Statistics and Probability Commons^™

Market Research: How To Keep And Gain Customers, Chris Mccall

Symposium of Student Scholars

Customer-centered market research is essential to the creation and management of successful marketing campaigns. A company that understands their customers will be able to provide those customers with products and services that fit their needs better than the competition, and ultimately increase profits. My research focuses on a database containing customer information for a telecommunications company called Telco. Within this research, I will focus on a number of customer attributes including demographics, services provided, payment methods, contract lengths, monthly charges, and tenure with the company. Considering how these attributes relate to one another will give me a better understanding of …

Food Deserts: Hungry For Answers, Lawren Cumberbatch

Symposium of Student Scholars

In 2010, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that 23.5 million people in the United States live in food deserts. As defined by the USDA, a “food desert” is a neighborhood that lacks healthy food sources. This can be measured by distance to a store, number of stores in an area, individual-level resources such as family income or vehicle availability, and neighborhood-level resources such as availability of public transportation. Past research provides evidence that food deserts are especially likely to occur in communities heavily populated by minorities. As a Black Indian pre-med student aiming to join the world …

Determining Malignancy: Can Mammogram Results Help Predict The Diagnosis Of Breast Tumors?, Taylor Behrens

Symposium of Student Scholars

Even with advancements in treatment and preventative care, breast cancer remains an epidemic claiming more than 40,000 American male and female lives each year. The mammogram dataset that I am analyzing was initially complied in the early 1990s by a team from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Past research diagnoses breast cancer from fine-needle aspirates. My research focuses on predicting whether we can determine breast cancer diagnoses without the use of invasive procedures and, in particular, whether we can predict breast cancer based on mammogram data. Do measures of gray-scale texture, radius, concavity, perimeter, compactness, area, and smoothness of …

Accidental Overdoses: Insights To Aid In Prevention, Annabel Nganga

Symposium of Student Scholars

Having lost a friend six years ago to an accidental cocaine overdose, I am very passionate about spreading awareness of accidental drug overdoses that have affected thousands of families countrywide. According to past research, deaths resulting from opiates specifically have been on the rise, and a significant number of deaths in the United States for those below fifty years are caused by drug overdoses. Data exists indicating which states have more overdoses. The data set I will be using includes variables on race, sex, age, drug with which person overdosed, location of the overdose, ultimate cause of death and year …

Death By Police: When “Protecting And Serving” Goes Wrong, Hesper Mallis

Symposium of Student Scholars

The recent cases of law enforcement using lethal force in the United States have gained massive public attention. My dataset is from the Mapping Police Violence website. The website’s focus was to create a heat map to display where police killings occurred most frequently. The website has a dataset with information on 7,664 deaths of suspects. The variables in the dataset include age, sex and race of the suspect; geographic location; alleged threat level; alleged weapon; cause of death; and criminal charges against the officer. In addition, the variables include whether the individual had a mental illness, was armed or …

Are There Predictors Of A Running Back’S Success?, Joshua Price

Symposium of Student Scholars

People who analyze football have concentrated in the past on a running back’s 40-yard dash, shuffle, broad jump, vertical jump, and bench press measures. My research will test if the following variables can predict a running back’s success in the NFL: height, weight, conference, offensive line ranking for their team, the running back’s total yards for the season, their average yards for each attempt, the number of times the running back has entered the end zone for a touchdown that season, the running back’s time average time behind the line of scrimmage (TLOS), the percentage of times the running back …

Sources And Aftermaths Of Pipeline Related Leaks And Spills, Justin Smith

Symposium of Student Scholars

The escape of oil and other hazardous materials have been shown to pollute and destroy ecosystems. As an aspiring chemist, I am adamant about the secure handling and transportation of oil and other hazardous materials. In the past, researchers have concentrated on oil’s high viscosity. Oil’s high viscosity physically smothers wildlife, affecting their ability to continue critical functions such as respiration, feeding, and thermoregulation. My research focuses on the source of these oil spills, as well as natural gas leaks, for the purpose of risk assessment. In addition, I compare recovery efforts based on the cause of the leak/spill, the …

On The Front Lines Of Fire: How Do We Save Their Lives?, Cathrine Jatta

Symposium of Student Scholars

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) reports that the United States depends on about 1.1 million firefighters to protect its citizens and property from fire. NIOSH adds that approximately 336,000 are career firefighters; 812,000 are volunteers; and 80 to 100 die in the line of duty each year. NIOSH investigates each fatality individually for the cause and prevention. In contrast, my research will look at a complete dataset of 2005 firefighter fatalities and see if any of the following variables may predict firefighter death: age, cause of death, property type, type of duty (e.g. on-duty, training), and …

Cervical Cancer: Are There Ways To Reduce The Risks?, Madelyn Dorn

Symposium of Student Scholars

History has shown us that when caught early, cervical cancer is curable. Past research has found that the sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), herpes and human papillomavirus (HPV), have been associated with cervical cancer. In contrast, my dataset on 859 women has many more STDs and lifestyle choices compiled on 36 variables. The diagnoses in the dataset are many: cervical condylomatosis, vaginal condylomatosis, vulvo-perineral condylomatosis, syphilis, pelvic inflammatory disease, genital herpes, molluscum contagiosum, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B, HPV, and cervical cancer. In addition to the demographic variable on age, there are many lifestyle choice …

Marijuana Arrests In Toronto Canada: A Look Into The Canadian Criminal Justice System, Steven Tully

Symposium of Student Scholars

Marijuana related drug offenses made up fifty-eight percent of all Controlled Drugs and Substances Act offenses in Canada in 2016. On October 17, 2018, Canada legalized marijuana. As part of the efforts to legalize marijuana, descriptive statistics of single variables, like the age of the arrestees and the number of people arrested per year, were reported by the Toronto Star newspaper. The dataset analyzed in this research predates the legalization of marijuana and was collected from 1997 to 2002 on 5,226 individuals arrested in Toronto, Canada for simple possession of small quantities of marijuana. When an offender was arrested for …

Who Is Next? Evaluating Factors That May Contribute To Heart Failure, Davon Broadwater

Symposium of Student Scholars

Cardiovascular diseases are the number one causes of death globally, and for African Americans those risks are even higher. As an African American university student studying Biology, I am passionate about researching the diseases that affect my race. Current research states that behavioral factors such as obesity, tobacco use, unhealthy diet, and harmful use of alcohol should be avoided. I have chosen to research predictors of what helps patients survive if they already have heart failure. Heart failure develops gradually, where the heart becomes weaker over time and has trouble pumping blood to nourish the cells in the body. Data …

Eradicating Zebra Mussels: What Works?, Elijah Davies

Symposium of Student Scholars

The invasion of U.S lakes and rivers by the invasive species of zebra mussels called Dreissena polymorpha has caused catastrophic harm to the local ecosystem by reproducing and outcompeting native mussel species as well as harm to pipes leading into water sources by binding to surfaces and reproducing to the point that the mussels clog pipes. In addition, recreation areas must be closed due to the sharp shells making areas unusable. In the past, research has focused on individual molluscicides and their eradication of zebra mussels, as well as their effect on native flora and fauna. My research will contrast …

Bias In Police Shootings: Is It Just An Opinion?, Phuong Ho

Symposium of Student Scholars

The claims of racism have drawn public attention toward police brutality and its impact on minorities. Is this just an opinion or is there any statistical evidence? Recent studies from The Atlantic have investigated the average age and ethnicity of victims from police killings in 2015-2016. As an Asian-American, I am motivated to examine the issue of police killings among races and other demographics to find any bias that is present. Using the dataset of 2,204 victims of police killings (2015-2016) collected by The Guardian, I will examine the following variables for bias: age, cause of death, armed/unarmed, race/ethnicity, and …

Do Environmental Toxins Predict Violent Crimes?, Tyler Stahl

Symposium of Student Scholars

Do chemical pollutants that persistent in the environment and bioaccumulate in the body affect human health and behavior? Could these Persistent, Bioaccumulative, and Toxic (PBT) chemicals play a role in the cause of violent crimes due to deterioration of mental and cognitive functions? In the past, Mercury, a PBT chemical, has been shown in salmon to be associated with aggression. Could similar aggression occur in humans exposed to mercury through a toxic spill? Two sources of data are utilized in this analysis. The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Annual Toxic Release Inventory publishes data on toxic releases into the environment and …

Soil Bacteria: Metabolic Diversity In A Wildlife Management Area, Nicholas Green

Symposium of Student Scholars

This research is part of a larger study linking the soil microbiome and processes to the aboveground plant community.

Soil samples were collected from six plots under closed canopy in the Sheffield Wildlife management area in the Piedmont ecoregion of Georgia in Paulding County. Two of the plots were located in the longleaf pine savanna where restoration of longleaf pine has been in place since 2010. Samples were collected in sterile plastic tubes at the center of each plot and 10 meters above and below the center. For each sample, soil pH and the concentration of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), …

Community Level Physiological Profiling Of The Longleaf Pine Savannah Microbiome, Gavin Treadaway

Symposium of Student Scholars

Soil microorganisms secrete chemicals into their surroundings, which the root system will uptake and in return release root exudates, which usually consist of low-molecular-weight organic compounds. These root exudates behave as signaling molecules and substrates for microorganisms to recruit beneficial soil bacteria to the plant root system, which will provide the plants with immunity to foliar diseases and pathogen infection. Studies have shown that bacteria on the root surface can protect aerial sections of the plant by promoting induced systemic resistance, a mechanism of increasing physical or chemical barriers of the plant.

The longleaf pine is an endangered species of …

Posterior Propriety Of An Objective Prior For Generalized Hierarchical Normal Linear Models, Cong Lin, Dongchu Sun, Chengyuan Song

Department of Statistics: Faculty Publications

Bayesian Hierarchical models has been widely used in modern statistical application. To deal with the data having complex structures, we propose a generalized hierarchical normal linear (GHNL) model which accommodates arbitrarily many levels, usual design matrices and ‘vanilla’ covariance matrices. Objective hyperpriors can be employed for the GHNL model to express ignorance or match frequentist properties, yet the common objective Bayesian approaches are infeasible or fraught with danger in hierarchical modelling. To tackle this issue, [Berger, J., Sun, D., & Song, C. (2020b). An objective prior for hyperparameters in normal hierarchical models. Journal of Multivariate Analysis, 178, 104606. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmva.2020.104606] …

Novel Statistical Modeling Methods For Traffic Video Analysis, Hang Shi

Dissertations

Video analysis is an active and rapidly expanding research area in computer vision and artificial intelligence due to its broad applications in modern society. Many methods have been proposed to analyze the videos, but many challenging factors remain untackled. In this dissertation, four statistical modeling methods are proposed to address some challenging traffic video analysis problems under adverse illumination and weather conditions.

First, a new foreground detection method is presented to detect the foreground objects in videos. A novel Global Foreground Modeling (GFM) method, which estimates a global probability density function for the foreground and applies the Bayes decision rule …

Association Between Self-Reported Fatigue And Sarcopenia Measures Among Elderly In Selangor, Malaysia, Maria Justine, Aliff Latir, Nadhirah Noor, Angelbeth Joanny, Izzaty Iskandar, Maisarah Sakinah Amirul Faizi, Dzulhelmi Edinan

Kesmas

The association between fatigue and sarcopenia is not well understood, therefore, this study aimed to compare the sarcopenia measures among elderly with mild and severe fatigue and to determine whether fatigue severity is associated with sarcopenia measures. This was a cross-sectional study conducted on201 elderly (age = 68.45±6.30 years). The elderly was classified into either mild or severe fatigue based on the Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS), meanwhile, sarcopenia measures include SARC-F score, muscle mass (ASM/height2), calf circumference (CC), upper (handgrip) and lower limb muscle strength, as well as physical performance (gait speed). Data were analyzed using independent t-tests and logistic …

Bayesian Sensitivity-Specificity And Roc Analysis For Finding Key Drivers, Stan Lipovetsky, Michael W. Conklin

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Finding key drivers in regression modeling via Bayesian Sensitivity-Specificity and Receiver Operating Characteristic is suggested, and clearly interpretable results are obtained. Numerical comparisons with other techniques show that this methodology can be useful in practical statistical modeling and analysis helping to researchers and managers in making meaningful decisions.