This volume contains 11 chapters. It is an expanded version of the papers presented at the first Kansas–Missouri Winter School of Applied Probabil- ity, which was organized by Allanus Tsoi and was held at the University of Missouri, February 14 and 15, 2008. It brought together researchers from different parts of the country to review and to update the recent advances, and to identify future directions in the areas of applied probability, stochas- tic processes, and their applications. After the successful conference was over, there was a strong support of publishing the papers delivered in the conference as an archival volume. Based on the support, we began the preparation.
