Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Analyzing Different Sampling Designs (Sas), Ying Lu

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Various sampling designs are reviewed within the framework of probability sampling. SAS® code to estimate means and proportions, and their standard errors, using different sampling designs are illustrated using example data sets.

Bayesian Estimation Of P[Y < X] Based On Record Values From The Lomax Distribution And Mcmc Technique, Mohamed A. W Mahmoud, Rashad M. El-Sagheer, Ahmed A. Soliman, Ahmed H. Abd Ellah

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Our interest is in estimating the stress-strength reliability R = P[Y < X], where X and Y follow the Lomax distribution with common scale parameter. We discuss the problem in the situation where the stress measurements and the strength measurements are both in terms of records. Firstly, we obtain the MLE of R in general case (the common scale parameter is unknown). The MLE of the three unknown parameters can be obtained by solving one non-linear equation. We provide a simple fixed point type algorithm to find the MLE. We propose percentile bootstrap confidence intervals of R. A Bayes …

Graphing Effects As Fuzzy Numbers In Meta-Analysis, Christopher G. Thompson

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Prior to quantitative analyses, meta-analysts often explore descriptive characteristics of effect sizes. A graphic is proposed that treats effect sizes as fuzzy numbers. This plot can provide meta-analysts with such information such as heterogeneity of effects, precision of estimates, possible clusters, and existence of outliers.

Principal Component Preliminary Test Estimator In The Linear Regression Model, Sivarajah Arumairajan, Pushpakanthie Wijekoon

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

A Preliminary Test Estimator is introduced based on Principal Component Regression Estimator defined in the linear regression model when the stochastic restrictions are available in addition to the sample information, and when the explanatory variables are multicollinear. It is further developed as a large sample preliminary test estimator by using Wald (WA), Likelihood Ratio (LR), and Lagrangian Multiplier (LM) tests. Stochastic properties of this estimator based on F test as well as WA, LR, and LM tests are derived, and the performance of the estimator is compared using WA, LR, and LM tests with respect to Mean Square Error Matrix …

New Procedures Of Estimating Proportion And Sensitivity Using Randomized Response In A Dichotomous Finite Population, Tanveer A. Tarray, Housila P. Singh

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

The problem of estimating the population proportion possessing a sensitive attribute using simple random sampling with replacement (SRSWR) is advocated. Two new procedures are proposed. The suggested models are more efficient than the Huang (2004) randomized response technique under some realistic conditions. Numerical and graphic illustrations are given.

Changes In Floristic Composition In The State Forests In Worcester County (Massachusetts) Over 34 Years, Flor A. Monroe

Sustainability and Social Justice

ABSTRACT

CHANGES IN FOREST DIVERSITY OF STATE FOREST IN WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS, OVER 34 YEARS PERIOD

The forest in Massachusetts has changed since the earliest colonial settlement and today the floristic composition is more homogeneous. This study investigates the potential change in the floristic composition over thirty years in Worcester County State Forests. Shannon, richness and evenness indices for two periods were compared, and Jaccard index was used to analyze similarity in composition between the periods. The possible influence of severe weather events was also analyzed.

It was found Changes in the floristic composition, but the magnitude of the changes …

Environmental Science And Policy Master’S Portfolio, Nathaniel K. Lapides

Sustainability and Social Justice

The following Environmental Science and Policy Master’s Portfolio is a compilation of works completed individually and with peers in order to fulfill requirements for the Master of Science degree. These works demonstrate breadth, depth, and the interdisciplinary nature of the course of study. As an undergraduate student at Clark University I studied Environmental Science with a concentration in Earth Systems Science. I was interested in learning about the natural world and wanted to develop a deeper connection to it. Inevitably, I was exposed to courses that examined the causes and effects of global climate change and this topic became my …

Development Of A Decision Support System For Post Mining Land Use On Abandoned Surface Coal Mines In Appalachia, Matthew Zimmerman

Sustainability and Social Justice

Decision support systems are diverse and have been used to solve multiple problems ranging from the complex to the simple. With the complexity of environmental decisions today, these systems provide a logic based approach to evaluating and choosing environmental solutions. Abandoned mining lands (AML) are an issue for the environment in the Appalachian region. Given this a decision support system was designed using previously created frameworks and indices from other systems created. The system is comprised of two main sections, selecting the ideal post-mining land-use (PMLU), and maximizing the potential of land to be reclaimed under budgetary constraints. This system …

Creating Value In The Voluntary Carbon Market: Opportunities For Small-Scale Coffee Producers In Latin America To Access Carbon Capital., Ruby Woodside

Sustainability and Social Justice

Agroforestry producers have not participated on a large-scale in carbon markets. This paper assesses the potential for small-scale coffee producers to access the voluntary carbon market. A review of the current market including standards, trends, and how value is created is followed by an overview of Latin American coffee production. Drawing on tools from the conceptual framework of global production networks I explore how coffee producers can benefit from the development of carbon credits. Current carbon credit projects under development with coffee producers are considered, and one case study presented. The tools and conditions necessary for full access to carbon …

Charlton Fire Department Resident Expectations: Survey And Analysis, Natalie Omary, Jingxin Wen, Junchen Chen, Denis Kornev

School of Professional Studies

The Town of Charlton is located in the heart of the Massachusetts with a resident population of just under 14,000 people. The Charlton Fire Department serves the town for needs related to fire fighting, fire prevention, burning permits and inspection services along with emergency medical services. The Department has requested the assistance of the Clark University COPACE Capstone students in creating and conducting survey in order to get a sense of what the resident of the town know about the fire department and to better gauge their expectations about what the department can provide for them. The survey was formulated …

Professor Pang Hwee Hwa Appointed Dean Of Smu School Of Information Systems, Singapore Management University

SMU Press Releases and News

The Singapore Management University (SMU) has announced today the appointment of Professor Pang Hwee Hwa as the next Dean of the SMU School of Information Systems (SIS) with effect from 1 July 2016 for a term of five years. Selected from a global pool of candidates after an extensive and rigorous global search which started in October 2015, Prof Pang’s strong commitment to research in information systems and a passion for excellence in education, make him the ideal candidate to lead the School of Information Systems.

Land Change Modeling: Summer 2015 Internship With Clark Labs, Xiaoyang Kong

Sustainability and Social Justice

My internship with Clark Labs was completed during the summer of 2015, where I worked under the direction of Dr. Ronald Eastman. As a research assistant, the responsibilities of my internship was to process data for a project that intended to develop a web application for land change modeling. I learned a lot of knowledge about land change science and GIS applications from this internship. The experience I gained will definitely increase my competitiveness in my future career. I am fully satisfied with this internship and I would recommend this internship to anybody interested in GIS and land change science. …

Information Technology Proposal For The Town Of Spencer, Vijay Basava, Corey Kenyon, Mahdi Soltani

School of Professional Studies

The Town of Spencer came to us looking for a plan to build and maintain their own personal fiber network for connection between departments and to improve data security for important information. After assessing the existing landscape and determining the various paths forward, we created network diagrams and plans for the movement forward of this project.

After assessing a variety of plans, we found that a full single-mode fiber network would be the best system for the implementation in Spencer. While it was the highest cost, it also scored the highest in our assessment.

Evaluation Of Alternative Strategies To Prevent Leopard Predation On Livestock Around Yala National Park, Sri Lanka, Sanjiv Fernando

Sustainability and Social Justice

In recent years, many livestock herders living near Yala National Park, Sri Lanka have reported livestock losses due to predation by leopards (Panthera pardus kotiya). Despite herders’ attempts to safeguard their cattle, livestock depredation remains an issue, sometimes causing herders to kill leopards in retaliation. In an effort to mitigate the human-leopard conflict, protective cattle enclosures made from steel pipes and mesh wire were introduced to prevent leopard attacks on cattle. This study aims to assess the severity of leopard predation on livestock, understand the methods used in retaliatory killings, examine the effectiveness of existing livestock protection methods, …

Developing An Online Database Of Experts For The Worcester Regional Chamber Of Commerce, Zikan Chen, Douglas Grey, Pranjal Shah

School of Professional Studies

The Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce as part of their mission to attract business to the Worcester area, want to create an online searchable database of industry experts made up of faculty members of the Colleges and Universities in the Worcester area. This online database will be placed on the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce Higher Education – Business Partnership page on their website. The limitations placed on this request are that the Regional Chamber as of this moment have no monetary or Information Technologies resources to provide for the realization of this request.

The proliferation of as A Service …

Cybersecurity Awareness Shrewsbury Public Schools, Brittany Crompton, David Thompson, Manuel Reyes, Xueyan Zhao, Xueke Zou

School of Professional Studies

In the 21st Century, technology reaches every aspect of our lives. As “digital citizens” we must be aware of the dangers both to our technological equipment and our personal information stored, transmitted, and processed on this equipment. The Cybersecurity Awareness curriculum developed for the Shrewsbury Public School district is designed to meet this need, as well as foster an interest in technology and ethical computer use.

Analysis Of The Point Of Sales System At Tower Hill Botanical Garden And Suggested Courses Of Action, Brian Dunn, Keerthi Bandi, Chantal Kopwa Epse Kassa, F.N.U Shelly

School of Professional Studies

As Tower Hill Botanic Garden continues to improve on its operations and enhance the experience of its visitors and members, they are on a quest for a new Point-Of-Sale (POS) system that not only works with its existing hardware and interface with Raiser’s Edge, a smartcloud fundraising and relationship management software central to the garden’s operations but also, have a restaurant module and the capability of operating both in a wireless and hard-wired environment.

Cest: City Event Summarization Using Twitter, Deepa Mallela

Computer Science Graduate Projects and Theses

Twitter, with 288 million active users, has become the most popular platform for continuous real-time discussions. This leads to huge amounts of information related to the real-world, which has attracted researchers from both academia and industry. Event detection on Twitter has gained attention as one of the most popular domains of interest within the research community. Unfortunately, existing event detection methodologies have yet to fully explore Twitter metadata and instead rely solely on identifying events based on prior information or focus on events that belong to specific categories. Given the heavy volume of tweets that discuss events, summarization techniques can …

Generalized Linear Model Analyses For Treatment Group Equality When Data Are Non-Normal, Harvey J. Kesleman, Abdul R. Othman, Rand R. Wilcox

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

One of the validity conditions of classical test statistics (e.g., Student’s t-test, the ANOVA and MANOVA F-tests) is that data be normally distributed in the populations. When this and/or other derivational assumptions do not hold the classical test statistic can be prone to too many Type I errors (i.e., falsely rejecting too often) and/or have low power (i.e., failing to reject when the null hypothesis is false) to detect treatment effects when they are present. However, alternative procedures are available for assessing equality of treatment group effects when data are non-normal. For example, researchers can use robust estimators …

Liu-Type Logistic Estimators With Optimal Shrinkage Parameter, Yasin Asar

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Multicollinearity in logistic regression affects the variance of the maximum likelihood estimator negatively. In this study, Liu-type estimators are used to reduce the variance and overcome the multicollinearity by applying some existing ridge regression estimators to the case of logistic regression model. A Monte Carlo simulation is given to evaluate the performances of these estimators when the optimal shrinkage parameter is used in the Liu-type estimators, along with an application of real case data.

The Xgamma Distribution: Statistical Properties And Application, Subhradev Sen, Sudhansu S. Maiti, N. Chandra

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

A new probability distribution, the xgamma distribution, is proposed and studied. The distribution is generated as a special finite mixture of exponential and gamma distributions and hence the name proposed. Various mathematical, structural, and survival properties of the xgamma distribution are derived, and it is found that in many cases the xgamma has more flexibility than the exponential distribution. To evaluate the comparative behavior, stochastic ordering of the distribution is studied. To estimate the model parameter, the method of moment and the method of maximum likelihood estimation are proposed. A simulation algorithm to generate random samples from the xgamma distribution …

Analysis And Modeling Of Statistical Properties Of Fmdfb Subband Coefficients, E. Jebamalar Leavline, Sutha Shunmugam

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Fast Multiscale Directional Filter Bank (FMDFB) is an image representation scheme used in several image processing applications. The statistical nature of the FMDFB subbands is analyzed, and a mathematical model of FMDFB coefficients is proposed. Experimental results are justified by goodness-of-fit tests.

Jmasm37: Simple Response Surface Methodology Using Rsreg (Sas), Wan Muhamad Amir, Mohamad Shafiq, Kasypi Mokhtar, Nor Azlida Aleng, Hanafi A.Rahim, Zalila Ali

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Response surface methodology (RSM) can be used when the response variable, y, is influenced by several variables, x’s. When treatments take the form of quantitative values, then the true relationship between response variables and independent variables might be known. Examples are given in SAS.

Financial Performance In Upstream, Downstream, And Integrated Oil Companies In Response To Oil Price Volatility, Jonathan P. Garcia

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper investigates the relation between crude oil price volatility and stock returns among oil companies using a three-part methodology, by using the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) as oil price benchmark. I asses the various indicators that set signals for oil price volatility and the interpretation of each (PMI, S&P500, DJIA, and World Crude Oil Output). This research also focuses on the relation between different types of companies in the oil industry (integrated, upstream, and downstream) and how each type of company will be assessed in a particular way to predict abnormal returns, based on market data and statistical analyses …

Dating Late Quaternary Alluvial Fills In The Platte River Valley Using Optically Stimulated Luminescence Dating, Jacob C. Bruihler

Department of Geography: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Alluvial fills underlying the Platte River Valley in Nebraska record the geologic history of the Platte River in the late Quaternary. This study investigated the alluvium underlying the valley near the cities of North Platte and Kearney, Nebraska. Data obtained from sediment cores drilled in the alluvial deposits was used to investigate the changes in Platte River dynamics on a glacial – interglacial timescale. Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating was used to determine burial ages of recovered sediments and to quantify the thicknesses of the late Pleistocene and Holocene alluvial fills at each study area. Our geochronology depicts considerable differences …

Context-Aware Advertisement Recommendation For High-Speed Social News Feeding, Yuchen Li, Dongxiang Zhang, Ziquan Lan, Kian-Lee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Social media advertising is a multi-billion dollar market and has become the major revenue source for Facebook and Twitter. To deliver ads to potentially interested users, these social network platforms learn a prediction model for each user based on their personal interests. However, as user interests often evolve slowly, the user may end up receiving repetitive ads. In this paper, we propose a context-aware advertising framework that takes into account the relatively static personal interests as well as the dynamic news feed from friends to drive growth in the ad click-through rate. To meet the real-time requirement, we first propose …

On Unravelling Opinions Of Issue Specific-Silent Users In Social Media, Wei Gong, Ee-Peng Lim, Feida Zhu, Pei Hua Cher

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Social media has become a popular platform for people toshare opinions. Among the social media mining researchprojects that study user opinions and issues, most focus onanalyzing posted and shared content. They could run into thedanger of non-representative findings as the opinions of userswho do not post content are overlooked, which often happensin today’s marketing, recommendation, and social sensing research.For a more complete and representative profiling ofuser opinions on various topical issues, we need to investigatethe opinions of the users even when they stay silent onthese issues. We call these users the issue specific-silent users(i-silent users). To study them and their …

Generalized Singular Value Decomposition With Additive Components, Stan Lipovetsky

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

The singular value decomposition (SVD) technique is extended to incorporate the additive components for approximation of a rectangular matrix by the outer products of vectors. While dual vectors of the regular SVD can be expressed one via linear transformation of the other, the modified SVD corresponds to the general linear transformation with the additive part. The method obtained can be related to the family of principal component and correspondence analyses, and can be reduced to an eigenproblem of a specific transformation of a data matrix. This technique is applied to constructing dual eigenvectors for data visualizing in a two dimensional …

Almost Unbiased Estimator Using Known Value Of Population Parameter(S) In Sample Surveys, Rajesh Singh, S.B. Gupta, Sachin Malik

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

An almost unbiased estimator using known value of some population parameter(s) is proposed. A class of estimators is defined which includes Singh and Solanki (2012) and Sahai and Ray (1980), Sisodiya and Dwivedi (1981), Singh, Cauhan, Sawan, and Smarandache (2007), Upadhyaya and Singh (1984), Singh and Tailor (2003) estimators. Under simple random sampling without replacement (SRSWOR) scheme the expressions for bias and mean square error (MSE) are derived. Numerical illustrations are given.

A Comparison Of Estimation Methods For Nonlinear Mixed-Effects Models Under Model Misspecification And Data Sparseness: A Simulation Study, Jeffrey R. Harring, Junhui Liu

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

A Monte Carlo simulation is employed to investigate the performance of five estimation methods of nonlinear mixed effects models in terms of parameter recovery and efficiency of both regression coefficients and variance/covariance parameters under varying levels of data sparseness and model misspecification.