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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™

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Statistics and Probability

Selected Works

2017

Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Teaching Statistics To Msw Students: Comparing Credit And Non-Credit Options, Ashley Davis, Rebecca G. Mirick Dec 2017

Teaching Statistics To Msw Students: Comparing Credit And Non-Credit Options, Ashley Davis, Rebecca G. Mirick

Rebecca Mirick

In professional disciplines like social work, students are expected to be able to understand and apply basic statistical concepts. Graduate programs differ in how they expect students to develop this ability; some require a full-credit statistics course as a prerequisite to admission, and others incorporate statistics into social work research courses. The for-credit requirement has a high financial and time cost for students. This exploratory study examined the feasibility of replacing this requirement with a brief, non-credit statistics course. MSW students (n=168) who took both types of courses were surveyed. No association was found between the type of course and …

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Variational Bayes Estimation Of Discrete-Margined Copula Models With Application To Ime Series, Ruben Loaiza-Maya, Michael S. Smith Nov 2017

Variational Bayes Estimation Of Discrete-Margined Copula Models With Application To Ime Series, Ruben Loaiza-Maya, Michael S. Smith

Michael Stanley Smith

We propose a new variational Bayes estimator for high-dimensional copulas with discrete, or a combination of discrete and continuous, margins. The method is based on a variational approximation to a tractable augmented posterior, and is faster than previous likelihood-based approaches. We use it to estimate drawable vine copulas for univariate and multivariate Markov ordinal and mixed time series. These have dimension $rT$, where $T$ is the number of observations and $r$ is the number of series, and are difficult to estimate using previous methods. 
The vine pair-copulas are carefully selected to allow for heteroskedasticity, which is a feature of most ordinal …

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Estimating Pay Gaps For Workers With Disabilities: Implications From Broadening Definitions And Data Sets, Kevin F. Hallock, Xin Jin, Linda Barrington Jun 2017

Estimating Pay Gaps For Workers With Disabilities: Implications From Broadening Definitions And Data Sets, Kevin F. Hallock, Xin Jin, Linda Barrington

Kevin F Hallock

Purpose: To compare pay gap estimates across 3 different national survey data sets for people with disabilities relative to those without disabilities when pay is measured as wage and salary alone versus a (total compensation) definition that includes an estimate of the value of benefits.

Method: Estimates of the cost to the employers of employee benefits at the occupational level from an employer survey data set are matched to individual-level data in each of the 3 data sets. Multiple regression techniques are applied to estimate wage and salary and total compensation gaps between full-time men with and without …

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Random Regression Models Based On The Elliptically Contoured Distribution Assumptions With Applications To Longitudinal Data, Alfred A. Bartolucci, Shimin Zheng, Sejong Bae, Karan P. Singh May 2017

Random Regression Models Based On The Elliptically Contoured Distribution Assumptions With Applications To Longitudinal Data, Alfred A. Bartolucci, Shimin Zheng, Sejong Bae, Karan P. Singh

Shimin Zheng

We generalize Lyles et al.’s (2000) random regression models for longitudinal data, accounting for both undetectable values and informative drop-outs in the distribution assumptions. Our models are constructed on the generalized multivariate theory which is based on the Elliptically Contoured Distribution (ECD). The estimation of the fixed parameters in the random regression models are invariant under the normal or the ECD assumptions. For the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemiology Research Study data, ECD models fit the data better than classical normal models according to the Akaike (1974) Information Criterion. We also note that both univariate distributions of the random intercept and …

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Implementing Propensity Score Matching With Network Data: The Effect Of Gatt On Bilateral Trade, Luca De Benedictis, Bruno Arpino, Alessandra Mattei Mar 2017

Implementing Propensity Score Matching With Network Data: The Effect Of Gatt On Bilateral Trade, Luca De Benedictis, Bruno Arpino, Alessandra Mattei

Luca De Benedictis

Motivated by the evaluation of the causal effect of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade on bilateral international trade flows, we investigate the role of network structure in propensity score matching under the assumption of strong ignorability. We study the sensitivity of causal inference with respect to the presence of characteristics of the network in the set of confounders conditional on which strong ignorability is assumed to hold. We find that estimates of the average causal effect are highly sensitive to the presence of node-level network statistics in the set of confounders. Therefore, we argue that estimates may suffer …

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Shining A Light On A University Special Collection With Data Visualization, Lisa Deluca, Katie M. Wissel Mar 2017

Shining A Light On A University Special Collection With Data Visualization, Lisa Deluca, Katie M. Wissel

Kathryn Wissel, MBA, MI

The Valente Collection is a 29,000 volume special collection that bridges Italian and Italian American history, literature, religion and art. It is a unique asset for the library and the university. One concept for promoting this collection and offering insight into the holdings is visualization. This goal of this poster is to help academic librarians assess which tools are most appropriate to create visualizations of current collections. Examples of different visualization types are explained including Excel Power Map. Tableau and Datawrapper.

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The Finney County, Kansas Community Assessment Process: Fact Book, Debra J. Bolton Phd, Shannon L. Dick M.S. Jan 2017

The Finney County, Kansas Community Assessment Process: Fact Book, Debra J. Bolton Phd, Shannon L. Dick M.S.

Dr. Debra Bolton

This multi-lingual/multi-cultural study was called, Community Assets Processt, by the groups that “commissioned” it: Finnup Foundation, Finney County K-State Research & Extension, Western Kansas Community Foundation, Finney County United Way, Finney County Health Department, United Methodist Community Health Center (UMMAM), Center for Children and Families, Garden City Recreation Commission, and the Garden City Cultural Relations Board, because we intend for this to be an ongoing discussion. An objective, for those promoting the study, was to connect foundation, state, and federal funding with activities or services that addressed the true needs of people living in Finney County. The group was looking …

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