Digital Commons Network^™

A Quantitative Assessment Of The Diabetes Self-Management Education Program, Grace Mcfarlane

Scholars Week

A Diabetes Self-Management Education (DSME) program offered in an inner-city health center run by the Cincinnati Health Department, which started in 2014, was created to help those in an underserved population learn how to manage their diabetes. Two key measurements, A1C (glycated hemoglobin) and BMI (body mass index), were taken over time to monitor their progress. In this study, we analyzed quantitatively whether or not there was a significant improvement in their BMI and A1C values over the course of two years since they joined DSME program as any improvement would imply a potentially healthier lifestyle in regards to their …

Market Research On Student Concert Attendance At Bgsu's College Of Musical Arts, Mary Solomon

Honors Projects

Bowling Green State University boasts a well established College of Musical Arts which holds concerts performed by esteemed faculty, prestigious guest artists, and students. The school hosts these events in Kobacker Hall and Bryan Recital Hall which can accommodate up to 800 and 250 audience members, respectively. However, performances in Kobacker hall only fill one- fourth of the 800 seats, on average. Why is this so? This project aims to investigate the factors that influence students’ decisions to attend concerts at the College of Musical Arts (CMA). By methodology of survey research and statistical analysis, this project will look into …

A Self-Contained Course In The Mathematical Theory Of Statistics For Scientists & Engineers With An Emphasis On Predictive Regression Modeling & Financial Applications., Tim Smith

Timothy Smith

Preface & Acknowledgments

This textbook is designed for a higher level undergraduate, perhaps even first year graduate, course for engineering or science students who are interested to gain knowledge of using data analysis to make predictive models. While there is no statistical perquisite knowledge required to read this book, due to the fact that the study is designed for the reader to truly understand the underlying theory rather than just learn how to read computer output, it would be best read with some familiarity of elementary statistics. The book is self-contained and the only true perquisite knowledge is a solid …

Do Men Matter? In Statistics, Probably, Michael Kelly

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

In statistical genetics, there are several parameters of a dataset which a researcher might, but which are difficult to estimate in practice. In this paper, we will be focusing on allele frequencies, null alleles, inbreeding coefficients and, to a certain extent, beta values. A common technique for obtaining these values, developed by Amy Anderson and her co-workers, is to jointly estimate all of them using an EM-algorithm and the method of maximum likelihood. Despite this technique being effective in general, it is currently unable to deal with males at X-linked markers. The purpose of this project is to modify the …

A Self-Contained Course In The Mathematical Theory Of Statistics For Scientists & Engineers With An Emphasis On Predictive Regression Modeling & Financial Applications., Tim Smith

Open Access Textbooks

Preface & Acknowledgments

This textbook is designed for a higher level undergraduate, perhaps even first year graduate, course for engineering or science students who are interested to gain knowledge of using data analysis to make predictive models. While there is no statistical perquisite knowledge required to read this book, due to the fact that the study is designed for the reader to truly understand the underlying theory rather than just learn how to read computer output, it would be best read with some familiarity of elementary statistics. The book is self-contained and the only true perquisite knowledge is a solid …

Investigating The Factors That Best Describe Student Experience And Performance In College, Abigale Wynn

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) surveys students at four-year institutions around the United States in order to offer Universities accessible ways to evaluate their students' experiences and performance. The NSSE data is collected in the form of a Likert-scale survey geared towards first year and senior year students. It asks questions about how they spend their time throughout the academic year and how they rate their experience. This thesis looks at the NSSE survey data from Butler University in 2016 and attempts to apply classification techniques and predictive models to draw conclusions about student performance. Methods such as …

Utilizing Multi-Level Classification Techniques To Predict Adverse Drug Effects And Reactions, Victoria Puhl

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Multi-class classification models are used to predict categorical response variables with more than two possible outcomes. A collection of multi-class classification techniques such as Multinomial Logistic Regression, Na\"{i}ve Bayes, and Support Vector Machine is used in predicting patients’ drug reactions and adverse drug effects based on patients’ demographic and drug administration. The newly released 2018 data on drug reactions and adverse drug effects from U.S. Food and Drug Administration are tested with the models. The applicability of model evaluation measures such as sensitivity, specificity and prediction accuracy in multi-class settings, are also discussed.

Modeling Stochastically Intransitive Relationships In Paired Comparison Data, Ryan Patrick Alexander Mcshane

Statistical Science Theses and Dissertations

If the Warriors beat the Rockets and the Rockets beat the Spurs, does that mean that the Warriors are better than the Spurs? Sophisticated fans would argue that the Warriors are better by the transitive property, but could Spurs fans make a legitimate argument that their team is better despite this chain of evidence?

We first explore the nature of intransitive (rock-scissors-paper) relationships with a graph theoretic approach to the method of paired comparisons framework popularized by Kendall and Smith (1940). Then, we focus on the setting where all pairs of items, teams, players, or objects have been compared to …

Conceptualizing And Interpreting Mean And Median With Future Teachers, Eryn Stehr Maher, Ha Nguyen, Gregory Chamblee, Sharon Taylor

Department of Mathematical Sciences Faculty Publications

Mathematical Education of Teachers II (METII), echoed by the American Statistical Association publication, Statistical Education of Teachers, recommended teacher preparation programs support future teachers in developing deep understandings of mean and median, such that middle grades teachers may use them to “summarize, describe, and compare distributions” (Conference Board of Mathematical Sciences, 2012, p. 44; Franklin et al., 2015). Georgia Standards of Excellence require statistical reasoning from students beginning as early as 6-7 years old, including interpretation of measures of center and statistical reasoning about best measures of center (Georgia Department of Education, 2015). This level of understanding and interpretation of …

Cramer Type Moderate Deviations For Random Fields And Mutual Information Estimation For Mixed-Pair Random Variables, Aleksandr Beknazaryan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation we first study Cramer type moderate deviation for partial sums of random fields by applying the conjugate method. In 1938 Cramer published his results on large deviations of sums of i.i.d. random variables after which a lot of research has been done on establishing Cramer type moderate and large deviation theorems for different types of random variables and for various statistics. In particular results have been obtained for independent non-identically distributed random variables for the sum of independent random to estimate the mutual information between two random variables. The estimates enjoy a central limit theorem under some …

Conceptualizing And Interpreting Mean And Median With Future Teachers, Eryn M. Stehr, Ha Nguyen, Gregory Chamblee, Sharon Taylor

Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Georgia Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators

Mathematical Education of Teachers II (METII), echoed by the American Statistical Association publication, Statistical Education of Teachers, recommended teacher preparation programs support future teachers in developing deep understandings of mean and median, such that middle grades teachers may use them to “summarize, describe, and compare distributions” (Conference Board of Mathematical Sciences, 2012, p. 44; Franklin et al., 2015). Georgia Standards of Excellence require statistical reasoning from students beginning as early as 6-7 years old, including interpretation of measures of center and statistical reasoning about best measures of center (Georgia Department of Education, 2015). This level of understanding and interpretation of …

Finding Meaning In A Multivariable World: A Conceptual Approach To An Algebra-Based Second Course In Statistics, Karen Mcgaughey, Beth Chance, Nathan L. Tintle, Soma Roy, Todd Swanson, Jill Vander Stoep

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Although the teaching of the first course in statistics has improved dramatically in recent years, there has been less focus on a similarly conceptual-based second course aimed at non-majors. We present a curriculum for the second course, designed to expand statistical literacy across disciplines, which focuses on conceptual understanding of multivariable relationships through data visualization, study design, the role of confounding variables, reduction of unexplained variation, and simulation-based inference, rather than the mathematically-based discourse often used in the second course. Our curriculum uses a student-centered pedagogical approach, utilizing guided discovery activities based on real-world case studies, facilitated by student-focused technology …

Analysis Of 2016-17 Major League Soccer Season Data Using Poisson Regression With R, Ian D. Campbell

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

To the outside observer, soccer is chaotic with no given pattern or scheme to follow, a random conglomeration of passes and shots that go on for 90 minutes. Yet, what if there was a pattern to the chaos, or a way to describe the events that occur in the game quantifiably. Sports statistics is a critical part of baseball and a variety of other of today’s sports, but we see very little statistics and data analysis done on soccer. Of this research, there has been looks into the effect of possession time on the outcome of a game, the difference …

Mindset, Attitudes, And Success In Statistics, Matthew Isaac

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Students in many disciplines are required to take an introductory statistics course while pursuing a college education. Despite the utility of statistical methods in future research and career pursuits, many students have negative views of statistics. We are interested in how students' mindsets and attitudes towards statistics impact their performance in an undergraduate statistics course. We administered a survey to students in several undergraduate statistics courses at Utah State University. This survey included questions addressing mathematics experience, attitudes towards statistics, mindset, and course performance. We observed that the majority of students indicated the presence of a growth mindset and positive …

Forecasting Labor Force Participation At The Regional Level In The United States: The Case Of Maine, Maryam Kashkooli

Honors College

This project attempts to investigate the future of labor force participation in Maine using an econometric forecasting approach. Forecasting has become an increasingly popular form of statistical analysis which uses historical distributions to help estimate future distributions of econometric models. There exists extensive literature on forecasting employment, however the literature on forecasting labor force participation is relatively small. I adapt existing econometric models and make use of time series information on sociodemographic factors such as age and net migration in order to determine how Maine’s changing demographic structure is affecting its labor force and how these effects will carry on …

Mathematics In Contemporary Society - Chapter 2 (Spring 2018), Patrick J. Wallach

Open Educational Resources

Mathematics in Contemporary Society is the textbook that corresponds to MA-321, the course of the same name. The course is designed to provide students with mathematical ideas and methods found in the social sciences, the arts, and in business. Topics will include fundamentals of statistics, scatterplots, graphics in the media, problem solving strategies, dimensional analysis, mathematics in music and art, and mathematical modeling. EXCEL is used to explore real world applications.

Mathematics In Contemporary Society - Chapter 4 (Spring 2018), Patrick J. Wallach

Open Educational Resources

Mathematics in Contemporary Society is the textbook that corresponds to MA-321, the course of the same name. The course is designed to provide students with mathematical ideas and methods found in the social sciences, the arts, and in business. Topics will include fundamentals of statistics, scatterplots, graphics in the media, problem solving strategies, dimensional analysis, mathematics in music and art, and mathematical modeling. EXCEL is used to explore real world applications.

Mathematics In Contemporary Society - Chapter 1 (Spring 2018), Patrick J. Wallach

Open Educational Resources

Mathematics in Contemporary Society is the textbook that corresponds to MA-321, the course of the same name. The course is designed to provide students with mathematical ideas and methods found in the social sciences, the arts, and in business. Topics will include fundamentals of statistics, scatterplots, graphics in the media, problem solving strategies, dimensional analysis, mathematics in music and art, and mathematical modeling. EXCEL is used to explore real world applications.

Mathematics In Contemporary Society - Chapter 5 (Spring 2018), Patrick J. Wallach

Open Educational Resources

Mathematics in Contemporary Society is the textbook that corresponds to MA-321, the course of the same name. The course is designed to provide students with mathematical ideas and methods found in the social sciences, the arts, and in business. Topics will include fundamentals of statistics, scatterplots, graphics in the media, problem solving strategies, dimensional analysis, mathematics in music and art, and mathematical modeling. EXCEL is used to explore real world applications.

Mathematics In Contemporary Society - Chapter 3 (Spring 2018), Patrick J. Wallach

Open Educational Resources

Mathematics in Contemporary Society is the textbook that corresponds to MA-321, the course of the same name. The course is designed to provide students with mathematical ideas and methods found in the social sciences, the arts, and in business. Topics will include fundamentals of statistics, scatterplots, graphics in the media, problem solving strategies, dimensional analysis, mathematics in music and art, and mathematical modeling. EXCEL is used to explore real world applications.

Runs Of Identical Outcomes In A Sequence Of Bernoulli Trials, Matthew Riggle

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The Bernoulli distribution is a basic, well-studied distribution in probability. In this thesis, we will consider repeated Bernoulli trials in order to study runs of identical outcomes. More formally, for t ∈ N, we let Xt ∼ Bernoulli(p), where p is the probability of success, q = 1 − p is the probability of failure, and all Xt are independent. Then Xt gives the outcome of the tth trial, which is 1 for success or 0 for failure. For n, m ∈ N, we define Tn to be the number of trials needed to first observe n …

Essentials Of Structural Equation Modeling, Mustafa Emre Civelek

Zea E-Books Collection

Structural Equation Modeling is a statistical method increasingly used in scientific studies in the fields of Social Sciences. It is currently a preferred analysis method, especially in doctoral dissertations and academic researches. However, since many universities do not include this method in the curriculum of undergraduate and graduate courses, students and scholars try to solve the problems they encounter by using various books and internet resources.

This book aims to guide the researcher who wants to use this method in a way that is free from math expressions. It teaches the steps of a research program using structured equality modeling …

Indicators For Early Assessment Of Palliative Care In Lung Cancer Patients: A Population Study Using Linked Health Data, Maria Kelly, Katie M. O'Brien, Michael Lucey, Kerri Clough-Gorr, Ailish Hannigan

Department of Mathematics Publications

Analysing linked, routinely collected data may be useful to identify characteristics of patients with suspected lung cancer who could benefit from early assessment for palliative care. The aim of this study was to compare characteristics of newly diagnosed lung cancer patients dying within 30 days of diagnosis (short term survivors) with those surviving more than 30 days. To identify indicators for early palliative care assessment we distinguished between characteristics available at diagnosis (age, gender, smoking status, marital status, comorbid disease, admission type, tumour stage and histology) from those available post diagnosis. A second aim was to examine the association between …

Introductory Statistics, Barbara Illowsky, Susan Dean

Open Access Textbooks

Introductory Statistics follows scope and sequence requirements of a one-semester introduction to statistics course and is geared toward students majoring in fields other than math or engineering. The text assumes some knowledge of intermediate algebra and focuses on statistics application over theory. Introductory Statistics includes innovative practical applications that make the text relevant and accessible, as well as collaborative exercises, technology integration problems, and statistics labs.

Students’ Interpretations Of Categorical Data Using Dynamic Graphical Representations, Adam Eide

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Statistical association is an important concept in statistics. An exploratory study examined how students reason about statistical association utilizing graphical representations constructed with CODAP, a dynamic statistical graphing software. Task-based interviews were conducted with three 6th grade students prior to formal instruction. Students’ conceptions of a statistical relationship, proportional reasoning skill level, ability to interpret bivariate categorical graphs (particularly segmented bar graphs and two-way binned plots), and ability to identify association of two categorical variables were all investigated through interview tasks and responses to inquiry. Students were found to have developing proportional reasoning skills and struggled to correctly define and …

The Most Important Statistics In Football, Jacob Holmen

Essential Studies UNDergraduate Showcase

This research is based on the Five Factors that were devised by Bill Connelly of SBNation. The Five Factors of football include Explosiveness, Efficiency, Field Position, Finishing Drives, and Turnovers. Each factor is composed of associated statistics that when put together make up the most important statistics in football. This research includes the analysis of all 857 FBS (the highest level of NCAA Division I football) games from the 2016 season. Data was analyzed through the use of an Excel spreadsheet. Five different statistics were looked at, each associated with one of the Five Factors. The statistics include Yards per …

Analytics And Baseball's New Generation, John Roche

Essential Studies UNDergraduate Showcase

Major League Baseball has been a catalyst for making decisions in sports and competition from a purely mathematical viewpoint. We have seen teams utilize unique on-field player alignments and roster-building strategies based on statistical observations and applications of math. This project examines the advantages Sabermetrics and analytics present within the sport. Untapped statistical categories that could further the success of teams in the future is also briefly discussed.

A Comparison Of Five Statistical Methods For Predicting Stream Temperature Across Stream Networks, Maike F. Holthuijzen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The health of freshwater aquatic systems, particularly stream networks, is mainly influenced by water temperature, which controls biological processes and influences species distributions and aquatic biodiversity. Thermal regimes of rivers are likely to change in the future, due to climate change and other anthropogenic impacts, and our ability to predict stream temperatures will be critical in understanding distribution shifts of aquatic biota. Spatial statistical network models take into account spatial relationships but have drawbacks, including high computation times and data pre-processing requirements. Machine learning techniques and generalized additive models (GAM) are promising alternatives to the SSN model. Two machine learning …

Ladies' Night, Robert Dawson

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

"Lady" Jane is an expert at her racket. The Joint Statistical Meetings are in Vegas, and she reckons it's payday. But she's taking on the professionals.

The Battle Against Malaria: A Teachable Moment, Randy K. Schwartz

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Malaria has been humanity’s worst public health problem throughout recorded history. Mathematical methods are needed to understand which factors are relevant to the disease and to develop counter-measures against it. This article and the accompanying exercises provide examples of those methods for use in lower- or upper-level courses dealing with probability, statistics, or population modeling. These can be used to illustrate such concepts as correlation, causation, conditional probability, and independence. The article explains how the apparent link between sickle cell trait and resistance to malaria was first verified in Uganda using the chi-squared probability distribution. It goes on to explain …