Statistics and Probability Commons^™

Two Pens In A Pocket Must Be Different: A Nerd-Oriented Lesson From Statistics, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Some people always carry a pen with them, so that if an idea comes to mind, they will always be able to write it down. Pens sometimes run out of ink. So, just in case, people carry two pens. The problem is that often, when one carries two identical pens, they seem to run out of ink at about the same time -- which defeats the whole purpose of carrying two pens. In this paper, we provide a simple statistics-based explanation of this phenomenon, and show that a seemingly natural idea of carrying three pens will not help. The only …

Pattern Of Health Behavior And Its Association With Self-Rated Health: Evidence From The 2018 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System In The United States, Linh Nguyen, Mamunur Rashid, M. Mazharul Islam

Student Research

Aim: To improve public health services, we need to keep policymakers updated with health-related issues. This study (1) examines the recent pattern of physical activities, smoking, alcohol consumption, and SRH, and (2) investigates the association between the behaviors and SRH status among US citizens.

Method: We extracted data from the latest state-based survey of the 2018 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), which provides a nationally representative sample of 437,436 American adults. We analyzed the data, mainly employing chi-square tests and logistic regression models.

Results: Physical inactivity and smoking are more common among participants with lower education and household income. …

Italian Sociologists: A Community Of Disconnected Groups, Aliakbar Akbaritabar, Vincent Traag, Alberto Caimo, Flaminio Squazzoni

Articles

Examining coauthorship networks is key to study scientific collaboration patterns and structural characteristics of scientific communities. Here, we studied coauthorship networks of sociologists in Italy, using temporal and multi-level quantitative analysis. By looking at publications indexed in Scopus, we detected research communities among Italian sociologists. We found that Italian sociologists are fractured in many disconnected groups. The giant connected component of the Italian sociology could be split into five main groups with a mixture of three main disciplinary topics: sociology of culture and communication (present in two groups), economic sociology (present in three groups) and general sociology (present in three …

Next-Term Grade Prediction: A Machine Learning Approach, Audrey Tedja Widjaja, Lei Wang, Nghia Truong Trong, Aldy Gunawan, Ee-Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

As students progress in their university programs, they have to face many course choices. It is important for them to receive guidance based on not only their interest, but also the "predicted" course performance so as to improve learning experience and optimise academic performance. In this paper, we propose the next-term grade prediction task as a useful course selection guidance. We propose a machine learning framework to predict course grades in a specific program term using the historical student-course data. In this framework, we develop the prediction model using Factorization Machine (FM) and Long Short Term Memory combined with FM …

Eco 230 / Mgt 230 Introduction To Economic And Managerial Statistics, George Vachadze

Open Educational Resources

Development and application of modern statistical methods, including such elements of descriptive statistics and statistical inference as correlation and regression analysis, probability theory, sampling procedures, normal distribution and binomial distribution, estimation, and testing of hypotheses.

Working Children On Java Island 2017, Yuniarti

International Programs

Children's wellbeing has currently become a global concern as many of them are engaged in the labor force. A small area estimation (SAE) technique, EBLUP under Fey Herriot model, is employed to reveal their number in regencies of Java Island. Statistics have been disaggregated by geographical location (urban/rural) and gender. These statistics are required by the government as the basis for policy making.

Applications Of Portable Libs For Actinide Analysis, Ashwin P. Rao, John D. Auxier Ii, Dung Vu, Michael B. Shattan

Faculty Publications

A portable LIBS device was used for rapid elemental impurity analysis of plutonium alloys. This device demonstrates the potential for fast, accurate in-situ chemical analysis and could significantly reduce the fabrication time of plutonium alloys.

The Practical Advantages And Disadvantages Of Laplace Regression As An Alternative To Cox Proportional Hazards Model: A Comparison Via Simulation, Sydney Smith

Theses and Dissertations

The Cox proportional hazards model is the most common regression technique for survival analysis. However, the proportional hazards assumption restricts it’s use to a limited group of multiplicative models. Laplace regression is a flexible quantile regression technique for censored observations that is appropriate in a wider variety of applications as compared to the Cox proportional hazards model. Instead of estimating a hazard ratio, Laplace regression which is free from a proportionality assumption, can be used to estimate many adjusted percentiles of survival time allowing for a more complete description of the association of interest. This paper compares the performance of …

Mathematical Modeling: Instructor And Student Resources, Marnie Phipps, Patty Wagner

Mathematics Ancillary Materials

This collection of student and instructor materials for Mathematical Modeling contains lesson plans, lecture slides, homework, learning goals, and student notes for the following major topics:

• Linear Functions
• Quadratic Functions
• Exponential Functions
• Logarithmic Functions

This is a materials update for a collection of materials created for a Round Nine ALG Textbook Transformation Grant.

The Arabidopsis Transcription Factor Aintegumenta Orchestrates Patterning Genes And Auxin Signaling In The Establishment Of Floral Growth And Form, Beth A. Krizek, Ivory C. Blakley, Yen Yi Ho, Nowlan Freese, Ann E. Loraine

Faculty Publications

Understanding how flowers form is an important problem in plant biology, as human food supply depends on flower and seed production. Flower development also provides an excellent model for understanding how cell division, expansion and differentiation are coordinated during organogenesis. In the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, floral organogenesis requires AINTEGUMENTA (ANT) and AINTEGUMENTA-LIKE 6 (AIL6)/PLETHORA 3 (PLT3), two members of the Arabidopsis AINTEGUMENTA-LIKE/PLETHORA (AIL/PLT) transcription factor family. Together, ANT and AIL6/PLT3 regulate aspects of floral organogenesis, including floral organ initiation, growth, identity specification and patterning. Previously, we used RNA-Seq to identify thousands of genes with disrupted expression in ant ail6 …

Chemical Variability In Volatile Oils Of Bentong Ginger: A Chemometric Study, Ahmad Jahiddin Farah Syuhaidah

Student Works (2020-2029)

The volatile oil of ginger (Zingiber officinale) possesses various pharmacological properties corresponding to its chemical compositions, which in turn, depends on its source material and preparation method. In this study, preliminary experiments were carried out to investigate the variations in volatile oil of ginger prepared based on different method (dry/fresh samples), extraction duration and size reduction process (grate/slice samples). The ginger volatile oil yield can be quantitatively improved by using a fresh sample with grated form and a longer extraction cycle. Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) was conducted and the chromatogram profile was subjected to Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Results show …

Factors Contributing To The Implementation Of Data Analytics In External Auditing, Jacky Yeamin

Student Works (2020-2029)

The objective of the study is to explore the factors effecting the implementation of Data Analytics in Audit process and the impact of those factors on Audit Quality. Two stages of study were performed to achieve the objective of the study, First, this study analysed response letters on the use of Data Analytics (DA) in external auditing submitted by stakeholders of audit services to the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB)’s Data Analytics Working Group (DAWG). Using the Modified IT Audit Model as a framework, this study performs a directed content analysis on all 50 response letters sent to …

Combining Machine Learning And Empirical Engineering Methods Towards Improving Oil Production Forecasting, Andrew J. Allen

Master's Theses

Current methods of production forecasting such as decline curve analysis (DCA) or numerical simulation require years of historical production data, and their accuracy is limited by the choice of model parameters. Unconventional resources have proven challenging to apply traditional methods of production forecasting because they lack long production histories and have extremely variable model parameters. This research proposes a data-driven alternative to reservoir simulation and production forecasting techniques. We create a proxy-well model for predicting cumulative oil production by selecting statistically significant well completion parameters and reservoir information as independent predictor variables in regression-based models. Then, principal component analysis (PCA) …

Network-Based Statistical Analysis Of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Data From Aphasia Patients, Xingpei Zhao

Theses and Dissertations

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a neuroimaging technique that provides insight into brain function and activity. Network models of fMRI signals can reveal functional connectivity related to certain brain disorders, such as post-stroke aphasia. This thesis aims to identify the functional connections that distinguish anomic and Broca’s aphasia by comparing the resting-state fMRI from the patients with these two types of aphasia. The network-based statistic (NBS) approach is used to detect such connections. After the analytic pipeline is applied to the fMRI data, the NBS approach identifies a distinct subnetwork between the two types of aphasia, which involves the …

Bayesian Zero-Inflated Model For Ordinal Data, Huizhong Yang

Theses and Dissertations

Datasets with a relatively large number of zeros is commonly seen in medical applications. Although models like Zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) model are proposed for counts data, there is still some issues with ordinal data which have excess zeros. In this paper, we developed a Bayesian approach to accommodate the excess zero in ordinal data. Intellectual disability (ID), also known as mental retardation (MR), is a disability characterized by below-average intelligence or mental ability and a lack of the learning necessary skills for daily life. A person with intellectual disability has intellectual functioning and adaptive behaviors limitations. Intellectual disability is a …

High-Dimensional Inference Based On The Leave-One-Covariate-Out Regularization Path, Xiangyang Cao

Theses and Dissertations

The increasingly rapid emergence of high dimensional data, where the number of variables p may be larger than the sample size n, has necessitated the development of new statistical methodologies. LASSO and variants of LASSO are proposed and have been the most popular estimators for the high dimensional regression models. However, not much work has focused on analyzing and summarizing the information contained in the entire solution path of the LASSO. This dissertation consists of three research projects that propose and extend the Leave-One-Covariate-Out(LOCO) solution path statistic to regression and graphical models.

In the first chapter, we propose a new …

Models For Data Analysis In Accelerated Reliability Growth, Cesar Alexander Ruiz Torres

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work develops new methodologies for analyzing accelerated testing data in the context of a reliability growth program for a complex multi-component system. Each component has multiple failure modes and the growth program consists of multiple test-fix stages with corrective actions applied at the end of each stage. The first group of methods considers time-to-failure data and test covariates for predicting the final reliability of the system. The time-to-failure of each failure mode is assumed to follow a Weibull distribution with rate parameter proportional to an acceleration factor. Acceleration factors are specific to each failure mode and test covariates. We …

Measuring Sexual Excitation And Sexual Inhibition In A Dutch-Speaking Sample, Malachi Willis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Background: Individual differences in sexual excitation and sexual inhibition are important predictors of sexual functioning. Psychometric instruments for these aspects of sexual response were originally developed separately for men (Sexual Inhibition /Sexual Excitation Scales [SIS/SES]) and women (Sexual Excitation/Sexual Inhibition Inventory for Women [SESII-W]). These measures were then adapted to function similarly in samples comprising both men and women (Sexual Inhibition/Sexual Excitation Scales-Short Form [SIS/SES-SF] and Sexual Excitation/Sexual Inhibition Inventory for Women and Men [SESII-W/M], respectively). No published study to our knowledge has administered the SIS/SES and SESII-W/M questionnaires to a sample of both women and men. In the present …

Semiparametric Regression Analysis Of Survival Data And Panel Count Data, Lu Wang

Theses and Dissertations

Both censored survival data and panel count data arise commonly in real-life studies in many fields such as epidemiology, social science, and medical research. In these studies, subjects are usually examined multiple times at periodical or irregular follow-up examinations. Censored data are studied when the exact failure times of the events are of interest but not all of these exact times are directly observed. Some of the failure times of event of interest are only known to fall within some intervals formed by the observation times. Panel count data are under investigation when the exact times of the recurrent events …

A Review Study Of Functional Autoregressive Models With Application To Energy Forecasting, Ying Chen, Thorsten Koch, Kian Guan Lim, Xiaofei Xu, Nazgul Zakiyeva

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this data‐rich era, it is essential to develop advanced techniques to analyze and understand large amounts of data and extract the underlying information in a flexible way. We provide a review study on the state‐of‐the‐art statistical time series models for univariate and multivariate functional data with serial dependence. In particular, we review functional autoregressive (FAR) models and their variations under different scenarios. The models include the classic FAR model under stationarity; the FARX and pFAR model dealing with multiple exogenous functional variables and large‐scale mixed‐type exogenous variables; the vector FAR model and common functional principal component technique to handle …

Learning Networks With Categorical Data Using Distance Correlation, And A Novel Graph-Based Multivariate Test, Jian Tinker

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

We study the use of distance correlation for statistical inference on categorical data, especially the induction of probability networks. Szekely et al. first defined distance correlation for continuous variables in [42], and Zhang translated the concept into the categorical setting in [57] by defining dCor(X,Y) for categorical variables X = (x1,...,xI) and Y = (y1,...,yJ) where P(X=xi)=[pi]i and P(Y=yi)=[pi]j with the formula [Please open the document]

Part I of the dissertation covers the background we need to understand this formula, and prepares us to analyze the properties and performance of its applications.

Part II then presents the main results of …

Effect Of Predictor Dependence On Variable Selection For Linear And Log-Linear Regression, Apu Chandra Das

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

We propose a Bayesian approach to the Dirichlet-Multinomial (DM) regression model, which uses horseshoe, Laplace, and horseshoe plus priors for shrinkage and selection. The Dirichlet-Multinomial model can be used to find the significant association between a set of available covariates and taxa for a microbiome sample. We incorporate the covariates in a log-linear regression framework. We design a simulation study to make a comparison among the performance of the three shrinkage priors in terms of estimation accuracy and the ability to detect true signals. Our results have clearly separated the performance of the three priors and indicated that the horseshoe …

Assessing Differential Item Functioning In The Perceived Stress Scale, Nana Amma Berko Asamoah

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

When an item on a test functions differently for subgroups of respondents with respect to an exogenous variable (or covariate) after conditioning on the latent variable of interest, the item is said to exhibit Differential Item Functioning (DIF). The 10-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS10) is administered to respondents via MTurk to quantify “perceived stress” and identify if items on the scale function differently for specific subgroups defined by age, sex, race, marital status, number of children, employment status and social media usage.

The purpose of this study was to compare traditional DIF detection approaches (Mantel-Haenszel, logistic regression, likelihood ratio test …

Structural Analysis Of The Multifunctional Spoiie Regulatory Protein Of Clostridioides Difficile., Blythe Emily Bunkers

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Clostridioides (formally Clostridium) difficile is a medically relevant pathogen pertinent to infectious disease research. C. difficile is distinctly known for its ability to produce two toxins, enterotoxin A and cytotoxin B, and the propensity to colonize the mammalian gastrointestinal tract. It is known that metabolism is tightly correlated with sporulation in endospore producers such as C. difficile, but an interesting and novel regulatory relationship found by the Ivey lab has yet to be understood. The relationship explored in this study is observed between the sporulation factor, SpoIIE, which represses expression of an ABC peptide transporter, app. In this study, two …

Evaluating The Importation Of Yellow Fever Cases Into China In 2016 And Strategies Used To Prevent And Control The Spread Of The Disease, Chao Li, Dan Li, Shirley Joann Smart, Lei Zhou, Peng Yang, Jianming Ou, Yi He, Ruiqi Ren, Tao Ma, Nijuan Xiang, Haitian Sui, Yali Wang, Jian Zhao, Chaonan Wang, Yeping Wang, Daxin Ni, Isaac Chun-Hai Fung, Dexin Li, Yangmu Huang, Qun Li

Biostatistics, Epidemiology & Environmental Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

During the yellow fever epidemic in Angola in 2016, cases of yellow fever were reported in China for the first time. The 11 cases, all Chinese nationals returning from Angola, were identified in March and April 2016, one to two weeks after the peak of the Angolan epidemic. One patient died; the other 10 cases recovered after treatment. This paper reviews the epidemiological characteristics of the 11 yellow fever cases imported into China. It examines case detection and disease control and surveillance, and presents recommendations for further action to prevent additional importation of yellow fever into China.

Spermine Synthase And Myc Cooperate To Maintain Colorectal Cancer Cell Survival By Repressing Bim Expression, Yubin Guo, Qing Ye, Pan Deng, Yanan Cao, Daheng He, Zhaohe Zhou, Chi Wang, Yekaterina Y. Zaytseva, Charles E. Schwartz, Eun Young Lee, B. Mark Evers, Andrew J. Morris, Side Liu, Qing-Bai She

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

Dysregulation of polyamine metabolism has been linked to the development of colorectal cancer (CRC), but the underlying mechanism is incompletely characterized. Here, we report that spermine synthase (SMS), a polyamine biosynthetic enzyme, is overexpressed in CRC. Targeted disruption of SMS in CRC cells results in spermidine accumulation, which inhibits FOXO3a acetylation and allows subsequent translocation to the nucleus to transcriptionally induce expression of the proapoptotic protein Bim. However, this induction is blunted by MYC-driven expression of miR-19a and miR-19b that repress Bim production. Pharmacological or genetic inhibition of MYC activity in SMS-depleted CRC cells dramatically induces Bim expression and apoptosis …

Bayesian Reliability Analysis For Optical Media Using Accelerated Degradation Test Data, Kun Bu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) 10995:2011 is the inter-national standard providing guidelines for assessing the reliability and service life of optical media, which is designed to be highly reliable and possesses a long lifetime. A well-known challenge of reliability analysis for highly reliable devices is that it is hard to obtain sufficient failure data under their normal use conditions. Accelerated degradation tests (ADTs) are commonly used to quickly obtain physical degradation data under elevated stress conditions, which are then extrapolated to predict reliability under the normal use condition. This standard achieves the estimation of the lifetime of recordable media, …

Constitutive Model Of Lateral Unloading Creep Of Soft Soil Under Excess Pore Water Pressure, Wei Huang, Kejun Wen, Xiaojia Deng, Junjie Li, Zhijian Jiang, Yang Li, Lin Li, Farshad Amini

Civil and Architectural Engineering Faculty Research

Presented in this paper is a study on the lateral unloading creep tests under different excess pore water pressures. The marine sedimentary soft soil in Shenzhen, China, was selected in this study. The results show that the excess pore water pressure plays a significant role in enhancing the unloading creep of soft soil. Higher excess pore water pressure brings more obvious creep deformation of soft soil and lower ultimate failure load. Meanwhile, the viscoelastic and the viscoplastic modulus of soft soil were found to exponentially decline with creep time. A modified merchant model and a combined model of the modified …

Vanishing Porosity Limit Of The Coupled Stokes-Brinkman System, Mingwen Fei, Dongjuan Niu, Xiaoming Wang

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We investigate the small porosity asymptotic behavior of the coupled Stokes-Brinkman system in the presence of a curved interface between the Stokes region and the Brinkman region. in particular, we derive a set of approximate solutions, validated via rigorous analysis, to the coupled Stokes-Brinkman system. of particular interest is that the approximate solution satisfies a generalized Beavers-Joseph-Saffman-Jones interface condition (1.9) with the constant of proportionality independent of the curvature of the interface.

Handling Missing Data For Unsupervised Learning With An Application On A Fitbir Traumatic Brain Injury (Tbi) Dataset, Louis Steinmeister, Dacosta Yeboah, Gayla Olbricht, Tayo Obafemi-Ajayi, Bassam Hadi, Daniel Hier, Donald C. Wunsch

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Research & Creative Works

"The problem of missing data and imputation have been widely discussed amongst specialists. However, many data scientists and applied statisticians fail to appropriately consider this issue. Often, it seems intuitive to discard observations containing missing data or simply to substitute means. This can lead to disastrous consequences, particularly in an era of exponentially increasing data volumes. In the following, we show how inappropriate handling of missing data and an insufficient analysis of the censoring mechanism can lead to a bias, overconfidence in the estimation of parameters, could challenge the reproducibility of obtained results, and may distort the structure of the …