges are

NESN Next Producer

As a Media Arts major specializing in Film and Television Production, my senior project reflects on the skills I have acquired over the past four years in terms of film production, marketing, and communications. I entered the New England Sports Network\u27s Next Producer Contest in late October and was challenged to create a short documentary about any topic relating to sports. I chose to film a sport NESN audiences have never seen before: the story of a woman Muay Thai kickboxer. Completing the project in less than a month, I did all of my own pre-production work and public relations outreach, cinematography and filming, and, finally, editing and post-production. Out of the 24 submissions NESN had of its college-level student filmmakers, I made it as one of the top three finalists. Thus, since my first submission, I have had two interview shoots, traveled several times to the NESN studios in Watertown, MA, have met with countless media executives, producers, and filmmakers, and have been featured on two television episodes aired on the network. In order to determine the winner of the competition, which results in a prize of $20,000 and a job opportunity as a producer at NESN, I was asked to create a 60 second promotional vignette for the marketing team of the Boston Red Sox. The two judges, Hollywood producer Brad Falchuck, and Red Sox owner, Tom Werner, will be choosing the winner April 5th

Optimal Seedings in Elimination Tournaments

We study an elimination tournament with heterogenous contestants whose ability is common-knowledge. Each pair-wise match is modeled as an all-pay auction where the winner gets the right to compete at the next round. Equilibrium efforts are in mixed strategies, yielding rather complex play dynamics: the endogenous win probabilities in each match depend on the outcome of other matches through the identity of the expected opponent in the next round. The designer can seed the competitors according to their ranks. For tournaments with four players we find optimal seedings with respect to three different criteria: 1) maximization of total effort in the tournament; 2) maximization of the probability of a final among the two top ranked teams; 3) maximization of the win probability for the top player. In addition, we find the seedings ensuring that higher ranked players have a higher probability to win the tournament. Finally, we compare the theoretical predictions with data from NCAA basketball tournaments

Online Video Contest Effects on Brand and Ad Attitudes

This research investigates how online video contests (OVCs) affect brand image, as measured by brand and advertisement attitudes. After conducting a pre-test to discover an appropriate product for the Generation Y target market, we ran an experiment examining OVCs, television, and magazine ad’s effects on multi-item measures of brand and advertisement attitudes. One hundred twenty-one subjects were randomly assigned to one of the three test conditions. The OVC significantly resulted in positive brand attitudes for the hedonic dimension such as feelings and attractiveness of the brand. For the more functional characteristics, OVCs did not influence brand attitudes. OVCs also produced positive advertising attitudes in terms of clarity, but other dimensions of advertising attitudes were unchanged. We also compared the OVC to the more traditional media of TV and magazines. OVCs produced more positive brand attitudes in terms of feelings than both TV and magazines. For the advertising attitude measure, OVCs produced significantly higher ratings than TV for feelings, attractiveness, and entertainment. There were no significant differences between OVCs and magazines for advertising attitudes. Our findings suggest that marketers can use OVCs effectively if the benefits of the product are hedonic in nature. Functional benefits may not prove as effective in enhancing OVC brand and ad attitudes. Marketers must determine their promotional goals before putting an OVC into practice

A "winner" under any voting rule ? An experiment on the single transferable vote

In this paper, we expose the results of a voting experiment realised in 2007, during the French Presidential election. This experiment aimed at confronting the Single Transferable vote (SVT) procedure to two criteria : simplicity and the selection of a Condorcet-winner. Building on our electoral sample's preferences, we show that this voting procedure can design a different winner, depending on the vote counting process. With the vote counting process advocated by Hare, the winner is Nicolas Sarkozy, while the Coombs vote counting process has François Bayrou as winner. For these two vote counting processes, the details of the experiment are the same and it is shown that the simplicity criterion is respected. However, with regard to the Condorcet-winner criterion, the Coombs methods is the only one to elect the Condorcet-winner, i.e. François Bayrou.Field experiments, elections, Single Transferable Vote, voting system, Condorcet Winner.

A theory of knockout tournament seedings

This paper provides nested sets and vector representations of knockout tournaments. The paper introduces classification of probability domain assumptions and a new set of axioms. Two new seeding methods are proposed: equal gap seeding and increasing competitive intensity seeding. Under different probability domain assumptions, several axiomatic justifications are obtained for equal gap seeding. A discrete optimization approach is developed. It is applied to justify equal gap seeding and increasing competitive intensity seeding. Some justification for standard seeding is obtained. Combinatorial properties of the seedings are studied

ALEA III International Composition Competition Finalists Concert, September 23, 1989

This is the concert program of ALEA III International Composition Competition Finalists Concert performance on Saturday, September 23, 1989 at 7:00 p.m., at the Tsai Performance Center, 685 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts. Works performed were Four Songs by David Macbride, Tritimes by Javier Gimenez-Noble, Four Piano Preludes by Cheng-Yong Wang, Apologie II by Christos Samaras, Eremo by Luigi Abbate, On a Ray of Winter Light by David Pickel, Chamber Concerto by Michael Goleminoff, Lokrion by Alexandros Kalogeras, and The World the World and the World by Andrew Vores. Digitization for Boston University Concert Programs was supported by the Boston University Humanities Library Endowed Fund

Sequential Decision Making with Untrustworthy Service Providers

In this paper, we deal with the sequential decision making problem of agents operating in computational economies, where there is uncertainty regarding the trustworthiness of service providers populating the environment. Specifically, we propose a generic Bayesian trust model, and formulate the optimal Bayesian solution to the exploration-exploitation problem facing the agents when repeatedly interacting with others in such environments. We then present a computationally tractable Bayesian reinforcement learning algorithm to approximate that solution by taking into account the expected value of perfect information of an agent's actions. Our algorithm is shown to dramatically outperform all previous finalists of the international Agent Reputation and Trust (ART) competition, including the winner from both years the competition has been run