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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

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Theses and Dissertations

Bayesian

2011

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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Hierarchical Probit Models For Ordinal Ratings Data, Allison M. Butler Jun 2011

Hierarchical Probit Models For Ordinal Ratings Data, Allison M. Butler

Theses and Dissertations

University students often complete evaluations of their courses and instructors. The evaluation tool typically contains questions about the course and the instructor on an ordinal Likert scale. We assess instructor effectiveness while adjusting for known confounders. We present a probit regression model with a latent variable to measure the instructor effectiveness accounting for student specific covariates, such as student grade in the course, high school and university GPA, and ACT score.


Adaptive Threat Detector Testing Using Bayesian Gaussian Process Models, Bradley Thomas Ferguson May 2011

Adaptive Threat Detector Testing Using Bayesian Gaussian Process Models, Bradley Thomas Ferguson

Theses and Dissertations

Detection of biological and chemical threats is an important consideration in the modern national defense policy. Much of the testing and evaluation of threat detection technologies is performed without appropriate uncertainty quantification. This paper proposes an approach to analyzing the effect of threat concentration on the probability of detecting chemical and biological threats. The approach uses a probit semi-parametric formulation between threat concentration level and the probability of instrument detection. It also utilizes a bayesian adaptive design to determine at which threat concentrations the tests should be performed. The approach offers unique advantages, namely, the flexibility to model non-monotone curves …