Statistics and Probability Commons^™

Confirmative Evaluation: New Cipp Evaluation Model, Tia L. Finney

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Struggling trainees often require a substantial investment of time, effort, and resources from medical educators. An emergent challenge involves developing effective ways to accurately identify struggling students and better understand the primary causal factors underlying their poor performance. Identifying the potential reasons for poor performance in medical school is a key first step in developing suitable remediation plans. The SOM Modified Program is a remediation program that aims to ensure academic success for medical students. The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of modifying the CIPP evaluation model by adding a confirmative evaluation step to the model. …

Principal Component Analysis For Predicting The Party Of The Legislators, Afsana Mimi

Publications and Research

In Spring 2020, I did a project, "Decision Tree Predicting the Party of Legislators," and construct a decision tree model to predict legislators' parties' based on their votes. We also use this model to identify legislators who frequently voted against their parties. We used the legislators' roll call votes, Office of Clerk U.S. House of Representatives Data Sets (Categorical values) collected in 2018 and 2019. In this new project, We study the 2018 and 2019 vote data using Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The goal is to find a (compressed) model using unsupervised learning to distinguish the legislators' parties, and PCA …

The Effect Of Area Deprivation On Covid-19 Risk In Louisiana, Madhav Kc, Evrim Oral, Susanne Straif-Bourgeois, Ariane L. Rung, Edward S. Peters

School of Public Health Faculty Publications

Background Louisiana in the summer of 2020 had the highest per capita case count for COVID-19 in the United States and COVID-19 deaths disproportionately affects the African American population. Neighborhood deprivation has been observed to be associated with poorer health outcomes. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between neighborhood deprivation and COVID-19 in Louisiana. Methods The Area Deprivation Index (ADI) was calculated and used to classify neighborhood deprivation at the census tract level. A total of 17 US census variables were used to calculate the ADI for each of the 1148 census tracts in Louisiana. The …

Cellphone Laws And Teens' Calling While Driving: Analysis Of Repeated Cross-Sectional Surveys In 2013, 2015, 2017, And 2019, Li Li, Caitlin N. Pope, Rebecca R. Andridge, Julie K. Bower, Guoqing Hu, Motao Zhu

Graduate Center for Gerontology Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Distracted driving among teens is a public health and safety concern. Most states in the U.S. have sought to restrict cellphone use while driving by enacting laws. This study examines the difference in prevalence of self-reported calling while driving (CWD) between states with different cellphone bans.

METHODS: Demographics and CWD data were extracted from state Youth Risk Behavior Surveys (YRBS) from 14 states in 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019. The state YRBS is conducted every 2 years with a representative sample of 9th through 12th grade students attending public school. States were grouped by type of cellphone law(s): no …

A Brief On Optimal Transport, Austin G. Vandegriffe

Graduate Student Research & Creative Works

Optimal transport is an interesting and exciting application of measure theory to optimization and analysis. In the following, I will bring you through a detailed treatment of random variable couplings, transport plans, basic properties of transport plans, and finishing with the Wasserstein distance on spaces of probability measures with compact support. No detail is left out in this presentation, but some results have further generality and more intricate consequences when tools like measure disintegration are used. But this is left for future work.

A Brief On Characteristic Functions, Austin G. Vandegriffe

Graduate Student Research & Creative Works

Characteristic functions (CFs) are often used in problems involving convergence in distribution, independence of random variables, infinitely divisible distributions, and stochastics. The most famous use of characteristic functions is in the proof of the Central Limit Theorem, also known as the Fundamental Theorem of Statistics. Though less frequent, CFs have also been used in problems of nonparametric time series analysis and in machine learning. Moreover, CFs uniquely determine their distribution, much like the moment generating functions (MGFs), but the major difference is that CFs always exists, whereas MGFs can fail, e.g. the Cauchy distribution. This makes CFs more robust in …

Uganda As A Role Model For Pandemic Containment In Africa, Ahmed M. Sarki, Alex Ezeh, Saverio Stranges

Epidemiology and Biostatistics Publications

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of The Diabetes Management Incentive On Diabetes-Related Services: Evidence From Ontario, Canada., Thaksha Thavam, Rose Anne Devlin, Amardeep Thind, Gregory S Zaric, Sisira Sarma

Epidemiology and Biostatistics Publications

Financial incentives have been introduced in several countries to improve diabetes management. In Ontario, the most populous province in Canada, a Diabetes Management Incentive (DMI) was introduced to family physicians practicing in patient enrollment models in 2006. This paper examines the impact of the DMI on diabetes-related services provided to individuals with diabetes in Ontario. Longitudinal health administrative data were obtained for adults diagnosed with diabetes and their family physicians. The study population consisted of two groups: DMI group (patients enrolled with a family physician exposed to DMI for 3 years), and comparison group (patients affiliated with a family physician …

Participatory Video As A Novel Recovery-Oriented Intervention In Early Psychosis: A Pilot Study., Arlene G Macdougall, Sahana Kukan, Elizabeth Price, Sarah Glen, Richelle Bird, Laura Powe, Joshua C. Wiener, Paul H Lysaker, Kelly K Anderson, Ross Mg Norman

Epidemiology and Biostatistics Publications

BACKGROUND: Personal narrative plays an important role in the process of recovery from psychotic illnesses. Participatory video is a novel, active intervention that can be used as a tool for fostering narrative development among people with psychosis.

AIM: To assess the feasibility, acceptability and potential clinical utility of participatory video as an innovative tool for promoting recovery in early psychosis.

METHODS: Ten outpatients of an early psychosis intervention programme were recruited to participate in 13 biweekly workshops to plan, film and produce documentary-style videos of their experiences. Feasibility was measured through recruitment and retention. Acceptability was measured through workshop attendance …

On Simes’S Second Conjecture: An Extended Single-Step Simes Test Procedure For Multiple Testing, Matthew G. Hudson

Dissertations

One of the major concerns with multiple tests of significance is controlling the family wise error rate. Various methods have been developed to ensure that the false positive rate be maintained at some prespecified level. One of the most well know being the Bonferroni procedure. Simes presented an improved Bonferroni procedure for testing the global hypothesis that is more powerful and less conservative, especially with positively correlated tests. While Simes’s procedure is more powerful, it does not allow for making inferences on the individual hypotheses. However, the Simes procedure has since become the foundation of many p-value based multiple testing …

Nonparametric Estimation Of Trend Function For Stochastic Differential Equations Driven By A Weighted Fractional Brownian Motion, Abdelmalik Keddi, Fethi Madani, Amina A. Bouchentouf

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

In this paper, we consider the problem of nonparametric estimation of trend function for stochastic differential equations driven by a weighted fractional Brownian motion (weighted-fBm). Under some general conditions, the consistent uniform, the rate of convergence as well as the asymptotic normality of our estimator are established. In addition, a numerical example is provided to illustrate the validity of the considered estimator.

Impatient Customers In An Markovian Queue With Bernoulli Schedule Working Vacation Interruption And Setup Time, P. Manoharan, T. Jeeva

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

In this paper, using probability generating function method, Impatient customers in an Markovian queue with Bernoulli schedule working vacation interruption and setup time is discussed. Customers impatience is due to the servers vacation. During the working vacation period, if there are customers in the queue, the vacation can be interrupted at a service completion instant and the server begins a regular service period with probability (1 - b) or continues the vacation with probability b. We obtain the probability generating functions of the stationary state probabilities, performance measures, sojourn time of a customer and stochastic decomposition of the queue length, …

On A Multiserver Queueing System With Customers’ Impatience Until The End Of Service Under Single And Multiple Vacation Policies, Mokhtar Kadi, Amina A. Bouchentouf, Lahcene Yahiaoui

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

This paper deals with a multiserver queueing system with Bernoulli feedback and impatient customers (balking and reneging) under synchronous multiple and single vacation policies. Reneged customers may be retained in the system. Using probability generating functions (PGFs) technique, we formally obtain the steady-state solution of the proposed queueing system. Further, important performance measures and cost model are derived. Finally, numerical examples are presented.

Statistics Of Branched Populations Split Into Different Types, Thierry E. Huillet

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

Some population is made of n individuals that can be of P possible species (or types) at equilibrium. How are individuals scattered among types? We study two random scenarios of such species abundance distributions. In the first one, each species grows from independent founders according to a Galton-Watson branching process. When the number of founders P is either fixed or random (either Poisson or geometrically-distributed), a question raised is: given a population of n individuals as a whole, how does it split into the species types? This model is one pertaining to forests of Galton-Watson trees. A second scenario that …

Nonparametric M-Regression With Scale Parameter For Functional Dependent Data, Mebsout Mokhtaria, Attouch M. Kadi, Fetitah Omar

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

In this paper, we study the equivariant nonparametric robust regression estimation relationship between a functional dependent random covariable and a scalar response. We consider a new robust regression estimator when the scale parameter is unknown. The consistency result of the proposed estimator is studied, namely the uniform almost complete convergence (with rate). Thus, suitable topological considerations are needed, implying changes in the convergence rates, which are quantified by entropy considerations. The benefits of considering robust estimators are illustrated on two real data sets where the robust fit reveals the presence of influential outliers.

The Linear Combination Of Kernels In The Estimation Of Cumulative Distribution Functions, Abdel-Razzaq Mugdadi, Rugayyah Sani

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

The kernel distribution function estimator method is the most popular nonparametric method to estimate the cumulative distribution function F(x). In this investigation, we propose a new estimator for F(x) based on a linear combination of kernels. The mean integrated squared error, asymptotic mean integrated squared error and the asymptotically optimal bandwidth for the new estimator are derived. Also, based on the plug-in technique in density estimation, we propose a data based method to select the bandwidth for the new estimator. In addition, we evaluate the new estimator using simulations and real life data.

Estimating Parameter Of The Selected Uniform Population Under The Generalized Stein Loss Function, K. R. Meena, Aditi K. Gangopadhyay

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

This paper deals with the problem of estimating scale parameter of the selected uniform population when sample sizes are unequal. The loss has been measured by the generalized Stein loss (GSL) function. The uniformly minimum risk unbiased (UMRU) estimator is derived, and the natural estimators are also constructed under the GSL function. One of the natural estimators is proved to be the generalized Bayes estimator with respect to a noninformative prior. For k = 2, we obtained a sufficient condition for an inadmissibility result and demonstrate that the natural estimator and UMRU estimator are inadmissible. A simulation investigation is also …

Conditional Distance Correlation Test For Gene Expression Level, Dna Methylation Level And Copy Number, Shanshan Zhang

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over the past years, efforts have been devoted to the genome-wide analysis of genetic and epigenetic profiles to better understand the underlying biological mechanisms of complex diseases such as cancer. It is of great importance to unravel the complex dependence structure between biological factors, and many conditional dependence tests have been developed to meet this need. The traditional partial correlation method can only capture the linear partial correlation, but not the nonlinear correlation. To overcome this limitation, we propose to use the innovative conditional distance correlation (CDC), which measures the conditional dependence between random vectors and detect nonlinear relations. In …

Comparative Evaluation Of Statistical Dependence Measures, Eman Abdel Rahman Ibrahim

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Measuring and testing dependence between random variables is of great importance in many scientific fields. In the case of linearly correlated variables, Pearson’s correlation coefficient is a commonly used measure of the correlation strength. In the case of nonlinear correlation, several innovative measures have been proposed, such as distance-based correlation, rank-based correlations, and information theory-based correlation. This thesis focuses on the statistical comparison of several important correlations, including Spearman’s correlation, mutual information, maximal information coefficient, biweight midcorrelation, distance correlation, and copula correlation, under various simulation settings such as correlative patterns and the level of random noise. Furthermore, we apply those …

Gardasil Vaccine Trends Within Nevada, California, And The U.S.: A Comparative Study, Karen S. Gutierrez

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Despite decreasing incidence in cervical cancer in the U.S., there continues to be an increase in public health concern for cervical cancer worldwide. Recent studies report that individuals are disproportionately affected based on region, sex, and race. Additionally, the human papillomavirus (HPV) attributable cancers may be reduced between 70% and 90% through the universal use of HPV-vaccines. In order to expand current knowledge and implement intervention programs in Nevada, it is critical to examine the associations among the Gardasil vaccine, cervical cancer screening, and adverse events following immunization as well as to understand the different socio-demographic subgroups affected. To our …