This application of gradient estimation drawn from financial engineering and ex- plores several exotic derivatives that are collectively known Mountain Range options, employing Monte Carlo simulation to price these options and developing gradient es- timates to study the sensitivities to...

Stop-Loss is an Army policy which requires Soldiers to remain in the Army beyond their contractual obligation in order to complete a unit's deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan. Stop-Loss was implemented to maintain unit cohesion and stabilize the force. We address projecting the quantity of...

At the heart of any decision problem is some degree of "flexibility" in how to act. Most often, we aim to extract greatest possible value from this inherent flexibility. The three essays compiled here are aligned with this same general aim, but we have an important secondary concern: to...