Statistics and Probability Commons^™

Exact Distribution Of Linkage Disequilibrium In The Presence Of Mutation, Selection, Or Minor Allele Frequency Filtering, Jiayi Qu, Stephen D. Kachman, Dorian Garrick, Rohan L. Fernando, Hao Cheng

Department of Statistics: Faculty Publications

Linkage disequilibrium (LD), often expressed in terms of the squared correlation (r2) between allelic values at two loci, is an important concept in many branches of genetics and genomics. Genetic drift and recombination have opposite effects on LD, and thus r2 will keep changing until the effects of these two forces are counterbalanced. Several approximations have been used to determine the expected value of r2 at equilibrium in the presence or absence of mutation. In this paper, we propose a probability-based approach to compute the exact distribution of allele frequencies at two loci in a finite population at any generation …

Interdependence Across Foreign Exchange Rate Markets- A Mixed Copula Approach, Richard Adjei-Boateng

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this thesis is to study the dependence structure of exchange rate pairs using a mixture of copula as opposed to a single copula approach. Mixed copula models have the ability to generate dependence structures that do not belong to existing copula families. The flexibility in choosing component copulas in this mixture model aids the construction of a system that is simultaneously parsimonious and flexible enough to generate most dependence patterns in exchange rate data. Furthermore, the method of mixture copulas facilitates the separation of both the structure and degree of dependence, concepts that are respectively embodied in …

A Monte Carlo Analysis Of Standard Error-Based Methods For Computing Confidence Intervals, Elayna Wichert

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The objective of this study is to empirically test existing techniques to calculate the likely range of values for a Classical Test Theory true score given an observed score. The traditional method for forming these confidence intervals has used the standard error of measurement (SEM) as the basis for this confidence interval. An alternate equation, the standard error of estimate (SEE), has been recommended in place of the SEM for this purpose, yet it remains overlooked in the field of psychometrics. It is important that the correct equation be used in various applications in personnel psychology. Monte Carlo analyses were …

Book Genre Classification By Its Cover Using A Multi-View Learning Approach, Chandra Shakhar Kundu

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

An interesting topic in the visual analysis is to determine the genre of a book by its cover. The book cover is the very first communication to the reader which shapes the reader’s expectation about the type of the book. Each book cover is carefully designed by the cover designers and typographers to convey the visual representation of its content. In this study, we explore several different deep learning approaches for predicting the genre from the cover image alone, such as MobileNet V1, MobileNet V2, ResNet50, Inception V2. Moreover, we add an extra modality by extracting text from the cover …

Concordance Between Health Administrative Data And Survey-Derived Diagnoses For Mood And Anxiety Disorders, J. Edwards, A. Thind, S. Stranges, M. Chiu, Kelly K. Anderson

Epidemiology and Biostatistics Publications

Objective: To assess whether estimates of survey structured interview diagnoses of mood and anxiety disorders were concordant with diagnoses of these disorders obtained from health administrative data.

Methods: All Ontario respondents to the 2012 Canadian Community Health Survey-Mental Health (CCHS-MH) were linked to health administrative databases at ICES (formerly known as the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences). Survey structured interview diagnoses were compared with health administrative data diagnoses obtained using a standardized algorithm. We used modified Poisson regression analyses to assess whether socio-demographic factors were associated with concordance between the two measures.

Results: Of the 4157 Ontarians included in our …

Streamlining Time Spent In Alternative Developmental Mathematics Pathways: Increasing Access To College-Level Mathematics Courses By Altering Placement Procedures, Marla A. Sole

Publications and Research

Developmental mathematics, which is designed to prepare students for college-level mathematics courses, can be a barrier to students’ success. In the United States, the majority of students placed into developmental mathematics courses fail to complete the developmental sequence. Alternative mathematics pathways offer some benefits when integrated with “just-in- time support” or expedited instruction on specific prerequisite concepts needed solely for the current lesson. This study compares two statistics courses taught at a public community college: a complete course taught in one semester and a two-semester version with just-in-time developmental content integrated into the course. The study found that students placed …

Preparing For The Future: The Effects Of Financial Literacy On Financial Planning For Young Professionals, Tanay Singh

Senior Theses

Purpose – Many people between the age of 20 and 34 have not considered planning financially for the future in any significant capacity and in doing so, they limit their potential savings. The purpose of this study is to examine what financial expectations are for people in the early stages of their career and determine if improving financial literacy and revealing financial realities helps to produce more accurate or realistic expectations. Ultimately, the goal is to better prepare participants in the study for the working world and increased responsibilities outside of the college/university environment by getting them to start thinking …

The Influence Of Peer And Parental Norms On First-Generation College Students’ Binge Drinking Trajectories, Graham T. Diguiseppi, Jordan P. Davis, Matthew K. Meisel, Melissa A. Clark, Mya L. Roberson, Miles Q. Ott, Nancy P. Barnett

Statistical and Data Sciences: Faculty Publications

Introduction: First-generation college students are those whose parents have not completed a four-year college degree. The current study addressed the lack of research on first-generation college students’ alcohol use by comparing the binge drinking trajectories of first-generation and continuing-generation students over their first three semesters. The dynamic influence of peer and parental social norms on students’ binge drinking frequencies were also examined. Methods: 1342 college students (n = 225 first-generation) at one private University completed online surveys. Group differences were examined at Time 1, and latent growth-curve models tested the association between first-generation status and social norms (peer descriptive, peer …

Dice Questions Answered, Warren Campbell, William P. Dolan

SEAS Faculty Publications

Superstitious discussion of fair and unfair dice has pervaded the tabletop gaming industry since its inception. Many of these are not based on any quantitative data or studies. Consequently, misconceptions have been spread widely. One dice float test video on Youtube currently has 925,000 views (Fisher, 2015a). To combat the flood of misconceptions we investigated the following questions: 1) Are dice cursed? 2) Are D20s (20-sided dice) less fair than D6s (6-sided dice)? 3) Do float tests tell anything about the fairness of dice? 4) Are some dice systems inherently fairer than others? 5) Are density differences or dimensions more …

Circada: Shiny Apps For Exploration Of Experimental And Synthetic Circadian Time Series With An Educational Emphasis, Lisa Cenek, Liubou Klindziuk, Cindy Lopez, Eleanor Mccartney, Blanca Martin Burgos, Selma Tir, Mary E. Harrington, Tanya L. Leise

Psychology: Faculty Publications

Circadian rhythms are daily oscillations in physiology and behavior that can be assessed by recording body temperature, locomotor activity, or bioluminescent reporters, among other measures. These different types of data can vary greatly in waveform, noise characteristics, typical sampling rate, and length of recording. We developed 2 Shiny apps for exploration of these data, enabling visualization and analysis of circadian parameters such as period and phase. Methods include the discrete wavelet transform, sine fitting, the Lomb-Scargle periodogram, autocorrelation, and maximum entropy spectral analysis, giving a sense of how well each method works on each type of data. The apps also …

Conflicts In Bayesian Statistics Between Inference Based On Credible Intervals And Bayes Factors, Miodrag M. Lovric

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

In frequentist statistics, point-null hypothesis testing based on significance tests and confidence intervals are harmonious procedures and lead to the same conclusion. This is not the case in the domain of the Bayesian framework. An inference made about the point-null hypothesis using Bayes factor may lead to an opposite conclusion if it is based on the Bayesian credible interval. Bayesian suggestions to test point-nulls using credible intervals are misleading and should be dismissed. A null hypothesized value may be outside a credible interval but supported by Bayes factor (a Type I conflict), or contrariwise, the null value may be inside …

Investigating Major League Baseball Pitchers And Quality Of Contact Through Cluster Analysis, Charlie Marcou

Honors Projects

This paper investigates the quality of contact that a pitcher allows. Not much is currently known about quality of contact, but if factors determining quality of contact could be determined it could assist teams in identifying and developing pitching talent. There are many problems that come with investigating the control pitchers have over contact allowed, but one area to investigate is whether quality of contact is a repeatable skill. Furthermore, if it is a repeatable skill, then it is important to investigate what kind of benefit controlling contact allowed brings a pitcher. Along with this, groundball and flyball tendencies, and …

Using Alteryx Designer In Audit, Nolan Asiala

Honors Projects

My senior project was built around data analysis and how it relates to the auditing profession. Initially, I was planning on attending a data analytics competition, but that was canceled due to the events of COVID-19. This project utilized the Alteryx Designer program to demonstrate how it can be used during an audit engagement. By creating a workflow in Alteryx Designer, a report from a client can be cleaned and reformatted into a working dataset. My project includes two Excel files, a Microsoft Word document that serves as a brief introduction to the program, and a video describing the workflow …

Boom Or Bust: Examining The Relationship Between High School Recruiting Rankings And The Nfl Draft, Nicholas E. Tice

Senior Theses

The goal of this thesis is to model the probability of a high school football player’s chance of being drafted based on information taken from their recruiting profile. The response variable is binary and defined as drafted (1) or undrafted (0). The independent variables were collected by scraping data from the recruiting websites including height, weight, position, hometown, recruiting grade and other socioeconomic factors based on the player’s high school. 247Sports and ESPN were the two recruiting services used and compared in this study. Because of the binary nature of the dependent variable, logistic regression and decision trees were chosen …

Group Testing Identification: Objective Functions, Implementation, And Multiplex Assays, Brianna D. Hitt

Department of Statistics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Group testing is the process of combining items into groups to test for a binary characteristic. One of its most widely used applications is infectious disease testing. In this context, specimens (e.g., blood, urine) are amalgamated into groups and tested. For groups that test positive, there are many algorithmic retesting procedures available to identify positive individuals. The appeal of group testing is that the overall number of tests needed is significantly less than for individual testing when disease prevalence is small and an appropriate algorithm is chosen. Group testing has a number of applications beyond infectious disease testing, such as …

How Data Is Changing The World Of Healthcare, Cameron Marous

Honors Capstone Enhancement Presentations

No abstract provided.

Recruitment Strategies For Cognitively Impaired Older Adults In Assisted Living Communities, Paige Greer, Elizabeth Hill, Katelyn Ware

Student Scholars Day Posters

It is well documented that recruiting persons with dementia for research in long term care settings is challenging (Lam, et. al. 2018). The purpose of this study is to explore recruitment techniques suggested by the National Institute on Aging (2018), including the use of brochures, community contact introductions (CCI), presentations, event tables, 1:1 interactions and activity events. We examined the success of each method of recruitment in two recruitment waves based on the number recruited in relation to the number of hours spent on that recruitment method. Of the 119 people that were screened, 47% were enrolled in the study. …

Structure-Activity Relationship Of Novel Diphenyl Ureas Targeting Mycobacterium, Piper Burghduf

Student Scholars Day Posters

In 2017, the World Health Organization reported that 10 million people were infected with tuberculosis, 1.6 million of whom died. Tuberculosis is caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which primarily infects an individual’s lungs. Unfortunately, failure to adhere to the long and arduous drug regimen has contributed to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains of M. tuberculosis. Therefore, the need for novel antibiotics is imperative to saving millions of lives. Our lab has recently developed a family of diphenyl ureas that exhibited increased antimicrobial activity toward Mycobacterium. Reported herein is the continuation of our previous research involving the synthesis of …

Alarm Forecasting In Natural Gas Pipelines, Colin Quinn

Master's Theses (2009 -)

This thesis examines alarm forecasting methods for a natural gas production pipeline to assure the efficient transportation of high-quality natural gas. Natural gas production companies use pipelines to transport natural gas from the extraction well to a distribution point. Forecasting natural gas pipeline pressure alarms helps control room operators maintain a functioning pipeline and avoid costly down time. As gas enters the pipeline and travels to the distribution point, it is expected that the gas meets certain specifications set in place by either state law or the customer receiving the gas. If the gas meets these standards and is accepted …

Using Zero-Inflated Poisson Model And Zero-Inflated Negative Binomial Model On Dental Services Of Wisconsin, 2014 Data, Ke Xu

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Professional dental care to ensure optimum oral health of public plays an important role in the public health system. Facing the truth that there has been decline in dental care utilization for decade in 20th century, more and more attention has been paid to the oral health of children from this century. Children from age 0 to 21 years old experience rapid physical and oral development. Investigating the utilization of dental service for these children will provide useful information for the future study of the insurance system. In this thesis, two regression methods will be studied, the Zero-Inflated Poisson model …

Psychometric Properties Of A Year-End Form Four Chemistry Paper 1 In Selected Schools In Petaling Utama District, Mohamed Razali Rose Enne Emellia

Student Works (2020-2029)

The low-performance of science stream students in Chemistry especially in high-stakes testing, has alarmed the stakeholders. This problem has led to the need of analyzing the instruments used to measure the achievement of students. The present study examined the psychometric properties of multiple-choice questions in the Year-end Form Four Chemistry Paper 1 using the Rasch Model in the Klang Valley. A quantitative research design has been used for this study. The sample comprised of 435 Form Four Pure Science students from four randomly selected secondary schools in the Petaling Utama district. The Rasch analysis was conducted in two stages. The …

Multivariate Joint Models And Dynamic Predictions, Md Akhtar Hossain

Theses and Dissertations

The joint modeling of longitudinal and time-to-event data is an active area of statistical research that has received a lot of attention. The standard joint models, referred to as univariate joint models, allow simultaneous modeling of a single longitudinal outcome and a single time-to-event under an assumption of independent censoring. The majority of the joint modeling research in the last two decades has focused on extending and improving the univariate joint models. While many of the practical applications involve data on multivariate longitudinal outcomes and multiple timeto- events possibly informatively censored by some other terminal time-to-event, the developments of joint …

Studies Of Group Fused Lasso And Probit Model For Right-Censored Data, Tuan Quoc Do

Theses and Dissertations

This document is composed of three main chapters. In the first chapter, we study the mixture of experts, a powerful machine learning model in which each expert handles a different region of the covariate space. However, it is crucial to choose an appropriate number of experts to avoid overfitting or underfitting. A group fused lasso (GFL) term is added to the model with the goal of making the coefficients of the experts and the gating network closer together. An algorithm to optimize the problem is also developed using block-wise coordinate descent in the dual counterpart. Numerical results on simulated and …

Rotorcraft Blade Angle Calibration Methods, Brian David Calvert Jr.

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The most vital system of a rotorcraft is the rotor system due to its effects on the overall flight quality of the vehicle. Therefore, it is of importance to be able to accurately determine blade position during flight so that fine adjustments can be made to ensure a safe and efficient flight. In this study, a current calibration method focusing on the pitch, flap, and lead-lag blade angles is analyzed and found to have larger than acceptable error associated with the sensor calibrations. A literature review is conducted which reveals four novel methods that can potentially increase the accuracy of …

Bayesian Analysis Of Binary Diagnostic Tests And Panel Count Data, Chunling Wang

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation mainly explores several challenging topics that arise in diagnostic tests and panel count data in the Bayesian framework. Binary diagnostic tests, particularly multiple diagnostic tests with repeated measures and diagnostic procedures with a large number of raters, are studied. For panel count data, most traditional methods only handle panel count data for a single type of recurrent event. In this dissertation, we primarily focus on the case with multiple types of recurrent events.

In Chapter 1, an introduction to the binary diagnostic tests data and panel count data is presented and related literature works are briefly reviewed. To …

Flexible Regression Models For Survival Data, Ennan Gu

Theses and Dissertations

Survival analysis is a branch of statistics to analyze the time-to-event data or survival data. One important feature of survival data is censoring, which means that not all the subjects’ survival time are observed directly. Among all the survival data, right-censored data are the most common type and consist of some exactly observed survival times and some right-censored observations. In this dissertation, we focus on studying flexible regression models for complicated right-censored survival data when the classical proportional hazards (PH) assumption is not satisfied. Flexible semiparametric regression models can largely avoid misspecification of parametric distributions and thus provide more modeling …

An Actuarial Approach To Personal Injury Protection Severity, Jason Colgrove

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Insurance companies examine the risk of financial losses for their policyholders as a way to accurately price insurance policies. Within the automobile insurance sector, the frequency of crashes and the associated liabilities started to increase in late 2013 when it had been on the decline for close to a decade. The purpose of this research focuses on the possible correlated variables that could lead to a better understanding of this change. To embark on this task, we teamed up with the Society of Actuaries, Casualty Actuarial Society, and the American Property Casualty Insurance Association to obtain data regarding frequency, severity, …

Conceptualization And Application Of Deep Learning And Applied Statistics For Flight Plan Recommendation, Nicholas C. Forrest

Theses and Dissertations

The Air Forces Pilot Training Next (PTN) program seeks a more efficient pilot training environment emphasizing the use of virtual reality flight simulators alongside periodic real aircraft experience. The PTN program wants to accelerate the training pace and progress in undergraduate pilot training compared to traditional undergraduate pilot training. Currently, instructor pilots spend excessive time planning and scheduling flights. This research focuses on methods to auto-generate the planning of in-flight events using hybrid filtering and deep learning techniques. The resulting approach captures temporal trends of user-specific and program-wide student performance to recommend a feasible set of graded flight events for …

An Analysis Of A Lighting Prediction Threshold For 45th Weather Squadron Electric Field Mill Data, Charles A. Skrovan

Theses and Dissertations

The mission of the 45th Weather Squadron (45 WS) is to “exploit the weather to assure safe access to air and space” for Patrick Air Force Base, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), and Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in support of various operations (United States Air Force, n.d.). To support that mission the 45 WS hosts a suite of weather detection instruments that include a lightning warning system that consists of an array of 31 electric field mills (EFM) and a lightning detection and ranging system (Department of the Air Force, 1976). Electric field mills at Cape Canaveral continuously record …

Ground Weather Radar Signal Characterization Through Application Of Convolutional Neural Networks, Stephen M. Lee

Theses and Dissertations

The 45th Weather Squadron supports the space launch efforts out of the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for the Department of Defense, NASA, and commercial customers through weather assessments. Their assessment of the Lightning Launch Commit Criteria (LLCC) for avoidance of natural and rocket triggered lightning to launch vehicles is critical in approving space shuttle and rocket launches. The LLCC includes standards for cloud formations, which requires proper cloud identification and characterization methods. Accurate reflectivity measurements for ground weather radar are important to meet the LLCC for rocket triggered lightning. Current linear interpolation methods for ground …