Statistics and Probability Commons^™

Relationship Between Perceived And Actual Quality Of Data Checking, Hunter Speich, Sophia Karas, Dan Erosa, Kelly Grob, Kimberly A. Barchard

Festival of Communities: UG Symposium (Posters)

Data quality is critical to reaching correct research conclusions. Researchers attempt to ensure that they have accurate data by checking the data after it has been entered. Previous research has demonstrated that some methods of data checking are better than others, but not all researchers use the best methods. Perhaps researchers continue to use less optimal data checking methods because they mistakenly believe that they are highly accurate. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between perceived data quality and actual data quality. A total of 29 participants completed this study. Participants checked that letters and numbers …

A New Perspective On Visual Word Processing Efficiency, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend

Psychology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Subsample Ignorable Likelihood For Accelerated Failure Time Models With Missing Predictors, Nanhua Zhang, Roderick J. Little

The University of Michigan Department of Biostatistics Working Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Building A Decision Aid Right-Side-Out, Barry F. Anderson

Systems Science Friday Noon Seminar Series

Tools have long been available for improving decision making, yet people who have knowledge of these tools seem reluctant to use them. I consider multiple reasons why this might be so and consider multiple solutions, then present what I believe to be the world's most user-friendly decision aid, which is now nearly ready for beta testing and available at no cost at http://wisedecider.net.

Wise Decider is believed to be unique in having the following features:

1. A creative thinking guide and a critical thinking guide that provide context-sensitive advice for problem structuring, evaluation, and implementation.
2. A decision table with cells …

Nice Guys Finish Fast And Bad Guys Finish Last: Facilitatory Vs. Inhibitory Interaction In Parallel Systems, Ami Eidels, Joseph W. Houpt, Nicholas Altieri, Lei Pei, James T. Townsend

Psychology Faculty Publications

Systems Factorial Technology is a powerful framework for investigating the fundamental properties of human information processing such as architecture (i.e., serial or parallel processing) and capacity (how processing efficiency is affected by increased workload). The Survivor Interaction Contrast (SIC) and the Capacity Coefficient are effective measures in determining these underlying properties, based on response-time data. Each of the different architectures, under the assumption of independent processing, predicts a specific form of the SIC along with some range of capacity. In this study, we explored SIC predictions of discrete-state (Markov process) and continuous-state (Linear Dynamic) models that allow for certain types …

Counting The Impossible: Sampling And Modeling To Achieve A Large State Homeless Count, Jennifer L. Priestley, Jane Massey

Faculty Articles

Objective: Using inferential statistics, we develop estimates of the homeless population of a geographically large and economically diverse state -- Georgia.

Methods: Multiple independent data sources (2000 U.S. Census, the 2006 Georgia County Guide, Georgia Chamber of Commerce) were used to develop Clusters of the 150 Georgia Counties. These clusters were used as "strata" to then execute traified sampling. Homeless counts were conducted within the sample counties, allowing for multiple regression models to be developed to generate predictions of homeless persons by county.

Results: In response to a mandate from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, the State …

Developing A Library Value Indicator For A Disciplinary Population, Jeanne M. Brown

Library Faculty Research

Three different ways of documenting library value were presented to fourth year landscape architecture students in the UNLV School of Architecture: a contingent valuation survey, a library calculator, and a survey to rate importance and impact of library services and features. Students used the three approaches, then discussed their experiences with the author. Their input suggested improvements in the instruments and provided feedback on possible positive and negative consequences of inviting this kind of valuing. Working with a focused collection and population provided a relatively safe environment to explore concerns about negative consequences.

Demonstrating Library Value: Examples And Applications For Arts Libraries, Jeanne M. Brown

Library Faculty Research

Demonstrating library value is of critical importance to all libraries, both to protect services and to serve patrons effectively. This paper presents suggestions for art and architecture libraries as they engage in determining what patrons value and documenting that value for library and campus administrators. Methods for calculating worth and for presenting a case are provided, as are ways of using strategic thinking and the assessment process to ensure the continuance of valuable services should budget reductions be unavoidable.

A Note On The Interpretation Of Scale Values In Multidimensional Scaling Growth Analysis, Cody Ding

Education Sciences and Professional Programs Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

If The Shoe Fits They Might Acquit: The Value Of Forensic Science Testimony, Jonathan Koehler

Faculty Working Papers

The probative value of forensic science evidence (such as a shoeprint) varies widely depending on how the evidence and hypothesis of interest is characterized. This paper uses a likelihood ratio (LR) approach to identify the probative value of forensic science evidence. It argues that the "evidence" component should be characterized as a "reported match," and that the hypothesis component should be characterized as "the matching person or object is the source of the crime scene sample." This characterization of the LR forces examiners to incorporate risks from sample mix-ups and examiner error into their match statistics. But how will legal …

Approximating Confidence Intervals About Discrete Time Survival/Cumulative Incidence Estimates Using The Delta Method, Alexis Dinno, Jong-Sung Kim

Community Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Poster focuses on answering the questions whether and when and event will happen in a population at risk.

Assessing The Necessity Of Chimpanzee Experimentation, Andrew Knight

Experimentation Collection

No abstract provided.

A Guide To Defining And Implementing Protocols For The Welfare Assessment Of Laboratory Animals: Eleventh Report Of The Bvaawf/Frame/Rspca/Ufaw Joint Working Group On Refinement, P. Hawkins, D. B. Morton, O. Burman, N. Dennison, P. Honess, M. Jennings, S. Lane, V. Middleton, J. V. Roughan, S. Wells, K. Westwood

Research Methodology and Laboratory Animals Collection

The refinement of husbandry and procedures to reduce animal suffering and improve welfare is an essential component of humane science. Successful refinement depends upon the ability to assess animal welfare effectively, and detect any signs of pain or distress as rapidly as possible, so that any suffering can be alleviated. This document provides practical guidance on setting up and operating effective protocols for the welfare assessment of animals used in research and testing. It sets out general principles for more objective observation of animals, recognizing and assessing indicators of pain or distress and tailoring these to individual projects. Systems for …

Gis Will Affect The Political Landscape For The Next Decade And Beyond, Mark Salling

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

No abstract provided.

Ohio's Use Of Geographic Information Systems To Demonstrate Public Participation In The Redistricting Process, Mark Salling

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

No abstract provided.

Public Participation Geographic Information Systems For Redistricting A Case Study In Ohio, Mark Salling

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

Public Participation Geographic Information Systems for Redistricting A Case Study in Ohio, Journal of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association, Vol. 23, Number 1, forthcoming.

Bayesian Item Response Theory: Statistical Inference And Power Analysis, Jason W. Bodnar

Dissertations

The regulatory pharmaceutical approval process is flawed in that industry clinical trials (ICTs) are always powered for efficacy and rarely powered for safety. The key safety parameter is the adverse event (AE). This practice may result in efficacious products with confounded safety. An ICT’s ability to be powered for detecting AE trends may improve patient safety. Therefore, this dissertation’s purpose was to determine if power analysis resulted in feasible sample sizes for substantiating AE hypotheses. AEs were modeled with three Bayesian 2PL IRT models. The unidimensional latent trait, transfusion-related AE, was modeled as a patient predisposition for experiencing an AE. …

Approximate Vs. Monte Carlo Critical Values For The Winsorized T-Test, Michael Lance

Wayne State University Dissertations

Historically, it has been accepted practice for critical values for the Winsorized t test for independent samples to be based on adjusted degrees of freedom depending on the number of total non-Winsorized (approximate) values. Recently, a new such table of Winsorized critical values has been developed via approximate randomization by Monte Carlo simulation.

Based on eight common data distributions estimated from Psychology and Education along with the normal and five Mathematical distributions, these two tables of values were compared with respect to robustness to types I and II errors through Monte Carlo simulations for one and 10% Winsorized values per …

An Analog Experiment Comparing Goal-Free Evaluation And Goal Achievement Evaluation Utility, Brandon W. Youker

Dissertations

Goal-free evaluation (GFE) is the process of determining the merit of an evaluand independent of the stated or implied goals and objectives, whereas goal achievement evaluation (GAE), as the most rudimentary form of goal-based evaluation, determines merit according to the evaluand’s level of accomplishment with regard to its goals. This study examines the utility of GAE and GFE from the perspective of the evaluation’s intended users. In the study, two evaluation teams, goal achievement and goal-free, independently and simultaneously evaluate the same human service program. Each team produced a final evaluation report, which was read by the evaluation’s users, who …

Estimation And Forecasting Of Dynamic Conditional Covariance: A Semiparametric Multivariate Model, Xiangdong Long, Liangjun Su, Aman Ullah

Research Collection School Of Economics

We propose a semiparametric conditional covariance (SCC) estimator that combines the first-stage parametric conditional covariance (PCC) estimator with the second-stage nonparametric correction estimator in a multiplicative way. We prove the asymptotic normality of our SCC estimator, propose a nonparametric test for the correct specification of PCC models, and study its asymptotic properties. We evaluate the finite sample performance of our test and SCC estimator and compare the latter with that of PCC estimator, purely nonparametric estimator, and Hafner, Dijk, and Franses’s (2006) estimator in terms of mean squared error and Value-at-Risk losses via simulations and real data analyses.

Model Selection In Validation Sampling Data: An Asymptotic Likelihood-Based Lasso Approach, Chenlei Leng, Denis H. Y. Leung

Research Collection School Of Economics

We propose an asymptotic likelihood-based LASSO approach for model selection in regression analysis when data are subject to validation sampling. The method makes use of an initial estimator of the regression coefficients and their asymptotic covariance matrix to form an asymptotic likelihood. This ``working'' objective function facilitates the formulation of the LASSO and the implementation of a fast algorithm. Our method circumvents the need to use a likelihood set-up that requires full distributional assumptions about the data. We show that the resulting estimator is consistent in model selection and that the method has lower prediction errors than a model that …

Modeling Endogenous Treatment Eects With Heterogeneity: A Bayesian Nonparametric Approach, Xuequn Hu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the estimation of endogenous treatment effects in the presence of heterogeneous responses. A Bayesian Nonparametric approach is taken to model the heterogeneity in treatment effects. Specifically, I adopt the Dirichlet Process Mixture (DPM) model to capture the heterogeneity and show that DPM often outperforms Finite Mixture Model (FMM) in providing more flexible function forms and thus better model fit. Rather than fixing the number of components in a mixture model, DPM allows the data and prior knowledge to determine the number of components in the data, thus providing an automatic mechanism for model selection.

Two DPM models …

Death By Boredom: The Role Of Visual Processing Theory In Written Evaluation Communication, Stephanie D. H. Evergreen

Dissertations

Evaluation reporting is an educational act and, as such, should be communicated using principles that support cognition. This study drew upon visual processing theory and theory-based graphic design principles to develop the Evaluation Report Layout Checklist intended to guide report development and support cognition in the readers of evaluation reports. It was then reviewed by an expert panel and applied by a group of raters to a set of evaluation reports obtained from the Informal Science Education evaluation website with maximum variability sampling. Results showed fairly high exact percent agreement and strong to very strong correlation with the author’s ratings. …

Summative Confidence, Paul Cristian Gugiu

Dissertations

Often the singular goal of an evaluation is to render a summative conclusion of merit, worth or feasibility that is based on multiple streams of multidimensional data. Exacerbating this difficulty, conducting evaluations in real-world settings often necessitates implementation of less than ideal study designs. This reality gets further complicated by the standard method for estimating the precision of results via the confidence interval (CI). Traditional CIs offer a limited approach for understanding the precision of a summative conclusion. This dissertation develops and presents a unified approach for the construction of a CI for a summative conclusion (SC).

This study derived …

Like Mother Like Child: An Investigation Of Mother Characteristics And Child Temperaments, Tempus Fugitt

Statistics

Much research has gone into what biological and social factors raise the risk of children developing cognitive, social, or behavioral problems. This project looks at what characteristics of the mother are significantly associated with different temperaments in the child which may predict problems developed in the child later in life. These characteristics include mother’s age, her education level, household income, parenting attitudes, involvement with the child, and drug and alcohol use. Data was used from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study conducted by the Office of Population Research at Princeton University. Cumulative logistic regression was used to analyze the …

Effects Of Acculturation On Hiv/Aids Sexual Risk Behaviors Among Asian And Pacific Islander (Api) Women, Margaret Cabotage Salud

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Background. In the US women are the fastest growing group for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV and AIDS. In addition, the estimated AIDS cases among female adults and adolescents, aged 13-19, increased from 7% in 1985 to approximately 26% in 2002. Most infections occur by heterosexual transmission with 53% occurring through contact with a high-risk sexual partner. While overall HIV/AIDS rates in the Asian Pacific Islander (API) community remain low, they are rising and HIV testing rates, one of the major prevention strategies for HIV, are lower than that of other populations. Furthermore, very little is known about APIs …

Relationship Between Inflation And Stock Market Returns: Evidence From Nigeria, Omotor G. Douglason

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

The linkage between stock prices and inflation has been subjected to extensive research in the past decades and has arouse the interests of academics, researchers, practitioners and policy makers globally, particularly since the 1990s. The issue has been the apparent anomaly of the negative relationship between inflation and stock market returns as most studies in the industrialized economies have shown. This paper investigates this relationship using monthly and quarterly data of Nigeria for the period 1985 to 2008. The findings of this paper seem to suggest that stock market returns may provide an effective hedge against inflation in Nigeria.

Is The Stock Market A Leading Indicator Of Economic Activity In Nigeria?, Alvan E. Ikoku

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

In an effort to address the lacuna in leading indicator studies of African economies and Nigeria in particular, this paper examines the causal relationships among stock market prices, real GDP and the index of industrial production in Nigeria, using quarterly data from 1984Q1 to 2008Q4. Granger causality tests indicate bidirectional causality between stock prices and GDP but no causality between stock prices and industrial production or between GDP and industrial production. Stock prices and GDP are found to be cointegrated, leading to the estimation of vector error correction models. Out-of-sample forecasts constructed with AR(1), ARIMA, structural ARIMA, and VEC models …

Monetary And Fiscal Policy Interactions In Nigeria: An Application Of A State-Space Model With Markov-Switching, Chuku V. Chuku

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

This paper uses quarterly data to explore the monetary and fiscal policy interactions in Nigeria between 1970 and 2008. As a preliminary exercise, the paper examines the nature of fiscal policies in Nigeria using a vector autoregression (VAR) model. The simulated generalized impulse response graphs generated from the VAR estimation provides evidence of a non-Ricardian fiscal policy in Nigeria. Further, the paper analyzes the interactions between monetary and fiscal policies by applying a State-space model with Markov-switching to estimate the time-varying parameters of the relationship. The evidence indicates that monetary and fiscal policies in Nigeria have interacted in a counteractive …

Optimal Designs Approach To Portfolio Selection, Etukudo A. I.

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

In order to obtain the best tradeoff between risk and return, optimization algorithms are particularly useful in asset allocation in a portfolio mix. Such algorithms and proper solution techniques are very essential to investors in order to circumvent distress in business outfits. In this paper, we show that by minimizing the total variance of the portfolio involving stocks in two Nigerian banks which is a measure of risk, optimal allocation of investible funds to the portfolio mix is obtained. A completely new solution technique – modified super convergent line series algorithm which makes use of the principles of optimal designs …