Statistics and Probability Commons^™

Impact Of Highway Work Zones On Traffic Crashes: A Case Study In Michigan, Qadri Hafez Shaheen

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Infrastructure in the US is severely aged and outdated. This presents a seemingly paradoxical problem in the field of construction management: In order to fix and make roads and highways more safe, construction zones must become inherently less safe in the process. There is a high cost to taxpayers and drivers, as work zones experience a significant amount of crashes and fatalities each year. To mitigate some of the factors that contribute to these crashes, this paper attempts to deliver guidelines on how to update relevant crash data, identify relevant factors, and create recommendations accordingly. The research focused particularly on …

Adjusting For Mis-Reporting In Count Data, Gelareh Rahimighazikalayeh

Theses and Dissertations

Any counting system is prone to recording errors including underreporting and overreporting. Ignoring the misreporting pattern in count data can give rise to bias in the estimation of model parameters. Accordingly, Poisson, negative binomial and generalized Poisson regression have been expanded in some instances to capture reporting biases. However, to our knowledge, no program has been developed to allow users to apply all of these models when needed. In the first part of the dissertation, we review the available models for underreported counts and develop a Stata command to estimate Poisson, negative binomial and generalized Poisson regression models for underreported …

Estimation Procedures For Complex Survival Models And Their Applications In Epidemiology Studies, Jie Zhou

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, we aim to address three important questions in practice, which can be solved through complex survival models. The first project focuses on studying the longitudinal fitness effect on cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality. In the second project, we study the disease-death relation between CVD and all-cause mortality and evaluate important covariate effects on the disease or death transitions. In the third project, we compare antiretroviral treatment (ART) for HIV patients and consider both treatment effect and side effect of the drugs. The first two projects are motivated by the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study (ACLS) datasets and the third …

Classification Of High-Dimensional Data Based On Multiple Testing Methods, Chong Ma

Theses and Dissertations

Supervised and unsupervised classification are common topics in machine learning in both scientific and industrial fields, which usually involve three tasks: prediction, exploration, and explanation. False discovery rate (FDR) theory has a close connection to classical classification theory, which must be employed in a sophisticated way to achieve good performance in various contexts. The study aims to explore novel supervised classifiers and unsupervised classification approaches for functional data and high-dimensional data in genome study by using FDR, respectively. One work develops a novel classifier for functional data by casting the classification problem into a multiple testing task, which involves using …

A Quantitative Analysis Of Intermediate Forms Within Astarte From The Atlantic Coastal Plain, Philip Roberson

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

The Atlantic Coastal Plain has long been recognized as a natural laboratory useful for testing hypotheses about various environmental and ecological effects on marine fauna. For studies such as these to continue being conducted in a rigorous and easily repeatable manner, a reliable taxonomy must be established for genera within this physiographic province. The bivalve genus, Astarte, is a cosmopolitan genus that is commonly found within the Atlantic Coastal Plain. This genus has many formally recognized species, even though it lacks many features that would encourage diversification, marking it as a taxonomic group in need of potential revision. The …

Netnographic Slog: Creative Elicitation Strategies To Encourage Participation In An Online Community Of Practice For Early Education And Care, Ruth Wallace

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Active, participatory netnography, in contrast to passive netnography, is essential if researchers are to gain rich rewards from the rigorous collection of qualitative data. However, researchers should be aware of the ‘netnographic slog’; “the blood, sweat and tears” associated with eliciting quality data and encouraging active participation in online communities.

This article examines the – Supporting Nutrition for Australian Childcare (SNAC) – online community of practice, established to support healthy eating practices in early childhood education and care settings. To ensure research rigour, Kozinets’ netnographic steps were employed. Garnering member participation in this online community was a slog; most community …

Geographic Variations In Antenatal Care Services In Sierra Leone, Eunice Nyambura Chege

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite antenatal care presenting opportunities to identify and monitor women at risk, use of recommended antenatal care services remains. Barriers preventing use of antenatal services vary between countries, and limited knowledge exists about the link between geographical settings and antenatal service use. The objective of this cross-sectional quantitative study was to explore geographical variations and investigate how social demographic characteristics affect use of antenatal care for women in Sierra Leone using the Andersen behavioral model. The data used were from the 2016 maternal death surveillance report of the whole counrty (N =706). Logistic regression analysis was used to determine the …

Joint Analysis For Multiple Traits, Zhenchuan Wang

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This dissertation includes three papers with each distributed in one chapter.

In chapter 1, we proposed an Adaptive Weighting Reverse Regression (AWRR) method to test association between multiple traits and rare variants in a genomic region. AWRR is robust to the directions of effects of causal variants and is also robust to the directions of association of traits. Using extensive simulation studies, we compared the performance of AWRR with canonical correlation analysis (CCA), Single-TOW, and the Weighted Sum Reverse Regression (WSRR). Our results showed that, in all of the simulation scenarios, AWRR is consistently more powerful than CCA. In most …

Statistical Methods For Analyzing Multivariate Phenotypes And Detecting Rare Variant Associations, Huanhuan Zhu

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This dissertation includes four papers with each distributed in one chapter.

In chapter 1, I compared the performance of eight multivariate phenotype association tests. The motivation to conduct this power comparison paper is as follows. For nearly 15 years, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have been widely used to identify genetic variants associated with human diseases and traits. GWAS typically investigate genetic variants for a predefined phenotype, thus fail to identify weak but important effects. In recent years, many multivariate association tests have been developed. However, there is a lack of comprehensive summary of such kinds of approaches. To fill this …

Algorithms For Reconstruction Of Gene Regulatory Networks From High -Throughput Gene Expression Data, Wenping Deng

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Understanding gene interactions in complex living systems is one of the central tasks in system biology. With the availability of microarray and RNA-Seq technologies, a multitude of gene expression datasets has been generated towards novel biological knowledge discovery through statistical analysis and reconstruction of gene regulatory networks (GRN). Reconstruction of GRNs can reveal the interrelationships among genes and identify the hierarchies of genes and hubs in networks. The new algorithms I developed in this dissertation are specifically focused on the reconstruction of GRNs with increased accuracy from microarray and RNA-Seq high-throughput gene expression data sets.

The first algorithm (Chapter 2) …

Spatial Modelling And Wildlife Health Surveillance: A Case Study Of White Nose Syndrome In Ontario, Lauren Yee

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Wildlife data is often limited by survey effort, small sample sizes, and spatial biases associated with collection and missing data. These factors can create unique challenges from a surveillance perspective when trying to extract spatial patterns of habitat suitability and disease distributions for conservation and management purposes. This thesis examined data quality from a wildlife health database in the context of spatial analysis of wildlife disease. Spatial analysis of the data to predict habitat suitability of bats and white nose syndrome afflicted bats was examined by using the MaxEnt modelling method. Methods to reduce spatial bias were examined and specific …

Understanding The Novice Decision-Making Process In Forensic Footwear Examinations: Accuracy And Decision Rules, Madonna A. Nobel

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The reproducibility of experienced-based forensic pattern interpretation is founded on the notion that domain-specific knowledge can be successfully distributed and applied among experts within a group. This assumption persists, even when the examination is complicated by variations in case circumstances, such as impression clarity and totality, as well as media, substrate, collection mechanism and enhancement. While it is further theorized that many of these factors (as well as additional confounding factors) are at play during an examination, the manner and extent to which these sources of variability affect the examination of footwear evidence remain unclear. In order to explore this …

The Effect Of Rare Variants In Trem2 And Pld3 On Longitudinal Cognitive Function In The Wisconsin Registry For Alzheimer's Prevention, Corinne D. Engelman, Burcu F. Darst, Murat Bilgel, Eva Vasiljevic, Rebecca L. Koscik, Bruno M. Jedynak, Sterling C. Johnson

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recent studies have found an association between functional variants in TREM2 and PLD3 and Alzheimer's disease (AD), but their effect on cognitive function is unknown. We examined the effect of these variants on cognitive function in 1449 participants from the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer's Prevention, a longitudinal study of initially asymptomatic adults, aged 36–73 years at baseline, enriched for a parental history of AD. A comprehensive cognitive test battery was performed at up to 5 visits. A factor analysis resulted in 6 cognitive factors that were standardized into z scores (∼N [0, 1]); the mean of these z scores was …

Simulations For Designing And Interpreting Intervention Trials In Infectious Diseases., M Elizabeth Halloran, Kari Auranen, Sarah Baird, Nicole E Basta, Steven E Bellan, +Several Additional Authors

Global Health Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Interventions in infectious diseases can have both direct effects on individuals who receive the intervention as well as indirect effects in the population. In addition, intervention combinations can have complex interactions at the population level, which are often difficult to adequately assess with standard study designs and analytical methods.

DISCUSSION: Herein, we urge the adoption of a new paradigm for the design and interpretation of intervention trials in infectious diseases, particularly with regard to emerging infectious diseases, one that more accurately reflects the dynamics of the transmission process. In an increasingly complex world, simulations can explicitly represent transmission dynamics, …

Long-Term Outcomes After Elective Sterilization Procedures — A Comparative Retrospective Cohort Study Of Medicaid Patients, Rachel Steward, Patricia Carney, Amy Law, Lin Xie, Yuexi Wang, Huseyin Yuce

Publications and Research

Objectives: The objectives were to compare the long-termoutcomes, including hysterectomy, chronic pelvic pain (CPP) and abnormal uterine bleeding (AUB), in women post hysteroscopic sterilization (HS) and laparoscopic tubal ligation (TL) in the Medicaid population.

Study design: This was a retrospective observational cohort analysis using data from the US Medicaid Analytic Extracts Encounters database.Women aged 18 to 49 years with at least one claimfor HS (n=3929) or TL (n=10,875) between July 1, 2009, through December 31, 2010, were included. Main outcome measures were hysterectomy, CPP or AUB in the 24 months poststerilization. Propensity score matching was used to control for patient …

Of Rats And Men, Thomas S. Walsh

Capstones

This capstone is a data-driven investigation into New York City's rat problem. By using publicly available government data to map rat activity in NYC, I identified several socio-economic variables that correlate with rat populations at the community district, borough, and city-scale. I used these findings (mainly that rat problems are linked to lower incomes) as the basis of an investigation, which includes interviews with residents, experts, and city officials. Prof. Bobby Corrigan, urban rodentologist and formerly with the NYC Department of Health criticizes the city's efforts for the first time on the record.

https://thomasseiyawalsh.wixsite.com/ratstone

Seasonal Resource Selection And Habitat Treatment Use By A Fringe Population Of Greater Sage-Grouse, Rhett Boswell

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Movement and habitat selection by Greater Sage-grouse (Centrocercus uropasianus) is of great interest to wildlife managers tasked with applying conservation measures for this iconic western species. Current technology has created small and lightweight GPS (Global Positioning Systems) transmitters that can be attached to sage-grouse. Using GIS software and statistical programs such as Program R, land managers can analyze GPS location data to assess how sage-grouse are geospatially interacting with their habitats. Within the Panguitch Sage-Grouse Management Area (SGMA) thousands of acres of land have been restored or manipulated to enhance sage-grouse habitat; this usually involves removal of pinyon pine …

Long-Term Follow-Up Of Cardiac Function And Quality Of Life For Patients In Nsabp Protocol B-31/Nrg Oncology: A Randomized Trial Comparing The Safety And Efficacy Of Doxorubicin And Cyclophosphamide (Ac) Followed By Paclitaxel With Ac Followed By Paclitaxel And Trastuzumab In Patients With Node-Positive Breast Cancer With Tumors Overexpressing Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2, Patricia A. Ganz, Edward H. Romond, Reena S. Cecchini, Priya Rastogi, Charles E. Geyer Jr., Sandra M. Swain, Jong-Hyeon Jeong, Louis Fehrenbacher, Howard M. Gross, Adam M. Brufsky, Patrick J. Flynn, Tanya A. Wahl, Thomas E. Seay, James L. Wade Iii, David D. Biggs, James N. Atkins, Jonathan Polikoff, John L. Zapas, Eleftherios P. Mamounas, Norman Wolmark

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

Purpose

Early cardiac toxicity is a risk associated with adjuvant chemotherapy plus trastuzumab. However, objective measures of cardiac function and health-related quality of life are lacking in long-term follow-up of patients who remain cancer free after completion of adjuvant treatment.

Patients and Methods

Patients in NSABP Protocol B-31 received anthracycline and taxane chemotherapy with or without trastuzumab for adjuvant treatment of node-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2–positive early-stage breast cancer. A long-term follow-up assessment was undertaken for patients who were alive and disease free, which included measurement of left ventricular ejection fraction by multigated acquisition scan along with patient-reported …

Using Mixed Effects Modeling To Quantify Difference Between Patient Groups With Diabetic Foot Ulcers, Rachel French

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

When diabetes progresses, many patients suffer from chronic foot ulcers. In a study described in Matrix Metalloproteinases and Diabetic Foot Ulcers (Muller et al., 2008), sixteen patients with diabetic foot ulcers were examined throughout a twelve week healing period. During this period, levels of matrix metalloproteinases (MMP-1), their inhibitors (TIMP-1), and the extracellular matrix in a wound area were measured at distinct time intervals for each patient. The ratios of these healing components are vital in determining whether a wound will heal or become chronic and never properly heal. Connecting Local and Global Sensitivities in a Mathematical Model for Wound …

Some Dimension Reduction Strategies For The Analysis Of Survey Data, Jiaying Weng, Derek S. Young

Statistics Faculty Publications

In the era of big data, researchers interested in developing statistical models are challenged with how to achieve parsimony. Usually, some sort of dimension reduction strategy is employed. Classic strategies are often in the form of traditional inference procedures, such as hypothesis testing; however, the increase in computing capabilities has led to the development of more sophisticated methods. In particular, sufficient dimension reduction has emerged as an area of broad and current interest. While these types of dimension reduction strategies have been employed for numerous data problems, they are scantly discussed in the context of analyzing survey data. This …