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Wright State University College Of Engineering And Computer Science Bits And Pcs Newsletter, Volume 20, Number 8, June 2004, College Of Engineering And Computer Science, Wright State University

BITs and PCs Newsletter

A ten page newsletter created by the Wright State University College of Engineering and Computer Science that addresses the current affairs of the college.

Applications Of Integrated Data Viewer – Idv In An Introductory Meteorology Class For Non-Science Majors, Ricardo C. Nogueira

Masters Theses

Computer products developed to visualize and integrate meteorological products with real-time data can create a virtual reality of the atmosphere. These advanced technologies help educators to improve teaching techniques in the classroom for science and non-science majors and increase the students' interest in learning as well. One of these products, the Integrated Data Viewer (IDV), was recently developed by University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) project, Unidata, to visualize and integrate geoscience data. This study compares students' performance in the laboratory sessions using IDV-based and MANUAL-based exercises. Comparison of lab scores with exam scores of questions on the same topic …

Fit-To-Fight: Waist Vs. Waist/Height Measurements To Determine An Individual's Fitness Level A Study In Statistical Regression And Analysis, Steven J. Swiderski

Theses and Dissertations

Air Force members are to be tested for fitness by measuring their abdominal circumference, counting the number of sit-ups and push-ups they can accomplish, and the time it takes them to run 1 and miles. The abdominal measurement is a "one-size-fits-all" fitness standard. This research determines that a person's waist-to-height ratio is a better measurement than the waist measurement to estimate an individual's fitness level. This research estimates that all of the variables used to proxy fitness (Gender, Age, Height, Waist Circumference, Waist-to-Height Ratio, Push-Ups, and Sit-Ups) are statistically significant and do represent good estimators of physical fitness. This research …

Physicist's Reformed Critique Of Nonreductive Physicalism And Emergence, Arnold E. Sikkema

Pro Rege

Two figures are included. Dr. Sikkema has obtained permission from the first author of the paper from which Fig. 2 is adapted, as well as from the publisher.

The Effects Of Digital Audio On Social Presence, Motivation And Perceived Learning In Asynchronous Learning Networks, Eunhee Kim

Dissertations

This study explores the possibilities of applying digital audio to the ALN environment, so that students can speak and listen rather than type and read. Two sets of 1x2 field experiments (text vs. digital audio) were conducted with two formats of digital audio -recorded voice messages and narrated Microsoft PowerPoint presentation - used in several NJIT courses conducted via ALN. The perceptions of communication media were measured from two different user perspectives: active use when the subjects created their assignments using prescribed communication media (audio or text) and passive use when the subjects viewed/listened to other students' work.

The perceptions …

Collaborative Examinations In Asyncronous Learning Networks : Field Experiments On Collaborative Learning Through Online Assessments, Jia Shen

Dissertations

With the proliferation of computer networks and the emergence of virtual teams, learning and knowledge sharing in the online environment has become an increasingly important topic. Applying constructivism and collaborative learning theories to assessment, the collaborative online exam is designed featuring students' active participation in various phases of the exam process through small group activities online. A participatory online exam process is designed featuring similar procedures except that students' involvement in each phase of the exam is individual. The collaborative online exam and the participatory online exam are investigated regarding student exam study strategies, group process, exam outcomes, faculty satisfaction, …

A Linear Regression Framework For Receiver Operating Characteristic(Roc) Curve Analysis, Zheng Zhang, Margaret S. Pepe

UW Biostatistics Working Paper Series

In the field of medical diagnostic testing, the receiver operating characteristics(ROC) curve has long been used as a standard statistical tool to assess the accuracy of tests that yield continuous results. Although previous research in this area focused mostly on estimating the ROC curve, recently it has been recognized that the accuracy of a given test may fluctuate depending on certain factors, which motivates modelling covariate effects on the ROC curve. Comparing the corresponding ROC curves between two or more tests is a special case of covariate effect modelling. In this manuscript, we introduce a linear regression framework to model …

Development Of An Underwater Infrared Camera To Detect Manatees, Edward O. Keith

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Reports

In calendar year 2004, watercraft related mortality was the second leading cause of death of the Florida manatee (Trichechus manatus latirostris) accounting for 25% of total known manatee deaths. In an attempt to reduce this significant cause of manatee mortality, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute has instituted two rounds of Manatee Avoidance Technology grants. Herein I report the results of an evaluation of the ability of underwater infrared video cameras to detect captive manatees and other non-living targets. If such cameras could detect manatees at sufficient distances, they could be mounted in the bows of watercraft …

Sharing The Big Apple : A Survey Study Of People, Place And Locatability, Samer Nadim Karam

Theses

Over the past half century social trends and new technologies have weakened local social ties and thus, the fabric of civil society itself. Mobile location-aware community systems offer one path to redress these problems by enhancing community cohesion and the formation of social capital by helping people to meet each other and coordinate their actions. However, little is known about the general population's desire and attitude towards these systems.

The design space described by the People-to-People-to-Geographical-Places Framework (P3-Framework), was used to guide a survey study of the impact of 'place' on people's social information needs and their willingness to share …

New Statistical Paradigms Leading To Web-Based Tools For Clinical/Translational Science, Knut M. Wittkowski

COBRA Preprint Series

As the field of functional genetics and genomics is beginning to mature, we become confronted with new challenges. The constant drop in price for sequencing and gene expression profiling as well as the increasing number of genetic and genomic variables that can be measured makes it feasible to address more complex questions. The success with rare diseases caused by single loci or genes has provided us with a proof-of-concept that new therapies can be developed based on functional genomics and genetics.

Common diseases, however, typically involve genetic epistasis, genomic pathways, and proteomic pattern. Moreover, to better understand the underlying biologi-cal …

Stormwater Utility Fees: Considerations & Options For Interlocal Stormwater Working Group (Iswg), New England Environmental Finance Center

Water

Stormwater utilities are a concept whose time seems to have arrived. Established by relatively few communities in the 1970s as a method of funding flood control measures, stormwater utilities now exist in over 400 municipalities and counties throughout the United States. During the next 10 years, their numbers are expected to swell dramatically – by one estimate to over 2,000 by the year 2014.

The reasons for this growth are multifold. Federal stormwater regulations passed in the 1980s (Phase I of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Program, or NPDES), motivated many larger communities to seek alternative funding sources and …

Abelson’S Paradox And The Michelson-Morley Experiment, Shlomo S. Sawilowsky

Theoretical and Behavioral Foundations of Education Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Teaching Random Assignment: Do You Believe It Works?, Shlomo S. Sawilowsky

Theoretical and Behavioral Foundations of Education Faculty Publications

Textbook authors admonish students to check on the comparability of two randomly assigned groups by conducting statistical tests on pretest means to determine if randomization worked. A Monte Carlo study was conducted on a sample of n = 2 per group, where each participant’s personality profile was represented by 7,500 randomly selected and assigned scores. Independent samples t tests were conducted and the results demonstrated that random assignment was successful in equating the two groups on 7,467 variables. The students’ focus is redirected from the ability of random assignment to create comparable groups to the testing of the claims of …

Manifestation Of Differences In Item-Level Characteristics In Scale-Level Measurement Invariance Tests Of Multi-Group Confirmatory Factor Analyses, Bruno D. Zumbo, Kim H. Koh

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

If a researcher applies the conventional tests of scale-level measurement invariance through multi-group confirmatory factor analysis of a PC matrix and MLE to test hypotheses of strong and full measurement invariance when the researcher has a rating scale response format wherein the item characteristics are different for the two groups of respondents, do these scale-level analyses reflect (or ignore) differences in item threshold characteristics? Results of the current study demonstrate the inadequacy of judging the suitability of a measurement instrument across groups by only investigating the factor structure of the measure for the different groups with a PC matrix and …

Multiple Imputation For Missing Ordinal Data, Ling Chen, Marian Toma-Drane, Robert F. Valois, J. Wanzer Drane

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Simulations were used to compare complete case analysis of ordinal data with including multivariate normal imputations. MVN methods of imputation were not as good as using only complete cases. Bias and standard errors were measured against coefficients estimated from logistic regression and a standard data set.

Within By Within Anova Based On Medians, Rand R. Wilcox

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

This article considers a J by K ANOVA design where all JK groups are dependent and where groups are to be compared based on medians. Two general approaches are considered. The first is based on an omnibus test for no main effects and no interactions and the other tests each member of a collection of relevant linear contrasts. Based on an earlier paper dealing with multiple comparisons, an obvious speculation is that a particular bootstrap method should be used. One of the main points here is that, in general, this is not the case for the problem at hand. The …

Exploratory Factor Analysis In Two Measurement Journals: Hegemony By Default, J. Thomas Kellow

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Exploratory factor analysis studies in two prominent measurement journals were explored. Issues addressed were: (a) factor extraction methods, (b) factor retention rules, (c) factor rotation strategies, and (d) saliency criteria for including variables. Many authors continue to use principal components extraction, orthogonal (varimax) rotation, and retain factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0.

Stormwater Utility Fees: Considerations & Options For Interlocal Stormwater Working Group (Iswg), New England Environmental Finance Center

Economics and Finance

Stormwater utilities are a concept whose time seems to have arrived. Established by relatively few communities in the 1970s as a method of funding flood control measures, stormwater utilities now exist in over 400 municipalities and counties throughout the United States. During the next 10 years, their numbers are expected to swell dramatically – by one estimate to over 2,000 by the year 2014.

The reasons for this growth are multifold. Federal stormwater regulations passed in the 1980s (Phase I of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Program, or NPDES), motivated many larger communities to seek alternative funding sources and …

True Real Time Pose Independent Face Detection Using Color Information And Skin Region Segmentation, Ranjani Balaji

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The process of detecting a face from a video in real time is essential in applications such as human surveillance, human computer-interaction, and for further face recognition research purposes. In this paper, the face detection algorithm is divided into four stages namely, Video Database Acquisition (VDA), Frame Sequence Extraction (FSE), Skin Region Detection (SRD), and K-Mean Face Segmentation (KFS). Initially, the videos in MPEG format are converted to JPEG images depending on the user specified frame rate (FSE phase). During this conversion, the face detection process comprising of SRD and KFS phases runs on each of the images that are …

Relationships Between Environmental Factors And Fungi On Occupants' Perceptions Of Indoor Air Quality, Monica Rodriguez

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In recent decades, concerns about potential health effects resulting from exposure to contaminants that cause indoor air pollution have dramatically increased. The purpose of this study was to assess the indoor air quality of three buildings at Western Kentucky University and to examine and characterize indoor levels of basic comfort parameters, carbon dioxide, and fungi as well as occupants' perceptions of poor indoor air quality and the role of fungi on reported health symptoms. The three buildings included in the study were: Tate Page Hall (TPH), Jones Jagger Hall (JJH) and Science and Technology Hall (STH). Fifty-three questionnaires were completed …

2002 Licensed Angler Survey: Summarized Results, Keith L. Hurley, Kristin L. Duppong-Hurley

Nebraska Game and Parks Commission: White Papers, Conference Presentations, and Manuscripts

On October 22, 2002, 5000 six-page surveys (Appendix 3) were sent to a stratified-random sample of Nebraska anglers drawn from the 2001 licensed anglers database. The database included all anglers who purchased a fishing license in 2001 as well as all lifetime fishing permit holders who purchased their license before or during 2001. The database did not include those possessing a free permit, such as veteran’s or senior citizen permits. The survey subsample (2.6% of the 2001-licensed angler database) was stratified such that the proportions of surveys in the subsample (4366 residents and 634 non-residents) matched the proportions of resident/non-resident …

Determining The Effects Of Psychosocial Interventions On Quality Of Life For Cancer Patients: Analysis Of Pilot Data And Recommendations For Full Experimental Design And Statistical Analysis, Sarah Julia Thomas

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The Hematology and Oncology Specialists Foundation plans to carry out a scientific study to assess the effects of several of its psychosocial interventions, or “wellness programs,” on the quality of life (QoL) experienced by cancer patients. Pilot data showed that participation in a meditation program significantly reduced the symptoms of stress experienced by the patients (t = 2.70, p = 0.011), and that participation in psychological counseling significantly reduced the anxiety and depression levels of the patients (t = 5.33, p = 0.002; t = 8.70, p < 0.001, respectively).

The full scale study has a 6×2 factorial design with six treatments (non-participation, …

Hand-Held Calculators And Mathematics Achievement: What The 1996 National Assessment Of Educational Progress Eighth-Grade Mathematics Exam Scores Tell Us, Kenneth L. Wareham

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was to analyze the 1996 National Assessment of Educational Progress data to identify the relationship between calculator use and student performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress Mathematics Assessment. This general purpose includes several sub issues. In addition to being interested in the overall relationship between use and National Assessment of Educational Progress achievement (including the effort to control for spurious factors), this study examined the contextual factors that moderate the impact of calculator use. Similarly, it analyzed the relationship between calculator use and student performance on calculator-allowed and calculator-restricted items, as well as …

Inside Unlv, Erin O'Donnell, Diane Russell, Carol C. Harter

Inside UNLV

No abstract provided.

Bias Affiliated With Two Variants Of Cohen’S D When Determining U1 As A Measure Of The Percent Of Non-Overlap, David A. Walker

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Variants of Cohen’s d, in this instance dt and d_{adj, has the largest influence on U1 measures used with smaller sample sizes, specifically when n1 and n2 = 10. This study indicated that bias for variants of d, which influence U1 measures, tends to subside and become more manageable, in terms of precision of estimation, around 1% to 2% when n1 and n2 = 20. Thus, depending on the direction of the influence, both dt and dadj are likely to manage bias in the U1 measure quite well for smaller to …}

Determining The Correct Number Of Components To Extract From A Principal Components Analysis: A Monte Carlo Study Of The Accuracy Of The Scree Plot, Gibbs Y. Kanyongo

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

This article pertains to the accuracy of the of the scree plot in determining the correct number of components to retain under different conditions of sample size, component loading and variable-tocomponent ratio. The study employs use of Monte Carlo simulations in which the population parameters were manipulated, and data were generated, and then the scree plot applied to the generated scores.

Jmasm19: A Spss Matrix For Determining Effect Sizes From Three Categories: R And Functions Of R, Differences Between Proportions, And Standardized Differences Between Means, David A. Walker

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

The program is intended to provide editors, manuscript reviewers, students, and researchers with an SPSS matrix to determine an array of effect sizes not reported or the correctness of those reported, such as rrelated indices, r-related squared indices, and measures of association, when the only data provided in the manuscript or article are the n, M, and SD (and sometimes proportions and t and F (1) values) for twogroup designs. This program can create an internal matrix table to assist researchers in determining the size of an effect for commonly utilized r-related, mean difference, and difference in proportions indices when …

Letter To The Editor, Jmasm Editors

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

No abstract provided.

An Exploration Of Using Data Mining In Educational Research, Yonghong Jade Xu

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Technology advances popularized large databases in education. Traditional statistics have limitations for analyzing large quantities of data. This article discusses data mining by analyzing a data set with three models: multiple regression, data mining, and a combination of the two. It is concluded that data mining is applicable in educational research.

An Empirical Evaluation Of The Retrospective Pretest: Are There Advantages To Looking Back?, Paul A. Nakonezny, Joseph Lee Rodgers

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

This article builds on research regarding response shift effects and retrospective self-report ratings. Results suggest moderate evidence of a response shift bias in the conventional pretest-posttest treatment design in the treatment group. The use of explicitly worded anchors on response scales, as well as the measurement of knowledge ratings (a cognitive construct) in an evaluation methodology setting, helped to mitigate the magnitude of a response shift bias. The retrospective pretest-posttest design provides a measure of change that is more in accord with the objective measure of change than is the conventional pretest-posttest treatment design with the objective measure of change, …