Statistics and Probability Commons^™

Wavelet-Based Functional Mixed Models To Characterize Population Heterogeneity In Accelerometer Profiles: A Case Study. , Jeffrey S. Morris, Cassandra Arroyo, Brent A. Coull, Louise M. Ryan, Steven L. Gortmaker

Jeffrey S. Morris

We present a case study illustrating the challenges of analyzing accelerometer data taken from a sample of children participating in an intervention study designed to increase physical activity. An accelerometer is a small device worn on the hip that records the minute-by-minute activity levels of the child throughout the day for each day it is worn. The resulting data are irregular functions characterized by many peaks representing short bursts of intense activity. We model these data using the wavelet-based functional mixed model. This approach incorporates multiple fixed effects and random effect functions of arbitrary form, the estimates of which are …

A Mathematical Regression Of The U.S. Gross Private Domestic Investment 1959-2001, Byron E. Bell

Byron E. Bell

SUMMARY OF PROJECT What did I do? A study of the role the U.S. stock markets and money markets have possibly played in the Gross Private Domestic Investment (GPDI) of the United States from the year 1959 to the year 2001 and I created a Multiple Linear Regression Model (MLRM).

Theory Of Effectiveness Measurement, Richard K. Bullock

Theses and Dissertations

Effectiveness measures provide decision makers feedback on the impact of deliberate actions and affect critical issues such as allocation of scarce resources, as well as whether to maintain or change existing strategy. Currently, however, there is no formal foundation for formulating effectiveness measures. This research presents a new framework for effectiveness measurement from both a theoretical and practical view. First, accepted effects-based principles, as well as fundamental measurement concepts are combined into a general, domain independent, effectiveness measurement methodology. This is accomplished by defining effectiveness measurement as the difference, or conceptual distance from a given system state to some reference …

Evaluation Of Program Outcomes: Assessment In Children, Cheryl M. Romano

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

In an age of increased concern for accountability and the review of services, administrators of health programs should be able to present their clinics effectiveness, and demonstrate their excellent service to the community, along with providing evidence for the continued need of such clinics. Outcome evaluation plays an integral part in providing this information, and is intended to provide information concerning the effectiveness of a particular program, thus allowing for modification, and even better outcomes.

This project addressed pre and post functioning in children referred for academic and/or behavioral difficulties, in a university of health sciences-based clinic. The aim was …

Low Birth Weight, Very Low Birth Weight And Infant Mortality In San Bernardino County : A Secondary Analysis Of Maternal Factors, Rebecca D. Nanyonjo

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Purpose: National and state infant mortality rates have slowly declined over the last several years. Despite this reduction, San Bernardino County still has one of the highest infant mortality rates in California and racial disparities between Black and White infants not only persist but continue to widen. These disparities remain at the forefront of concern. Healthy People 2010 target objectives have yet to be reached, while national and state proposed plans have supported the statement that a community's largest health problem is initiated by its infant mortality. The purpose of this study was to investigate maternal factors through use of …

An Analysis Of Financial Planning For Employees Of East Tennessee State University., Steven Roy Campbell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if East Tennessee State University provides its employees appropriate financial planning services. In particular, it is unknown to what degree employees of East Tennessee State University have actively engaged in financial planning.

The research was conducted during June and July, 2005. Data were gathered by surveying faculty, staff, and retirees of the university. Ten percent of the population responded to the study. The survey instrument covered the areas of retirement, other financial planning services, and attitudes toward financial planning.

The results of the data analysis gave insight into what degree employees of …

Ancova: A Robust Omnibus Test Based On Selected Design Points, Rand R. Wilcox

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Many robust analogs of the classic analysis of covariance method have been proposed. One approach, when comparing two independent groups, uses selected design points and then compares the groups at each design point using some robust method for comparing measures of location. So, if K design points are of interest, K tests are performed. There are rather obvious ways of performing, instead, an omnibus test that for all K points, no differences between the groups exist. One of the main results here is that several variations of these methods can perform very poorly in simulations. An alternative approach, based in …

The Effect On Type I Error And Power Of Various Methods Of Resolving Ties For Six Distribution-Free Tests Of Location, Bruce R. Fay

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

The impact on Type I error robustness and power for nine different methods of resolving ties was assessed for six distribution-free statistics with four empirical data sets using Monte Carlo techniques. These statistics share an underlying assumption of population continuity such that samples are assumed to have no equal data values (no zero difference–scores, no tied ranks). The best results across all tests and combinations of simulation parameters were obtained by randomly resolving ties, although there were exceptions. The method of dropping ties and reducing the sample size performed poorly.

Limitations Of The Analysis Of Variance, Phillip I. Good, Clifford E. Lunneborg

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Conditions under which the analysis of variance will yield inexact p-values or would be inferior in power to a permutation test are investigated. The findings for the one-way design are consistent with and extend those of Miller (1980).

Multiple Comparison Procedures, Trimmed Means And Transformed Statistics, Rhonda K. Kowalchuk, H. J. Keselman, Rand R. Wilcox, James Algina, James Algina, James Algina

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

A modification to testing pairwise comparisons that may provide better control of Type I errors in the presence of non-normality is to use a preliminary test for symmetry which determines whether data should be trimmed symmetrically or asymmetrically. Several pairwise MCPs were investigated, employing a test of symmetry with a number of heteroscedastic test statistics that used trimmed means and Winsorized variances. Results showed improved Type I error control than competing robust statistics.

Understanding Eurasian Convergence: Application Of Kohonen Self-Organizing Maps, Joel I. Deichmann, Abdolreza Eshghi, Dominique Haughton, Selin Sayek, Nicholas Teebagy, Heikki Topi

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Kohonen self-organizing maps (SOMs) are employed to examine economic and social convergence of Eurasian countries based on a set of twenty-eight socio-economic measures. A core of European Union states is identified that provides a benchmark against which convergence of post-socialist transition economies may be judged. The Central European Visegrád countries and Baltics show the greatest economic convergence to Western Europe, while other states form clusters that lag behind. Initial conditions on the social dimension can either facilitate or constrain economic convergence, as discovered in Central Europe vis-à-vis the Central Asian Republics. Disquiet in the convergence literature is resolved by providing …

Entropy Criterion In Logistic Regression And Shapley Value Of Predictors, Stan Lipovetsky

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Entropy criterion is used for constructing a binary response regression model with a logistic link. This approach yields a logistic model with coefficients proportional to the coefficients of linear regression. Based on this property, the Shapley value estimation of predictors’ contribution is applied for obtaining robust coefficients of the linear aggregate adjusted to the logistic model. This procedure produces a logistic regression with interpretable coefficients robust to multicollinearity. Numerical results demonstrate theoretical and practical advantages of the entropy-logistic regression.

Choosing Smoothing Parameters For Exponential Smoothing: Minimizing Sums Of Squared Versus Sums Of Absolute Errors, Terry E. Dielman

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

When choosing smoothing parameters in exponential smoothing, the choice can be made by either minimizing the sum of squared one-step-ahead forecast errors or minimizing the sum of the absolute onestep- ahead forecast errors. In this article, the resulting forecast accuracy is used to compare these two options.

Penalized Splines For Longitudinal Data With An Application In Aids Studies, Hua Liang, Yuanhui Xiao

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

A penalized spline approximation is proposed in considering nonparametric regression for longitudinal data. Standard linear mixed-effects modeling can be applied for the estimation. It is relatively simple, efficiently computed, and robust to the smooth parameters selection, which are often encountered when local polynomial and smoothing spline techniques are used to analyze longitudinal data set. The method is extended to time-varying coefficient mixed-effects models. The proposed methods are applied to data from an AIDS clinical study. Biological interpretations and clinical implications are discussed. Simulation studies are done to illustrate the proposed methods.

Analysis Of Type-Ii Progressively Hybrid Censored Competing Risks Data, Debasis Kundu, Avijit Joarder

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

A Type-II progressively hybrid censoring scheme for competing risks data is introduced, where the experiment terminates at a pre-specified time. The likelihood inference of the unknown parameters is derived under the assumptions that the lifetime distributions of the different causes are independent and exponentially distributed. The maximum likelihood estimators of the unknown parameters are obtained in exact forms. Asymptotic confidence intervals and two bootstrap confidence intervals are also proposed. Bayes estimates and credible intervals of the unknown parameters are obtained under the assumption of gamma priors on the unknown parameters. Different methods have been compared using Monte Carlo simulations. One …

The Efficiency Of Ols In The Presence Of Auto-Correlated Disturbances In Regression Models, Samir Safi, Alexander White

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

The ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates in the regression model are efficient when the disturbances have mean zero, constant variance, and are uncorrelated. In problems concerning time series, it is often the case that the disturbances are correlated. Using computer simulations, the robustness of various estimators are considered, including estimated generalized least squares. It was found that if the disturbance structure is autoregressive and the dependent variable is nonstochastic and linear or quadratic, the OLS performs nearly as well as its competitors. For other forms of the dependent variable, rules of thumb are presented to guide practitioners in the choice …

Comparison Of Some Simple Estimators Of The Lognormal Parameters Based On Censored Samples, Baklizi Ayman, Mohammed Al-Haj Ebrahem

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Point estimation of the parameters of the lognormal distribution with censored data is considered. The often employed maximum likelihood estimator does not exist in closed form and iterative methods that require very good starting points are needed. In this article, some techniques of finding closed form estimators to this situation are presented and extended. An extensive simulation study is carried out to investigate and compare the performance of these techniques. The results show that some of them are highly efficient as compared with the maximum likelihood estimator.

Two New Unbiased Point Estimates Of A Population Variance, Matthew E. Elam

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Two new unbiased point estimates of an unknown population variance are introduced. They are compared to three known estimates using the mean-square error (MSE). A computer program, which is available for download at http://program.20m.com, is developed for performing calculations for the estimates.

Properties Of Bound Estimators On Treatment Effect Heterogeneity For Binary Outcomes, Edward J. Mascha, Jeffrey M. Albert

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Variability in individual causal effects, treatment effect heterogeneity (TEH), is important to the interpretation of clinical trial results, regardless of the marginal treatment effect. Unfortunately, it is usually ignored. In the setting of two-arm randomized studies with binary outcomes, there are estimators for bounds on the probability of control success and treatment failure for an individual, or the treatment risk. Here, those bounds were refined and the sampling properties were assessed using simulations of correlated multinomial data via the Dirichlet multinomial. Results indicated low bias and mean squared error. Moderate to high intraclass correlation (ICC) and large numbers of clusters …

A Combined Individuals And Moving Range Control Chart, Michael B. C. Khoo, S. H. Quah, C. K. Ch'ng

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

An individuals control chart is usually used to monitor shifts in the process mean when it is not possible to form subgroups. The moving range of two successive process measures is used as the basis for estimating the process variability. Similar to the case of the X − R and X − S charts, the individualsmoving range (I-MR) charts are used simultaneously in the monitoring of the process mean and variance respectively for individual observations, requiring maintaining two different charts. In this article, a new approach is suggested where the measurements of both the process mean and variance are plotted …

Variance Estimation And Construction Of Confidence Intervals For Gee Estimator, Shenghai Zhang, Mary E. Thompson

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

The sandwich estimator, also known as the robust covariance matrix estimator, has achieved increasing use in the statistical literature as well as with the growing popularity of generalized estimating equations (GEE). A modified sandwich variance estimator is proposed, and its consistency and efficiency are studied. It is compared with other variance estimators, such as a model based estimator, the sandwich estimator and a corrected sandwich estimator. Confidence intervals for regression parameters based on these estimators are discussed. Simulation studies using clustered data to compare the performance of variance estimators are reported.

The Use Of Hierarchical Ancova In Curriculum Studies, Show-Mann Liou, Chao-Ying Joanne Peng

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Many educational studies are carried out in intact settings, such as classrooms or groups in which individual data were collected before and after a treatment. Researchers advocate either the use of individual scores as the unit of analysis or class means. Both approaches suffer from conceptual and methodological limitations. In this article, the use of hierarchical ANCOVA for analyzing quasiexperimental data including baseline measures is designed and promoted. It is illustrated with a realworld data set collected from a curriculum study. Results showed that the hierarchical ANCOVA is a conceptually and methodologically sound approach, and is better than ANCOVA based …

A Combined Standard Deviation Based Data Clustering Algorithm, Kuttiannan Thangavel, Durairaj Ashok Kumar

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

The clustering problem has been widely studied because it arises in many knowledge management oriented applications. It aims at identifying the distribution of patterns and intrinsic correlations in data sets by partitioning the data points into similarity clusters. Traditional clustering algorithms use distance functions to measure similarity centroid, which subside the influences of data points. Hence, in this article a novel non-distance based clustering algorithm is proposed which uses Combined Standard Deviation (CSD) as measure of similarity. The performance of CSD based K-means approach, called K-CSD clustering algorithm, is tested on synthetic data sets. It compared favorably to widely used …

Jmasm23: Cluster Analysis In Epidemiological Data (Matlab), Andrés M. Alonso

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Matlab functions for testing the existence of time, space and time-space clusters of disease occurrences are presented. The classical scan test, the Ederer, Myers and Mantel’s test, the Ohno, Aoki and Aoki’s test, and the Knox’s test are considered.

Confidence Intervals On Subsets May Be Misleading, Juliet Popper Shaffer

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

No abstract provided.

Statistical Pronouncements V, Jmasm Editors

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

No abstract provided.

Properties Of The Gar(1) Model For Time Series Of Counts, Vasiliki Karioti, Chrys Caroni

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Models for time series count data include several proposed by Zeger and Qaqish (1988), subsequently generalized into the GARMA family. The GAR(1) model is examined in detail. The maximum likelihood estimation of the parameters will be discussed and the properties of Pearson and randomized residuals will be examined.

Confidence Intervals For An Effect Size When Variances Are Not Equal, James Algina, H. J. Keselman, Randall D. Penfield

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Confidence intervals must be robust in having nominal and actual probability coverage in close agreement. This article examined two ways of computing an effect size in a two-group problem: (a) the classic approach which divides the mean difference by a single standard deviation and (b) a variant of a method which replaces least squares values with robust trimmed means and a Winsorized variance. Confidence intervals were determined with theoretical and bootstrap critical values. Only the method that used robust estimators and a bootstrap critical value provided generally accurate probability coverage under conditions of nonnormality and variance heterogeneity in balanced as …

Nonparametric Bayesian Multiple Comparisons For Dependence Parameter In Bivariate Exponential Populations, M. Masoom Ali, J. S. Cho, Munni Begum

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

A nonparametric Bayesian multiple comparisons problem (MCP) for dependence parameters in I bivariate exponential populations is studied. A simple method for pairwise comparisons of these parameters is also suggested. The methodology by Gopalan and Berry (1998) is extended using Dirichlet process priors, applied in the form of baseline prior and likelihood combination to provide the comparisons. Computation of the posterior probabilities of all possible hypotheses are carried out through a Markov Chain Monte Carlo, Gibbs sampling, due to the intractability of analytic evaluation. The process of MCP for the dependent parameters of bivariate exponential populations is illustrated with a numerical …

Jmasm22: A Convenient Way Of Generating Normal Random Variables Using Generalized Exponential Distribution, Debasis Kundu, Anubhav Manglick

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

A convenient method to generate normal random variable using a generalized exponential distribution is proposed. The new method is compared with the other existing methods and it is observed that the proposed method is quite competitive with most of the existing methods in terms of the K − S distances and the corresponding p-values.