An Analysis of Teacher Sorting in Secondary Special Education and Alternative Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mason-Williams, Loretta; Gagnon, Joseph Calvin

2017-01-01

This study provides nationally representative information about the qualifications and preparation of secondary content and special education teachers in special education and alternative school settings, as compared with teachers in regular schools. Findings demonstrate that a statistically significant relationship did not exist between school…

Emotional Relationships between Mothers* and Infants: Knowns, Unknowns, and Unknown Unknowns

PubMed Central

Bornstein, Marc H.; Suwalsky, Joan T. D.; Breakstone, Dana A.

2012-01-01

An overview of the literature pertaining to the construct of emotional availability is presented, illustrated by a sampling of relevant studies. Methodological, statistical, and conceptual problems in the existing corpus of research are discussed, and suggestions for improving future investigations of this important construct are offered. PMID:22292998

Anger and depression levels of mothers with premature infants in the neonatal intensive care unit.

PubMed

Kardaşözdemir, Funda; AKGüN Şahin, Zümrüt

2016-02-04

The aim of this study was to examine anger and depression levels of mothers who had a premature infant in the NICU, and all factors affecting the situation. This descriptive study was performed in the level I and II units of NICU at three state hospitals in Turkey. The data was collected with a demographic questionnaire, "Beck Depression Inventory" and "Anger Expression Scale". Descriptive statistics, parametric and nonparametric statistical tests and Pearson correlation were used in the data analysis. Mothers whose infants are under care in NICU have moderate depression. It has also been determined that mothers' educational level, income level and gender of infants were statistically significant (p <0.05). A positive relationship between depression and trait anger scores was found to be statistically significant. A negative relationship existed between depression and anger-control scores for the mothers, which was statistically significant (p <0.05). Due to the results of research, recommended that mothers who are at risk of depression and anger in the NICU evaluated by nurses and these nurses to develop their consulting roles.

Potentiation Following Ballistic and Nonballistic Complexes: The Effect of Strength Level.

PubMed

Suchomel, Timothy J; Sato, Kimitake; DeWeese, Brad H; Ebben, William P; Stone, Michael H

2016-07-01

Suchomel, TJ, Sato, K, DeWeese, BH, Ebben, WP, and Stone, MH. Potentiation following ballistic and nonballistic complexes: the effect of strength level. J Strength Cond Res 30(7): 1825-1833, 2016-The purpose of this study was to compare the temporal profile of strong and weak subjects during ballistic and nonballistic potentiation complexes. Eight strong (relative back squat = 2.1 ± 0.1 times body mass) and 8 weak (relative back squat = 1.6 ± 0.2 times body mass) males performed squat jumps immediately and every minute up to 10 minutes following potentiation complexes that included ballistic or nonballistic concentric-only half-squat (COHS) performed at 90% of their 1 repetition maximum COHS. Jump height (JH) and allometrically scaled peak power (PPa) were compared using a series of 2 × 12 repeated measures analyses of variance. No statistically significant strength level main effects for JH (p = 0.442) or PPa (p = 0.078) existed during the ballistic condition. In contrast, statistically significant main effects for time existed for both JH (p = 0.014) and PPa (p < 0.001); however, no statistically significant pairwise comparisons were present (p > 0.05). Statistically significant strength level main effects existed for PPa (p = 0.039) but not for JH (p = 0.137) during the nonballistic condition. Post hoc analysis revealed that the strong subjects produced statistically greater PPa than the weaker subjects (p = 0.039). Statistically significant time main effects existed for time existed for PPa (p = 0.015), but not for JH (p = 0.178). No statistically significant strength level × time interaction effects for JH (p = 0.319) or PPa (p = 0.203) were present for the ballistic or nonballistic conditions. Practical significance indicated by effect sizes and the relationships between maximum potentiation and relative strength suggest that stronger subjects potentiate earlier and to a greater extent than weaker subjects during ballistic and nonballistic potentiation complexes.

Ancestral Relationships Using Metafounders: Finite Ancestral Populations and Across Population Relationships.

PubMed

Legarra, Andres; Christensen, Ole F; Vitezica, Zulma G; Aguilar, Ignacio; Misztal, Ignacy

2015-06-01

Recent use of genomic (marker-based) relationships shows that relationships exist within and across base population (breeds or lines). However, current treatment of pedigree relationships is unable to consider relationships within or across base populations, although such relationships must exist due to finite size of the ancestral population and connections between populations. This complicates the conciliation of both approaches and, in particular, combining pedigree with genomic relationships. We present a coherent theoretical framework to consider base population in pedigree relationships. We suggest a conceptual framework that considers each ancestral population as a finite-sized pool of gametes. This generates across-individual relationships and contrasts with the classical view which each population is considered as an infinite, unrelated pool. Several ancestral populations may be connected and therefore related. Each ancestral population can be represented as a "metafounder," a pseudo-individual included as founder of the pedigree and similar to an "unknown parent group." Metafounders have self- and across relationships according to a set of parameters, which measure ancestral relationships, i.e., homozygozities within populations and relationships across populations. These parameters can be estimated from existing pedigree and marker genotypes using maximum likelihood or a method based on summary statistics, for arbitrarily complex pedigrees. Equivalences of genetic variance and variance components between the classical and this new parameterization are shown. Segregation variance on crosses of populations is modeled. Efficient algorithms for computation of relationship matrices, their inverses, and inbreeding coefficients are presented. Use of metafounders leads to compatibility of genomic and pedigree relationship matrices and to simple computing algorithms. Examples and code are given. Copyright © 2015 by the Genetics Society of America.

The relationship between 2D static features and 2D dynamic features used in gait recognition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alawar, Hamad M.; Ugail, Hassan; Kamala, Mumtaz; Connah, David

2013-05-01

In most gait recognition techniques, both static and dynamic features are used to define a subject's gait signature. In this study, the existence of a relationship between static and dynamic features was investigated. The correlation coefficient was used to analyse the relationship between the features extracted from the "University of Bradford Multi-Modal Gait Database". This study includes two dimensional dynamic and static features from 19 subjects. The dynamic features were compromised of Phase-Weighted Magnitudes driven by a Fourier Transform of the temporal rotational data of a subject's joints (knee, thigh, shoulder, and elbow). The results concluded that there are eleven pairs of features that are considered significantly correlated with (p<0.05). This result indicates the existence of a statistical relationship between static and dynamics features, which challenges the results of several similar studies. These results bare great potential for further research into the area, and would potentially contribute to the creation of a gait signature using latent data.

Influences on corporate executive decision behavior in government acquisitions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wetherington, J. R.

1986-01-01

This paper presents extensive exploratory research which had as its primary objective, the discovery and determination of major areas of concern exhibited by U.S. corporate executives in the preparation and submittal of proposals and bids to the Federal government. The existence of numerous unique concerns inherent in corporate strategies within the government market environment was established. A determination of the relationship of these concerns to each other was accomplished utilizing statistical factor analysis techniques resulting in the identification of major groupings of management concerns. Finally, using analysis of variance, an analysis and discovery of the interrelationship of the factors to corporate demographics was accomplished. The existence of separate and distinct concerns exhibited by corporate executives when contemplating sales and operations in the government marketplace was established. It was also demonstrated that quantifiable relationships exist between such variables and that the decision behavior exhibited by the responsible executives has an interrelationship to their company's demographics.

An Analysis of the Associations between Ambiguity Tolerance and EFL Reading Strategy Awareness

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kamran, Saeedeh Karbalaee; Maftoon, Parviz

2012-01-01

The current study is an attempt to investigate whether any statistically significant relationship existed between Iranian EFL learners' ambiguity tolerance (AT) and their reading strategy use. To this end, three instruments of Survey of Reading Strategy (Mokhtari & Sheorey, 2002), Second Language Ambiguity Tolerance Scale (Ely, 1995), and a…

Multicultural Competence of Student Affairs Administrators at Member Institutions of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Porter, Paul Lawrence

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine if statistically significant relationships existed between multicultural competence and a series of independent variables among select student affairs administrators at member institutions of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. Specifically, this study sought to examine personal and…

NASA/DOD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project. Report 15: Technical uncertainty and project complexity as correlates of information use by US industry-affiliated aerospace engineers and scientists: Results of an exploratory investigation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pinelli, Thomas E.; Glassman, Nanci A.; Affelder, Linda O.; Hecht, Laura M.; Kennedy, John M.; Barclay, Rebecca O.

1993-01-01

An exploratory study was conducted that investigated the influence of technical uncertainty and project complexity on information use by U.S. industry-affiliated aerospace engineers and scientists. The study utilized survey research in the form of a self-administered mail questionnaire. U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists on the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) mailing list served as the study population. The adjusted response rate was 67 percent. The survey instrument is appendix C to this report. Statistically significant relationships were found to exist between technical uncertainty, project complexity, and information use. Statistically significant relationships were found to exist between technical uncertainty, project complexity, and the use of federally funded aerospace R&D. The results of this investigation are relevant to researchers investigating information-seeking behavior of aerospace engineers. They are also relevant to R&D managers and policy planners concerned with transferring the results of federally funded aerospace R&D to the U.S. aerospace industry.

Perception of ensemble statistics requires attention.

PubMed

Jackson-Nielsen, Molly; Cohen, Michael A; Pitts, Michael A

2017-02-01

To overcome inherent limitations in perceptual bandwidth, many aspects of the visual world are represented as summary statistics (e.g., average size, orientation, or density of objects). Here, we investigated the relationship between summary (ensemble) statistics and visual attention. Recently, it was claimed that one ensemble statistic in particular, color diversity, can be perceived without focal attention. However, a broader debate exists over the attentional requirements of conscious perception, and it is possible that some form of attention is necessary for ensemble perception. To test this idea, we employed a modified inattentional blindness paradigm and found that multiple types of summary statistics (color and size) often go unnoticed without attention. In addition, we found attentional costs in dual-task situations, further implicating a role for attention in statistical perception. Overall, we conclude that while visual ensembles may be processed efficiently, some amount of attention is necessary for conscious perception of ensemble statistics. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Organizational citizenship behavior and work experience.

PubMed

Kegans, Loyd; McCamey, Randy B; Hammond, Honor

2012-01-01

The authors compared the relationship of elements of the Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) and years of work experience of registered nurses in the state of Texas. Work experience research has shown a relationship between OCB and work experience through mediating roles of various work related characteristics does exist. Work experience is described as the overall length of time in an occupation or workforce. Civic virtue was the only element of organizational citizenship behavior to have a statistically significant correlation with years of work experience in this study. Other elements were found to have no statistically significant correlation with years of work experience. Further research should be undertaken to determine if correlations between these two constructs holds up when the population under study is further refined by job classification, such as management and staff, or industry segment.

A comparative evaluation of Oratest with the microbiological method of assessing caries activity in children

PubMed Central

Sundaram, Meenakshi; Nayak, Ullal Anand; Ramalingam, Krishnakumar; Reddy, Venugopal; Rao, Arun Prasad; Mathian, Mahesh

2013-01-01

Aims: The aim of this study is to find out whether Oratest can be used as a diagnostic tool in assessing the caries activity by evaluating its relationship to the existing caries status and the salivary streptococcus mutans level. Materials and Methods: The study sample consists of 90 students divided into two groups. Group I (test group) and Group II (control group) consisting of 30 children for control group and 60 children for test group. The sampling of unstimulated saliva for the estimation of streptococcus mutans was done as per the method suggested by Kohler and Bratthall. The plates were then incubated. Rough surface colonies were identified as streptococcus mutans on a pre-determined area of the tip (approximately 1.5 cm2) were counted for each side of spatula pressed against mitis salivarius bacitracin agar using digital colony counter. The results were expressed in colony forming units (CFU). Oratest was carried out in the same patients after the collection of salivary sample for the microbiological method to evaluate the relationship between the two tests. Statistical Analysis Used: The tests used were ANOVA, Pearson Chi-square test, Pearson′s correlation analysis, Mann-Whitney U test and Student′s independent t-test. Results: In the control group and test group, when the streptococcus mutans count (CFU) and Oratest time (minutes) were correlated using Pearson′s correlation analysis, the streptococcus mutans counts was found to be in a statistically significant negative linear relationship with the Oratest time. When the caries status of the children, participated in the test group were correlated with mutans count (CFU) and Oratest time, caries status were found to be in a statistically significant positive linear relationship with streptococcus mutans count and in a significant negative linear relationship with Oratest time. Conclusions: The test proved to be a simple, inexpensive and rapid technique for assessing caries activity since a significant relationship exists clinically with caries status and microbiologically with the streptococcus mutans count of the individual. PMID:23946577

Does Time Spent Online Have an Influence on Student Performance? Evidence for a Large Business Studies Class

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Korkofingas, Con; Macri, Joseph

2013-01-01

This paper examines, using regression modelling, whether a statistically significant relationship exists between the time spent by a student using the course website and the student's assessment performance for a large third year university business forecasting course. We utilise the online tracking system in Blackboard, a web-based software…

Predictors of Working Alliance Efficacy among State VR Counselors as a Function of Ex-Offender Status

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bates, Julie K.

2012-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine if statistically significant relationships existed between burnout, stigma, flourishing, caseload size, experience, and working alliance self-efficacy and to assess the predictive power of these variables on levels of working alliance self-efficacy with clients with disabilities alone and clients with…

Multi-Product Total Cost of Function for Higher Education: A Case of Bible Colleges.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Koshal, Rajindar K.; Koshal, Manjulika; Gupta, Ashok

2001-01-01

This study empirically estimates a multiproduct total cost function and output relationship for comprehensive U.S. universities. Statistical results for 184 Bible colleges suggest that there are both economies of scale and of scope in higher education. Additionally, product-specific economies of scope exist for all output levels and activities.…

On the Statistical Dependency of Identity Theft on Demographics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

di Crescenzo, Giovanni

An improved understanding of the identity theft problem is widely agreed to be necessary to succeed in counter-theft efforts in legislative, financial and research institutions. In this paper we report on a statistical study about the existence of relationships between identity theft and area demographics in the US. The identity theft data chosen was the number of citizen complaints to the Federal Trade Commission in a large number of US municipalities. The list of demographics used for any such municipality included: estimated population, median resident age, estimated median household income, percentage of citizens with a high school or higher degree, percentage of unemployed residents, percentage of married residents, percentage of foreign born residents, percentage of residents living in poverty, density of law enforcement employees, crime index, and political orientation according to the 2004 presidential election. Our study findings, based on linear regression techniques, include statistically significant relationships between the number of identity theft complaints and a non-trivial subset of these demographics.

Hypothesis: discrepancy between intra- and interpopulation studies of the relationship between dietary salt and blood pressure: fact or fiction?

PubMed

Omvik, P

1984-01-01

It is a paradox that intra-population studies fail to show significant correlation between sodium excretion and blood pressure while a clear relationship exists in cross-cultural studies. Since daily variation of sodium excretion is high, the discrepancy between the two observations could be due to non-comparable data on sodium excretion. This is a discussion of the hypothesis that the finding of a significant correlation or not between sodium excretion and blood pressure depends on the statistical analysis of the data.

Effects of perceived smoking-cancer relationship and cardiovascular health attitudes on childrens' views of smoking.

PubMed

Bektas, Ilknur; Bektas, Murat; Selekoğlu, Yasemin; Kudubes, Aslı Akdeniz; Altan, Sema Sal; Ayar, Dijle

2015-01-01

This study was conducted with the aim of determining how students' perceived smoking-cancer relationship and cardiovascular health attitudes affect childrens' views of smoking. The sample of this descriptive-cross sectional study comprised 574 subjects between the ages of 11-15. The data were collected using the Children's Cardiovascular Health Promotion Attitude Scale and the Children's Decisional Balance Measure for Assessing and Predicting Smoking Status. Correlation and logistic regression were used for analysis. It was determined that a statistically significant relationship exists between the attitudes of children towards smoking and their ideas about the relationship of smoking with cancer, which is negative and low (r=-0.223). There was also a statistically significant relationship between their attitudes towards cardiovascular health and their attitudes towards smoking, again at a low level (r=0.257). It was determined that children with ideas about smoking and cancer were 9.4 times less likely to have positive/negative attitudes towards smoking, while positive attitudes towards cardiovascular health made negative attitudes towards smoking 3.9 times less likely. It was determined that the attitudes of students towards cardiovascular health and their perceptions of smoking and cancer reduced the positive perceptions towards smoking.

Application of one-way ANOVA in completely randomized experiments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wahid, Zaharah; Izwan Latiff, Ahmad; Ahmad, Kartini

2017-12-01

This paper describes an application of a statistical technique one-way ANOVA in completely randomized experiments with three replicates. This technique was employed to a single factor with four levels and multiple observations at each level. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between chemical oxygen demand index and location on-sites. Two different approaches are employed for the analyses; critical value and p-value. It also presents key assumptions of the technique to be satisfied by the data in order to obtain valid results. Pairwise comparisons by Turkey method are also considered and discussed to determine where the significant differences among the means is after the ANOVA has been performed. The results revealed that there are statistically significant relationship exist between the chemical oxygen demand index and the location on-sites.

Relationships Between Potentiation Effects After Ballistic Half-Squats and Bilateral Symmetry.

PubMed

Suchomel, Timothy J; Sato, Kimitake; DeWeese, Brad H; Ebben, William P; Stone, Michael H

2016-05-01

The purposes of this study were to examine the effect of ballistic concentric-only half-squats (COHS) on subsequent squat-jump (SJ) performances at various rest intervals and to examine the relationships between changes in SJ performance and bilateral symmetry at peak performance. Thirteen resistance-trained men performed an SJ immediately and every minute up to 10 min on dual force plates after 2 ballistic COHS repetitions at 90% of their 1-repetition-maximum COHS. SJ peak force, peak power, net impulse, and rate of force development (RFD) were compared using a series of 1-way repeated-measures ANOVAs. The percent change in performance at which peak performance occurred for each variable was correlated with the symmetry index scores at the corresponding time point using Pearson correlation coefficients. Statistical differences in peak power (P = .031) existed between rest intervals; however, no statistically significant pairwise comparisons were present (P > .05). No statistical differences in peak force (P = .201), net impulse (P = .064), and RFD (P = .477) were present between rest intervals. The relationships between changes in SJ performance and bilateral symmetry after the rest interval that produced the greatest performance for peak force (r = .300, P = .319), peak power (r = -.041, P = .894), net impulse (r = -.028, P = .927), and RFD (r = -.434, P = .138) were not statistically significant. Ballistic COHS may enhance SJ performance; however, the changes in performance were not related to bilateral symmetry.

Cause-effect relationships in analytical surveys: An illustration of statistical issues

Treesearch

Gary L. Gadbury; Hans T. Schreuder

2003-01-01

Establishing cause-effect is critical in the field of natural resources where one may want to know the impact of management practices, wildfires, drought, etc. on water quality and quantity, wildlife, growth and survival of desirable trees for timber production, etc. Yet, key obstacles exist when trying to establish cause-effect in such contexts. Issues involved with...

Effects of Headings and Headlines in a Corporate Annual Report on Text Recall and Attitudes about the Organization.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Seidman, Steven A.

1995-01-01

A study of 57 undergraduate/graduate students to determine the effects of headings and headlines in corporate annual reports on recall of textual information and attitudes of readers about the company. Study found no statistical differences in cognitive performance or attitudes. Results suggest a relationship might exist between headings and…

Reliability and relationship of the fear-avoidance beliefs questionnaire with the shoulder pain and disability index and numeric pain rating scale in patients with shoulder pain.

PubMed

Riley, Sean P; Tafuto, Vincent; Cote, Mark; Brismée, Jean-Michel; Wright, Alexis; Cook, Chad

2018-03-20

The purpose of this study was to determine: 1) the test-retest reliability of Fear-Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire (FABQ) Work (FABQW) subscale, FABQ Physical Activity (FABQPA) subscale, Shoulder Pain and Disability Index (SPADI) Pain subscale, SPADI Disability subscale, and Numeric Pain Rating scale (NPRS); and 2) the relationship between the FABQPA, FABQW, SPADI pain, SPADI disability, and NPRS after 4 weeks of pragmatically applied physical therapy (PT) in patients with shoulder pain. Prospective, single-group observational design. Data were collected at initial evaluation, the first follow-up visit prior to the initiation of treatment, and after 4 weeks of treatment. Statistically significant Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC 2,1 ) values were reported for the FABQPA, FABQW, SPADI Pain, SPADI Disability, and NPRS. A statistically significant moderate relationship between the FABQPA subscale, SPADI subscale, and NPRS could not be established prior to and after 4 weeks of pragmatically applied PT. Statistically significant differences were observed between the initial evaluation and four-week follow-up for the FABQPA, SPADI Pain, SPADI Disability, and NPRS (p < 0.01). Since a meaningful relationship between the FABQ, SPADI, and NPRS did not exist, it suggests that the FABQPA may be measuring a metric other than pain. This study suggests that the FABQW may not be sensitive to change over time.

A new concept in seismic landslide hazard analysis for practical application

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Chyi-Tyi

2017-04-01

A seismic landslide hazard model could be constructed using deterministic approach (Jibson et al., 2000) or statistical approach (Lee, 2014). Both approaches got landslide spatial probability under a certain return-period earthquake. In the statistical approach, our recent study found that there are common patterns among different landslide susceptibility models of the same region. The common susceptibility could reflect relative stability of slopes at a region; higher susceptibility indicates lower stability. Using the common susceptibility together with an earthquake event landslide inventory and a map of topographically corrected Arias intensity, we can build the relationship among probability of failure, Arias intensity and the susceptibility. This relationship can immediately be used to construct a seismic landslide hazard map for the region that the empirical relationship built. If the common susceptibility model is further normalized and the empirical relationship built with normalized susceptibility, then the empirical relationship may be practically applied to different region with similar tectonic environments and climate conditions. This could be feasible, when a region has no existing earthquake-induce landslide data to train the susceptibility model and to build the relationship. It is worth mentioning that a rain-induced landslide susceptibility model has common pattern similar to earthquake-induced landslide susceptibility in the same region, and is usable to build the relationship with an earthquake event landslide inventory and a map of Arias intensity. These will be introduced with examples in the meeting.

Identifying natural flow regimes using fish communities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chang, Fi-John; Tsai, Wen-Ping; Wu, Tzu-Ching; Chen, Hung-kwai; Herricks, Edwin E.

2011-10-01

SummaryModern water resources management has adopted natural flow regimes as reasonable targets for river restoration and conservation. The characterization of a natural flow regime begins with the development of hydrologic statistics from flow records. However, little guidance exists for defining the period of record needed for regime determination. In Taiwan, the Taiwan Eco-hydrological Indicator System (TEIS), a group of hydrologic statistics selected for fisheries relevance, is being used to evaluate ecological flows. The TEIS consists of a group of hydrologic statistics selected to characterize the relationships between flow and the life history of indigenous species. Using the TEIS and biosurvey data for Taiwan, this paper identifies the length of hydrologic record sufficient for natural flow regime characterization. To define the ecological hydrology of fish communities, this study connected hydrologic statistics to fish communities by using methods to define antecedent conditions that influence existing community composition. A moving average method was applied to TEIS statistics to reflect the effects of antecedent flow condition and a point-biserial correlation method was used to relate fisheries collections with TEIS statistics. The resulting fish species-TEIS (FISH-TEIS) hydrologic statistics matrix takes full advantage of historical flows and fisheries data. The analysis indicates that, in the watersheds analyzed, averaging TEIS statistics for the present year and 3 years prior to the sampling date, termed MA(4), is sufficient to develop a natural flow regime. This result suggests that flow regimes based on hydrologic statistics for the period of record can be replaced by regimes developed for sampled fish communities.

Statistical analysis of environmental monitoring data: does a worst case time for monitoring clean rooms exist?

PubMed

Cundell, A M; Bean, R; Massimore, L; Maier, C

1998-01-01

To determine the relationship between the sampling time of the environmental monitoring, i.e., viable counts, in aseptic filling areas and the microbial count and frequency of alerts for air, surface and personnel microbial monitoring, statistical analyses were conducted on 1) the frequency of alerts versus the time of day for routine environmental sampling conducted in calendar year 1994, and 2) environmental monitoring data collected at 30-minute intervals during routine aseptic filling operations over two separate days in four different clean rooms with multiple shifts and equipment set-ups at a parenteral manufacturing facility. Statistical analyses showed, except for one floor location that had significantly higher number of counts but no alert or action level samplings in the first two hours of operation, there was no relationship between the number of counts and the time of sampling. Further studies over a 30-day period at the floor location showed no relationship between time of sampling and microbial counts. The conclusion reached in the study was that there is no worst case time for environmental monitoring at that facility and that sampling any time during the aseptic filling operation will give a satisfactory measure of the microbial cleanliness in the clean room during the set-up and aseptic filling operation.

Problematic smartphone use: A conceptual overview and systematic review of relations with anxiety and depression psychopathology.

PubMed

Elhai, Jon D; Dvorak, Robert D; Levine, Jason C; Hall, Brian J

2017-01-01

Research literature on problematic smartphone use, or smartphone addiction, has proliferated. However, relationships with existing categories of psychopathology are not well defined. We discuss the concept of problematic smartphone use, including possible causal pathways to such use. We conducted a systematic review of the relationship between problematic use with psychopathology. Using scholarly bibliographic databases, we screened 117 total citations, resulting in 23 peer-reviewer papers examining statistical relations between standardized measures of problematic smartphone use/use severity and the severity of psychopathology. Most papers examined problematic use in relation to depression, anxiety, chronic stress and/or low self-esteem. Across this literature, without statistically adjusting for other relevant variables, depression severity was consistently related to problematic smartphone use, demonstrating at least medium effect sizes. Anxiety was also consistently related to problem use, but with small effect sizes. Stress was somewhat consistently related, with small to medium effects. Self-esteem was inconsistently related, with small to medium effects when found. Statistically adjusting for other relevant variables yielded similar but somewhat smaller effects. We only included correlational studies in our systematic review, but address the few relevant experimental studies also. We discuss causal explanations for relationships between problem smartphone use and psychopathology. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Data and methods for studying commercial motor vehicle driver fatigue, highway safety and long-term driver health.

PubMed

Stern, Hal S; Blower, Daniel; Cohen, Michael L; Czeisler, Charles A; Dinges, David F; Greenhouse, Joel B; Guo, Feng; Hanowski, Richard J; Hartenbaum, Natalie P; Krueger, Gerald P; Mallis, Melissa M; Pain, Richard F; Rizzo, Matthew; Sinha, Esha; Small, Dylan S; Stuart, Elizabeth A; Wegman, David H

2018-03-09

This article summarizes the recommendations on data and methodology issues for studying commercial motor vehicle driver fatigue of a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study. A framework is provided that identifies the various factors affecting driver fatigue and relating driver fatigue to crash risk and long-term driver health. The relevant factors include characteristics of the driver, vehicle, carrier and environment. Limitations of existing data are considered and potential sources of additional data described. Statistical methods that can be used to improve understanding of the relevant relationships from observational data are also described. The recommendations for enhanced data collection and the use of modern statistical methods for causal inference have the potential to enhance our understanding of the relationship of fatigue to highway safety and to long-term driver health. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

The statistical analysis of global climate change studies

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hardin, J.W.

1992-01-01

The focus of this work is to contribute to the enhancement of the relationship between climatologists and statisticians. The analysis of global change data has been underway for many years by atmospheric scientists. Much of this analysis includes a heavy reliance on statistics and statistical inference. Some specific climatological analyses are presented and the dependence on statistics is documented before the analysis is undertaken. The first problem presented involves the fluctuation-dissipation theorem and its application to global climate models. This problem has a sound theoretical niche in the literature of both climate modeling and physics, but a statistical analysis inmore » which the data is obtained from the model to show graphically the relationship has not been undertaken. It is under this motivation that the author presents this problem. A second problem concerning the standard errors in estimating global temperatures is purely statistical in nature although very little materials exists for sampling on such a frame. This problem not only has climatological and statistical ramifications, but political ones as well. It is planned to use these results in a further analysis of global warming using actual data collected on the earth. In order to simplify the analysis of these problems, the development of a computer program, MISHA, is presented. This interactive program contains many of the routines, functions, graphics, and map projections needed by the climatologist in order to effectively enter the arena of data visualization.« less

Predicting passenger seat comfort and discomfort on the basis of human, context and seat characteristics: a literature review.

PubMed

Hiemstra-van Mastrigt, Suzanne; Groenesteijn, Liesbeth; Vink, Peter; Kuijt-Evers, Lottie F M

2017-07-01

This literature review focused on passenger seat comfort and discomfort in a human-product-context interaction. The relationships between anthropometric variables (human level), activities (context level), seat characteristics (product level) and the perception of comfort and discomfort were studied through mediating variables, such as body posture, movement and interface pressure. It is concluded that there are correlations between anthropometric variables and interface pressure variables, and that this relationship is affected by body posture. The results of studies on the correlation between pressure variables and passenger comfort and discomfort are not in line with each other. Only associations were found between the other variables (e.g. activities and seat characteristics). A conceptual model illustrates the results of the review, but relationships could not be quantified due to a lack of statistical evidence and large differences in research set-ups between the reviewed papers. Practitioner Summary: This literature review set out to quantify the relationships between human, context and seat characteristics, and comfort and discomfort experience of passenger seats, in order to build a predictive model that can support seat designers and purchasers to make informed decisions. However, statistical evidence is lacking from existing literature.

Statistical estimation of femur micro-architecture using optimal shape and density predictors.

PubMed

Lekadir, Karim; Hazrati-Marangalou, Javad; Hoogendoorn, Corné; Taylor, Zeike; van Rietbergen, Bert; Frangi, Alejandro F

2015-02-26

The personalization of trabecular micro-architecture has been recently shown to be important in patient-specific biomechanical models of the femur. However, high-resolution in vivo imaging of bone micro-architecture using existing modalities is still infeasible in practice due to the associated acquisition times, costs, and X-ray radiation exposure. In this study, we describe a statistical approach for the prediction of the femur micro-architecture based on the more easily extracted subject-specific bone shape and mineral density information. To this end, a training sample of ex vivo micro-CT images is used to learn the existing statistical relationships within the low and high resolution image data. More specifically, optimal bone shape and mineral density features are selected based on their predictive power and used within a partial least square regression model to estimate the unknown trabecular micro-architecture within the anatomical models of new subjects. The experimental results demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed approach, with average errors of 0.07 for both the degree of anisotropy and tensor norms. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Statistical Tests of System Linearity Based on the Method of Surrogate Data

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hunter, N.; Paez, T.; Red-Horse, J.

When dealing with measured data from dynamic systems we often make the tacit assumption that the data are generated by linear dynamics. While some systematic tests for linearity and determinism are available - for example the coherence fimction, the probability density fimction, and the bispectrum - fi,u-ther tests that quanti$ the existence and the degree of nonlinearity are clearly needed. In this paper we demonstrate a statistical test for the nonlinearity exhibited by a dynamic system excited by Gaussian random noise. We perform the usual division of the input and response time series data into blocks as required by themore » Welch method of spectrum estimation and search for significant relationships between a given input fkequency and response at harmonics of the selected input frequency. We argue that systematic tests based on the recently developed statistical method of surrogate data readily detect significant nonlinear relationships. The paper elucidates the method of surrogate data. Typical results are illustrated for a linear single degree-of-freedom system and for a system with polynomial stiffness nonlinearity.« less

Mental disorder and violence: is there a relationship beyond substance use?

PubMed

Van Dorn, Richard; Volavka, Jan; Johnson, Norman

2012-03-01

A general consensus exists that severe mental illness (SMI) increases violence risk. However, a recent report claimed that SMI "alone was not statistically related to future violence in bivariate or multivariate analyses." We reanalyze the data used to make this claim with a focus on causal relationships between SMI and violence, rather than the statistical prediction of violence. Data are from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), a two-wave study (N = 34,653: Wave 1: 2001-2003; Wave 2: 2004-2005). Indicators of mental disorder in the year prior to Wave 1 were used to examine violence between Waves 1 and 2. Those with SMI, irrespective of substance abuse status, were significantly more likely to be violent than those with no mental or substance use disorders. This finding held in both bivariate and multivariable models. Those with comorbid mental and substance use disorders had the highest risk of violence. Historical and current conditions were also associated with violence, including childhood abuse and neglect, household antisocial behavior, binge drinking and stressful life events. These results, in contrast to a recently published report, show that the NESARC data are consistent with the consensus view on mental disorder and violence: there is a statistically significant, yet modest relationship between SMI (within 12 months) and violence, and a stronger relationship between SMI with substance use disorder and violence. These results also highlight the importance of premorbid conditions, and other contemporaneous clinical factors, in violent behavior.

Statistical Learning Is Constrained to Less Abstract Patterns in Complex Sensory Input (but not the Least)

PubMed Central

Emberson, Lauren L.; Rubinstein, Dani

2016-01-01

The influence of statistical information on behavior (either through learning or adaptation) is quickly becoming foundational to many domains of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, from language comprehension to visual development. We investigate a central problem impacting these diverse fields: when encountering input with rich statistical information, are there any constraints on learning? This paper examines learning outcomes when adult learners are given statistical information across multiple levels of abstraction simultaneously: from abstract, semantic categories of everyday objects to individual viewpoints on these objects. After revealing statistical learning of abstract, semantic categories with scrambled individual exemplars (Exp. 1), participants viewed pictures where the categories as well as the individual objects predicted picture order (e.g., bird1—dog1, bird2—dog2). Our findings suggest that participants preferentially encode the relationships between the individual objects, even in the presence of statistical regularities linking semantic categories (Exps. 2 and 3). In a final experiment we investigate whether learners are biased towards learning object-level regularities or simply construct the most detailed model given the data (and therefore best able to predict the specifics of the upcoming stimulus) by investigating whether participants preferentially learn from the statistical regularities linking individual snapshots of objects or the relationship between the objects themselves (e.g., bird_picture1— dog_picture1, bird_picture2—dog_picture2). We find that participants fail to learn the relationships between individual snapshots, suggesting a bias towards object-level statistical regularities as opposed to merely constructing the most complete model of the input. This work moves beyond the previous existence proofs that statistical learning is possible at both very high and very low levels of abstraction (categories vs. individual objects) and suggests that, at least with the current categories and type of learner, there are biases to pick up on statistical regularities between individual objects even when robust statistical information is present at other levels of abstraction. These findings speak directly to emerging theories about how systems supporting statistical learning and prediction operate in our structure-rich environments. Moreover, the theoretical implications of the current work across multiple domains of study is already clear: statistical learning cannot be assumed to be unconstrained even if statistical learning has previously been established at a given level of abstraction when that information is presented in isolation. PMID:27139779

Achieving Organizational Vision at the DeWitt Army Health Care System Through a Focus on Service Quality.

DTIC Science & Technology

1995-05-01

based upon the variables ’ service quality ’ and ’customer satisfaction.’ Service quality was operationally defined as a gap score by subtracting...regression analysis, a statistically significant relationship was shown to exist: (1) between customer satisfaction and service quality , t(387)=13.566... service quality , customer satisfaction and future choice behavior may assist in preparation for the TRICARE initiative.

The relationship between chiropractor required and current level of business knowledge.

PubMed

Ciolfi, Michael Anthony; Kasen, Patsy Anne

2017-01-01

Chiropractors frequently practice within health care systems requiring the business acumen of an entrepreneur. However, some chiropractors do not know the relationship between the level of business knowledge required for practice success and their current level of business knowledge. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between chiropractors' perceived level of business knowledge required and their perceived level of current business knowledge. Two hundred and seventy-four participants completed an online survey (Health Care Training and Education Needs Survey) which included eight key business items. Participants rated the level of perceived business knowledge required (Part I) and their current perceived level of knowledge (Part II) for the same eight items. Data was collected from November 27, 2013 to December 18, 2013. Data were analyzed using Spearman's ranked correlation to determine the statistically significant relationships for the perceived level of knowledge required and the perceived current level of knowledge for each of the paired eight items from Parts I and II of the survey. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Tests were performed to determine the statistical difference between the paired items. The results of Spearman's correlation testing indicated a statistically significant ( p < 0.01) positive correlation for the perceived level of knowledge required and perceived current level of knowledge for six variables: (a) organizational behavior, (b) strategic management, (c) marketing, (d) legal and ethical, (e) managerial decisions, and (f) operations. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks testing indicated a significant difference for three paired items: strategic management; marketing and; legal and ethical. The results suggest that relationships exist for the majority of business items (6 of 8) however a statistically difference was demonstrated in only three of the paired business items. The implications of this study for social change include the potential to improve chiropractors' business knowledge and skills, enable practice success, enhance health services delivery and positively influence the profession as a viable career.

Benefits of statistical molecular design, covariance analysis, and reference models in QSAR: a case study on acetylcholinesterase

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Andersson, C. David; Hillgren, J. Mikael; Lindgren, Cecilia; Qian, Weixing; Akfur, Christine; Berg, Lotta; Ekström, Fredrik; Linusson, Anna

2015-03-01

Scientific disciplines such as medicinal- and environmental chemistry, pharmacology, and toxicology deal with the questions related to the effects small organic compounds exhort on biological targets and the compounds' physicochemical properties responsible for these effects. A common strategy in this endeavor is to establish structure-activity relationships (SARs). The aim of this work was to illustrate benefits of performing a statistical molecular design (SMD) and proper statistical analysis of the molecules' properties before SAR and quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) analysis. Our SMD followed by synthesis yielded a set of inhibitors of the enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE) that had very few inherent dependencies between the substructures in the molecules. If such dependencies exist, they cause severe errors in SAR interpretation and predictions by QSAR-models, and leave a set of molecules less suitable for future decision-making. In our study, SAR- and QSAR models could show which molecular sub-structures and physicochemical features that were advantageous for the AChE inhibition. Finally, the QSAR model was used for the prediction of the inhibition of AChE by an external prediction set of molecules. The accuracy of these predictions was asserted by statistical significance tests and by comparisons to simple but relevant reference models.

Applying Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling to Examine the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale in a Representative Greek Sample.

PubMed

Tsigilis, Nikolaos; Gregoriadis, Athanasios; Grammatikopoulos, Vasilis; Zachopoulou, Evridiki

2018-01-01

Teacher-child relationships in early childhood are a fundamental prerequisite for children's social, emotional, and academic development. The Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS) is one of the most widely accepted and used instruments that evaluate the quality of teacher-child relationships. STRS is a 28-item questionnaire that assess three relational dimensions, Closeness, Conflict, and Dependency. The relevant literature has shown a pattern regarding the difficulty to support the STRS factor structure with CFA, while it is well-documented with EFA. Recently, a new statistical technique was proposed to combine the best of the CFA and EFA namely, the Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM). The purpose of this study was (a) to examine the factor structure of the STRS in a Greek national sample. Toward this end, the ESEM framework was applied in order to overcome the limitations of EFA and CFA, (b) to confirm previous findings about the cultural influence in teacher-child relationship patterns, and (c) to examine the invariance of STRS across gender and age. Early educators from a representative Greek sample size of 535 child care and kindergarten centers completed the STRS for 4,158 children. CFA as well as ESEM procedures were implemented. Results showed that ESEM provided better fit to the data than CFA in both groups, supporting the argument that CFA is an overly restrictive approach in comparison to ESEM for the study of STRS. All primary loadings were statistically significant and were associated with their respective latent factors. Contrary to the existing literature conducted in USA and northern Europe, the association between Closeness and Dependency yielded a positive correlation. This finding is in line with previous studies conducted in Greece and confirm the existence of cultural differences in teacher-child relationships. In addition, findings supported the configural, metric, scalar, and variance/covariance equivalence of the STRS between males and females and between preschoolers (3-5 years) and early primary years (5-7 years). Latent factor means comparisons showed that females seem to have a warmer and more dependent relationship with their teachers and are less conflictual in comparison to males.

Applying Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling to Examine the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale in a Representative Greek Sample

PubMed Central

Tsigilis, Nikolaos; Gregoriadis, Athanasios; Grammatikopoulos, Vasilis; Zachopoulou, Evridiki

2018-01-01

Teacher-child relationships in early childhood are a fundamental prerequisite for children's social, emotional, and academic development. The Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS) is one of the most widely accepted and used instruments that evaluate the quality of teacher-child relationships. STRS is a 28-item questionnaire that assess three relational dimensions, Closeness, Conflict, and Dependency. The relevant literature has shown a pattern regarding the difficulty to support the STRS factor structure with CFA, while it is well-documented with EFA. Recently, a new statistical technique was proposed to combine the best of the CFA and EFA namely, the Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM). The purpose of this study was (a) to examine the factor structure of the STRS in a Greek national sample. Toward this end, the ESEM framework was applied in order to overcome the limitations of EFA and CFA, (b) to confirm previous findings about the cultural influence in teacher-child relationship patterns, and (c) to examine the invariance of STRS across gender and age. Early educators from a representative Greek sample size of 535 child care and kindergarten centers completed the STRS for 4,158 children. CFA as well as ESEM procedures were implemented. Results showed that ESEM provided better fit to the data than CFA in both groups, supporting the argument that CFA is an overly restrictive approach in comparison to ESEM for the study of STRS. All primary loadings were statistically significant and were associated with their respective latent factors. Contrary to the existing literature conducted in USA and northern Europe, the association between Closeness and Dependency yielded a positive correlation. This finding is in line with previous studies conducted in Greece and confirm the existence of cultural differences in teacher-child relationships. In addition, findings supported the configural, metric, scalar, and variance/covariance equivalence of the STRS between males and females and between preschoolers (3–5 years) and early primary years (5–7 years). Latent factor means comparisons showed that females seem to have a warmer and more dependent relationship with their teachers and are less conflictual in comparison to males. PMID:29867688

Contribution of WUSCHEL-related homeobox (WOX) genes to identify the phylogenetic relationships among Petunia species

PubMed Central

Segatto, Ana Lúcia Anversa; Thompson, Claudia Elizabeth; Freitas, Loreta Brandão

2016-01-01

Abstract Developmental genes are believed to contribute to major changes during plant evolution, from infrageneric to higher levels. Due to their putative high sequence conservation, developmental genes are rarely used as molecular markers, and few studies including these sequences at low taxonomic levels exist. WUSCHEL-related homeobox genes (WOX) are transcription factors exclusively present in plants and are involved in developmental processes. In this study, we characterized the infrageneric genetic variation of Petunia WOX genes. We obtained phylogenetic relationships consistent with other phylogenies based on nuclear markers, but with higher statistical support, resolution in terminals, and compatibility with flower morphological changes. PMID:27768156

The structural, connectomic and network covariance of the human brain.

PubMed

Irimia, Andrei; Van Horn, John D

2013-02-01

Though it is widely appreciated that complex structural, functional and morphological relationships exist between distinct areas of the human cerebral cortex, the extent to which such relationships coincide remains insufficiently appreciated. Here we determine the extent to which correlations between brain regions are modulated by either structural, connectomic or network-theoretic properties using a structural neuroimaging data set of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) volumes acquired from N=110 healthy human adults. To identify the linear relationships between all available pairs of regions, we use canonical correlation analysis to test whether a statistically significant correlation exists between each pair of cortical parcels as quantified via structural, connectomic or network-theoretic measures. In addition to this, we investigate (1) how each group of canonical variables (whether structural, connectomic or network-theoretic) contributes to the overall correlation and, additionally, (2) whether each individual variable makes a significant contribution to the test of the omnibus null hypothesis according to which no correlation between regions exists across subjects. We find that, although region-to-region correlations are extensively modulated by structural and connectomic measures, there are appreciable differences in how these two groups of measures drive inter-regional correlation patterns. Additionally, our results indicate that the network-theoretic properties of the cortex are strong modulators of region-to-region covariance. Our findings are useful for understanding the structural and connectomic relationship between various parts of the brain, and can inform theoretical and computational models of cortical information processing. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Relationship between Bruxism and Malocclusion among Preschool Children in Isfahan

PubMed Central

Ghafournia, Maryam; Hajenourozali Tehrani, Maryam

2012-01-01

Background and aims Bruxism is defined as a habitual nonfunctional forceful contact between occlusal tooth surfaces. In younger children bruxism may be a consequence of the masticatory neuromuscular system immaturity. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of bruxism and investigate the relationship between occlusal factors and bruxism among preschool children. Materials and methods In this cross-sectional survey, 400 3-6-year-old children were selected randomly from different preschools in Isfahan, Iran. The subjects were divided into two groups of bruxers and non-bruxers as determined by the clinical examination and their parents’ reports. The examiner recorded the primary canines (Class I, Class II, and Class III) and molars (mesial step, distal step, flash terminal plane) relationship, existence of anterior and posterior crossbite, open and deep bite. Also, rotated teeth, food impaction, sharp tooth edges, high restorations, extensive tooth caries, and painful teeth (categorized as irritating tooth conditions) were evaluated. The relationship between bruxism and occlusal factors and irritating tooth conditions was evaluated with chi-square test. Results Bruxism was seen in 12.75% of the subjects. Statistically significant relationships existed between bruxism and some occlusal factors, such as flash terminal plane (P = 0.023) and mesial step (P = 0.001) and also, between food impaction, extensive tooth caries, tooth pain, sharp tooth edge and bruxism. Conclusion The results showed significant relationship of bruxism with primary molar relationships and irritating tooth conditions among preschool children. PMID:23277860

Head injury as a PTSD predictor among Oklahoma City bombing survivors.

PubMed

Walilko, Timothy; North, Carol; Young, Lee Ann; Lux, Warren E; Warden, Deborah L; Jaffee, Michael S; Moore, David F

2009-12-01

The aim of the Oklahoma City (OKC) bombing retrospective review was to investigate the relationship between physical injury, environmental contributors, and psychiatric disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in an event-based, matched design study focused on injury. The 182 selected participants were a random subset of the 1,092 direct survivors from the OKC bombing. Only 124 of these 182 cases had a full complement of medical/clinical data in the OKC database. These 124 cases were assessed to explore relationships among PTSD diagnoses, levels of blast exposure, and physical injuries. Associations among variables were statistically tested using contingency analysis and logistic regression. Comparison of the PTSD cases to symptoms/diagnoses reported in the medical records reveals a statistically significant association between PTSD and head/brain injuries associated with head acceleration. PTSD was not highly correlated with other injuries. Although blast pressure and impulse were highly correlated with head injuries, the correlation with PTSD was not statistically significant. Thus, a correlation between blast pressure and PTSD may exist, but higher fidelity pressure calculations are required to elucidate this potential relationship. This study provides clear evidence that head injury is associated with subsequent PTSD, giving caregivers' information on what physical injuries may suggest the development of psychologic disorders to aid them in developing a profile for the identification of future survivors of terrorist attacks and Warfighters with brain injuries and potential PTSD.

Relationship between volume and in-hospital mortality in digestive oncological surgery.

PubMed

Pérez-López, Paloma; Baré, Marisa; Touma-Fernández, Ángel; Sarría-Santamera, Antonio

2016-03-01

The results previously obtained in Spain in the study of the relationship between surgical caseload and in-hospital mortality are inconclusive. The aim of this study is to evaluate the volume-outcome association in Spain in the setting of digestive oncological surgery. An analytical, cross-sectional study was conducted with data from patients who underwent surgical procedures with curative intent of esophageal, gastric, colorectal and pancreatic neoplasms between 2006-2009 with data from the Spanish MBDS. In-hospital mortality was used as outcome variable. Control variables were patient, health care and hospital characteristics. Exposure variable was the number of interventions for each disease, dividing the hospitals in 3 categories: high volume (HV), mid volume (MV) and low volume (LV) according to the number of procedures. An inverse, statistically significant relationship between procedure volume and in-hospital mortality was observed for both volume categories in both gastric (LV: OR=1,50 [IC 95%: 1,28-1,76]; MV: OR=1,49 (IC 95%: 1,28-1,74)) and colorectal (LV: OR=1,44 [IC 95%: 1,33-1,55]; MV: OR=1,24 [IC 95%: 1,15-1,33]) cancer surgery. In pancreatic procedures, this difference was only statistically significant between LV and HV categories (LV: OR=1,89 [IC 95%: 1,29-2,75]; MV: OR=1,21 [IC 95%: 0,82-1,79]). Esophageal surgery also showed an inverse relationship, which was not statistically significant (LV: OR=1,89 [IC 95%: 0,98-3,64]; MV: OR=1,05 [IC 95%: 0,50-2,21]). The results of this study suggest the existence in Spain of an inverse relationship between caseload and in-hospital mortality in digestive oncological surgery for the procedures analyzed. Copyright © 2015 AEC. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

[The short-term effects of air pollution on mortality: the results of the EMECAM project in the municipality of Madrid, 1992-1995. Estudio Multicéntrico Español sobre la Relación entre la Contaminación Atmosférica y la Mortalidad].

PubMed

Galán Labaca, I; Aránguez Ruiz, E; Gandarillas Grande, A; Ordóñez Iriarte, J M; Aragonés Sanz, N

1999-01-01

Despite the changes which have taken place in the sources of emissions, the levels of particles, SO2 and CO continue to be high in the municipality of Madrid. Apart from this, photochemical pollutants, such as NO2 and O3 are taking on growing importance due to the increased number of cars and trucks on the road and the major degrees of sunlight in this city. The objective of this article is to set out the short-term relationship between the major pollutants and the daily death rate in the city of Madrid for the 1992-1995 period, using the standardized procedure of the EMECAM Projects (Spanish Multicenter Study of Air Pollution and Death Rate). The daily fluctuations in the death rate for all causes except external ones for all ages and for those individuals over age 69, in addition to those of the circulatory system and respiratory apparatus are related to the daily fluctuations in particles (PM10), SO2, NO2, CO and O3, by means of autoregressive Poisson regression models. The seasonality, tendency, temperature, relative humidity, flu, day of the week, holidays and events out of the ordinary are controlled. Statistically significant positive relationships were found to exist between SO2 and all of the death rate series analyzed, between CO and the death rate of individuals over age 69, as well as with cardiovascular and respiratory deaths and of the particles to the death rate as the result of cardiovascular disease. A statistically significant relationship was also found to exist between NO2 and the cardiovascular death rate. These impact are immediate, that is to say, they occur with the pollutants of the same day. No significant positive relationships were found to exist for O3. These findings suggest that, for a broad spectrum of major pollutants, the current levels of air pollution in Madrid are related to a rise in the death rate.

The interaction between stratospheric monthly mean regional winds and sporadic-E

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Çetin, Kenan; Özcan, Osman; Korlaelçi, Serhat

2017-03-01

In the present study, a statistical investigation is carried out to explore whether there is a relationship between the critical frequency (foEs) of the sporadic-E layer that is occasionally seen on the E region of the ionosphere and the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) that flows in the east-west direction in the equatorial stratosphere. Multiple regression model as a statistical tool was used to determine the relationship between variables. In this model, the stationarity of the variables (foEs and QBO) was firstly analyzed for each station (Cocos Island, Gibilmanna, Niue Island, and Tahiti). Then, a co-integration test was made to determine the existence of a long-term relationship between QBO and foEs. After verifying the presence of a long-term relationship between the variables, the magnitude of the relationship between variables was further determined using the multiple regression model. As a result, it is concluded that the variations in foEs were explainable with QBO measured at 10 hPa altitude at the rate of 69%, 94%, 79%, and 58% for Cocos Island, Gibilmanna, Niue Island, and Tahiti stations, respectively. It is observed that the variations in foEs were explainable with QBO measured at 70 hPa altitude at the rate of 66%, 69%, 53%, and 47% for Cocos Island, Gibilmanna, Niue Island, and Tahiti stations, respectively.

[Application of chemometrics in composition-activity relationship research of traditional Chinese medicine].

PubMed

Han, Sheng-Nan

2014-07-01

Chemometrics is a new branch of chemistry which is widely applied to various fields of analytical chemistry. Chemometrics can use theories and methods of mathematics, statistics, computer science and other related disciplines to optimize the chemical measurement process and maximize access to acquire chemical information and other information on material systems by analyzing chemical measurement data. In recent years, traditional Chinese medicine has attracted widespread attention. In the research of traditional Chinese medicine, it has been a key problem that how to interpret the relationship between various chemical components and its efficacy, which seriously restricts the modernization of Chinese medicine. As chemometrics brings the multivariate analysis methods into the chemical research, it has been applied as an effective research tool in the composition-activity relationship research of Chinese medicine. This article reviews the applications of chemometrics methods in the composition-activity relationship research in recent years. The applications of multivariate statistical analysis methods (such as regression analysis, correlation analysis, principal component analysis, etc. ) and artificial neural network (such as back propagation artificial neural network, radical basis function neural network, support vector machine, etc. ) are summarized, including the brief fundamental principles, the research contents and the advantages and disadvantages. Finally, the existing main problems and prospects of its future researches are proposed.

The epistemological status of general circulation models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Loehle, Craig

2018-03-01

Forecasts of both likely anthropogenic effects on climate and consequent effects on nature and society are based on large, complex software tools called general circulation models (GCMs). Forecasts generated by GCMs have been used extensively in policy decisions related to climate change. However, the relation between underlying physical theories and results produced by GCMs is unclear. In the case of GCMs, many discretizations and approximations are made, and simulating Earth system processes is far from simple and currently leads to some results with unknown energy balance implications. Statistical testing of GCM forecasts for degree of agreement with data would facilitate assessment of fitness for use. If model results need to be put on an anomaly basis due to model bias, then both visual and quantitative measures of model fit depend strongly on the reference period used for normalization, making testing problematic. Epistemology is here applied to problems of statistical inference during testing, the relationship between the underlying physics and the models, the epistemic meaning of ensemble statistics, problems of spatial and temporal scale, the existence or not of an unforced null for climate fluctuations, the meaning of existing uncertainty estimates, and other issues. Rigorous reasoning entails carefully quantifying levels of uncertainty.

Increasing the perceptual salience of relationships in parallel coordinate plots.

PubMed

Harter, Jonathan M; Wu, Xunlei; Alabi, Oluwafemi S; Phadke, Madhura; Pinto, Lifford; Dougherty, Daniel; Petersen, Hannah; Bass, Steffen; Taylor, Russell M

2012-01-01

We present three extensions to parallel coordinates that increase the perceptual salience of relationships between axes in multivariate data sets: (1) luminance modulation maintains the ability to preattentively detect patterns in the presence of overplotting, (2) adding a one-vs.-all variable display highlights relationships between one variable and all others, and (3) adding a scatter plot within the parallel-coordinates display preattentively highlights clusters and spatial layouts without strongly interfering with the parallel-coordinates display. These techniques can be combined with one another and with existing extensions to parallel coordinates, and two of them generalize beyond cases with known-important axes. We applied these techniques to two real-world data sets (relativistic heavy-ion collision hydrodynamics and weather observations with statistical principal component analysis) as well as the popular car data set. We present relationships discovered in the data sets using these methods.

Urban environmental health applications of remote sensing, summary report

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rush, M.; Goldstein, J.; Hsi, B. P.; Olsen, C. B.

1975-01-01

Health and its association with the physical environment was studied based on the hypothesis that there is a relationship between the man-made physical environment and health status of a population. The statistical technique of regression analysis was employed to show the degree of association and aspects of physical environment which accounted for the greater variation in health status. Mortality, venereal disease, tuberculosis, hepatitis, meningitis, shigella/salmonella, hypertension and cardiac arrest/myocardial infarction were examined. The statistical techniques were used to measure association and variation, not necessarily cause and effect. Conclusions drawn show that the association still exists in the decade of the 1970's and that it can be successfully monitored with the methodology of remote sensing.

EEG Sleep Stages Classification Based on Time Domain Features and Structural Graph Similarity.

PubMed

Diykh, Mohammed; Li, Yan; Wen, Peng

2016-11-01

The electroencephalogram (EEG) signals are commonly used in diagnosing and treating sleep disorders. Many existing methods for sleep stages classification mainly depend on the analysis of EEG signals in time or frequency domain to obtain a high classification accuracy. In this paper, the statistical features in time domain, the structural graph similarity and the K-means (SGSKM) are combined to identify six sleep stages using single channel EEG signals. Firstly, each EEG segment is partitioned into sub-segments. The size of a sub-segment is determined empirically. Secondly, statistical features are extracted, sorted into different sets of features and forwarded to the SGSKM to classify EEG sleep stages. We have also investigated the relationships between sleep stages and the time domain features of the EEG data used in this paper. The experimental results show that the proposed method yields better classification results than other four existing methods and the support vector machine (SVM) classifier. A 95.93% average classification accuracy is achieved by using the proposed method.

On alternative q-Weibull and q-extreme value distributions: Properties and applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Fode; Ng, Hon Keung Tony; Shi, Yimin

2018-01-01

Tsallis statistics and Tsallis distributions have been attracting a significant amount of research work in recent years. Importantly, the Tsallis statistics, q-distributions have been applied in different disciplines. Yet, a relationship between some existing q-Weibull distributions and q-extreme value distributions that is parallel to the well-established relationship between the conventional Weibull and extreme value distributions through a logarithmic transformation has not be established. In this paper, we proposed an alternative q-Weibull distribution that leads to a q-extreme value distribution via the q-logarithm transformation. Some important properties of the proposed q-Weibull and q-extreme value distributions are studied. Maximum likelihood and least squares estimation methods are used to estimate the parameters of q-Weibull distribution and their performances are investigated through a Monte Carlo simulation study. The methodologies and the usefulness of the proposed distributions are illustrated by fitting the 2014 traffic fatalities data from The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Factors that influence the use and perceptions of employee assistance programs at six worksites.

PubMed

French, M T; Dunlap, L J; Roman, P M; Steele, P D

1997-10-01

Employee assistance programs (EAPs) have gained significant importance in contemporary worksites. This article uses data from 6 case studies to examine several research questions regarding the relationship between worker demographic (e.g., gender, job tenure, and marital status), substance use, and workplace policies and the actual and potential use of the company EAP. Unlike in most of the existing literature, the authors did not find that gender, marital status, or job dissatisfaction are statistically related to actual or potential EAP use at most worksites. However, job tenure and some substance use behaviors were related to actual EAP use in a positive and statistically significant way. Another important finding, underlying the credible integration of EAPs into worksite culture, is the positive and robust relationship between employee trust and confidence in the EAP and actual use. The results of our study both reinforce some long-established principles in the EAP field and encourage further consideration of other beliefs.

A comparison of error bounds for a nonlinear tracking system with detection probability Pd < 1.

PubMed

Tong, Huisi; Zhang, Hao; Meng, Huadong; Wang, Xiqin

2012-12-14

Error bounds for nonlinear filtering are very important for performance evaluation and sensor management. This paper presents a comparative study of three error bounds for tracking filtering, when the detection probability is less than unity. One of these bounds is the random finite set (RFS) bound, which is deduced within the framework of finite set statistics. The others, which are the information reduction factor (IRF) posterior Cramer-Rao lower bound (PCRLB) and enumeration method (ENUM) PCRLB are introduced within the framework of finite vector statistics. In this paper, we deduce two propositions and prove that the RFS bound is equal to the ENUM PCRLB, while it is tighter than the IRF PCRLB, when the target exists from the beginning to the end. Considering the disappearance of existing targets and the appearance of new targets, the RFS bound is tighter than both IRF PCRLB and ENUM PCRLB with time, by introducing the uncertainty of target existence. The theory is illustrated by two nonlinear tracking applications: ballistic object tracking and bearings-only tracking. The simulation studies confirm the theory and reveal the relationship among the three bounds.

A Comparison of Error Bounds for a Nonlinear Tracking System with Detection Probability Pd < 1

PubMed Central

Tong, Huisi; Zhang, Hao; Meng, Huadong; Wang, Xiqin

2012-01-01

Error bounds for nonlinear filtering are very important for performance evaluation and sensor management. This paper presents a comparative study of three error bounds for tracking filtering, when the detection probability is less than unity. One of these bounds is the random finite set (RFS) bound, which is deduced within the framework of finite set statistics. The others, which are the information reduction factor (IRF) posterior Cramer-Rao lower bound (PCRLB) and enumeration method (ENUM) PCRLB are introduced within the framework of finite vector statistics. In this paper, we deduce two propositions and prove that the RFS bound is equal to the ENUM PCRLB, while it is tighter than the IRF PCRLB, when the target exists from the beginning to the end. Considering the disappearance of existing targets and the appearance of new targets, the RFS bound is tighter than both IRF PCRLB and ENUM PCRLB with time, by introducing the uncertainty of target existence. The theory is illustrated by two nonlinear tracking applications: ballistic object tracking and bearings-only tracking. The simulation studies confirm the theory and reveal the relationship among the three bounds. PMID:23242274

Texture functions in image analysis: A computationally efficient solution

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cox, S. C.; Rose, J. F.

1983-01-01

A computationally efficient means for calculating texture measurements from digital images by use of the co-occurrence technique is presented. The calculation of the statistical descriptors of image texture and a solution that circumvents the need for calculating and storing a co-occurrence matrix are discussed. The results show that existing efficient algorithms for calculating sums, sums of squares, and cross products can be used to compute complex co-occurrence relationships directly from the digital image input.

Nurse's Awareness on Ethico-legal Aspects of Nursing Profession.

PubMed

Paudel Subedi, Krishna Kumari; Timalsina, Kalpana; Bhele, Raja Laxmi

2018-03-13

Nursing practice amicably includes practical efficacy and ethics. Now a days legal and ethical problems associated with client care are arising day by day. Therefore, nurses should have adequate understanding of basic legal concepts and issues relevant to nursing profession in order to protect the rights of the clients and the nurses. A cross sectional descriptive design was adopted for the study. 142 nurses were included by using purposive sampling technique. Data was collected with self-administered structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics was used to reveal demographic information. Kruskal Wallis and Mann Whitney test were used to find out association of selected demographic variables and ethico legal aspects of nursing. Majority of participants were belonging to 20-29 years of age. More than half nurses had complete bachelor's degree and had less than 10 year's experiences. Majority of participants reported that they did not encounter any legal issues in their professional life till date. Similarly, majority of participants had average level knowledge and equate level of practice. Years of experiences and education level did not affect in knowledge level and existing practice related to ethico legal aspect of nursing. There was no significant relationship between level of knowledge and existing practice. Nurses have average knowledge and practice on ethico legal aspects. There is positive relationship between knowledge and practice though it is not statistically significant.

Observational limitations of Bose-Einstein photon statistics and radiation noise in thermal emission

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Y.-J.; Talghader, J. J.

2018-01-01

For many decades, theory has predicted that Bose-Einstein statistics are a fundamental feature of thermal emission into one or a few optical modes; however, the resulting Bose-Einstein-like photon noise has never been experimentally observed. There are at least two reasons for this: (1) Relationships to describe the thermal radiation noise for an arbitrary mode structure have yet to be set forth, and (2) the mode and detector constraints necessary for the detection of such light is extremely hard to fulfill. Herein, photon statistics and radiation noise relationships are developed for systems with any number of modes and couplings to an observing space. The results are shown to reproduce existing special cases of thermal emission and are then applied to resonator systems to discuss physically realizable conditions under which Bose-Einstein-like thermal statistics might be observed. Examples include a single isolated cavity and an emitter cavity coupled to a small detector space. Low-mode-number noise theory shows major deviations from solely Bose-Einstein or Poisson treatments and has particular significance because of recent advances in perfect absorption and subwavelength structures both in the long-wave infrared and terahertz regimes. These microresonator devices tend to utilize a small volume with few modes, a regime where the current theory of thermal emission fluctuations and background noise, which was developed decades ago for free-space or single-mode cavities, has no derived solutions.

Evaluation of standardized and applied variables in predicting treatment outcomes of polytrauma patients.

PubMed

Aksamija, Goran; Mulabdic, Adi; Rasic, Ismar; Muhovic, Samir; Gavric, Igor

2011-01-01

Polytrauma is defined as an injury where they are affected by at least two different organ systems or body, with at least one life-threatening injuries. Given the multilevel model care of polytrauma patients within KCUS are inevitable weaknesses in the management of this category of patients. To determine the dynamics of existing procedures in treatment of polytrauma patients on admission to KCUS, and based on statistical analysis of variables applied to determine and define the factors that influence the final outcome of treatment, and determine their mutual relationship, which may result in eliminating the flaws in the approach to the problem. The study was based on 263 polytrauma patients. Parametric and non-parametric statistical methods were used. Basic statistics were calculated, based on the calculated parameters for the final achievement of research objectives, multicoleration analysis, image analysis, discriminant analysis and multifactorial analysis were used. From the universe of variables for this study we selected sample of n = 25 variables, of which the first two modular, others belong to the common measurement space (n = 23) and in this paper defined as a system variable methods, procedures and assessments of polytrauma patients. After the multicoleration analysis, since the image analysis gave a reliable measurement results, we started the analysis of eigenvalues, that is defining the factors upon which they obtain information about the system solve the problem of the existing model and its correlation with treatment outcome. The study singled out the essential factors that determine the current organizational model of care, which may affect the treatment and better outcome of polytrauma patients. This analysis has shown the maximum correlative relationships between these practices and contributed to development guidelines that are defined by isolated factors.

The independent relationship between triglycerides and coronary heart disease.

PubMed

Morrison, Alan; Hokanson, John E

2009-01-01

The aim was to review epidemiologic studies to reassess whether serum levels of triglycerides should be considered independently of high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) as a predictor of coronary heart disease (CHD). We systematically reviewed population-based cohort studies in which baseline serum levels of triglycerides and HDL-C were included as explanatory variables in multivariate analyses with the development of CHD (coronary events or coronary death) as dependent variable. A total of 32 unique reports describing 38 cohorts were included. The independent association between elevated triglycerides and risk of CHD was statistically significant in 16 of 30 populations without pre-existing CHD. Among populations with diabetes mellitus or pre-existing CHD, or the elderly, triglycerides were not significantly independently associated with CHD in any of 8 cohorts. Triglycerides and HDL-C were mutually exclusive predictors of coronary events in 12 of 20 analyses of patients without pre-existing CHD. Epidemiologic studies provide evidence of an association between triglycerides and the development of primary CHD independently of HDL-C. Evidence of an inverse relationship between triglycerides and HDL-C suggests that both should be considered in CHD risk estimation and as targets for intervention.

The independent relationship between triglycerides and coronary heart disease

PubMed Central

Morrison, Alan; Hokanson, John E

2009-01-01

Aims: The aim was to review epidemiologic studies to reassess whether serum levels of triglycerides should be considered independently of high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) as a predictor of coronary heart disease (CHD). Methods and results: We systematically reviewed population-based cohort studies in which baseline serum levels of triglycerides and HDL-C were included as explanatory variables in multivariate analyses with the development of CHD (coronary events or coronary death) as dependent variable. A total of 32 unique reports describing 38 cohorts were included. The independent association between elevated triglycerides and risk of CHD was statistically significant in 16 of 30 populations without pre-existing CHD. Among populations with diabetes mellitus or pre-existing CHD, or the elderly, triglycerides were not significantly independently associated with CHD in any of 8 cohorts. Triglycerides and HDL-C were mutually exclusive predictors of coronary events in 12 of 20 analyses of patients without pre-existing CHD. Conclusions: Epidemiologic studies provide evidence of an association between triglycerides and the development of primary CHD independently of HDL-C. Evidence of an inverse relationship between triglycerides and HDL-C suggests that both should be considered in CHD risk estimation and as targets for intervention. PMID:19436658

Concussion Knowledge and Reporting Behavior Differences Between High School Athletes at Urban and Suburban High Schools.

PubMed

Wallace, Jessica; Covassin, Tracey; Nogle, Sally; Gould, Daniel; Kovan, Jeffrey

2017-09-01

We determined differences in knowledge of concussion and reporting behaviors of high school athletes attending urban and suburban high schools, and whether a relationship exists between underreporting and access to an athletic trainer in urban schools. High school athletes (N = 715) from 14 high schools completed a validated knowledge of concussion survey consisting of 83 questions. The independent variable was school type (urban/suburban). We examined the proportion of athletes who correctly identified signs and symptoms of concussion, knowledge of concussion and reasons why high school athletes would not disclose a potential concussive injury across school classification. Data were analyzed using descriptive, non-parametric, and inferential statistics. Athletes attending urban schools have less concussion knowledge than athletes attending suburban schools (p < .01). Athletes attending urban schools without an athletic trainer have less knowledge than urban athletes at schools with an athletic trainer (p < .01) There was no significant relationship between reporting percentage and school type (p = .73); however, significant relationships exist between AT access at urban schools and 10 reasons for not reporting. Concussion education efforts cannot be homogeneous in all communities. Education interventions must reflect the needs of each community. © 2017, American School Health Association.

Socio-Spatial Patterning of Off-Sale and On-Sale Alcohol Outlets in a Texas City

PubMed Central

Han, Daikwon; Gorman, Dennis M.

2014-01-01

Introduction and Aims To examine the socio-spatial patterning of off-sale and on-sale alcohol outlets following a policy change that ended prohibition of off-sale outlets in Lubbock, Texas. Design and Methods The spatial patterning of alcohol outlets by licensing type was examined using the k-function difference (D statistic) to compare the relative degree of spatial aggregation of the two types of alcohol outlets and by the spatial scan statistic to identify statistically significant geographic clusters of outlets. The sociodemographic characteristics of the areas containing clusters of outlets were compared to the rest of the city. In addition, the socioeconomic characteristics of census block groups with and without existing on-sale outlets were compared, as were the socioeconomic characteristics of census block groups with and without the newly issued off-sale licenses. Results The existing on-sale premises in Lubbock and the newly established off-sale premises introduced as a result of the 2009 policy change displayed different spatial patterns, with the latter being more spatially dispersed. A large cluster of on-sale outlets identified in the north-east of the city was located in a socially and economically disadvantaged area of the city. Discussion and Conclusion The findings support the view that it is important to understand the local context of deprivation within a city when examining the location of alcohol outlets and add to the existing research by drawing attention to the importance of geographic scale in assessing such relationships. PMID:24320205

Socio-spatial patterning of off-sale and on-sale alcohol outlets in a Texas city.

PubMed

Han, Daikwon; Gorman, Dennis M

2014-03-01

To examine the socio-spatial patterning of off-sale and on-sale alcohol outlets following a policy change that ended prohibition of off-sale outlets in Lubbock, Texas. The spatial patterning of alcohol outlets by licensing type was examined using the k-function difference (D statistic) to compare the relative degree of spatial aggregation of the two types of alcohol outlets and by the spatial scan statistic to identify statistically significant geographic clusters of outlets. The sociodemographic characteristics of the areas containing clusters of outlets were compared with the rest of the city. In addition, the socioeconomic characteristics of census block groups with and without existing on-sale outlets were compared, as were the socioeconomic characteristics of census block groups with and without the newly issued off-sale licenses. The existing on-sale premises in Lubbock and the newly established off-sale premises introduced as a result of the 2009 policy change displayed different spatial patterns, with the latter being more spatially dispersed. A large cluster of on-sale outlets identified in the north-east of the city was located in a socially and economically disadvantaged area of the city. The findings support the view that it is important to understand the local context of deprivation within a city when examining the location of alcohol outlets and add to the existing research by drawing attention to the importance of geographic scale in assessing such relationships. © 2013 Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs.

Robust Statistical Detection of Power-Law Cross-Correlation.

PubMed

Blythe, Duncan A J; Nikulin, Vadim V; Müller, Klaus-Robert

2016-06-02

We show that widely used approaches in statistical physics incorrectly indicate the existence of power-law cross-correlations between financial stock market fluctuations measured over several years and the neuronal activity of the human brain lasting for only a few minutes. While such cross-correlations are nonsensical, no current methodology allows them to be reliably discarded, leaving researchers at greater risk when the spurious nature of cross-correlations is not clear from the unrelated origin of the time series and rather requires careful statistical estimation. Here we propose a theory and method (PLCC-test) which allows us to rigorously and robustly test for power-law cross-correlations, correctly detecting genuine and discarding spurious cross-correlations, thus establishing meaningful relationships between processes in complex physical systems. Our method reveals for the first time the presence of power-law cross-correlations between amplitudes of the alpha and beta frequency ranges of the human electroencephalogram.

[The metrology of uncertainty: a study of vital statistics from Chile and Brazil].

PubMed

Carvajal, Yuri; Kottow, Miguel

2012-11-01

This paper addresses the issue of uncertainty in the measurements used in public health analysis and decision-making. The Shannon-Wiener entropy measure was adapted to express the uncertainty contained in counting causes of death in official vital statistics from Chile. Based on the findings, the authors conclude that metrological requirements in public health are as important as the measurements themselves. The study also considers and argues for the existence of uncertainty associated with the statistics' performative properties, both by the way the data are structured as a sort of syntax of reality and by exclusion of what remains beyond the quantitative modeling used in each case. Following the legacy of pragmatic thinking and using conceptual tools from the sociology of translation, the authors emphasize that by taking uncertainty into account, public health can contribute to a discussion on the relationship between technology, democracy, and formation of a participatory public.

Robust Statistical Detection of Power-Law Cross-Correlation

PubMed Central

Blythe, Duncan A. J.; Nikulin, Vadim V.; Müller, Klaus-Robert

2016-01-01

We show that widely used approaches in statistical physics incorrectly indicate the existence of power-law cross-correlations between financial stock market fluctuations measured over several years and the neuronal activity of the human brain lasting for only a few minutes. While such cross-correlations are nonsensical, no current methodology allows them to be reliably discarded, leaving researchers at greater risk when the spurious nature of cross-correlations is not clear from the unrelated origin of the time series and rather requires careful statistical estimation. Here we propose a theory and method (PLCC-test) which allows us to rigorously and robustly test for power-law cross-correlations, correctly detecting genuine and discarding spurious cross-correlations, thus establishing meaningful relationships between processes in complex physical systems. Our method reveals for the first time the presence of power-law cross-correlations between amplitudes of the alpha and beta frequency ranges of the human electroencephalogram. PMID:27250630

An evaluation of a drama program to enhance social relationships and anti-bullying at elementary school: a controlled study.

PubMed

Joronen, Katja; Konu, Anne; Rankin, H Sally; Astedt-Kurki, Päivi

2012-03-01

Drama, theater and role-playing methods are commonly used in health promotion programs, but evidence of their effectiveness is limited. This paper describes the development, implementation and evaluation of a school-based drama program to enhance social relationships and decrease bullying at school in children in grades 4-5 (mean age of 10.4 years). Students (n = 190) were recruited from two primary schools with similar demographics and socio-economics in the Southern Finland and purposively allocated either to an intervention group or a control group. The drama program included classroom drama sessions, follow-up activities at home and three parents' evenings concerning issues of social well being during the school year September 2007-May 2008. Data on social relationships in the class room and experiences of bullying were obtained before and after the program using self-completed questionnaire from the same students (n = 134). The response rate was 71%. No differences in socio-demographics existed between intervention group and control group at pretest. The positive effect on social relationships resulting from the intervention approached statistical significance (p = 0.065). Moreover, the positive effect was found to be statistically significant in the high-intensity intervention classes (p = 0.011). Bullying victimization decreased 20.7 percentage units from pretest (58.8%) to posttest (38.1%) in the intervention group (p < 0.05). The study indicates that using applied drama and theater methods in the classroom may improve children's social relationships at school.

Relationship of the functional movement screen in-line lunge to power, speed, and balance measures.

PubMed

Hartigan, Erin H; Lawrence, Michael; Bisson, Brian M; Torgerson, Erik; Knight, Ryan C

2014-05-01

The in-line lunge of the Functional Movement Screen (FMS) evaluates lateral stability, balance, and movement asymmetries. Athletes who score poorly on the in-line lunge should avoid activities requiring power or speed until scores are improved, yet relationships between the in-line lunge scores and other measures of balance, power, and speed are unknown. (1) Lunge scores will correlate with center of pressure (COP), maximum jump height (MJH), and 36.6-meter sprint time and (2) there will be no differences between limbs on lunge scores, MJH, or COP. Descriptive laboratory study. Level 3. Thirty-seven healthy, active participants completed the first 3 tasks of the FMS (eg, deep squat, hurdle step, in-line lunge), unilateral drop jumps, and 36.6-meter sprints. A 3-dimensional motion analysis system captured MJH. Force platforms measured COP excursion. A laser timing system measured 36.6-m sprint time. Statistical analyses were used to determine whether a relationship existed between lunge scores and COP, MJH, and 36.6-m speed (Spearman rho tests) and whether differences existed between limbs in lunge scores (Wilcoxon signed-rank test), MJH, and COP (paired t tests). Lunge scores were not significantly correlated with COP, MJH, or 36.6-m sprint time. Lunge scores, COP excursion, and MJH were not statistically different between limbs. Performance on the FMS in-line lunge was not related to balance, power, or speed. Healthy participants were symmetrical in lunging measures and MJH. Scores on the FMS in-line lunge should not be attributed to power, speed, or balance performance without further examination. However, assessing limb symmetry appears to be clinically relevant.

Learning physics concepts as a function of colloquial language usage

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maier, Steven J.

Data from two sections of college introductory, algebra-based physics courses (n1 = 139, n2 = 91) were collected using three separate instruments to investigate the relationships between reasoning ability, conceptual gain and colloquial language usage. To obtain a measure of reasoning ability, Lawson's Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning Ability (TSR) was administered once near mid-term for each sample. The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) was administered at the beginning and at the end of the term for pre- and post-test measures. Pre- and post-test data from the Mechanics Language Usage instrument were also collected in conjunction with FCI data collection at the beginning and end of the term. The MLU was developed specifically for this study prior to data collection, and results of a pilot test to establish validity and reliability are reported. T-tests were performed on the data collected to compare the means from each sample. In addition, correlations among the measures were investigated between the samples separately and combined. Results from these investigations served as justification for combining the samples into a single sample of 230 for performing further statistical analyses. The primary objective of this study was to determine if scientific reasoning ability (a function of developmental stage) and conceptual gains in Newtonian mechanics predict students' usages of "force" as measured by the MLU. Regression analyses were performed to evaluate these mediated relationships among TSR and FCI performance as a predictor of MLU performance. Statistically significant correlations and relationships existed among several of the measures, which are discussed at length in the body of the narrative. The findings of this research are that although there exists a discernable relationship between reasoning ability and conceptual change, more work needs to be done to establish improved quantitative measures of the role language usage has in developing understandings of course content.

Statistical analysis of aerosol species, trace gasses, and meteorology in Chicago.

PubMed

Binaku, Katrina; O'Brien, Timothy; Schmeling, Martina; Fosco, Tinamarie

2013-09-01

Both canonical correlation analysis (CCA) and principal component analysis (PCA) were applied to atmospheric aerosol and trace gas concentrations and meteorological data collected in Chicago during the summer months of 2002, 2003, and 2004. Concentrations of ammonium, calcium, nitrate, sulfate, and oxalate particulate matter, as well as, meteorological parameters temperature, wind speed, wind direction, and humidity were subjected to CCA and PCA. Ozone and nitrogen oxide mixing ratios were also included in the data set. The purpose of statistical analysis was to determine the extent of existing linear relationship(s), or lack thereof, between meteorological parameters and pollutant concentrations in addition to reducing dimensionality of the original data to determine sources of pollutants. In CCA, the first three canonical variate pairs derived were statistically significant at the 0.05 level. Canonical correlation between the first canonical variate pair was 0.821, while correlations of the second and third canonical variate pairs were 0.562 and 0.461, respectively. The first canonical variate pair indicated that increasing temperatures resulted in high ozone mixing ratios, while the second canonical variate pair showed wind speed and humidity's influence on local ammonium concentrations. No new information was uncovered in the third variate pair. Canonical loadings were also interpreted for information regarding relationships between data sets. Four principal components (PCs), expressing 77.0 % of original data variance, were derived in PCA. Interpretation of PCs suggested significant production and/or transport of secondary aerosols in the region (PC1). Furthermore, photochemical production of ozone and wind speed's influence on pollutants were expressed (PC2) along with overall measure of local meteorology (PC3). In summary, CCA and PCA results combined were successful in uncovering linear relationships between meteorology and air pollutants in Chicago and aided in determining possible pollutant sources.

A randomized trial in a massive online open course shows people don't know what a statistically significant relationship looks like, but they can learn.

PubMed

Fisher, Aaron; Anderson, G Brooke; Peng, Roger; Leek, Jeff

2014-01-01

Scatterplots are the most common way for statisticians, scientists, and the public to visually detect relationships between measured variables. At the same time, and despite widely publicized controversy, P-values remain the most commonly used measure to statistically justify relationships identified between variables. Here we measure the ability to detect statistically significant relationships from scatterplots in a randomized trial of 2,039 students in a statistics massive open online course (MOOC). Each subject was shown a random set of scatterplots and asked to visually determine if the underlying relationships were statistically significant at the P < 0.05 level. Subjects correctly classified only 47.4% (95% CI [45.1%-49.7%]) of statistically significant relationships, and 74.6% (95% CI [72.5%-76.6%]) of non-significant relationships. Adding visual aids such as a best fit line or scatterplot smooth increased the probability a relationship was called significant, regardless of whether the relationship was actually significant. Classification of statistically significant relationships improved on repeat attempts of the survey, although classification of non-significant relationships did not. Our results suggest: (1) that evidence-based data analysis can be used to identify weaknesses in theoretical procedures in the hands of average users, (2) data analysts can be trained to improve detection of statistically significant results with practice, but (3) data analysts have incorrect intuition about what statistically significant relationships look like, particularly for small effects. We have built a web tool for people to compare scatterplots with their corresponding p-values which is available here: http://glimmer.rstudio.com/afisher/EDA/.

A randomized trial in a massive online open course shows people don’t know what a statistically significant relationship looks like, but they can learn

PubMed Central

Fisher, Aaron; Anderson, G. Brooke; Peng, Roger

2014-01-01

Scatterplots are the most common way for statisticians, scientists, and the public to visually detect relationships between measured variables. At the same time, and despite widely publicized controversy, P-values remain the most commonly used measure to statistically justify relationships identified between variables. Here we measure the ability to detect statistically significant relationships from scatterplots in a randomized trial of 2,039 students in a statistics massive open online course (MOOC). Each subject was shown a random set of scatterplots and asked to visually determine if the underlying relationships were statistically significant at the P < 0.05 level. Subjects correctly classified only 47.4% (95% CI [45.1%–49.7%]) of statistically significant relationships, and 74.6% (95% CI [72.5%–76.6%]) of non-significant relationships. Adding visual aids such as a best fit line or scatterplot smooth increased the probability a relationship was called significant, regardless of whether the relationship was actually significant. Classification of statistically significant relationships improved on repeat attempts of the survey, although classification of non-significant relationships did not. Our results suggest: (1) that evidence-based data analysis can be used to identify weaknesses in theoretical procedures in the hands of average users, (2) data analysts can be trained to improve detection of statistically significant results with practice, but (3) data analysts have incorrect intuition about what statistically significant relationships look like, particularly for small effects. We have built a web tool for people to compare scatterplots with their corresponding p-values which is available here: http://glimmer.rstudio.com/afisher/EDA/. PMID:25337457

Social relationships among adolescents as described in an electronic diary: a mixed methods study.

PubMed

Anttila, Katriina I; Anttila, Minna J; Kurki, Marjo H; Välimäki, Maritta A

2017-01-01

Social relationships among adolescents with mental disorders are demanding. Adolescents with depressive symptoms may have few relationships and have difficulties sharing their problems. Internet may offer reliable and easy to use tool to collect real-time information from adolescents. The aim of this study is to explore how adolescents describe their social relationships with an electronic diary. Mixed methods were used to obtain a broad picture of adolescents' social relationships with the data gathered from network maps and reflective texts written in an electronic diary. Adolescents who visited an outpatient clinic and used an intervention (N=70) designed for adolescents with signs of depression were invited to use the electronic diary; 29 did so. The quantitative data gathered in the electronic diary were summarized with descriptive statistics, and the qualitative data were categorized using a thematic analysis with an inductive approach. We found that social relationships among adolescents with signs of depression can vary greatly in regards to the number of existing relationships (from lacking to 21) and the quality of the relationships (from trustful to difficult). However, the relationships may change, and the adolescents are also willing to build up their social relationships. Professionals need to be aware of the diversity of adolescents' social relationships and their need for personalized support.

Social relationships among adolescents as described in an electronic diary: a mixed methods study

PubMed Central

Anttila, Katriina I; Anttila, Minna J; Kurki, Marjo H; Välimäki, Maritta A

2017-01-01

Social relationships among adolescents with mental disorders are demanding. Adolescents with depressive symptoms may have few relationships and have difficulties sharing their problems. Internet may offer reliable and easy to use tool to collect real-time information from adolescents. The aim of this study is to explore how adolescents describe their social relationships with an electronic diary. Mixed methods were used to obtain a broad picture of adolescents’ social relationships with the data gathered from network maps and reflective texts written in an electronic diary. Adolescents who visited an outpatient clinic and used an intervention (N=70) designed for adolescents with signs of depression were invited to use the electronic diary; 29 did so. The quantitative data gathered in the electronic diary were summarized with descriptive statistics, and the qualitative data were categorized using a thematic analysis with an inductive approach. We found that social relationships among adolescents with signs of depression can vary greatly in regards to the number of existing relationships (from lacking to 21) and the quality of the relationships (from trustful to difficult). However, the relationships may change, and the adolescents are also willing to build up their social relationships. Professionals need to be aware of the diversity of adolescents’ social relationships and their need for personalized support. PMID:28280307

Source mass eruption rate retrieved from satellite-based data using statistical modelling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gouhier, Mathieu; Guillin, Arnaud; Azzaoui, Nourddine; Eychenne, Julia; Valade, Sébastien

2015-04-01

Ash clouds emitted during volcanic eruptions have long been recognized as a major hazard likely to have dramatic consequences on aircrafts, environment and people. Thus, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) established nine Volcanic Ash Advisory Centers (VAACs) around the world, whose mission is to forecast the location and concentration of ash clouds over hours to days, using volcanic ash transport and dispersion models (VATDs). Those models use input parameters such as plume height (PH), particle size distribution (PSD), and mass eruption rate (MER), the latter being a key parameter as it directly controls the amount of ash injected into the atmosphere. The MER can be obtained rather accurately from detailed ground deposit studies, but this method does not match the operational requirements in case of a volcanic crisis. Thus, VAACs use empirical laws to determine the MER from the estimation of the plume height. In some cases, this method can be difficult to apply, either because plume height data are not available or because uncertainties related to this method are too large. We propose here an alternative method based on the utilization of satellite data to assess the MER at the source, during explosive eruptions. Satellite-based techniques allow fine ash cloud loading to be quantitatively retrieved far from the source vent. Those measurements can be carried out in a systematic and real-time fashion using geostationary satellite, in particular. We tested here the relationship likely to exist between the amount of fine ash dispersed in the atmosphere and of coarser tephra deposited on the ground. The sum of both contributions yielding an estimate of the MER. For this purpose we examined 19 eruptions (of known duration) in detail for which both (i) the amount of fine ash dispersed in the atmosphere, and (ii) the mass of tephra deposited on the ground have been estimated and published. We combined these data with contextual information that may influence the statistical relationship such as the magma composition or the existence of phreatomagmatism. In order to infer the relationship between ash content in the atmosphere and the amount of tephra on the ground, we used advanced statistic modelling using model selection, with AIC-type (Akaike Information Criterion) penalization, and classification. First we show that a reliable statistical relationship does exist between atmospheric fine ash and tephra fall deposits. Then we show that magma composition does have an effect on this relationship. It follows a power function in the form S_1=c_0{S_2}c_1(P_n))Hc_2 having a coefficient of determination r2=0.91 and a prediction error of 2.16 at a confidence level of 95%. S1 is the mass of tephra fall deposits and S2 is the fine ash cloud mass as retrieved from satellite measurements. H is the plume height, c0 and c2 are constant coefficients while c1 is variable and depends on the magma composition type (Pn=1:3). This method greatly improves the prediction capability of the source MER as compared to the one based on the plume height solely. If available in real-time, satellite data might be advantageously used as a proxy by the VAACs, to derive key source parameters such as the MER.

Fabricating data: How substituting values for nondetects can ruin results, and what can be done about it

USGS Publications Warehouse

Helsel, D.R.

2006-01-01

The most commonly used method in environmental chemistry to deal with values below detection limits is to substitute a fraction of the detection limit for each nondetect. Two decades of research has shown that this fabrication of values produces poor estimates of statistics, and commonly obscures patterns and trends in the data. Papers using substitution may conclude that significant differences, correlations, and regression relationships do not exist, when in fact they do. The reverse may also be true. Fortunately, good alternative methods for dealing with nondetects already exist, and are summarized here with references to original sources. Substituting values for nondetects should be used rarely, and should generally be considered unacceptable in scientific research. There are better ways.

ProbOnto: ontology and knowledge base of probability distributions.

PubMed

Swat, Maciej J; Grenon, Pierre; Wimalaratne, Sarala

2016-09-01

Probability distributions play a central role in mathematical and statistical modelling. The encoding, annotation and exchange of such models could be greatly simplified by a resource providing a common reference for the definition of probability distributions. Although some resources exist, no suitably detailed and complex ontology exists nor any database allowing programmatic access. ProbOnto, is an ontology-based knowledge base of probability distributions, featuring more than 80 uni- and multivariate distributions with their defining functions, characteristics, relationships and re-parameterization formulas. It can be used for model annotation and facilitates the encoding of distribution-based models, related functions and quantities. http://probonto.org mjswat@ebi.ac.uk Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press.

Missing data imputation: focusing on single imputation.

PubMed

Zhang, Zhongheng

2016-01-01

Complete case analysis is widely used for handling missing data, and it is the default method in many statistical packages. However, this method may introduce bias and some useful information will be omitted from analysis. Therefore, many imputation methods are developed to make gap end. The present article focuses on single imputation. Imputations with mean, median and mode are simple but, like complete case analysis, can introduce bias on mean and deviation. Furthermore, they ignore relationship with other variables. Regression imputation can preserve relationship between missing values and other variables. There are many sophisticated methods exist to handle missing values in longitudinal data. This article focuses primarily on how to implement R code to perform single imputation, while avoiding complex mathematical calculations.

Missing data imputation: focusing on single imputation

PubMed Central

2016-01-01

Complete case analysis is widely used for handling missing data, and it is the default method in many statistical packages. However, this method may introduce bias and some useful information will be omitted from analysis. Therefore, many imputation methods are developed to make gap end. The present article focuses on single imputation. Imputations with mean, median and mode are simple but, like complete case analysis, can introduce bias on mean and deviation. Furthermore, they ignore relationship with other variables. Regression imputation can preserve relationship between missing values and other variables. There are many sophisticated methods exist to handle missing values in longitudinal data. This article focuses primarily on how to implement R code to perform single imputation, while avoiding complex mathematical calculations. PMID:26855945

Across the Great Divide: The Effects of Technology in Secondary Biology Classrooms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Worley, Johnny Howard, II

This study investigates the relationship between technology use and student achievement in public high school across North Carolina. The purpose of this study was to determine whether a digital divide (differences in technology utilization based on student demographics of race/ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, and municipality) exists among schools and whether those differences relate to student achievement in high school biology classrooms. The study uses North Carolina end-of-course (EOC) data for biology to analyze student demographic data and assessment results from the 2010-2011 school year from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. The data analyses use descriptive and factorial univariate statistics to determine the existence of digital divides and their effects on biology achievement. Analysis of these data described patterns of technology use to determine whether potential variances resulted in a digital divide. Specific technology uses were identified in the data and then their impact on biology achievement scores within various demographic groups was examined. Research findings revealed statistically significant variations of use within different population groups. Despite being statistically significant, the relevance of the association in the variations was minimal at best -- based on the effect scale established by Cohen (1988). Additional factorial univariate analyses were employed to determine potential relationships between technology use and student achievement. The data revealed that technology use did not influence the variation of student achievement scale scores as much as race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. White students outperformed Hispanic students by an average of three scale score points and Black students by an average of six scale score points. Technology use alone averaged less than a one point difference in mean scale scores, and only when interacting with race, gender, and/or SES did the mean difference increase. However, this increase within the context of the biology scale score range was negligible. This study contributes to the existing body of research on the effects of technology use on student achievement and its influence within various student demographic groups and municipalities. The study also provides additional research information for effective technology utilization, implementation, and instruction in educational environments.

A study of the relationship between learning styles and cognitive abilities in engineering students

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hames, E.; Baker, M.

2015-03-01

Learning preferences have been indirectly linked to student success in engineering programmes, without a significant body of research to connect learning preferences with cognitive abilities. A better understanding of the relationship between learning styles and cognitive abilities will allow educators to optimise the classroom experience for students. The goal of this study was to determine whether relationships exist between student learning styles, as determined by the Felder-Soloman Inventory of Learning Styles (FSILS), and their cognitive performance. Three tests were used to assess student's cognitive abilities: a matrix reasoning task, a Tower of London task, and a mental rotation task. Statistical t-tests and correlation coefficients were used to quantify the results. Results indicated that the global-sequential, active-referential, and visual-verbal FSILS learning styles scales are related to performance on cognitive tasks. Most of these relationships were found in response times, not accuracy. Differences in task performance between gender groups (male and female) were more notable than differences between learning styles groups.

The long-run dynamic relationship between exchange rate and its attention index: Based on DCCA and TOP method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Xuan; Guo, Kun; Lu, Xiaolin

2016-07-01

The behavior information of financial market plays a more and more important role in modern economic system. The behavior information reflected in INTERNET search data has already been used in short-term prediction for exchange rate, stock market return, house price and so on. However, the long-run relationship between behavior information and financial market fluctuation has not been studied systematically. Further, most traditional statistic methods and econometric models could not catch the dynamic and non-linear relationship. An attention index of CNY/USD exchange rate is constructed based on search data from 360 search engine of China in this paper. Then the DCCA and Thermal Optimal Path methods are used to explore the long-run dynamic relationship between CNY/USD exchange rate and the corresponding attention index. The results show that the significant interdependency exists and the change of exchange rate is 1-2 days lag behind the attention index.

[Relationships between workers' interpersonal helping behavior, social supports, job stressors, psychological stress responses, and vigor in manufacturing industry].

PubMed

Horita, Yuji; Otsuka, Yasumasa

2014-01-01

In the NIOSH Generic Job Stress Model, social support is assumed to moderate the relationship between job stressors and stress responses. However, few studies have investigated how to enhance social support in the workplace. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between interpersonal helping behavior, social support, job stressors, psychological stress responses, and vigor among Japanese workers. A total of 240 workers in manufacturing companies returned a questionnaire regarding their interpersonal helping behavior, social support, job stressors, psychological stress responses, and vigor (response rate = 96.0%). After excluding 40 participants due to missing responses, data from a total of 200 participants (163 male and 37 female, mean age = 40.3 yr) were used in the final analyses. Interpersonal helping behavior was assessed by the Japanese version of the Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scale. The Brief Job Stress Questionnaire was used to measure job stressors, psychological stress responses, social support, and vigor. Structured equation modeling was performed to examine the relationships between interpersonal helping behavior, social support, job stressors, psychological stress responses, and vigor. Interpersonal helping behavior had a statistically significant negative effect on psychological stress response through increasing social support. However, interpersonal helping behavior had a statistically significant positive effect on psychological stress response through increasing the quantitative workload. Of these two effects, the former was stronger than the latter. In addition, interpersonal helping behavior had a statistically significant positive effect on vigor through increasing social support. Although interpersonal helping behavior, which helps other workers may increase quantitative workload, leading to high levels of psychological stress responses, that same behavior strengthens trust and team spirit among workers and may enhance social support, leading to low levels of psychological stress responses and high levels of vigor. However, reverse causal relationships may also exist, because our study design was cross-sectional.

Impact of parental relationships in maximum lod score affected sib-pair method.

PubMed

Leutenegger, Anne-Louise; Génin, Emmanuelle; Thompson, Elizabeth A; Clerget-Darpoux, Françoise

2002-11-01

Many studies are done in small isolated populations and populations where marriages between relatives are encouraged. In this paper, we point out some problems with applying the maximum lod score (MLS) method (Risch, [1990] Am. J. Hum. Genet. 46:242-253) in these populations where relationships exist between the two parents of the affected sib-pairs. Characterizing the parental relationships by the kinship coefficient between the parents (f), the maternal inbreeding coefficient (alpha(m), and the paternal inbreeding coefficient (alpha(p)), we explored the relationship between the identity by descent (IBD) vector expected under the null hypothesis of no linkage and these quantities. We find that the expected IBD vector is no longer (0.25, 0.5, 0.25) when f, alpha(m), and alpha(p) differ from zero. In addition, the expected IBD vector does not always follow the triangle constraints recommended by Holmans ([1993] Am. J. Hum. Genet. 52:362-374). So the classically used MLS statistic needs to be adapted to the presence of parental relationships. We modified the software GENEHUNTER (Kruglyak et al. [1996] Am. J. Hum. Genet. 58: 1347-1363) to do so. Indeed, the current version of the software does not compute the likelihood properly under the null hypothesis. We studied the adapted statistic by simulating data on three different family structures: (1) parents are double first cousins (f=0.125, alpha(m)=alpha(p)=0), (2) each parent is the offspring of first cousins (f=0, alpha(m)=alpha(p)=0.0625), and (3) parents are related as in the pedigree from Goddard et al. ([1996] Am. J. Hum. Genet. 58:1286-1302) (f=0.109, alpha(m)=alpha(p)=0.0625). The appropriate threshold needs to be derived for each case in order to get the correct type I error. And using the classical statistic in the presence of both parental kinship and parental inbreeding almost always leads to false conclusions. Copyright 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

NO RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INTELLIGENCE AND FACIAL ATTRACTIVENESS IN A LARGE, GENETICALLY INFORMATIVE SAMPLE

PubMed Central

Mitchem, Dorian G.; Zietsch, Brendan P.; Wright, Margaret J.; Martin, Nicholas G.; Hewitt, John K.; Keller, Matthew C.

2015-01-01

Theories in both evolutionary and social psychology suggest that a positive correlation should exist between facial attractiveness and general intelligence, and several empirical observations appear to corroborate this expectation. Using highly reliable measures of facial attractiveness and IQ in a large sample of identical and fraternal twins and their siblings, we found no evidence for a phenotypic correlation between these traits. Likewise, neither the genetic nor the environmental latent factor correlations were statistically significant. We supplemented our analyses of new data with a simple meta-analysis that found evidence of publication bias among past studies of the relationship between facial attractiveness and intelligence. In view of these results, we suggest that previously published reports may have overestimated the strength of the relationship and that the theoretical bases for the predicted attractiveness-intelligence correlation may need to be reconsidered. PMID:25937789

Recent developments in broadly applicable structure-biodegradability relationships.

PubMed

Jaworska, Joanna S; Boethling, Robert S; Howard, Philip H

2003-08-01

Biodegradation is one of the most important processes influencing concentration of a chemical substance after its release to the environment. It is the main process for removal of many chemicals from the environment and therefore is an important factor in risk assessments. This article reviews available methods and models for predicting biodegradability of organic chemicals from structure. The first section of the article briefly discusses current needs for biodegradability estimation methods related to new and existing chemicals and in the context of multimedia exposure models. Following sections include biodegradation test methods and endpoints used in modeling, with special attention given to the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry test; a primer on modeling, describing the various approaches that have been used in the structure/biodegradability relationship work, and contrasting statistical and mechanistic approaches; and recent developments in structure/biodegradability relationships, divided into group contribution, chemometric, and artificial intelligence approaches.

Applied regional monitoring of the vernal advancement and retrogradation (green wave effect) of natural vegetation in the Great Plains corridor. [Southwest Texas

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Harlan, J. C.; Deering, D. W. (Principal Investigator)

1979-01-01

The author has identified the following significant results. Rangelands in southwest Texas were used to establish threshold values and limitations on measuring herbaceous biomass under typical arid and semi-arid range conditions. Previous regression relationships established between ND6 and green biomass for two different ecosystems were similar. The west Texas data set for brush-free sites was too small to be statistically conclusive. It appears that a line with a third (and steeper) slope would be best for the west Texas data, and that line would intersect the other two. Results show that similar relationships exist between ND6 and green biomass under low brush canopy cover conditions, but local variations require a calibration to determine the best fit for an ecosystem. The brush canopy has a detrimental effect on the ND6 vs. herbaceous green biomass relationship.

[Comparison among three translucency parameters].

PubMed

Fang, Xiong; Hui, Xia

2017-06-01

This study aims to compare the three commonly used translucency parameters in prosthodontics: transmittance (T), contrast ratio (CR), and translucency parameter (TP). Six platelet specimens were composed of Vita enamel and dental porcelain. The initial thickness was 1.2 mm. The specimens were gradually ground to 1.0, 0.8, 0.6, 0.4, and 0.2 mm. T, color parameters, and reflection were measured by a spectrocolorimeter for each corresponding thickness. T, CR and TP were calculated and compared. TP increased, whereas CR decreased, with decreasing thickness. Moreover, 
T increased with decreasing thickness, and exponential relationships were found. Two-way ANOVA showed statistical significance between T and thickness, except between T and the 1.2 mm and 1.0 mm enamel porcelain groups. No difference was found among the coefficient variations (CV) of T, CR and TP. Curve fitting indicated the existence of exponential relationships between T and CR and between T and TP. The values for goodness of fit with statistical significance were 0.951 and 0.939, respectively (P<0.05). Under the experimental conditions, T, TP and CR achieved the same CV. T and TP, as well as T and CR, were found with exponential relationships. The value of CR and TP could not represent the translucency precisely, especially when comparing the changing ratios.

Relationship between High School Mathematics Grade and Number of Attempts Required to Pass the Medication Calculation Test in Nurse Education: An Explorative Study

PubMed Central

Alteren, Johanne; Nerdal, Lisbeth

2015-01-01

In Norwegian nurse education, students are required to achieve a perfect score in a medication calculation test before undertaking their first practice period during the second semester. Passing the test is a challenge, and students often require several attempts. Adverse events in medication administration can be related to poor mathematical skills. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between high school mathematics grade and the number of attempts required to pass the medication calculation test in nurse education. The study used an exploratory design. The participants were 90 students enrolled in a bachelor’s nursing program. They completed a self-report questionnaire, and statistical analysis was performed. The results provided no basis for the conclusion that a statistical relationship existed between high school mathematics grade and number of attempts required to pass the medication calculation test. Regardless of their grades in mathematics, 43% of the students passed the medication calculation test on the first attempt. All of the students who had achieved grade 5 had passed by the third attempt. High grades in mathematics were not crucial to passing the medication calculation test. Nonetheless, the grade may be important in ensuring a pass within fewer attempts. PMID:27417767

A network meta-analysis on the effects of information technology application on preoperative knowledge of patients.

PubMed

Lai, Yi-Horng

2015-01-01

The application of information technology in health education plan in Taiwan has existed for a long time. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between information technology application in health education and patients' preoperative knowledge by synthesizing existing researches that compare the effectiveness of information technology application and traditional instruction in the health education plan. In spite of claims regarding the potential benefits of using information technology in health education plan, results of previous researches were conflicting. This study is carried out to examine the effectiveness of information technology by using network meta-analysis, which is a statistical analysis of separate but similar studies in order to test the pooled data for statistical significance. Information technology application in health education discussed in this study include interactive technology therapy (person-computer), group interactive technology therapy (person-person), multimedia technology therapy and video therapy. The result has shown that group interactive technology therapy is the most effective, followed by interactive technology therapy. And these four therapies of information technology are all superior to the traditional health education plan (leaflet therapy).

The Relationship between Statistics Self-Efficacy, Statistics Anxiety, and Performance in an Introductory Graduate Statistics Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schneider, William R.

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between statistics self-efficacy, statistics anxiety, and performance in introductory graduate statistics courses. The study design compared two statistics self-efficacy measures developed by Finney and Schraw (2003), a statistics anxiety measure developed by Cruise and Wilkins (1980),…

The relationship between attachment styles and childhood trauma: a transgenerational perspective - a controlled study of patients with psychiatric disorders.

PubMed

Özcan, Neslihan K; Boyacioğlu, Nur E; Enginkaya, Semra; Bilgin, Hülya; Tomruk, Nesrin B

2016-08-01

This study had two aims. The first aim was to compare attachment styles and traumatic childhood experiences of women with psychiatric disorders and their children to a control group. The second aim was to determine the relationship between attachment styles and traumatic childhood experiences both in mothers and their children. According to attachment theories, trauma in an early relationship initiates a developmental cascade in which insecure attachments may occur. A cross-sectional, descriptive study which, employed a case-control design, was performed between May 2013-March 2014. This study was conducted in 63 women with psychiatric disorders and their children. The control group consisted of 63 women without any psychiatric disorders and their children. Data were collected using questionnaire forms, including the Adult Attachment Style Scale and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire for both mothers and children. Descriptive statistics, a Pearson correlation and comparative statistics were used to analyse data. The childhood trauma scores of both the women with psychiatric disorders and their children were higher than the control group scores. Compared to the control group, the mothers with psychiatric disorders and their children were found to have less secure attachment styles. It was determined that the mothers and children with insecure attachment were more likely to have been abused. These results point to a relationship between trauma in childhood and attachment style. They also suggest that this relationship may undergo intergenerational transfer. This study contributes to the existing literature on the relationship between childhood traumas and attachment. Psychiatric nurses should focus not only on psychiatric disorders but also on the difficulties a patient faces regarding being a parent. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Structural equation modeling assessing relationship between mathematics beliefs, teachers' attitudes and teaching practices among novice teachers in Malaysia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Borhan, Noziati; Zakaria, Effandi

2017-05-01

This quantitative study was conducted to investigate the perception level of novice teachers about mathematics belief, teachers' attitude towards mathematics and teaching practices of mathematics in the classroom. In addition, it also aims to identify whether there is a correspondence model with the data obtained and to identify the relationship between the variables of beliefs, attitudes and practices among novice teachers in Malaysia. A total of 263 primary novice teachers throughout the country were involved in this study were selected randomly. Respondents are required to provide a response to the questionnaire of 66 items related to mathematics beliefs, attitudes and practices of the teaching mathematics. There are ten sub-factors which have been established in this instrument for three major constructs using a Likert scale rating of five points. The items of the constructs undergo the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) procedure involve of unidimensionality test, convergent validity, construct validity and discriminant validity. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the frequency, percentage, the mean and standard deviation for completing some research questions that have been expressed. As for inferential statistical analysis, the researchers used structural equation modeling (SEM) to answer the question of correspondents model and the relationship between these three variables. The results of the study were found that there exist a correspondence measurement and structural model with the data obtained. While the relationship between variable found that mathematics beliefs have a significant influence on teachers' attitudes towards mathematics as well as the relationship between the attitudes with teaching practices. Meanwhile, mathematics belief had no significant relationship with mathematics teaching practices among novice teachers in Malaysia.

Public health information and statistics dissemination efforts for Indonesia on the Internet.

PubMed

Hanani, Febiana; Kobayashi, Takashi; Jo, Eitetsu; Nakajima, Sawako; Oyama, Hiroshi

2011-01-01

To elucidate current issues related to health statistics dissemination efforts on the Internet in Indonesia and to propose a new dissemination website as a solution. A cross-sectional survey was conducted. Sources of statistics were identified using link relationship and Google™ search. Menu used to locate statistics, mode of presentation and means of access to statistics, and available statistics were assessed for each site. Assessment results were used to derive design specification; a prototype system was developed and evaluated with usability test. 49 sources were identified on 18 governmental, 8 international and 5 non-government websites. Of 49 menus identified, 33% used non-intuitive titles and lead to inefficient search. 69% of them were on government websites. Of 31 websites, only 39% and 23% used graph/chart and map for presentation. Further, only 32%, 39% and 19% provided query, export and print feature. While >50% sources reported morbidity, risk factor and service provision statistics, <40% sources reported health resource and mortality statistics. Statistics portal website was developed using Joomla!™ content management system. Usability test demonstrated its potential to improve data accessibility. In this study, government's efforts to disseminate statistics in Indonesia are supported by non-governmental and international organizations and existing their information may not be very useful because it is: a) not widely distributed, b) difficult to locate, and c) not effectively communicated. Actions are needed to ensure information usability, and one of such actions is the development of statistics portal website.

Comparisons between Arabidopsis thaliana and Drosophila melanogaster in relation to Coding and Noncoding Sequence Length and Gene Expression

PubMed Central

Caldwell, Rachel; Lin, Yan-Xia; Zhang, Ren

2015-01-01

There is a continuing interest in the analysis of gene architecture and gene expression to determine the relationship that may exist. Advances in high-quality sequencing technologies and large-scale resource datasets have increased the understanding of relationships and cross-referencing of expression data to the large genome data. Although a negative correlation between expression level and gene (especially transcript) length has been generally accepted, there have been some conflicting results arising from the literature concerning the impacts of different regions of genes, and the underlying reason is not well understood. The research aims to apply quantile regression techniques for statistical analysis of coding and noncoding sequence length and gene expression data in the plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, and fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, to determine if a relationship exists and if there is any variation or similarities between these species. The quantile regression analysis found that the coding sequence length and gene expression correlations varied, and similarities emerged for the noncoding sequence length (5′ and 3′ UTRs) between animal and plant species. In conclusion, the information described in this study provides the basis for further exploration into gene regulation with regard to coding and noncoding sequence length. PMID:26114098

Hydrometeorological application of an extratropical cyclone classification scheme in the southern United States

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Senkbeil, J. C.; Brommer, D. M.; Comstock, I. J.; Loyd, T.

2012-07-01

Extratropical cyclones (ETCs) in the southern United States are often overlooked when compared with tropical cyclones in the region and ETCs in the northern United States. Although southern ETCs are significant weather events, there is currently not an operational scheme used for identifying and discussing these nameless storms. In this research, we classified 84 ETCs (1970-2009). We manually identified five distinct formation regions and seven unique ETC types using statistical classification. Statistical classification employed the use of principal components analysis and two methods of cluster analysis. Both manual and statistical storm types generally showed positive (negative) relationships with El Niño (La Niña). Manual storm types displayed precipitation swaths consistent with discrete storm tracks which further legitimizes the existence of multiple modes of southern ETCs. Statistical storm types also displayed unique precipitation intensity swaths, but these swaths were less indicative of track location. It is hoped that by classifying southern ETCs into types, that forecasters, hydrologists, and broadcast meteorologists might be able to better anticipate projected amounts of precipitation at their locations.

Relationship between Graduate Students' Statistics Self-Efficacy, Statistics Anxiety, Attitude toward Statistics, and Social Support

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Perepiczka, Michelle; Chandler, Nichelle; Becerra, Michael

2011-01-01

Statistics plays an integral role in graduate programs. However, numerous intra- and interpersonal factors may lead to successful completion of needed coursework in this area. The authors examined the extent of the relationship between self-efficacy to learn statistics and statistics anxiety, attitude towards statistics, and social support of 166…

[Relationship between family variables and conjugal adjustment].

PubMed

Jiménez-Picón, Nerea; Lima-Rodríguez, Joaquín-Salvador; Lima-Serrano, Marta

2018-04-01

To determine whether family variables, such as type of relationship, years of marriage, existence of offspring, number of members of family, stage of family life cycle, transition between stages, perceived social support, and/or stressful life events are related to conjugal adjustment. A cross-sectional and correlational study using questionnaires. Primary care and hospital units of selected centres in the province of Seville, Spain. Consecutive stratified sampling by quotas of 369 heterosexual couples over 18years of age, who maintained a relationship, with or without children, living in Seville. A self-report questionnaire for the sociodemographic variables, and the abbreviated version of the Dyadic Adjustment Scale, Questionnaire MOS Perceived Social Support, and Social Readjustment Rating Scale, were used. Descriptive and inferential statistics were performed with correlation analysis and multivariate regression. Statistically significant associations were found between conjugal adjustment and marriage years (r=-10: P<.05), stage of family life cycle (F=2.65; P<.05), the transition between stages (RPB=.11; P<.05) and perceived social support (r=.44; P<.001). The regression model showed the predictive power of perceived social support and the family life cycle stage (mature-aged stage) on conjugal adjustment (R2=.21; F=9.9; df=356; P<.001). Couples may be assessed from Primary Care and be provide with resources and support. In addition, it can identify variables that may help improve the conjugal relationship. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

A study of the utilization of ERTS-1 data from the Wabash River Basin

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Landgrebe, D. A. (Principal Investigator)

1974-01-01

The author has identified the following significant results. The identification and area estimation of crops experiment tested the usefulness of ERTS data for crop survey and produced results indicating that crop statistics could be obtained from ERTS imagery. Soil association mapping results showed that strong relationships exist between ERTS data derived maps and conventional soil maps. Urban land use analysis experiment results indicate potential for accurate gross land use mapping. Water resources mapping demonstrated the feasibility of mapping water bodies using ERTS imagery.

Stem photosynthesis and hydraulics are coordinated in desert plant species.

PubMed

Ávila-Lovera, Eleinis; Zerpa, Antonio J; Santiago, Louis S

2017-12-01

Coordination between stem photosynthesis and hydraulics in green-stemmed desert plants is important for understanding the physiology of stem photosynthesis and possible drought responses. Plants with photosynthetic stems have extra carbon gain that can help cope with the detrimental effects of drought. We studied photosynthetic, hydraulic and functional traits of 11 plant species with photosynthetic stems from three California desert locations. We compared relationships among traits between wet and dry seasons to test the effect of seasonality on these relationships. Finally, we compared stem trait relationships with analogous relationships in the leaf economics spectrum. We found that photosynthetic and hydraulic traits are coordinated in photosynthetic stems. The slope or intercept of all trait relationships was mediated by seasonality. The relationship between mass-based stem photosynthetic CO 2 assimilation rate (A mass ) and specific stem area (SSA; stem surface area to dry mass ratio) was statistically indistinguishable from the leaf economics spectrum. Our results indicate that photosynthetic stems behave like leaves in the coordination of multiple traits related to carbon gain, water movement and water loss. Because of the similarity of the stem A mass -SSA relationship to the leaf A mass -specific leaf area relationship, we suggest the existence of a photosynthetic stem economic spectrum. © 2017 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2017 New Phytologist Trust.

Characterization of superconducting nanowire single-photon detector with artificial constrictions

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Zhang, Ling; Liu, Dengkuan; Wu, Junjie

2014-06-15

Statistical studies on the performance of different superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) on one chip suggested that random constrictions existed in the nanowire that were barely registered by scanning electron microscopy. With the aid of advanced e-beam lithography, artificial geometric constrictions were fabricated on SNSPDs as well as single nanowires. In this way, we studied the influence of artificial constrictions on SNSPDs in a straight forward manner. By introducing artificial constrictions with different wire widths in single nanowires, we concluded that the dark counts of SNSPDs originate from a single constriction. Further introducing artificial constrictions in SNSPDs, we studied themore » relationship between detection efficiency and kinetic inductance and the bias current, confirming the hypothesis that constrictions exist in SNSPDs.« less

The classification of anxiety and hysterical states. Part I. Historical review and empirical delineation.

PubMed

Sheehan, D V; Sheehan, K H

1982-08-01

The history of the classification of anxiety, hysterical, and hypochondriacal disorders is reviewed. Problems in the ability of current classification schemes to predict, control, and describe the relationship between the symptoms and other phenomena are outlined. Existing classification schemes failed the first test of a good classification model--that of providing categories that are mutually exclusive. The independence of these diagnostic categories from each other does not appear to hold up on empirical testing. In the absence of inherently mutually exclusive categories, further empirical investigation of these classes is obstructed since statistically valid analysis of the nominal data and any useful multivariate analysis would be difficult if not impossible. It is concluded that the existing classifications are unsatisfactory and require some fundamental reconceptualization.

Worldview and health promoting behavior: a causal model.

PubMed

Kagee, A; Dixon, D N

2000-04-01

The present study investigated the manner in which Pepper's (1942) worldview theory relates to health promoting behavior. A sample of 259 subjects completed a battery of inventories measuring worldview, health promoting behavior (HPB), social class, and sex. The data were analyzed by means of structural equation modeling using the statistical program for the social sciences (SPSS) and the analysis of moment and structure (AMOS) computer programs. The results support the idea that a modest relationship exists between worldview and HPB, with organismic thinkers more likely than mechanistic thinkers to engage in HPB. There was also a slight indirect effect of sex on worldview and HPB, with women more likely to endorse an organismic worldview and therefore more likely to engage in HPB than men. No relationship was found between socioeconomic status and HPB.

Examining the impact of child parent relationship therapy (CPRT) on family functioning.

PubMed

Cornett, Nick; Bratton, Sue C

2014-07-01

Research supports that child parent relationship therapy (CPRT), a filial therapy approach, has strong effects on participating parents and children. Some speculate that filial therapy improves the family system; however, minimal research exists to support this claim. Using a single-case design, researchers examined CPRT's impact on the functioning of 8 families. Results revealed that 6 families experienced statistically significant improvements in targeted areas of family functioning. Results from self-reported measures indicated that 7 families improved in family satisfaction, 4 in cohesion, 3 in communication, and 1 in flexibility. Observational measures also revealed improvements: 5 families in flexibility, 4 families in cohesion, and 4 families in communication. The results support that the benefits of CPRT may extend to the family system. © 2013 American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.

Maximally Informative Stimuli and Tuning Curves for Sigmoidal Rate-Coding Neurons and Populations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McDonnell, Mark D.; Stocks, Nigel G.

2008-08-01

A general method for deriving maximally informative sigmoidal tuning curves for neural systems with small normalized variability is presented. The optimal tuning curve is a nonlinear function of the cumulative distribution function of the stimulus and depends on the mean-variance relationship of the neural system. The derivation is based on a known relationship between Shannon’s mutual information and Fisher information, and the optimality of Jeffrey’s prior. It relies on the existence of closed-form solutions to the converse problem of optimizing the stimulus distribution for a given tuning curve. It is shown that maximum mutual information corresponds to constant Fisher information only if the stimulus is uniformly distributed. As an example, the case of sub-Poisson binomial firing statistics is analyzed in detail.

Geosocial process and its regularities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vikulina, Marina; Vikulin, Alexander; Dolgaya, Anna

2015-04-01

Natural disasters and social events (wars, revolutions, genocides, epidemics, fires, etc.) accompany each other throughout human civilization, thus reflecting the close relationship of these phenomena that are seemingly of different nature. In order to study this relationship authors compiled and analyzed the list of the 2,400 natural disasters and social phenomena weighted by their magnitude that occurred during the last XXXVI centuries of our history. Statistical analysis was performed separately for each aggregate (natural disasters and social phenomena), and for particular statistically representative types of events. There was 5 + 5 = 10 types. It is shown that the numbers of events in the list are distributed by logarithmic law: the bigger the event, the less likely it happens. For each type of events and each aggregate the existence of periodicities with periods of 280 ± 60 years was established. Statistical analysis of the time intervals between adjacent events for both aggregates showed good agreement with Weibull-Gnedenko distribution with shape parameter less than 1, which is equivalent to the conclusion about the grouping of events at small time intervals. Modeling of statistics of time intervals with Pareto distribution allowed to identify the emergent property for all events in the aggregate. This result allowed the authors to make conclusion about interaction between natural disasters and social phenomena. The list of events compiled by authors and first identified properties of cyclicity, grouping and interaction process reflected by this list is the basis of modeling essentially unified geosocial process at high enough statistical level. Proof of interaction between "lifeless" Nature and Society is fundamental and provided a new approach to forecasting demographic crises with taking into account both natural disasters and social phenomena.

Accurate landmarking of three-dimensional facial data in the presence of facial expressions and occlusions using a three-dimensional statistical facial feature model.

PubMed

Zhao, Xi; Dellandréa, Emmanuel; Chen, Liming; Kakadiaris, Ioannis A

2011-10-01

Three-dimensional face landmarking aims at automatically localizing facial landmarks and has a wide range of applications (e.g., face recognition, face tracking, and facial expression analysis). Existing methods assume neutral facial expressions and unoccluded faces. In this paper, we propose a general learning-based framework for reliable landmark localization on 3-D facial data under challenging conditions (i.e., facial expressions and occlusions). Our approach relies on a statistical model, called 3-D statistical facial feature model, which learns both the global variations in configurational relationships between landmarks and the local variations of texture and geometry around each landmark. Based on this model, we further propose an occlusion classifier and a fitting algorithm. Results from experiments on three publicly available 3-D face databases (FRGC, BU-3-DFE, and Bosphorus) demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, in terms of landmarking accuracy and robustness, in the presence of expressions and occlusions.

Seasonal Drought Prediction: Advances, Challenges, and Future Prospects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hao, Zengchao; Singh, Vijay P.; Xia, Youlong

2018-03-01

Drought prediction is of critical importance to early warning for drought managements. This review provides a synthesis of drought prediction based on statistical, dynamical, and hybrid methods. Statistical drought prediction is achieved by modeling the relationship between drought indices of interest and a suite of potential predictors, including large-scale climate indices, local climate variables, and land initial conditions. Dynamical meteorological drought prediction relies on seasonal climate forecast from general circulation models (GCMs), which can be employed to drive hydrological models for agricultural and hydrological drought prediction with the predictability determined by both climate forcings and initial conditions. Challenges still exist in drought prediction at long lead time and under a changing environment resulting from natural and anthropogenic factors. Future research prospects to improve drought prediction include, but are not limited to, high-quality data assimilation, improved model development with key processes related to drought occurrence, optimal ensemble forecast to select or weight ensembles, and hybrid drought prediction to merge statistical and dynamical forecasts.

Social Media Self-Efficacy of Health Education Specialists: Training and Organizational Development Implications.

PubMed

Alber, Julia M; Paige, Samantha; Stellefson, Michael; Bernhardt, Jay M

2016-11-01

A growing number of public health organizations are applying the power of social media (SM) for health promotion and behavior change. This cross-sectional study of health education specialists (n = 353) examined which demographic and occupational factors were associated with SM self-efficacy, and evaluated SM self-efficacy related to each of the Seven Areas of Responsibility. A series of one-way analyses of variance were conducted to determine whether differences in SM self-efficacy existed by sex, age, years of work experience, and SM access at work. A multiple linear regression examined the relationship between SM self-efficacy and SM experience when controlling for demographic and occupational factors. Statistically significant differences in SM self-efficacy existed by age, F(2, 289) = 6.54, p = .002. SM experience (β = 1.43, t = 11.35, p < .001) was a statistically significant predictor of SM self-efficacy, even after controlling for age, sex, years of work experience, and level of SM access, F(5, 290) = 30.88, p < .001, R 2 = .35. Results revealed statistically significant differences in mean SM self-efficacy scores by the Areas of Responsibility, F(4.69, 1425.46) = 22.46, p < .001. Professional health organizations should have policies in place and trainings that are conducive to learning and applying SM for health education research and practice. © 2016 Society for Public Health Education.

Mental health benefits of interactions with nature in children and teenagers: a systematic review.

PubMed

Tillmann, Suzanne; Tobin, Danielle; Avison, William; Gilliland, Jason

2018-06-27

It is commonly believed that nature has positive impacts on children's health, including physical, mental and social dimensions. This review focuses on how accessibility to, exposure to and engagement with nature affects the mental health of children and teenagers. Ten academic databases were used to systematically search and identify primary research papers in English or French from 1990 to 1 March 2017. Papers were included for review based on their incorporation of nature, children and teenagers (0-18 years), quantitative results and focus on mental health. Of the 35 papers included in the review, the majority focused on emotional well-being and attention deficit disorder/hyperactivity disorder. Other outcome measures included overall mental health, self-esteem, stress, resilience, depression and health-related quality of life. About half of all reported findings revealed statistically significant positive relationships between nature and mental health outcomes and almost half reported no statistical significance. Findings support the contention that nature positively influences mental health; however, in most cases, additional research with more rigorous study designs and objective measures of both nature and mental health outcomes are needed to confirm statistically significant relationships. Existing evidence is limited by the cross-sectional nature of most papers. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

An Alternative Approach to Analyze Ipsative Data. Revisiting Experiential Learning Theory.

PubMed

Batista-Foguet, Joan M; Ferrer-Rosell, Berta; Serlavós, Ricard; Coenders, Germà; Boyatzis, Richard E

2015-01-01

The ritualistic use of statistical models regardless of the type of data actually available is a common practice across disciplines which we dare to call type zero error. Statistical models involve a series of assumptions whose existence is often neglected altogether, this is specially the case with ipsative data. This paper illustrates the consequences of this ritualistic practice within Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) operationalized through its Learning Style Inventory (KLSI). We show how using a well-known methodology in other disciplines-compositional data analysis (CODA) and log ratio transformations-KLSI data can be properly analyzed. In addition, the method has theoretical implications: a third dimension of the KLSI is unveiled providing room for future research. This third dimension describes an individual's relative preference for learning by prehension rather than by transformation. Using a sample of international MBA students, we relate this dimension with another self-assessment instrument, the Philosophical Orientation Questionnaire (POQ), and with an observer-assessed instrument, the Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (ESCI-U). Both show plausible statistical relationships. An intellectual operating philosophy (IOP) is linked to a preference for prehension, whereas a pragmatic operating philosophy (POP) is linked to transformation. Self-management and social awareness competencies are linked to a learning preference for transforming knowledge, whereas relationship management and cognitive competencies are more related to approaching learning by prehension.

An Alternative Approach to Analyze Ipsative Data. Revisiting Experiential Learning Theory

PubMed Central

Batista-Foguet, Joan M.; Ferrer-Rosell, Berta; Serlavós, Ricard; Coenders, Germà; Boyatzis, Richard E.

2015-01-01

The ritualistic use of statistical models regardless of the type of data actually available is a common practice across disciplines which we dare to call type zero error. Statistical models involve a series of assumptions whose existence is often neglected altogether, this is specially the case with ipsative data. This paper illustrates the consequences of this ritualistic practice within Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) operationalized through its Learning Style Inventory (KLSI). We show how using a well-known methodology in other disciplines—compositional data analysis (CODA) and log ratio transformations—KLSI data can be properly analyzed. In addition, the method has theoretical implications: a third dimension of the KLSI is unveiled providing room for future research. This third dimension describes an individual's relative preference for learning by prehension rather than by transformation. Using a sample of international MBA students, we relate this dimension with another self-assessment instrument, the Philosophical Orientation Questionnaire (POQ), and with an observer-assessed instrument, the Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (ESCI-U). Both show plausible statistical relationships. An intellectual operating philosophy (IOP) is linked to a preference for prehension, whereas a pragmatic operating philosophy (POP) is linked to transformation. Self-management and social awareness competencies are linked to a learning preference for transforming knowledge, whereas relationship management and cognitive competencies are more related to approaching learning by prehension. PMID:26617561

Using statistical and artificial neural network models to forecast potentiometric levels at a deep well in South Texas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Uddameri, V.

2007-01-01

Reliable forecasts of monthly and quarterly fluctuations in groundwater levels are necessary for short- and medium-term planning and management of aquifers to ensure proper service of seasonal demands within a region. Development of physically based transient mathematical models at this time scale poses considerable challenges due to lack of suitable data and other uncertainties. Artificial neural networks (ANN) possess flexible mathematical structures and are capable of mapping highly nonlinear relationships. Feed-forward neural network models were constructed and trained using the back-percolation algorithm to forecast monthly and quarterly time-series water levels at a well that taps into the deeper Evangeline formation of the Gulf Coast aquifer in Victoria, TX. Unlike unconfined formations, no causal relationships exist between water levels and hydro-meteorological variables measured near the vicinity of the well. As such, an endogenous forecasting model using dummy variables to capture short-term seasonal fluctuations and longer-term (decadal) trends was constructed. The root mean square error, mean absolute deviation and correlation coefficient ( R) were noted to be 1.40, 0.33 and 0.77 m, respectively, for an evaluation dataset of quarterly measurements and 1.17, 0.46, and 0.88 m for an evaluative monthly dataset not used to train or test the model. These statistics were better for the ANN model than those developed using statistical regression techniques.

Characterizing driver-response relationships in marine pelagic ecosystems for improved ocean management.

PubMed

Hunsicker, Mary E; Kappel, Carrie V; Selkoe, Kimberly A; Halpern, Benjamin S; Scarborough, Courtney; Mease, Lindley; Amrhein, Alisan

2016-04-01

Scientists and resource managers often use methods and tools that assume ecosystem components respond linearly to environmental drivers and human stressors. However, a growing body of literature demonstrates that many relationships are-non-linear, where small changes in a driver prompt a disproportionately large ecological response. We aim to provide a comprehensive assessment of the relationships between drivers and ecosystem components to identify where and when non-linearities are likely to occur. We focused our analyses on one of the best-studied marine systems, pelagic ecosystems, which allowed us to apply robust statistical techniques on a large pool of previously published studies. In this synthesis, we (1) conduct a wide literature review on single driver-response relationships in pelagic systems, (2) use statistical models to identify the degree of non-linearity in these relationships, and (3) assess whether general patterns exist in the strengths and shapes of non-linear relationships across drivers. Overall we found that non-linearities are common in pelagic ecosystems, comprising at least 52% of all driver-response relation- ships. This is likely an underestimate, as papers with higher quality data and analytical approaches reported non-linear relationships at a higher frequency (on average 11% more). Consequently, in the absence of evidence for a linear relationship, it is safer to assume a relationship is non-linear. Strong non-linearities can lead to greater ecological and socioeconomic consequences if they are unknown (and/or unanticipated), but if known they may provide clear thresholds to inform management targets. In pelagic systems, strongly non-linear relationships are often driven by climate and trophodynamic variables but are also associated with local stressors, such as overfishing and pollution, that can be more easily controlled by managers. Even when marine resource managers cannot influence ecosystem change, they can use information about threshold responses to guide how other stressors are managed and to adapt to new ocean conditions. As methods to detect and reduce uncertainty around threshold values improve, managers will be able to better understand and account for ubiquitous non-linear relationships.

The application of feature selection to the development of Gaussian process models for percutaneous absorption.

PubMed

Lam, Lun Tak; Sun, Yi; Davey, Neil; Adams, Rod; Prapopoulou, Maria; Brown, Marc B; Moss, Gary P

2010-06-01

The aim was to employ Gaussian processes to assess mathematically the nature of a skin permeability dataset and to employ these methods, particularly feature selection, to determine the key physicochemical descriptors which exert the most significant influence on percutaneous absorption, and to compare such models with established existing models. Gaussian processes, including automatic relevance detection (GPRARD) methods, were employed to develop models of percutaneous absorption that identified key physicochemical descriptors of percutaneous absorption. Using MatLab software, the statistical performance of these models was compared with single linear networks (SLN) and quantitative structure-permeability relationships (QSPRs). Feature selection methods were used to examine in more detail the physicochemical parameters used in this study. A range of statistical measures to determine model quality were used. The inherently nonlinear nature of the skin data set was confirmed. The Gaussian process regression (GPR) methods yielded predictive models that offered statistically significant improvements over SLN and QSPR models with regard to predictivity (where the rank order was: GPR > SLN > QSPR). Feature selection analysis determined that the best GPR models were those that contained log P, melting point and the number of hydrogen bond donor groups as significant descriptors. Further statistical analysis also found that great synergy existed between certain parameters. It suggested that a number of the descriptors employed were effectively interchangeable, thus questioning the use of models where discrete variables are output, usually in the form of an equation. The use of a nonlinear GPR method produced models with significantly improved predictivity, compared with SLN or QSPR models. Feature selection methods were able to provide important mechanistic information. However, it was also shown that significant synergy existed between certain parameters, and as such it was possible to interchange certain descriptors (i.e. molecular weight and melting point) without incurring a loss of model quality. Such synergy suggested that a model constructed from discrete terms in an equation may not be the most appropriate way of representing mechanistic understandings of skin absorption.

Exploring the relationship between food access and foodborne illness by using spatial analysis.

PubMed

Newbold, Bruce; Watson, Susannah; Mackay, Kevin; Isaacs, Sandy

2013-09-01

There is some evidence that neighborhood deprivation increases residents' risk of foodborne illnesses. Because urban areas with the least available access to adequate amounts of nutritious or affordable food options (or "food deserts") also tend to be the most deprived areas within a city, it is hypothesized that food access and foodborne illness risk are linked. However, the complexity of tracking numbers and sources of gastrointestinal (GI) illnesses often leads researchers to speculate about reasons for disproportionate rates of pathogen outbreaks among demographic groups. This study explores the suitability of existing data to examine associations between food deserts and the spatial distribution of GI illnesses in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. A spatial analysis by using GIS software methodology was used to identify and map food retail outlets and accessibility, as well as GI illness outbreaks and sales of antidiarrhea, antinausea, and rehydration products (used as a proxy for GI cases) within the city, based on available data. Statistical analysis of the maps shows no statistical relationship between location, access to food outlets, and rates of GI illness. The analysis points to shortfalls and gaps in the existing data, which leaves us unable to draw conclusions either supporting or refuting our hypothesis. This article includes recommendations to improve the current system of illness reporting and to continue to refine the definition and process of mapping food access issues. A more comprehensive set of data would enable municipalities to more easily identify groups most at risk, depending on exposures and the type of pathogen, and reduce the occurrence of foodborne disease.

Understanding Statistics and Statistics Education: A Chinese Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shi, Ning-Zhong; He, Xuming; Tao, Jian

2009-01-01

In recent years, statistics education in China has made great strides. However, there still exists a fairly large gap with the advanced levels of statistics education in more developed countries. In this paper, we identify some existing problems in statistics education in Chinese schools and make some proposals as to how they may be overcome. We…

Parametric and nonparametric Granger causality testing: Linkages between international stock markets

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

De Gooijer, Jan G.; Sivarajasingham, Selliah

2008-04-01

This study investigates long-term linear and nonlinear causal linkages among eleven stock markets, six industrialized markets and five emerging markets of South-East Asia. We cover the period 1987-2006, taking into account the on-set of the Asian financial crisis of 1997. We first apply a test for the presence of general nonlinearity in vector time series. Substantial differences exist between the pre- and post-crisis period in terms of the total number of significant nonlinear relationships. We then examine both periods, using a new nonparametric test for Granger noncausality and the conventional parametric Granger noncausality test. One major finding is that the Asian stock markets have become more internationally integrated after the Asian financial crisis. An exception is the Sri Lankan market with almost no significant long-term linear and nonlinear causal linkages with other markets. To ensure that any causality is strictly nonlinear in nature, we also examine the nonlinear causal relationships of VAR filtered residuals and VAR filtered squared residuals for the post-crisis sample. We find quite a few remaining significant bi- and uni-directional causal nonlinear relationships in these series. Finally, after filtering the VAR-residuals with GARCH-BEKK models, we show that the nonparametric test statistics are substantially smaller in both magnitude and statistical significance than those before filtering. This indicates that nonlinear causality can, to a large extent, be explained by simple volatility effects.

A stepwise-cluster microbial biomass inference model in food waste composting

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Sun Wei; Huang, Guo H., E-mail: huangg@iseis.or; Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Science, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 100012-102206

2009-12-15

A stepwise-cluster microbial biomass inference (SMI) model was developed through introducing stepwise-cluster analysis (SCA) into composting process modeling to tackle the nonlinear relationships among state variables and microbial activities. The essence of SCA is to form a classification tree based on a series of cutting or mergence processes according to given statistical criteria. Eight runs of designed experiments in bench-scale reactors in a laboratory were constructed to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method. The results indicated that SMI could help establish a statistical relationship between state variables and composting microbial characteristics, where discrete and nonlinear complexities exist. Significance levelsmore » of cutting/merging were provided such that the accuracies of the developed forecasting trees were controllable. Through an attempted definition of input effects on the output in SMI, the effects of the state variables on thermophilic bacteria were ranged in a descending order as: Time (day) > moisture content (%) > ash content (%, dry) > Lower Temperature (deg. C) > pH > NH{sub 4}{sup +}-N (mg/Kg, dry) > Total N (%, dry) > Total C (%, dry); the effects on mesophilic bacteria were ordered as: Time > Upper Temperature (deg. C) > Total N > moisture content > NH{sub 4}{sup +}-N > Total C > pH. This study made the first attempt in applying SCA to mapping the nonlinear and discrete relationships in composting processes.« less

An examination of the challenges influencing science instruction in Florida elementary classrooms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

North, Stephanie Gwinn

It has been shown that the mechanical properties of thin films tend to differ from their bulk counterparts. Specifically, the bulge and microtensile testing of thin films used in MEMS have revealed that these films demonstrate an inverse relationship between thickness and strength. A film dimension is not a material property, but it evidently does affect the mechanical performance of materials at very small thicknesses. A hypothetical explanation for this phenomenon is that as the thickness dimension of the film decreases, it is statistically less likely that imperfections exist in the material. It would require a very small thickness (or volume) to limit imperfections in a material, which is why this phenomenon is seen in films with thicknesses on the order of 100 nm to a few microns. Another hypothesized explanation is that the surface tension that exists in bulk material also exists in thin films but has a greater impact at such a small scale. The goal of this research is to identify a theoretical prediction of the strength of thin films based on its microstructural properties such as grain size and film thickness. This would minimize the need for expensive and complicated tests such as the bulge and microtensile tests. In this research, data was collected from the bulge and microtensile testing of copper, aluminum, gold, and polysilicon free-standing thin films. Statistical testing of this data revealed a definitive inverse relationship between thickness and strength, as well as between grain size and strength, as expected. However, due to a lack of a standardized method for either test, there were significant variations in the data. This research compares and analyzes the methods used by other researchers to develop a suggested set of instructions for a standardized bulge test and standardized microtensile test. The most important parameters to be controlled in each test were found to be strain rate, temperature, film deposition method, film length, and strain measurement.

The Relationship between TOC and pH with Exchangeable Heavy Metal Levels in Lithuanian Podzols

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Khaledian, Yones; Pereira, Paulo; Brevik, Eric C.; Pundyte, Neringa; Paliulis, Dainius

2017-04-01

Heavy metals can have a negative impact on public and environmental health. The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between total organic carbon (TOC) and pH with exchangeable heavy metals (Pb, Cd, Cu and Zn) in order to predict exchangeable heavy metal content in soils sampled near Panevėžys and Kaunas, Lithuania. Principal component regression (PCR) and nonlinear regression methods were tested to find the statistical relationship between TOC and pH with heavy metals. The results of PCR [R2 = 0.68, RMSE = 0.07] and non-linear regression [R2 = 0.74, RMSE= 0.065] (pH with TOC and exchangeable parameters) were statistically significant. However, this was not observed in the relationships of pH and TOC separately with exchangeable heavy metals. The results indicated that pH had a higher correlation with exchangeable heavy metals (non-linear regression [R2 = 0.72, RMSE= 0.066]) than TOC with heavy metals [R2 = 0.30, RMSE= 0.004]. It can be concluded that even though there was a strong relationship between TOC and pH with exchangeable metals, the metal mobility (exchangeable metals) can be explained by pH better than TOC in this study. Finally, manipulating soil pH could likely be productive to assess and control heavy metals when financial and time limitations exist (Khaledian et al. 2016). Reference(s) Khaledian Y, Pereira P, Brevik E.C, Pundyte N, Paliulis D. 2016. The Influence of Organic Carbon and pH on Heavy Metals, Potassium, and Magnesium Levels in Lithuanian Podzols. Land Degradation and Development. DOI: 10.1002/ldr.2638

A System-Level Pathway-Phenotype Association Analysis Using Synthetic Feature Random Forest

PubMed Central

Pan, Qinxin; Hu, Ting; Malley, James D.; Andrew, Angeline S.; Karagas, Margaret R.; Moore, Jason H.

2015-01-01

As the cost of genome-wide genotyping decreases, the number of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) has increased considerably. However, the transition from GWAS findings to the underlying biology of various phenotypes remains challenging. As a result, due to its system-level interpretability, pathway analysis has become a popular tool for gaining insights on the underlying biology from high-throughput genetic association data. In pathway analyses, gene sets representing particular biological processes are tested for significant associations with a given phenotype. Most existing pathway analysis approaches rely on single-marker statistics and assume that pathways are independent of each other. As biological systems are driven by complex biomolecular interactions, embracing the complex relationships between single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and pathways needs to be addressed. To incorporate the complexity of gene-gene interactions and pathway-pathway relationships, we propose a system-level pathway analysis approach, synthetic feature random forest (SF-RF), which is designed to detect pathway-phenotype associations without making assumptions about the relationships among SNPs or pathways. In our approach, the genotypes of SNPs in a particular pathway are aggregated into a synthetic feature representing that pathway via Random Forest (RF). Multiple synthetic features are analyzed using RF simultaneously and the significance of a synthetic feature indicates the significance of the corresponding pathway. We further complement SF-RF with pathway-based Statistical Epistasis Network (SEN) analysis that evaluates interactions among pathways. By investigating the pathway SEN, we hope to gain additional insights into the genetic mechanisms contributing to the pathway-phenotype association. We apply SF-RF to a population-based genetic study of bladder cancer and further investigate the mechanisms that help explain the pathway-phenotype associations using SEN. The bladder cancer associated pathways we found are both consistent with existing biological knowledge and reveal novel and plausible hypotheses for future biological validations. PMID:24535726

Self-Regulated Learning Strategies in Relation with Statistics Anxiety

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kesici, Sahin; Baloglu, Mustafa; Deniz, M. Engin

2011-01-01

Dealing with students' attitudinal problems related to statistics is an important aspect of statistics instruction. Employing the appropriate learning strategies may have a relationship with anxiety during the process of statistics learning. Thus, the present study investigated multivariate relationships between self-regulated learning strategies…

Uncertainty in Model Predictions of Vibrio Vulnificus Response to Climate Variability and Change: A Chesapeake Bay Case Study

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Urquhart, Erin A.; Zaitchik, Benjamin F.; Waugh, Darryn W.; Guikema, Seth D.; Del Castillo, Carlos E.

2014-01-01

The effect that climate change and variability will have on waterborne bacteria is a topic of increasing concern for coastal ecosystems, including the Chesapeake Bay. Surface water temperature trends in the Bay indicate a warming pattern of roughly 0.3-0.4 C per decade over the past 30 years. It is unclear what impact future warming will have on pathogens currently found in the Bay, including Vibrio spp. Using historical environmental data, combined with three different statistical models of Vibrio vulnificus probability, we explore the relationship between environmental change and predicted Vibrio vulnificus presence in the upper Chesapeake Bay. We find that the predicted response of V. vulnificus probability to high temperatures in the Bay differs systematically between models of differing structure. As existing publicly available datasets are inadequate to determine which model structure is most appropriate, the impact of climatic change on the probability of V. vulnificus presence in the Chesapeake Bay remains uncertain. This result points to the challenge of characterizing climate sensitivity of ecological systems in which data are sparse and only statistical models of ecological sensitivity exist.

Erythrocyte transfusions and serum prohepcidin levels in premature newborns with anemia of prematurity.

PubMed

Yapakçi, Ece; Ecevit, Ayşe; Gökmen, Zeynel; Tarcan, Aylin; Ozbek, Namik

2009-11-01

Hepcidin is a regulatory peptide hormone acts by limiting intestinal iron absorption and promoting iron retention. Determining the level of hepcidin in anemia of prematurity might be important in preventing iron overload. This study aimed to determine serum levels of prohepcidin in newborns with anemia of prematurity, to assess the effect of a single erythrocyte transfusion on serum prohepcidin levels, and to determine the possible relationships between prohepcidin levels and serum iron and complete blood count parameters. Nineteen premature newborns with anemia of prematurity who had been treated with erythrocyte transfusions were included in this study. Just before, and 48 hours after, each transfusion, venous blood samples were collected from patients. Serum prohepcidin levels before and after erythrocyte transfusion were 206.5+/-27.3 and 205.7+/-47.1 ng/mL, respectively; no statistically significant differences were found. No significant differences existed before or after transfusion regarding serum total iron and ferritin levels, iron-binding capacity, or mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration. No significant correlations existed between serum prohepcidin levels and other parameters, either before or after transfusions. Our results showed that there were no statistically significant differences between serum prohepcidin levels before and after a single erythrocyte transfusion in premature newborns.

Phase I/II adaptive design for drug combination oncology trials

PubMed Central

Wages, Nolan A.; Conaway, Mark R.

2014-01-01

Existing statistical methodology on dose finding for combination chemotherapies has focused on toxicity considerations alone in finding a maximum tolerated dose combination to recommend for further testing of efficacy in a phase II setting. Recently, there has been increasing interest in integrating phase I and phase II trials in order to facilitate drug development. In this article, we propose a new adaptive phase I/II method for dual-agent combinations that takes into account both toxicity and efficacy after each cohort inclusion. The primary objective, both within and at the conclusion of the trial, becomes finding a single dose combination with an acceptable level of toxicity that maximizes efficacious response. We assume that there exist monotone dose–toxicity and dose–efficacy relationships among doses of one agent when the dose of other agent is fixed. We perform extensive simulation studies that demonstrate the operating characteristics of our proposed approach, and we compare simulated results to existing methodology in phase I/II design for combinations of agents. PMID:24470329

26 CFR 1.1311(b)-3 - Existence of relationship in case of adjustment by way of deficiency assessment.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-04-01

... maintained. If the inconsistent position was not thus maintained, then the relationship must exist on the... 26 Internal Revenue 11 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 true Existence of relationship in case of adjustment... Between Years and Special Limitations § 1.1311(b)-3 Existence of relationship in case of adjustment by way...

Use of High-resolution WRF Simulations to Forecast Lightning Threat

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

McCaul, William E.; LaCasse, K.; Goodman, S. J.

2006-01-01

Recent observational studies have confirmed the existence of a robust statistical relationship between lightning flash rates and the amount of large precipitating ice hydrometeors in storms. This relationship is exploited, in conjunction with the capabilities of recent forecast models such as WRF, to forecast the threat of lightning from convective storms using the output fields from the model forecasts. The simulated vertical flux of graupel at -15C is used in this study as a proxy for charge separation processes and their associated lightning risk. Six-h simulations are conducted for a number of case studies for which three-dimensional lightning validation data from the North Alabama Lightning Mapping Array are available. Experiments indicate that initialization of the WRF model on a 2 km grid using Eta boundary conditions, Doppler radar radial velocity and reflectivity fields, and METAR and ACARS data yield the most realistic simulations. An array of subjective and objective statistical metrics are employed to document the utility of the WRF forecasts. The simulation results are also compared to other more traditional means of forecasting convective storms, such as those based on inspection of the convective available potential energy field.

Association between digital dermatoglyphics and handedness among Sinhalese in Sri Lanka

PubMed Central

Wijerathne, Buddhika TB; Rathnayake, Geetha K

2013-01-01

Background The relationship between handedness and digital dermatoglyphic patterns has never been investigated in the Sinhalese population. The goal of this study is to establish the above mentioned relationship, which would positively aid personal identification.  Findings One hundred forty Sinhalese students (70 right-handed and 70 left-handed) were studied for their digital dermatoglyphic pattern distribution. The results show that a statistically significant correlation exists for; digit 5 (Ulnar loop; P= 0.0449 and radial loop; P= 0.0248 by Fisher’s exact test) of the right hand in female, digit 1 (radial loop; P=0.0248 by Fisher’s exact test) and digit 2 (Ulnar loop; P=0.0306) of the left hand in females, digit 3 (Ulnar loop; P= 0.0486 and whorl; P= 0.0356 by Fisher’s exact test) and digit 4 (Ulnar loop; P= 0.0449 and whorl; P= 0.0301 by Fisher’s exact test) of the right hand in males, digit 4 (whorl; P=0.0160 by Fisher’s exact test) of the left hand in males. Conclusions  Statistically significant differences in handedness and digital dermatoglyphic patterns were evident among Sinhalese people. Further study with a larger sample size is recommended. PMID:24627780

Binary Interval Search: a scalable algorithm for counting interval intersections.

PubMed

Layer, Ryan M; Skadron, Kevin; Robins, Gabriel; Hall, Ira M; Quinlan, Aaron R

2013-01-01

The comparison of diverse genomic datasets is fundamental to understand genome biology. Researchers must explore many large datasets of genome intervals (e.g. genes, sequence alignments) to place their experimental results in a broader context and to make new discoveries. Relationships between genomic datasets are typically measured by identifying intervals that intersect, that is, they overlap and thus share a common genome interval. Given the continued advances in DNA sequencing technologies, efficient methods for measuring statistically significant relationships between many sets of genomic features are crucial for future discovery. We introduce the Binary Interval Search (BITS) algorithm, a novel and scalable approach to interval set intersection. We demonstrate that BITS outperforms existing methods at counting interval intersections. Moreover, we show that BITS is intrinsically suited to parallel computing architectures, such as graphics processing units by illustrating its utility for efficient Monte Carlo simulations measuring the significance of relationships between sets of genomic intervals. https://github.com/arq5x/bits.

Partners or Partners in Crime? The Relationship Between Criminal Associates and Criminogenic Thinking.

PubMed

Whited, William H; Wagar, Laura; Mandracchia, Jon T; Morgan, Robert D

2017-04-01

Meta-analyses examining the risk factors for recidivism have identified the importance of ties with criminal associates as well as thoughts and attitudes conducive to the continuance of criminal behavior (e.g., criminogenic thinking). Criminologists have theorized that a direct relationship exists between the association with criminal peers and the development of criminogenic thinking. The present study empirically explored the relationship between criminal associates and criminogenic thinking in 595 adult male inmates in the United States. It was hypothesized that the proportion of free time spent with and number of criminal associates would be associated with criminogenic thinking, as measured by two self-report instruments, the Measure of Offender Thinking Styles-Revised (MOTS-R) and the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS). Hierarchal linear regression analyses demonstrated that the proportion of free time spent with criminal associates statistically predicted criminogenic thinking when controlling for demographic variables. The implications of these findings on correctional practice (including assessment and intervention) as well as future research are discussed.

Using Bayesian regression to test hypotheses about relationships between parameters and covariates in cognitive models.

PubMed

Boehm, Udo; Steingroever, Helen; Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan

2018-06-01

An important tool in the advancement of cognitive science are quantitative models that represent different cognitive variables in terms of model parameters. To evaluate such models, their parameters are typically tested for relationships with behavioral and physiological variables that are thought to reflect specific cognitive processes. However, many models do not come equipped with the statistical framework needed to relate model parameters to covariates. Instead, researchers often revert to classifying participants into groups depending on their values on the covariates, and subsequently comparing the estimated model parameters between these groups. Here we develop a comprehensive solution to the covariate problem in the form of a Bayesian regression framework. Our framework can be easily added to existing cognitive models and allows researchers to quantify the evidential support for relationships between covariates and model parameters using Bayes factors. Moreover, we present a simulation study that demonstrates the superiority of the Bayesian regression framework to the conventional classification-based approach.

Ensemble-based prediction of RNA secondary structures.

PubMed

Aghaeepour, Nima; Hoos, Holger H

2013-04-24

Accurate structure prediction methods play an important role for the understanding of RNA function. Energy-based, pseudoknot-free secondary structure prediction is one of the most widely used and versatile approaches, and improved methods for this task have received much attention over the past five years. Despite the impressive progress that as been achieved in this area, existing evaluations of the prediction accuracy achieved by various algorithms do not provide a comprehensive, statistically sound assessment. Furthermore, while there is increasing evidence that no prediction algorithm consistently outperforms all others, no work has been done to exploit the complementary strengths of multiple approaches. In this work, we present two contributions to the area of RNA secondary structure prediction. Firstly, we use state-of-the-art, resampling-based statistical methods together with a previously published and increasingly widely used dataset of high-quality RNA structures to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of existing RNA secondary structure prediction procedures. The results from this evaluation clarify the performance relationship between ten well-known existing energy-based pseudoknot-free RNA secondary structure prediction methods and clearly demonstrate the progress that has been achieved in recent years. Secondly, we introduce AveRNA, a generic and powerful method for combining a set of existing secondary structure prediction procedures into an ensemble-based method that achieves significantly higher prediction accuracies than obtained from any of its component procedures. Our new, ensemble-based method, AveRNA, improves the state of the art for energy-based, pseudoknot-free RNA secondary structure prediction by exploiting the complementary strengths of multiple existing prediction procedures, as demonstrated using a state-of-the-art statistical resampling approach. In addition, AveRNA allows an intuitive and effective control of the trade-off between false negative and false positive base pair predictions. Finally, AveRNA can make use of arbitrary sets of secondary structure prediction procedures and can therefore be used to leverage improvements in prediction accuracy offered by algorithms and energy models developed in the future. Our data, MATLAB software and a web-based version of AveRNA are publicly available at http://www.cs.ubc.ca/labs/beta/Software/AveRNA.

On the predictive potential of Pc5 ULF waves to forecast relativistic electrons based on their relationships over two solar cycles

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lam, Hing-Lan

2017-01-01

A statistical study of relativistic electron (>2 MeV) fluence derived from geosynchronous satellites and Pc5 ultralow frequency (ULF) wave power computed from a ground magnetic observatory data located in Canada's auroral zone has been carried out. The ground observations were made near the foot points of field lines passing through the GOESs from 1987 to 2009 (cycles 22 and 23). We determine statistical relationships between the two quantities for different phases of a solar cycle and validate these relationships in two different cycles. There is a positive linear relationship between log fluence and log Pc5 power for all solar phases; however, the power law indices vary for different phases of the cycle. High index values existed during the descending phase. The Pearson's cross correlation between electron fluence and Pc5 power indicates fluence enhancement 2-3 days after strong Pc5 wave activity for all solar phases. The lag between the two quantities is shorter for extremely high fluence (due to high Pc5 power), which tends to occur during the declining phases of both cycles. Most occurrences of extremely low fluence were observed during the extended solar minimum of cycle 23. The precursory attribute of Pc5 power with respect to fluence and the enhancement of fluence due to rising Pc5 power both support the notion of an electron acceleration mechanism by Pc5 ULF waves. This precursor behavior establishes the potential of using Pc5 power to predict relativistic electron fluence.

The Impact of United States Monetary Policy in the Crude Oil futures market

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Padilla-Padilla, Fernando M.

This research examines the empirical impact the United States monetary policy, through the federal fund interest rate, has on the volatility in the crude oil price in the futures market. Prior research has shown how macroeconomic events and variables have impacted different financial markets within short and long--term movements. After testing and decomposing the variables, the two stationary time series were analyzed using a Vector Autoregressive Model (VAR). The empirical evidence shows, with statistical significance, a direct relationship when explaining crude oil prices as function of fed fund rates (t-1) and an indirect relationship when explained as a function of fed fund rates (t-2). These results partially address the literature review lacunas within the topic of the existing implication monetary policy has within the crude oil futures market.

Cod Collapse and the Climate in the North Atlantic

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Meng, K. C.; Oremus, K. L.; Gaines, S.

2014-12-01

Effective fisheries management requires forecasting population changes. We find a negative relationship between the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index and subsequently surveyed biomass and catch of Atlantic cod, Gadus morhua, off the New England coast. A 1-unit NAO increase is associated with a 17% decrease in surveyed biomass of age-1 cod the following year. This relationship persists as the cod mature, such that observed NAO can be used to forecast future adult biomass. We also document that an NAO event lowers catch for up to 15 years afterward. In contrast to forecasts by existing stock assessment models, our NAO-driven statistical model successfully hindcasts the recent collapse of New England cod fisheries following strong NAO events in 2007 and 2008 (see figure). This finding can serve as a template for forecasting other fisheries affected by climatic conditions.

Preferences for teaching methods in a baccalaureate nursing program: how second-degree and traditional students differ.

PubMed

Walker, Jean T; Martin, Tina M; Haynie, Lisa; Norwood, Anne; White, Jill; Grant, LaVerne

2007-01-01

Accelerated baccalaureate nursing programs are in great demand in the United States. Currently there are 197 such programs, but little research has been conducted on student characteristics and program outcomes. This quantitative study explores preferences of second-degree students and traditional generic students with regard to teaching methods and relationships with faculty. The results indicate that statistically significant differences exist between the two groups of students. Three areas of significance are ability for self-directed learning, expectations of faculty and classroom structure, and obtaining a grade that really matters.

Trophic classification of selected Colorado lakes

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Blackwell, R. J.; Boland, D. H. P.

1979-01-01

Multispectral scanner data, acquired over several Colorado lakes using LANDSAT-1 and aircraft, were used in conjunction with contact-sensed water quality data to determine the feasibility of assessing lacustrine trophic levels. A trophic state index was developed using contact-sensed data for several trophic indicators. Relationships between the digitally processed multispectral scanner data, several trophic indicators, and the trophic index were examined using a supervised multispectral classification technique and regression techniques. Statistically significant correlations exist between spectral bands, several of the trophic indicators and the trophic state index. Color-coded photomaps were generated which depict the spectral aspects of trophic state.

12 CFR 41.20 - Scope and definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

...-existing business relationship. (i) In general. The term “pre-existing business relationship” means a... by this subpart. (ii) Examples of pre-existing business relationships. (A) If a consumer has a time..., the depository institution has a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and can use...

12 CFR 717.20 - Coverage and definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

...-existing business relationship. (i) In general. The term “pre-existing business relationship” means a... by this subpart. (ii) Examples of pre-existing business relationships. (A) If a consumer has a time... federal credit union has a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and can use eligibility...

12 CFR 717.20 - Coverage and definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

...-existing business relationship. (i) In general. The term “pre-existing business relationship” means a... by this subpart. (ii) Examples of pre-existing business relationships. (A) If a consumer has a time... federal credit union has a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and can use eligibility...

12 CFR 41.20 - Scope and definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

...-existing business relationship.—(i) In general. The term “pre-existing business relationship” means a... by this subpart. (ii) Examples of pre-existing business relationships. (A) If a consumer has a time..., the depository institution has a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and can use...

12 CFR 717.20 - Coverage and definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

...-existing business relationship. (i) In general. The term “pre-existing business relationship” means a... by this subpart. (ii) Examples of pre-existing business relationships. (A) If a consumer has a time... federal credit union has a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and can use eligibility...

Rethinking dependent personality disorder: comparing different human relatedness in cultural contexts.

PubMed

Chen, YuJu; Nettles, Margaret E; Chen, Shun-Wen

2009-11-01

We argue that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders dependent personality disorder is a culturally related concept reflecting deeply rooted values, beliefs, and assumptions of American individualistic convictions about self and interpersonal relationship. This article integrates social psychology concepts into the exploration of psychopathology. Beginning with the construct of individualism and collectivism, we demonstrate the limitations of this commonly used framework. The indigenous Chinese concept of Confucianism and Chinese Relationalism is introduced to highlight that a well-differentiated self is not a universal premise of human beings, healthy existence. In East Asian Confucianism the manifestation of dependence and submission may be considered individuals' proper behavior and required for their social obligation, rather than a direct display of individuals' personality. Thus, the complexity of dependent personality disorder is beyond the neo-Kraepelinian approach assumed by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders system.

Statistical Characterization of School Bus Drive Cycles Collected via Onboard Logging Systems

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Duran, A.; Walkowicz, K.

In an effort to characterize the dynamics typical of school bus operation, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) researchers set out to gather in-use duty cycle data from school bus fleets operating across the country. Employing a combination of Isaac Instruments GPS/CAN data loggers in conjunction with existing onboard telemetric systems resulted in the capture of operating information for more than 200 individual vehicles in three geographically unique domestic locations. In total, over 1,500 individual operational route shifts from Washington, New York, and Colorado were collected. Upon completing the collection of in-use field data using either NREL-installed data acquisition devices ormore » existing onboard telemetry systems, large-scale duty-cycle statistical analyses were performed to examine underlying vehicle dynamics trends within the data and to explore vehicle operation variations between fleet locations. Based on the results of these analyses, high, low, and average vehicle dynamics requirements were determined, resulting in the selection of representative standard chassis dynamometer test cycles for each condition. In this paper, the methodology and accompanying results of the large-scale duty-cycle statistical analysis are presented, including graphical and tabular representations of a number of relationships between key duty-cycle metrics observed within the larger data set. In addition to presenting the results of this analysis, conclusions are drawn and presented regarding potential applications of advanced vehicle technology as it relates specifically to school buses.« less

The Relationship of Parental Education with Knowledge and Practice Level of Middle School and High School Students of Isfahan Regarding Violent Behaviors.

PubMed

Heidari, Kamal; Omidi, Razieh; Fatemi, Sayed Azim; Nasr, Mehran; Ghasemi, Gholamreza; Abtin, Zahra; Zolfaghari, Zahra; Khoramian, Rasool; Javanbakht, Khodarahm

2014-12-01

It can be concluded from the existing theories that parental education status, by affecting socioeconomical status of families, can impact the incidence of violent behaviors in teenagers. Therefore, this study was conducted aiming at investigating the relationship between parental education and teenagers' knowledge of violent behaviors and their incidences. For this cross-sectional, descriptive-correlational study, a sample of 5500 teenager students from Isfahan province were selected by random cluster sampling and responded to a 61-item questionnaire. The data collected from by questionnaire was analyzed by Spearman's statistical correlation and multiple regression methods. Most of the students under study (89.1%) were living in cities and the rest were rural dwellers. In terms of gender, female to male ratio was approximately equal (49.8% vs. 50.2%). The statistical results showed that there is a significant positive relationship between practice and knowledge (R = 0.092 and P = 0.00), but there is no significant relationship between parental education and practice and there is a significant relationship between parental education and knowledge (Mothers' education P = 0.00 and R = 0.121 and fathers' education P = 0.00 and R = 0.109). Moreover, there was a positive significant relationship between teenagers' knowledge of violence consequences (P = 0.005 and B = 0.048) violent behavior causes (P = 0.00 B = 0.085) and methods of preventing violent behaviors (P = 0.00 and B = 0.085) with teenagers' practice. Based on the results of the present study that indicates teenagers are less aware of the consequences of violent behavior compared to other subscales of knowledge, it is better that teenagers' education about the violent behaviors are more about the consequences of violent behavior rather than its definitions. Moreover, parental education is related to teenagers' knowledge of the violent behavior so it is better that in various grades more comprehensive and suitable information regarding violent behaviors be presented.

The Relationship of Parental Education with Knowledge and Practice Level of Middle School and High School Students of Isfahan Regarding Violent Behaviors

PubMed Central

Heidari, Kamal; Omidi, Razieh; Fatemi, Sayed Azim; Nasr, Mehran; Ghasemi, Gholamreza; Abtin, Zahra; Zolfaghari, Zahra; Khoramian, Rasool; Javanbakht, Khodarahm

2014-01-01

Background: It can be concluded from the existing theories that parental education status, by affecting socioeconomical status of families, can impact the incidence of violent behaviors in teenagers. Therefore, this study was conducted aiming at investigating the relationship between parental education and teenagers’ knowledge of violent behaviors and their incidences. Methods: For this cross-sectional, descriptive-correlational study, a sample of 5500 teenager students from Isfahan province were selected by random cluster sampling and responded to a 61-item questionnaire. The data collected from by questionnaire was analyzed by Spearman's statistical correlation and multiple regression methods. Results: Most of the students under study (89.1%) were living in cities and the rest were rural dwellers. In terms of gender, female to male ratio was approximately equal (49.8% vs. 50.2%). The statistical results showed that there is a significant positive relationship between practice and knowledge (R = 0.092 and P = 0.00), but there is no significant relationship between parental education and practice and there is a significant relationship between parental education and knowledge (Mothers’ education P = 0.00 and R = 0.121 and fathers’ education P = 0.00 and R = 0.109). Moreover, there was a positive significant relationship between teenagers’ knowledge of violence consequences (P = 0.005 and B = 0.048) violent behavior causes (P = 0.00 B = 0.085) and methods of preventing violent behaviors (P = 0.00 and B = 0.085) with teenagers’ practice. Conclusions: Based on the results of the present study that indicates teenagers are less aware of the consequences of violent behavior compared to other subscales of knowledge, it is better that teenagers’ education about the violent behaviors are more about the consequences of violent behavior rather than its definitions. Moreover, parental education is related to teenagers’ knowledge of the violent behavior so it is better that in various grades more comprehensive and suitable information regarding violent behaviors be presented. PMID:26157566

Long-term associations of morbidity with air pollution: A catalog and synthesis.

PubMed

Lipfert, Frederick W

2018-01-01

I searched the National Institutes of Health MEDLINE database through January 2017 for long-term studies of morbidity and air pollution and cataloged them with respect to cardiovascular, respiratory, cancer, diabetes, hospitalization, neurological, and pregnancy-birth endpoints. The catalog is presented as an online appendix. Associations with PM 2.5 (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter <2.5 μm), PM 10 (PM with an aerodynamic diameter <10 μm), and nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) were evaluated most frequently among the 417 ambient air quality studies identified. Associations with total suspended particles (TSP), carbon, ozone, sulfur, vehicular traffic, radon, and indoor air quality were also reported. I evaluated each study in terms of pollutant significance (yes, no), duration of exposure, and publication date. I found statistically significant pollutant relationships (P < 0.05) in 224 studies; 220 studies indicated adverse effects. Among 795 individual pollutant effect estimates, 396 are statistically significant. Pollutant associations with cardiovascular indicators, lung function, respiratory symptoms, and low birth weight are more likely to be significant than with disease incidence, heart attacks, diabetes, or neurological endpoints. Elemental carbon (EC), traffic, and PM 2.5 are most likely to be significant for cardiovascular outcomes; TSP, EC, and ozone (O 3 ) for respiratory outcomes; NO 2 for neurological outcomes; and PM 10 for birth/pregnancy outcomes. Durations of exposure range from 60 days to 35 yr, but I found no consistent relationships with the likelihood of statistical significance. Respiratory studies began ca. 1975; studies of diabetes, cardiovascular, and neurological effects increased after about 2005. I found 72 studies of occupational air pollution exposures; 40 reported statistically significant adverse health effects, especially for respiratory conditions. I conclude that the aggregate of these studies supports the existence of nonlethal physiological effects of various pollutants, more so for non-life-threatening endpoints and for noncriteria pollutants (TSP, EC, PM 2.5 metals). However, most studies were cross-sectional analyses over limited time spans with no consideration of lag or disease latency. Further longitudinal studies are thus needed to investigate the progress of disease incidence in association with air pollution exposure. Relationships of air pollution with excess mortality are better known than with long-term antecedent morbidity. I cataloged 489 studies of cardiovascular, respiratory, cancer, and neurological effects, diabetes, and birth outcomes with respect to 12 air pollutants. About half of the studies reported statistically significant relationships, more frequently with noncriteria than with criteria pollutants. Indoor and cumulative exposures, coarse or ultrafine particles, and organic carbon were seldom considered. Significant relationships were more likely with less-severe endpoints such as blood pressure, lung function, or respiratory symptoms than with incidence of cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart failure, or diabetes. Most long-term studies are based on spatial relationships; longitudinal studies are needed to link the progression of pollution-related morbidity to mortality, especially for the cardiovascular system.

Modeling of the Geosocial Process using GIS «Disasters»

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vikulina, Marina; Turchaninova, Alla; Dolgaya, Anna; Vikulin, Alexandr; Petrova, Elena

2016-04-01

The natural and social disasters generate a huge stress in the world community. Most researches searching for the relationships between different catastrophic events consider the limited sets of disasters and do not take into account their size. This fact puts to doubt the completeness and statistical significance of such approach. Thus the next indispensible step is to overpass from narrow subject framework researches of disasters to more complex researches. In order to study the relationships between the Nature and the Society a database of natural disasters and dreadful social events occurred during the last XXXVI (36) centuries of human history weighted by the magnitude was created and became a core of the GIS «Disasters» (ArcGIS 10.0). By the moment the database includes more than 2500 most socially significant ("strong") catastrophic natural (earthquakes, fires, floods, droughts, climatic anomalies, other natural disasters) as well as social (wars, revolts, genocide, epidemics, fires caused by the human being, other social disasters) events. So far, each event is presented as a point feature located in the center of the struck region in the World Map. If the event affects several countries, it is placed in the approximate center of the affected area. Every event refers to the country or group of countries which are located in a zone of its influence now. The grade J (I, II and III) is specified for each event according to the disaster force assessment scale developed by the authors. The GIS with such a detailed database of disastrous events weighted by the magnitude over a long period of time is compiled for the first time and creates fairly complete and statistically representative basis for studies of the distribution of natural and social disasters and their relationship. By the moment the statistical analysis of the database performed both for each aggregate (natural disasters and catastrophic social phenomena), and for particular statistically representative types of events led to the following conclusions: natural disasters and dreadful social events have appeared to be closely related to each other despite their apparently different nature. The numbers of events of different magnitude are distributed by logarithmic law: the bigger the event, the less likely it happens. For each type of events and each aggregate the existence of periodicities with periods of 280 ± 60 years was established. The identified properties of cyclicity, grouping and interaction create a basis for modeling essentially unified Geosocial Process at a high enough statistical level and prove the existence of the uniform planetary Geosocial Process. The evidence of interaction between "lifeless" Nature and Society is fundamental and provided a new forecasting approach of demographic crises taking into account both natural disasters and social phenomena. The idea of the interaction of Nature and Society through the disasters «exchange» as a uniform planetary Geosocial Process is an essentially new statement introduced for the first time.

On the causal links between health indicator, output, combustible renewables and waste consumption, rail transport, and CO2 emissions: the case of Tunisia.

PubMed

Ben Jebli, Mehdi

2016-08-01

This study employs the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach and Granger causality test to investigate the short- and long-run relationships between health indicator, real GDP, combustible renewables and waste consumption, rail transport, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for the case of Tunisia, spanning the period of 1990-2011. The empirical findings suggest that the Fisher statistic of the Wald test confirm the existence of a long-run relationship between the variables. Moreover, the long-run estimated elasticities of the ARDL model provide that output and combustible renewables and waste consumption have a positive and statistically significant impact on health situation, while CO2 emissions and rail transport both contribute to the decrease of health indicator. Granger causality results affirm that, in the short-run, there is a unidirectional causality running from real GDP to health, a unidirectional causality from health to combustible renewables and waste consumption, and a unidirectional causality from all variables to CO2 emissions. In the long-run, all the computed error correction terms are significant and confirm the existence of long-run association among the variables. Our recommendations for the Tunisian policymakers are as follows: (i) exploiting wastes and renewable fuels can be a good strategy to eliminate pollution caused by emissions and subsequently improve health quality, (ii) the use of renewable energy as a main source for national rail transport is an effective strategy for public health, (iii) renewable energy investment projects are beneficial plans for the country as this contributes to the growth of its own economy and reduce energy dependence, and (iii) more renewable energy consumption leads not only to decrease pollution but also to stimulate health situation because of the increase of doctors and nurses numbers.

Time, frequency, and time-varying Granger-causality measures in neuroscience.

PubMed

Cekic, Sezen; Grandjean, Didier; Renaud, Olivier

2018-05-20

This article proposes a systematic methodological review and an objective criticism of existing methods enabling the derivation of time, frequency, and time-varying Granger-causality statistics in neuroscience. The capacity to describe the causal links between signals recorded at different brain locations during a neuroscience experiment is indeed of primary interest for neuroscientists, who often have very precise prior hypotheses about the relationships between recorded brain signals. The increasing interest and the huge number of publications related to this topic calls for this systematic review, which describes the very complex methodological aspects underlying the derivation of these statistics. In this article, we first present a general framework that allows us to review and compare Granger-causality statistics in the time domain, and the link with transfer entropy. Then, the spectral and the time-varying extensions are exposed and discussed together with their estimation and distributional properties. Although not the focus of this article, partial and conditional Granger causality, dynamical causal modelling, directed transfer function, directed coherence, partial directed coherence, and their variant are also mentioned. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Recurrence interval analysis of trading volumes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ren, Fei; Zhou, Wei-Xing

2010-06-01

We study the statistical properties of the recurrence intervals τ between successive trading volumes exceeding a certain threshold q . The recurrence interval analysis is carried out for the 20 liquid Chinese stocks covering a period from January 2000 to May 2009, and two Chinese indices from January 2003 to April 2009. Similar to the recurrence interval distribution of the price returns, the tail of the recurrence interval distribution of the trading volumes follows a power-law scaling, and the results are verified by the goodness-of-fit tests using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) statistic, the weighted KS statistic and the Cramér-von Mises criterion. The measurements of the conditional probability distribution and the detrended fluctuation function show that both short-term and long-term memory effects exist in the recurrence intervals between trading volumes. We further study the relationship between trading volumes and price returns based on the recurrence interval analysis method. It is found that large trading volumes are more likely to occur following large price returns, and the comovement between trading volumes and price returns is more pronounced for large trading volumes.

Syndromic surveillance models using Web data: the case of scarlet fever in the UK.

PubMed

Samaras, Loukas; García-Barriocanal, Elena; Sicilia, Miguel-Angel

2012-03-01

Recent research has shown the potential of Web queries as a source for syndromic surveillance, and existing studies show that these queries can be used as a basis for estimation and prediction of the development of a syndromic disease, such as influenza, using log linear (logit) statistical models. Two alternative models are applied to the relationship between cases and Web queries in this paper. We examine the applicability of using statistical methods to relate search engine queries with scarlet fever cases in the UK, taking advantage of tools to acquire the appropriate data from Google, and using an alternative statistical method based on gamma distributions. The results show that using logit models, the Pearson correlation factor between Web queries and the data obtained from the official agencies must be over 0.90, otherwise the prediction of the peak and the spread of the distributions gives significant deviations. In this paper, we describe the gamma distribution model and show that we can obtain better results in all cases using gamma transformations, and especially in those with a smaller correlation factor.

Recurrence interval analysis of trading volumes.

PubMed

Ren, Fei; Zhou, Wei-Xing

2010-06-01

We study the statistical properties of the recurrence intervals τ between successive trading volumes exceeding a certain threshold q. The recurrence interval analysis is carried out for the 20 liquid Chinese stocks covering a period from January 2000 to May 2009, and two Chinese indices from January 2003 to April 2009. Similar to the recurrence interval distribution of the price returns, the tail of the recurrence interval distribution of the trading volumes follows a power-law scaling, and the results are verified by the goodness-of-fit tests using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) statistic, the weighted KS statistic and the Cramér-von Mises criterion. The measurements of the conditional probability distribution and the detrended fluctuation function show that both short-term and long-term memory effects exist in the recurrence intervals between trading volumes. We further study the relationship between trading volumes and price returns based on the recurrence interval analysis method. It is found that large trading volumes are more likely to occur following large price returns, and the comovement between trading volumes and price returns is more pronounced for large trading volumes.

Literature Mining for the Discovery of Hidden Connections between Drugs, Genes and Diseases

PubMed Central

Frijters, Raoul; van Vugt, Marianne; Smeets, Ruben; van Schaik, René; de Vlieg, Jacob; Alkema, Wynand

2010-01-01

The scientific literature represents a rich source for retrieval of knowledge on associations between biomedical concepts such as genes, diseases and cellular processes. A commonly used method to establish relationships between biomedical concepts from literature is co-occurrence. Apart from its use in knowledge retrieval, the co-occurrence method is also well-suited to discover new, hidden relationships between biomedical concepts following a simple ABC-principle, in which A and C have no direct relationship, but are connected via shared B-intermediates. In this paper we describe CoPub Discovery, a tool that mines the literature for new relationships between biomedical concepts. Statistical analysis using ROC curves showed that CoPub Discovery performed well over a wide range of settings and keyword thesauri. We subsequently used CoPub Discovery to search for new relationships between genes, drugs, pathways and diseases. Several of the newly found relationships were validated using independent literature sources. In addition, new predicted relationships between compounds and cell proliferation were validated and confirmed experimentally in an in vitro cell proliferation assay. The results show that CoPub Discovery is able to identify novel associations between genes, drugs, pathways and diseases that have a high probability of being biologically valid. This makes CoPub Discovery a useful tool to unravel the mechanisms behind disease, to find novel drug targets, or to find novel applications for existing drugs. PMID:20885778

Negative density-distribution relationship in butterflies.

PubMed

Päivinen, Jussi; Grapputo, Alessandro; Kaitala, Veijo; Komonen, Atte; Kotiaho, Janne S; Saarinen, Kimmo; Wahlberg, Niklas

2005-03-01

Because "laws of nature" do not exist in ecology, much of the foundations of community ecology rely on broad statistical generalisations. One of the strongest generalisations is the positive relationship between density and distribution within a given taxonomic assemblage; that is, locally abundant species are more widespread than locally sparse species. Several mechanisms have been proposed to create this positive relationship, and the testing of these mechanisms is attracting increasing attention. We report a strong, but counterintuitive, negative relationship between density and distribution in the butterfly fauna of Finland. With an exceptionally comprehensive data set (data includes all 95 resident species in Finland and over 1.5 million individuals), we have been able to submit several of the mechanisms to powerful direct empirical testing. Without exception, we failed to find evidence for the proposed mechanisms creating a positive density-distribution relationship. On the contrary, we found that many of the mechanisms are equally able to generate a negative relationship. We suggest that one important determinant of density-distribution relationships is the geographical location of the study: on the edge of a distribution range, suitable habitat patches are likely to be more isolated than in the core of the range. In such a situation, only the largest and best quality patches are likely to be occupied, and these by definition can support a relatively dense population leading to a negative density-distribution relationship. Finally, we conclude that generalizations about the positive density-distribution relationship should be made more cautiously.

Negative density-distribution relationship in butterflies

PubMed Central

Päivinen, Jussi; Grapputo, Alessandro; Kaitala, Veijo; Komonen, Atte; Kotiaho, Janne S; Saarinen, Kimmo; Wahlberg, Niklas

2005-01-01

Background Because "laws of nature" do not exist in ecology, much of the foundations of community ecology rely on broad statistical generalisations. One of the strongest generalisations is the positive relationship between density and distribution within a given taxonomic assemblage; that is, locally abundant species are more widespread than locally sparse species. Several mechanisms have been proposed to create this positive relationship, and the testing of these mechanisms is attracting increasing attention. Results We report a strong, but counterintuitive, negative relationship between density and distribution in the butterfly fauna of Finland. With an exceptionally comprehensive data set (data includes all 95 resident species in Finland and over 1.5 million individuals), we have been able to submit several of the mechanisms to powerful direct empirical testing. Without exception, we failed to find evidence for the proposed mechanisms creating a positive density-distribution relationship. On the contrary, we found that many of the mechanisms are equally able to generate a negative relationship. Conclusion We suggest that one important determinant of density-distribution relationships is the geographical location of the study: on the edge of a distribution range, suitable habitat patches are likely to be more isolated than in the core of the range. In such a situation, only the largest and best quality patches are likely to be occupied, and these by definition can support a relatively dense population leading to a negative density-distribution relationship. Finally, we conclude that generalizations about the positive density-distribution relationship should be made more cautiously. PMID:15737240

Perceived stress, energy drink consumption, and academic performance among college students.

PubMed

Pettit, Michele L; DeBarr, Kathy A

2011-01-01

This study explored relationships regarding perceived stress, energy drink consumption, and academic performance among college students. Participants included 136 undergraduates attending a large southern plains university. Participants completed surveys including items from the Perceived Stress Scale(1) and items to describe energy drink consumption, academic performance, and demographics. Positive correlations existed between participants' perceived stress and energy drink consumption. Participants' energy drink consumption and academic performance were negatively correlated. Freshmen (M = 0.330) and sophomores (M = 0.408) consumed a lower number of energy drinks yesterday than juniors (M = 1.000). Males reported higher means than females for selected energy drink consumption items. Statistically significant interactions existed between gender and year in school for selected energy drink consumption items. Results confirm gender differences in energy drink consumption and illuminate a need for education regarding use of energy drinks in response to perceived stress.

Organizational culture of a private hospital.

PubMed

Vegro, Thamiris Cavazzani; Rocha, Fernanda Ludmilla Rossi; Camelo, Silvia Helena Henriques; Garcia, Alessandra Bassalobre

2016-06-01

Objective To assess the values and practices that characterize the organizational culture of a private hospital in the state of São Paulo in the perspective of nursing professionals. Methods Quantitative, descriptive, cross-sectional study. Data collection was conducted between January and March 2013 using the Brazilian Instrument for Assessing Organizational Culture. Twenty-one nurses and sixty-two nursing aides and technicians participated in the study. The responses of the participants were coded into numerical categories, generating an electronic database to be analyzed by means of the software Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. Results Scores of cooperative professionalism values (3.24); hierarchical strictness values (2.83); individual professionalism values (2.69); well-being values (2.71); external integration practices (3.73); reward and training practices (2.56); and relationship promotion practices (2.83). Conclusion In the perception of workers, despite the existence of hierarchical strictness there is cooperation at work and the institution pursues customer satisfaction and good interpersonal relationships.

Interpersonal Autonomic Physiology: A Systematic Review of the Literature.

PubMed

Palumbo, Richard V; Marraccini, Marisa E; Weyandt, Lisa L; Wilder-Smith, Oliver; McGee, Heather A; Liu, Siwei; Goodwin, Matthew S

2017-05-01

Interpersonal autonomic physiology is defined as the relationship between people's physiological dynamics, as indexed by continuous measures of the autonomic nervous system. Findings from this field of study indicate that physiological activity between two or more people can become associated or interdependent, often referred to as physiological synchrony. Physiological synchrony has been found in both new and established relationships across a range of contexts, and it correlates with a number of psychosocial constructs. Given these findings, interpersonal physiological interactions are theorized to be ubiquitous social processes that co-occur with observable behavior. However, this scientific literature is fragmented, making it difficult to evaluate consistency across reports. In an effort to facilitate more standardized scholarly approaches, this systematic review provides a description of existing work in the area and highlights theoretical, methodological, and statistical issues to be addressed in future interpersonal autonomic physiology research.

Green initiative impact on stock prices: A quantitative study of the clean energy industry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jurisich, John M.

The purpose of this quantitative ex post facto research study was to explore the relationship between green initiative expense disclosures and stock prices of 46 NASDAQ listed Clean Edge Green Energy global companies from 2007 to 2010. The independent variables were sales and marketing, environmental, customer and supplier, community, and corporate governance practices that were correlated with the dependent variable in the study of stock prices. Expense disclosures were examined in an effort to measure the impact of green initiative programs and to expose the interrelationships between green initiative expense disclosures and fluctuations of stock prices. The data for the research was secondary data from existing annual reports. A statistically significant relationship was revealed between environmental practices and changes in stock prices. The study results also provided substantial evidence for leadership and managerial decision making to reduce or increase green initiative practices to maximize shareholder wealth of their respective organizations.

Polyphenolic, polysaccharide and oligosaccharide composition of Tempranillo red wines and their relationship with the perceived astringency.

PubMed

Quijada-Morín, Natalia; Williams, Pascale; Rivas-Gonzalo, Julián C; Doco, Thierry; Escribano-Bailón, M Teresa

2014-07-01

The influence of the proanthocyanidic, polysaccharide and oligosaccharide composition on astringency perception of Tempranillo wines has been evaluated. Statistical analyses revealed the existence of relationships between chemical composition and perceived astringency. Proanthocyanidic subunit distribution had the strongest contribution to the multiple linear regression (MLR) model. Polysaccharide families showed clear opposition to astringency perception according to principal component analysis (PCA) results, being stronger for mannoproteins and rhamnogalacturonan-II (RG-II), but only Polysaccharides Rich in Arabinose and Galactose (PRAGs) were considered in the final fitted MLR model, which explained 96.8% of the variability observed in the data. Oligosaccharides did not show a clear opposition, revealing that structure and size of carbohydrates are important for astringency perception. Mannose and galactose residues in the oligosaccharide fraction are positively related to astringency perception, probably because its presence is consequence of the degradation of polysaccharides. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A complementation assay for in vivo protein structure/function analysis in Physcomitrella patens (Funariaceae)

DOE PAGES

Scavuzzo-Duggan, Tess R.; Chaves, Arielle M.; Roberts, Alison W.

2015-07-14

Here, a method for rapid in vivo functional analysis of engineered proteins was developed using Physcomitrella patens. A complementation assay was designed for testing structure/function relationships in cellulose synthase (CESA) proteins. The components of the assay include (1) construction of test vectors that drive expression of epitope-tagged PpCESA5 carrying engineered mutations, (2) transformation of a ppcesa5 knockout line that fails to produce gametophores with test and control vectors, (3) scoring the stable transformants for gametophore production, (4) statistical analysis comparing complementation rates for test vectors to positive and negative control vectors, and (5) analysis of transgenic protein expression by Westernmore » blotting. The assay distinguished mutations that generate fully functional, nonfunctional, and partially functional proteins. In conclusion, compared with existing methods for in vivo testing of protein function, this complementation assay provides a rapid method for investigating protein structure/function relationships in plants.« less

Lesions of endodontic origin and risk of coronary heart disease.

PubMed

Caplan, D J; Chasen, J B; Krall, E A; Cai, J; Kang, S; Garcia, R I; Offenbacher, S; Beck, J D

2006-11-01

A paucity of epidemiologic research exists regarding systemic health consequences of endodontic disease. This study evaluated whether incident radiographically evident lesions of endodontic origin were related to development of coronary heart disease (CHD) among 708 male participants in the VA Dental Longitudinal Study. At baseline and every three years for up to 32 years, participants (who were not VA patients) received complete medical and dental examinations, including full-mouth radiographs. Cox regression models estimated the relationship between incident lesions of endodontic origin and time to CHD diagnosis. Among those < or = 40 years old, incident lesions of endodontic origin were significantly associated with time to CHD diagnosis (p < 0.05), after adjustment for covariates of interest, with hazard ratios decreasing as age increased. Among those > 40 years old, no statistically significant association was observed. These findings are consistent with research that suggests relationships between chronic periodontal inflammation and the development of CHD, especially among younger men.

Socioscientific Argumentation: The effects of content knowledge and morality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sadler, Troy D.; Donnelly, Lisa A.

2006-10-01

Broad support exists within the science education community for the incorporation of socioscientific issues (SSI) and argumentation in the science curriculum. This study investigates how content knowledge and morality contribute to the quality of SSI argumentation among high school students. We employed a mixed-methods approach: 56 participants completed tests of content knowledge and moral reasoning as well as interviews, related to SSI topics, which were scored based on a rubric for argumentation quality. Multiple regression analyses revealed no statistically significant relationships among content knowledge, moral reasoning, and argumentation quality. Qualitative analyses of the interview transcripts supported the quantitative results in that participants very infrequently revealed patterns of content knowledge application. However, most of the participants did perceive the SSI as moral problems. We propose a “Threshold Model of Knowledge Transfer” to account for the relationship between content knowledge and argumentation quality. Implications for science education are discussed.

Leadership in nursing and patient satisfaction in hospital context.

PubMed

Nunes, Elisabete Maria Garcia Teles; Gaspar, Maria Filomena Mendes

2016-06-01

Objectives to know the quality of the leadership relationship from the perspective of a chief nurse and nurse, patient satisfaction, the relationship between the quality of the relationship perceived for both and patient satisfaction. Methods a quantitative, transverse and correlational approach. Non-probabilistic convenience sample consists of 15 chief nurses, 342 nurses, 273 patients. Data collected at the Central Lisbon Hospital Center, between January and March 2013, through the LMX-7, CLMX-7 and SUCEH21 scales. Statistical analysis was performed through SPSS ® Statistics 19. Results the chief nurse considers the quality of the leadership relationship good, the nurses consider it satisfactory, patients are considered to be satisfied with nursing care; there is a statistically significant correlation between the quality of the leadership relationship from the perspective of chief nurses and patient satisfaction, there is no statistically significant correlation between the quality of the leadership relationship in the nurse's perspective and satisfaction. Conclusion the chief nurse has a major role in patient satisfaction.

Combining automatic table classification and relationship extraction in extracting anticancer drug-side effect pairs from full-text articles.

PubMed

Xu, Rong; Wang, QuanQiu

2015-02-01

Anticancer drug-associated side effect knowledge often exists in multiple heterogeneous and complementary data sources. A comprehensive anticancer drug-side effect (drug-SE) relationship knowledge base is important for computation-based drug target discovery, drug toxicity predication and drug repositioning. In this study, we present a two-step approach by combining table classification and relationship extraction to extract drug-SE pairs from a large number of high-profile oncological full-text articles. The data consists of 31,255 tables downloaded from the Journal of Oncology (JCO). We first trained a statistical classifier to classify tables into SE-related and -unrelated categories. We then extracted drug-SE pairs from SE-related tables. We compared drug side effect knowledge extracted from JCO tables to that derived from FDA drug labels. Finally, we systematically analyzed relationships between anti-cancer drug-associated side effects and drug-associated gene targets, metabolism genes, and disease indications. The statistical table classifier is effective in classifying tables into SE-related and -unrelated (precision: 0.711; recall: 0.941; F1: 0.810). We extracted a total of 26,918 drug-SE pairs from SE-related tables with a precision of 0.605, a recall of 0.460, and a F1 of 0.520. Drug-SE pairs extracted from JCO tables is largely complementary to those derived from FDA drug labels; as many as 84.7% of the pairs extracted from JCO tables have not been included a side effect database constructed from FDA drug labels. Side effects associated with anticancer drugs positively correlate with drug target genes, drug metabolism genes, and disease indications. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Relationship between the components of on-site training and emotional intelligence in the librarians of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences and Isfahan University with moderating role of personality characteristics

PubMed Central

Sayadi, Saeed; Safdarian, Ali; Khayeri, Behnaz

2015-01-01

Introduction: Training the man power is an inevitable necessity that the organizations need in order to survive and develop in today changing world. Aims: The aim of the present study is to identify the relationship between the components of on-site training and emotional intelligence in librarians of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences and Isfahan University with moderating role of personality characteristics. Settings and Design: Descriptive correlation method was used in the present study. The statistical population of the study was all of the 157 librarians of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences and Isfahan University from whom the appointed individuals were selected through random sampling method. Subjects and Methods: The research tools included the researcher-made questionnaire of investigating the effectiveness of on-site training system and two other standard questionnaires of Shrink emotional intelligence, and NEO personality questionnaire, which all of them had the needed reliability and validity. Statistical Analysis: The descriptive indices (distribution and mean) and also the inferential methods (Pearson correlation, regression analysis and analysis of variance) were used through applying version 20 of SPSS software to analyze the obtained data. Results: There was a significant relationship with certainty level of 95% between the components of on-site training with emotional intelligence in those who obtained low grades in the features of being extrovert and between the individual aspects of on-site training with emotional intelligence in those who got higher grades in the characteristic of being extrovert. Conclusion: The emotional intelligence is a promotable skill and considering the existence of a significant relationship between some components of emotional intelligence and on-site training, these skills can be institutionalized through conducting mentioned educational courses. PMID:27462631

The Relationship Between Interpersonal Cognitive Distortions and Attribution Styles Among Divorce Applicant Couples and its Impact on Sexual Satisfaction.

PubMed

Mahdoodizaman, Morteza; Razaghi, Samira; Amirsardari, Lili; Hobbi, Omran; Ghaderi, Davod

2016-09-01

The current study aimed to investigate the relationship between cognitive distortions and attribution styles among divorce applicant couples and its impact on sexual satisfaction. It was a cross-sectional study and its statistical samples were 55 divorce applicant couples (110 individuals) referred to Urmia courts, Urmia, Iran, from 2012 to 2013. The required data were gathered by interpersonal cognitive distortions, Larson sexual satisfaction and attribution style questionnaire. The findings of the research indicated the existence of a significant relationship between attribution styles for pleasant events and cognitive distortions. The results showed that an increasing amount of pleasant events reduces cognitive distortions among the divorce applicant couples (P < 0.05, r = 0.19). Attribution style has a significant relationship with sexual satisfaction among the divorced couples. As stable-unstable variables increase (P < 0.05, r = 0.22), pleasant events, (P < 0.05, r = 0.19), attribution styles (total) (P < 0.05, r = 0.19) and sexual satisfaction increases and vice versa. Also, there was no significant relationship between sexual satisfaction and cognitive distortions (P < 0.05, r = 0.04). Normal and abnormal cognitive components are among the main factors affecting satisfaction or dissatisfaction in couples who are living together (sexual satisfaction is one of its main elements).

Water quality trend analysis for the Karoon River in Iran.

PubMed

Naddafi, K; Honari, H; Ahmadi, M

2007-11-01

The Karoon River basin, with a basin area of 67,000 km(2), is located in the southern part of Iran. Monthly measurements of the discharge and the water quality variables have been monitored at the Gatvand and Khorramshahr stations of the Karoon River on a monthly basis for the period 1967-2005 and 1969-2005 for Gatvand and Khorramshahr stations, respectively. In this paper the time series of monthly values of water quality parameters and the discharge were analyzed using statistical methods and the existence of trends and the evaluation of the best fitted models were performed. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to select the theoretical distribution which best fitted the data. Simple regression was used to examine the concentration-time relationships. The concentration-time relationships showed better correlation in Khorramshahr station than that of Gatvand station. The exponential model expresses better concentration - time relationships in Khorramshahr station, but in Gatvand station the logarithmic model is more fitted. The correlation coefficients are positive for all of the variables in Khorramshahr station also in Gatvand station all of the variables are positive except magnesium (Mg2+), bicarbonates (HCO3-) and temporary hardness which shows a decreasing relationship. The logarithmic and the exponential models describe better the concentration-time relationships for two stations.

Medicaid provisions and the US mental health industry composition.

PubMed

Pellegrini, Lawrence C; Rodriguez-Monguio, Rosa

2014-12-01

Medicaid is the largest payer for mental health (MH) services. This study examines associations between Medicaid provisions and the MH industry composition. Medicaid data derived from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. MH facility gross payroll and occupational employment data derived from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. State fixed-effects regression models are performed to examine associations. In the 1999-2009 period, per-capita gross payroll gains are largest for residential MH and substance abuse (SA) facilities and MH practitioner offices, followed by MH clinics and physician offices. Likewise, occupational employment gains per 100 000 people are largest for MH and SA social workers and MH counselors, followed by psychiatrists and psychologists. The Medicaid beneficiary rate is related with gross payroll gains at residential MH and SA facilities (p < 0.001) and MH clinics (p < 0.001), and with employment gains for MH and SA social workers (p < 0.001) and MH counselors (p < 0.001). Smaller effect sizes exist with MH physician offices (p < 0.05) and psychiatric hospitals' (p < 0.01) gross payroll. No statistically significant relationship exists between the Medicaid beneficiary rate and psychiatrist and psychologist employment. Medicaid provisions are related with the MH industry composition. An imbalanced MH industry may lead to inadequate management of MH disorders.

12 CFR 1022.20 - Coverage and definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... contain personal identifiers such as account numbers, names, or addresses. (4) Pre-existing business relationship. (i) In general. The term “pre-existing business relationship” means a relationship between a... by this subpart. (ii) Examples of pre-existing business relationships. (A) If a consumer has a time...

12 CFR 571.20 - Coverage and definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... account numbers, names, or addresses. (4) Pre-existing business relationship. (i) In general. The term “pre-existing business relationship” means a relationship between a person, or a person's licensed...-existing business relationships. (A) If a consumer has a time deposit account, such as a certificate of...

12 CFR 571.20 - Coverage and definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... account numbers, names, or addresses. (4) Pre-existing business relationship. (i) In general. The term “pre-existing business relationship” means a relationship between a person, or a person's licensed...-existing business relationships. (A) If a consumer has a time deposit account, such as a certificate of...

12 CFR 1022.20 - Coverage and definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... contain personal identifiers such as account numbers, names, or addresses. (4) Pre-existing business relationship. (i) In general. The term “pre-existing business relationship” means a relationship between a... by this subpart. (ii) Examples of pre-existing business relationships. (A) If a consumer has a time...

12 CFR 334.20 - Coverage and definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... account numbers, names, or addresses. (4) Pre-existing business relationship. (i) In general. The term “pre-existing business relationship” means a relationship between a person, or a person's licensed...-existing business relationships. (A) If a consumer has a time deposit account, such as a certificate of...

12 CFR 334.20 - Coverage and definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... account numbers, names, or addresses. (4) Pre-existing business relationship. (i) In general. The term “pre-existing business relationship” means a relationship between a person, or a person's licensed...-existing business relationships. (A) If a consumer has a time deposit account, such as a certificate of...

12 CFR 334.20 - Coverage and definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... account numbers, names, or addresses. (4) Pre-existing business relationship. (i) In general. The term “pre-existing business relationship” means a relationship between a person, or a person's licensed...-existing business relationships. (A) If a consumer has a time deposit account, such as a certificate of...

12 CFR 571.20 - Coverage and definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... account numbers, names, or addresses. (4) Pre-existing business relationship. (i) In general. The term “pre-existing business relationship” means a relationship between a person, or a person's licensed...-existing business relationships. (A) If a consumer has a time deposit account, such as a certificate of...

Multivariate Relationships between Statistics Anxiety and Motivational Beliefs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baloglu, Mustafa; Abbassi, Amir; Kesici, Sahin

2017-01-01

In general, anxiety has been found to be associated with motivational beliefs and the current study investigated multivariate relationships between statistics anxiety and motivational beliefs among 305 college students (60.0% women). The Statistical Anxiety Rating Scale, the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire, and a set of demographic…

Diet, Lifestyles, Family History, and Prostate Cancer Incidence in an East Algerian Patient Group

PubMed Central

Lassed, Somia; Deus, Cláudia M.; Lourenço, Nuno; Dahdouh, Abderrezak

2016-01-01

Prostate cancer (PC) is the fourth most common cancer in men and the sixth leading cause of death in Algeria. To examine the relationship between lifestyle factors, including diet, and family history and PC risk, a case-control study was performed in an eastern Algerian population, comprising 90 patients with histologically confirmed PC and 190 controls. Data collection was carried out through a structured questionnaire and statistical analysis was performed to evaluate the different variables. The data showed that consumption of lamb and beef meat and high intake of animal fat and dairy products increased PC risk. Seven to thirteen vegetables servings per week and fourteen or more servings decreased PC risk by 62% and 96%, respectively. Seven to fourteen fruit servings per week decrease PC risk by 98%. Green tea consumption reduced the risk of PC but the results were statistically borderline. Increased risk was observed for individuals with family history of PC in first and in second degree. A positive strong association was also found for alcohol and smoking intake and a dose-response relationship existed for quantity and history of smoking. This study suggests that dietary habits, lifestyle factors, and family history have influence on the development of PC in Algerian population. PMID:27975054

The effect of various factors on the masticatory performance of removable denture wearer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pratama, S.; Koesmaningati, H.; Kusdhany, L. S.

2017-08-01

An individual’s masticatory performance concerns his/her ability to break down food in order to facilitate digestion, and it therefore plays an important role in nutrition. Removable dentures are used to rehabilitate a loss of teeth, which could jeopardize masticatory performance. Further, there exist various other factors that can affect masticatory performance. The objective of this research is to analyze the relationship between various factors and masticatory performance. Thirty-four removable denture wearers (full dentures, single complete dentures, or partial dentures) participated in a cross-sectional study of masticatory performance using color-changeable chewing gum (Masticatory Performance Evaluating Gum Xylitol®). The volume of saliva was evaluated using measuring cups, while the residual ridge heights were measured using a modified mouth mirror no. 3 with metric measurements. The residual ridge height and removable-denture-wearing experience exhibited a significant relationship with masticatory performance. However, age, gender, saliva volume, denture type, and the number and location of the missing teeth did not have a statistically significant association with masticatory performance. The residual ridge height influences the masticatory performance of removable denture wearers, since the greater the ridge height, the better the performance. The experience of using dentures also has a statistically significant influence on masticatory performance.

Examining the role of fluctuations in the early stages of homogenous polymer crystallization with simulation and statistical learning

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Welch, Jr., Paul Michael

Here, we propose a relationship between the dynamics in the amorphous and crystalline domains during polymer crystallization: the fluctuations of ordering-rate about a material-specific value in the amorphous phase drive those fluctuations associated with the increase in percent crystallinity. This suggests a differential equation that satisfies the three experimentally observed time regimes for the rate of crystal growth. To test this postulated expression, we applied a suite of statistical learning tools to molecular dynamics simulations to extract the relevant phenomenology. This study shows that the proposed relationship holds in the early time regime. It illustrates the effectiveness of soft computingmore » tools in the analysis of coarse-grained simulations in which patterns exist, but may not easily yield to strict quantitative evaluation. This ability assists us in characterizing the critical early time molecular arrangement during the primary nucleation phase of polymer melt crystallization. In addition to supporting the validity of the proposed kinetics expression, the simulations show that (i) the classical nucleation and growth mechanism is active in the early stages of ordering; (ii) the number of nuclei and their masses grow linearly during this early time regime; and (iii) a fixed inter-nuclei distance is established.« less

Examining the role of fluctuations in the early stages of homogenous polymer crystallization with simulation and statistical learning

DOE PAGES

Welch, Jr., Paul Michael

2017-01-23

Here, we propose a relationship between the dynamics in the amorphous and crystalline domains during polymer crystallization: the fluctuations of ordering-rate about a material-specific value in the amorphous phase drive those fluctuations associated with the increase in percent crystallinity. This suggests a differential equation that satisfies the three experimentally observed time regimes for the rate of crystal growth. To test this postulated expression, we applied a suite of statistical learning tools to molecular dynamics simulations to extract the relevant phenomenology. This study shows that the proposed relationship holds in the early time regime. It illustrates the effectiveness of soft computingmore » tools in the analysis of coarse-grained simulations in which patterns exist, but may not easily yield to strict quantitative evaluation. This ability assists us in characterizing the critical early time molecular arrangement during the primary nucleation phase of polymer melt crystallization. In addition to supporting the validity of the proposed kinetics expression, the simulations show that (i) the classical nucleation and growth mechanism is active in the early stages of ordering; (ii) the number of nuclei and their masses grow linearly during this early time regime; and (iii) a fixed inter-nuclei distance is established.« less

MR image analytics to characterize upper airway architecture in children with OSAS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tong, Yubing; Udupa, Jayaram K.; Torigian, Drew A.; Matsumoto, Monica M. S.; Sin, Sanghun; Arens, Raanan

2015-03-01

Mechanisms leading to Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS) in obese children are not well understood. We previously analyzed polysomnographic and demographic data to study the anatomical characteristics of the upper airway and body composition in two groups of obese children with and without OSAS, where object volume was evaluated. In this paper, in order to better understand the disease we expand the analysis considering a variety of features that include object-specific features such as size, surface area, sphericity, and image intensity properties of fourteen objects in the vicinity of the upper airway, as well as inter-object relationships such as distance between objects. Our preliminary results indicate several interesting phenomena: volumes and surface areas of adenoid and tonsils increase statistically significantly in OSAS. Standardized T2-weighted MR image intensities differ statistically significantly between the two groups, implying that perhaps intrinsic tissue composition undergoes changes in OSAS. Inter-object distances are significantly different between the two groups for object pairs (skin, oropharynx), (skin, fat pad), (skin, soft palate), (mandible, tongue), (oropharynx, soft palate), (left tonsil, oropharynx), (left tonsil, fat pad) and (left tonsil, right tonsil). We conclude that treatment methods for OSAS such as adenotonsillectomy should respect proportional object size relationships and spatial arrangement of objects as they exist in control subjects.

Indoor transformer stations and ELF magnetic field exposure: use of transformer structural characteristics to improve exposure assessment.

PubMed

Okokon, Enembe Oku; Roivainen, Päivi; Kheifets, Leeka; Mezei, Gabor; Juutilainen, Jukka

2014-01-01

Previous studies have shown that populations of multiapartment buildings with indoor transformer stations may serve as a basis for improved epidemiological studies on the relationship between childhood leukaemia and extremely-low-frequency (ELF) magnetic fields (MFs). This study investigated whether classification based on structural characteristics of the transformer stations would improve ELF MF exposure assessment. The data included MF measurements in apartments directly above transformer stations ("exposed" apartments) in 30 buildings in Finland, and reference apartments in the same buildings. Transformer structural characteristics (type and location of low-voltage conductors) were used to classify exposed apartments into high-exposure (HE) and intermediate-exposure (IE) categories. An exposure gradient was observed: both the time-average MF and time above a threshold (0.4 μT) were highest in the HE apartments and lowest in the reference apartments, showing a statistically significant trend. The differences between HE and IE apartments, however, were not statistically significant. A simulation exercise showed that the three-category classification did not perform better than a two-category classification (exposed and reference apartments) in detecting the existence of an increased risk. However, data on the structural characteristics of transformers is potentially useful for evaluating exposure-response relationship.

Has climate change shifted US maize planting times?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Butler, E.; Stine, A.; Huybers, P.

2012-12-01

Global warming has been accompanied by an earlier onset of spring phenological events across a range of ecosystems. However, the degree to which humans have adapted planting schedules to a changing climate remains an open question; the leading hypotheses for earlier planting are improved hardiness of cultivars and farming equipment. Here we examine the relationship between historical temperature and precipitation from 549 weather stations from the United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) with planting schedules from 20 states in the United States Department of Agriculture/National Agriculture Statistics Service (USDA/NASS) database. We construct an empirical model to relate yearly weather conditions to predict planting dates and compare this to the spatial distribution of climate conditions and mean planting times. Evidence for a relationship between climate and planting schedules indicates that planting schedules for US maize have been adapted to yearly variations and overall changes in climatology. As one might expect, hotter temperatures lead to earlier plantings while greater precipitation leads to later planting. These findings serve to indicate extant adaptation between US farmers and climate change, and will aid in forecasting future shifts to planting schedules as climate continues to change. Furthermore, the statistical model should also be useful for estimating planting times for states and years for which records do not otherwise exist.

A comparison of skeletal maturation in patients with tooth agenesis and unaffected controls assessed by the cervical vertebral maturation (CVM) index.

PubMed

Casey, Christine; Gill, Daljit S; Jones, Steven P

2013-12-01

The aims of this study were to (1) investigate if there is a difference in skeletal maturation between tooth agenesis and control patients and (2) whether skeletal maturation is affected by the severity of tooth agenesis. The cervical vertebral maturation (CVM) index can be used to assess skeletal maturation. A retrospective cross-sectional study. Eastman Dental Hospital, London, UK. A total of 360 cephalograms of patients aged 9-17 years (164 males and 196 females) allocated to four subgroups (mild, moderate and severe tooth agenesis patients, and controls) were assessed retrospectively. There were 90 patients in each of the four subgroups. The skeletal maturation of each subject was assessed both quantitatively and qualitatively using the CVM index. All patients in the study were either currently receiving treatment or had been discharged from the hospital. There was no statistically significant relationship between skeletal maturation and the presence of tooth agenesis. Furthermore, there was no statistically significant relationship between the skeletal maturity of patients and different severities of tooth agenesis. The data obtained from this group of patients and using this measurement tool alone does not supply sufficient reason to reject the null hypothesis. However, it suggests that it is possible that no difference exists between the groups.

Diet, Lifestyles, Family History, and Prostate Cancer Incidence in an East Algerian Patient Group.

PubMed

Lassed, Somia; Deus, Cláudia M; Lourenço, Nuno; Dahdouh, Abderrezak; Rizvanov, Albert A; Oliveira, Paulo J; Zama, Djamila

2016-01-01

Prostate cancer (PC) is the fourth most common cancer in men and the sixth leading cause of death in Algeria. To examine the relationship between lifestyle factors, including diet, and family history and PC risk, a case-control study was performed in an eastern Algerian population, comprising 90 patients with histologically confirmed PC and 190 controls. Data collection was carried out through a structured questionnaire and statistical analysis was performed to evaluate the different variables. The data showed that consumption of lamb and beef meat and high intake of animal fat and dairy products increased PC risk. Seven to thirteen vegetables servings per week and fourteen or more servings decreased PC risk by 62% and 96%, respectively. Seven to fourteen fruit servings per week decrease PC risk by 98%. Green tea consumption reduced the risk of PC but the results were statistically borderline. Increased risk was observed for individuals with family history of PC in first and in second degree. A positive strong association was also found for alcohol and smoking intake and a dose-response relationship existed for quantity and history of smoking. This study suggests that dietary habits, lifestyle factors, and family history have influence on the development of PC in Algerian population.

76 FR 30741 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Existing Collection; Comments Requested: Prison...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-05-26

... Sentenced Population Movement--National Prisoner Statistics, Extension and Revision of Existing Collection...) Title of the Form/Collection: Summary of Sentenced Population Movement--National Prisoner Statistics (3...

Methane concentrations in water wells unrelated to proximity to existing oil and gas wells in northeastern Pennsylvania.

PubMed

Siegel, Donald I; Azzolina, Nicholas A; Smith, Bert J; Perry, A Elizabeth; Bothun, Rikka L

2015-04-07

Recent studies in northeastern Pennsylvania report higher concentrations of dissolved methane in domestic water wells associated with proximity to nearby gas-producing wells [ Osborn et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 2011 , 108 , 8172 ] and [ Jackson et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. , 2013 , 110 , 11250 ]. We test this possible association by using Chesapeake Energy's baseline data set of over 11,300 dissolved methane analyses from domestic water wells, densely arrayed in Bradford and nearby counties (Pennsylvania), and near 661 pre-existing oil and gas wells. The majority of these, 92%, were unconventional wells, drilled with horizontal legs and hydraulically fractured. Our data set is hundreds of times larger than data sets used in prior studies. In contrast to prior findings, we found no statistically significant relationship between dissolved methane concentrations in groundwater from domestic water wells and proximity to pre-existing oil or gas wells. Previous analyses used small sample sets compared to the population of domestic wells available, which may explain the difference in prior findings compared to ours.

A New Adaptive Framework for Collaborative Filtering Prediction

PubMed Central

Almosallam, Ibrahim A.; Shang, Yi

2010-01-01

Collaborative filtering is one of the most successful techniques for recommendation systems and has been used in many commercial services provided by major companies including Amazon, TiVo and Netflix. In this paper we focus on memory-based collaborative filtering (CF). Existing CF techniques work well on dense data but poorly on sparse data. To address this weakness, we propose to use z-scores instead of explicit ratings and introduce a mechanism that adaptively combines global statistics with item-based values based on data density level. We present a new adaptive framework that encapsulates various CF algorithms and the relationships among them. An adaptive CF predictor is developed that can self adapt from user-based to item-based to hybrid methods based on the amount of available ratings. Our experimental results show that the new predictor consistently obtained more accurate predictions than existing CF methods, with the most significant improvement on sparse data sets. When applied to the Netflix Challenge data set, our method performed better than existing CF and singular value decomposition (SVD) methods and achieved 4.67% improvement over Netflix’s system. PMID:21572924

A New Adaptive Framework for Collaborative Filtering Prediction.

PubMed

Almosallam, Ibrahim A; Shang, Yi

2008-06-01

Collaborative filtering is one of the most successful techniques for recommendation systems and has been used in many commercial services provided by major companies including Amazon, TiVo and Netflix. In this paper we focus on memory-based collaborative filtering (CF). Existing CF techniques work well on dense data but poorly on sparse data. To address this weakness, we propose to use z-scores instead of explicit ratings and introduce a mechanism that adaptively combines global statistics with item-based values based on data density level. We present a new adaptive framework that encapsulates various CF algorithms and the relationships among them. An adaptive CF predictor is developed that can self adapt from user-based to item-based to hybrid methods based on the amount of available ratings. Our experimental results show that the new predictor consistently obtained more accurate predictions than existing CF methods, with the most significant improvement on sparse data sets. When applied to the Netflix Challenge data set, our method performed better than existing CF and singular value decomposition (SVD) methods and achieved 4.67% improvement over Netflix's system.

Binary Interval Search: a scalable algorithm for counting interval intersections

PubMed Central

Layer, Ryan M.; Skadron, Kevin; Robins, Gabriel; Hall, Ira M.; Quinlan, Aaron R.

2013-01-01

Motivation: The comparison of diverse genomic datasets is fundamental to understand genome biology. Researchers must explore many large datasets of genome intervals (e.g. genes, sequence alignments) to place their experimental results in a broader context and to make new discoveries. Relationships between genomic datasets are typically measured by identifying intervals that intersect, that is, they overlap and thus share a common genome interval. Given the continued advances in DNA sequencing technologies, efficient methods for measuring statistically significant relationships between many sets of genomic features are crucial for future discovery. Results: We introduce the Binary Interval Search (BITS) algorithm, a novel and scalable approach to interval set intersection. We demonstrate that BITS outperforms existing methods at counting interval intersections. Moreover, we show that BITS is intrinsically suited to parallel computing architectures, such as graphics processing units by illustrating its utility for efficient Monte Carlo simulations measuring the significance of relationships between sets of genomic intervals. Availability: https://github.com/arq5x/bits. Contact: arq5x@virginia.edu Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. PMID:23129298

Nutritional Aspects of Crewmembers' Cardiovascular Health Indicated by Dietary Lipids

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Thurston, Marcelle A.

1999-01-01

This summer's project examined the relationships between dietary and physiological factors on serum lipoproteins using data from past United States astronauts. Nutritional assessment was required to determine whether a relationship existed between dietary intake and risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in crewmembers. Risk for CVD was assessed by the measurement of preflight, inflight, and postflight serum lipoproteins. The purpose of this project was to evaluate the dietary practices of past crewmembers before and during flight, and to examine their relationship with blood indicators of lipid status. Because of mortality and morbidity associated with CVD, such assessments are critical for the maintenance of astronaut health before, during, and after space flight. It was anticipated that the results from this project would assess the effects space flight and diet have on cardiovascular health, thus, defining the adequacy of the current dietary recommendations during space travel. It was hypothesized that the mean preflight serum lipoproteins compared to mean postflight serum lipoproteins would not be statistically different and that the current inflight diet is adequate in nutrient content, having little or no effect on lipoprotein levels.

The relationship between organizational policies and practices and work limitations among hospital patient care workers.

PubMed

Sparer, Emily H; Boden, Leslie I; Sorensen, Glorian; Dennerlein, Jack T; Stoddard, Anne; Wagner, Gregory R; Nagler, Eve M; Hashimoto, Dean M; Hopcia, Karen; Sabbath, Erika L

2018-05-29

We examined relationships between organizational policies and practices (OPPs) (safety practices, ergonomic practices, and people-oriented culture) and work limitations in a sample of hospital workers. We used the 6-item Work Limitations Questionnaire (WLQ) to assess workers' perceptions of health-related work limitations. Self-reported OPPs and the WLQ were collected from workers in Boston, Massachusetts (n = 1277). We conducted random-intercept multi-level logistic regression models for each OPP using stepwise selection of covariates. As the unit-average ergonomic practice score increased by one, the odds of a worker reporting work limitations decreased by approximately 39% (P-value = 0.018), adjusted for job title, age, and body mass index. A similar relationship existed for people-oriented culture (P-value = 0.038). The association between safety practices and work limitations was similar, but not statistically significant. This study demonstrated the importance of workplace OPPs. OPPs that promote positive and supportive environments and that foster improvements in ergonomics may help reduce work limitations. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A Synergy Cropland of China by Fusing Multiple Existing Maps and Statistics.

PubMed

Lu, Miao; Wu, Wenbin; You, Liangzhi; Chen, Di; Zhang, Li; Yang, Peng; Tang, Huajun

2017-07-12

Accurate information on cropland extent is critical for scientific research and resource management. Several cropland products from remotely sensed datasets are available. Nevertheless, significant inconsistency exists among these products and the cropland areas estimated from these products differ considerably from statistics. In this study, we propose a hierarchical optimization synergy approach (HOSA) to develop a hybrid cropland map of China, circa 2010, by fusing five existing cropland products, i.e., GlobeLand30, Climate Change Initiative Land Cover (CCI-LC), GlobCover 2009, MODIS Collection 5 (MODIS C5), and MODIS Cropland, and sub-national statistics of cropland area. HOSA simplifies the widely used method of score assignment into two steps, including determination of optimal agreement level and identification of the best product combination. The accuracy assessment indicates that the synergy map has higher accuracy of spatial locations and better consistency with statistics than the five existing datasets individually. This suggests that the synergy approach can improve the accuracy of cropland mapping and enhance consistency with statistics.

Ultraconserved words point to deep language ancestry across Eurasia.

PubMed

Pagel, Mark; Atkinson, Quentin D; S Calude, Andreea; Meade, Andrew

2013-05-21

The search for ever deeper relationships among the World's languages is bedeviled by the fact that most words evolve too rapidly to preserve evidence of their ancestry beyond 5,000 to 9,000 y. On the other hand, quantitative modeling indicates that some "ultraconserved" words exist that might be used to find evidence for deep linguistic relationships beyond that time barrier. Here we use a statistical model, which takes into account the frequency with which words are used in common everyday speech, to predict the existence of a set of such highly conserved words among seven language families of Eurasia postulated to form a linguistic superfamily that evolved from a common ancestor around 15,000 y ago. We derive a dated phylogenetic tree of this proposed superfamily with a time-depth of ~14,450 y, implying that some frequently used words have been retained in related forms since the end of the last ice age. Words used more than once per 1,000 in everyday speech were 7- to 10-times more likely to show deep ancestry on this tree. Our results suggest a remarkable fidelity in the transmission of some words and give theoretical justification to the search for features of language that might be preserved across wide spans of time and geography.

Ultraconserved words point to deep language ancestry across Eurasia

PubMed Central

Pagel, Mark; Atkinson, Quentin D.; S. Calude, Andreea; Meade, Andrew

2013-01-01

The search for ever deeper relationships among the World’s languages is bedeviled by the fact that most words evolve too rapidly to preserve evidence of their ancestry beyond 5,000 to 9,000 y. On the other hand, quantitative modeling indicates that some “ultraconserved” words exist that might be used to find evidence for deep linguistic relationships beyond that time barrier. Here we use a statistical model, which takes into account the frequency with which words are used in common everyday speech, to predict the existence of a set of such highly conserved words among seven language families of Eurasia postulated to form a linguistic superfamily that evolved from a common ancestor around 15,000 y ago. We derive a dated phylogenetic tree of this proposed superfamily with a time-depth of ∼14,450 y, implying that some frequently used words have been retained in related forms since the end of the last ice age. Words used more than once per 1,000 in everyday speech were 7- to 10-times more likely to show deep ancestry on this tree. Our results suggest a remarkable fidelity in the transmission of some words and give theoretical justification to the search for features of language that might be preserved across wide spans of time and geography. PMID:23650390

Capital versus noncapital murderers.

PubMed

Frierson, R L; Schwartz-Watts, D M; Morgan, D W; Malone, T D

1998-01-01

This study compares three groups of murderers: those who have received a death sentence (n = 18), those who were eligible to receive a death sentence but did not have it sought against them (n = 18), and those who were not eligible for the death penalty (n = 18). A retrospective record review of these 54 pretrial detainees in South Carolina who underwent court-ordered competency and criminal responsibility evaluations was completed comparing the following variables: age, race, marital status, educational level, prior legal history, relationship to the victim, race of the victim, existence of a codefendant, prior psychiatric history, psychiatric diagnoses, substance abuse history, use of substances at the time of the crime, Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) or WAIS-Revised Full Scale IQ, and evidence of organic impairment. Statistically significant findings included race of the murderer, race of the victim, relationship to the victim, and existence of a codefendant. Death row inmates were more likely to be Caucasian and much more likely to have murdered a Caucasian than a non-Caucasian victim. Death row inmates were less likely to know their victims and more likely to have a codefendant. Psychiatric and organic findings did not differ among the groups, but the rate of organic findings and substance abuse was high in all three groups.

Booms, Busts, and Divorce

PubMed Central

Hellerstein, Judith K.; Morrill, Melinda Sandler

2013-01-01

For almost a century, anecdotes have suggested that divorce rates decline during recessions. However, until very recently there has been surprisingly little formal empirical evidence on whether such a link exists, let alone its magnitude if it does. Moreover, the anticipated direction of the effect is ambiguous theoretically. Although previous studies have concluded that individual job loss destabilizes marriages, macroeconomic conditions may affect divorce probabilities even for those not directly experiencing a job shock. We add to the few existing contemporaneous studies of the effects of macroeconomic shocks on divorce by conducting an empirical analysis of the relationship between state-level unemployment rates and state-level divorce rates using vital statistics data on divorces in the United States from 1976–2009. We find a significant and robust negative relationship between the unemployment and divorce rates, whereby a one percentage point rise in the unemployment rate is associated with a decrease of 0.043 divorces per one thousand people, or about a one percent fall in the divorce rate. The result that divorce is pro-cyclical is robust to a host of alternative empirical specifications, to disaggregating by state characteristics and time period, to expanding the unemployment series back to 1970, and to using alternative measures of local economic conditions. PMID:25221634

Noise exposure-response relationships established from repeated binary observations: Modeling approaches and applications.

PubMed

Schäffer, Beat; Pieren, Reto; Mendolia, Franco; Basner, Mathias; Brink, Mark

2017-05-01

Noise exposure-response relationships are used to estimate the effects of noise on individuals or a population. Such relationships may be derived from independent or repeated binary observations, and modeled by different statistical methods. Depending on the method by which they were established, their application in population risk assessment or estimation of individual responses may yield different results, i.e., predict "weaker" or "stronger" effects. As far as the present body of literature on noise effect studies is concerned, however, the underlying statistical methodology to establish exposure-response relationships has not always been paid sufficient attention. This paper gives an overview on two statistical approaches (subject-specific and population-averaged logistic regression analysis) to establish noise exposure-response relationships from repeated binary observations, and their appropriate applications. The considerations are illustrated with data from three noise effect studies, estimating also the magnitude of differences in results when applying exposure-response relationships derived from the two statistical approaches. Depending on the underlying data set and the probability range of the binary variable it covers, the two approaches yield similar to very different results. The adequate choice of a specific statistical approach and its application in subsequent studies, both depending on the research question, are therefore crucial.

The Correlation between Feminist Identity Development and Psychological Maltreatment in Intimate Relationships among College Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Citarella, Ashley I.; Mueller, John A.

2015-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine if a relationship exists between feminist identity and psychological maltreatment in intimate relationships among college students. Existing research and theories have raised questions about the relationship between these constructs, but no studies have yet explored the relationship between them. The…

Relationship between Students' Scores on Research Methods and Statistics, and Undergraduate Project Scores

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ossai, Peter Agbadobi Uloku

2016-01-01

This study examined the relationship between students' scores on Research Methods and statistics, and undergraduate project at the final year. The purpose was to find out whether students matched knowledge of research with project-writing skill. The study adopted an expost facto correlational design. Scores on Research Methods and Statistics for…

Statistics Anxiety and Worry: The Roles of Worry Beliefs, Negative Problem Orientation, and Cognitive Avoidance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Williams, Amanda S.

2015-01-01

Statistics anxiety is a common problem for graduate students. This study explores the multivariate relationship between a set of worry-related variables and six types of statistics anxiety. Canonical correlation analysis indicates a significant relationship between the two sets of variables. Findings suggest that students who are more intolerant…

A systematic review of the impact of center volume in dialysis.

PubMed

Pieper, Dawid; Mathes, Tim; Marshall, Mark Roger

2015-12-22

A significant relationship exists between the volume of surgical procedures that a given center performs and subsequent outcomes. It seems plausible that such a volume-outcome relationship is also present in dialysis. MEDLINE and EMBASE were searched in November 2014 for non-experimental studies evaluating the association between center volume and patient outcomes [mortality, morbidity, peritonitis, switch to hemodialysis (HD) or any other treatment], without language restrictions or other limits. Selection of relevant studies, data extraction and critical appraisal were performed by two independent reviewers. We did not perform meta-analysis due to clinical and methodological heterogeneity (e.g. different volume categories). 16 studies met out inclusion criteria. Most studies were performed in the US. The study quality ranged from fair to good. Only few items were judged to have a high risk of bias, while many items were judged to have an unclear risk of bias due to insufficient reporting. All 10 studies that analyzed peritoneal dialysis (PD) technique survival by modeling switch to HD or any other treatment as an outcome showed a statistical significant effect. The relative effect measures ranged from 0.25 to 0.94 (median 0.73) in favor of high volume centers. All nine studies indicated a lower mortality for PD in high volume centers, but only study was statistical significant. This systematic review supports a volume-outcome relationship in peritoneal dialysis with respect to switch to HD or any other treatment. An effect on mortality is probably present in HD. Further research is needed to identify and understand the associations of center volume that are causally related to patient benefit.

12 CFR 222.20 - Coverage and definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

...-existing business relationship—(i) In general. The term “pre-existing business relationship” means a... by this subpart. (ii) Examples of pre-existing business relationships. (A) If a consumer has a time..., the depository institution has a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and can use...

12 CFR 222.20 - Coverage and definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

...-existing business relationship—(i) In general. The term “pre-existing business relationship” means a... by this subpart. (ii) Examples of pre-existing business relationships. (A) If a consumer has a time..., the depository institution has a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and can use...

12 CFR 222.20 - Coverage and definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

...-existing business relationship—(i) In general. The term “pre-existing business relationship” means a... by this subpart. (ii) Examples of pre-existing business relationships. (A) If a consumer has a time..., the depository institution has a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and can use...

12 CFR 41.20 - Scope and definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

...-existing business relationship—(i) In general. The term “pre-existing business relationship” means a... by this subpart. (ii) Examples of pre-existing business relationships. (A) If a consumer has a time..., the depository institution has a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and can use...

Assessing the Temporal Relationship between Race and Ecstasy Use among High School Seniors.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yacoubian, George S., Jr.

2002-01-01

Analyzes data from 10,088 high school seniors surveyed through the Monitoring the Future study between 1996 and 1999. Chi-square statistics are used to explore the temporal relationship between ace and the use of ecstasy during this time frame. Statistically significant relationship between race and ecstasy use are discerned. (Contains 46…

Randomized clinical trials in implant therapy: relationships among methodological, statistical, clinical, paratextual features and number of citations.

PubMed

Nieri, Michele; Clauser, Carlo; Franceschi, Debora; Pagliaro, Umberto; Saletta, Daniele; Pini-Prato, Giovanpaolo

2007-08-01

The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationships among reported methodological, statistical, clinical and paratextual variables of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) in implant therapy, and their influence on subsequent research. The material consisted of the RCTs in implant therapy published through the end of the year 2000. Methodological, statistical, clinical and paratextual features of the articles were assessed and recorded. The perceived clinical relevance was subjectively evaluated by an experienced clinician on anonymous abstracts. The impact on research was measured by the number of citations found in the Science Citation Index. A new statistical technique (Structural learning of Bayesian Networks) was used to assess the relationships among the considered variables. Descriptive statistics revealed that the reported methodology and statistics of RCTs in implant therapy were defective. Follow-up of the studies was generally short. The perceived clinical relevance appeared to be associated with the objectives of the studies and with the number of published images in the original articles. The impact on research was related to the nationality of the involved institutions and to the number of published images. RCTs in implant therapy (until 2000) show important methodological and statistical flaws and may not be appropriate for guiding clinicians in their practice. The methodological and statistical quality of the studies did not appear to affect their impact on practice and research. Bayesian Networks suggest new and unexpected relationships among the methodological, statistical, clinical and paratextual features of RCTs.

Investigation of Sunspot Area Varying with Sunspot Number

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, K. J.; Li, F. Y.; Zhang, J.; Feng, W.

2016-11-01

The statistical relationship between sunspot area (SA) and sunspot number (SN) is investigated through analysis of their daily observation records from May 1874 to April 2015. For a total of 1607 days, representing 3 % of the total interval considered, either SA or SN had a value of zero while the other parameter did not. These occurrences most likely reflect the report of short-lived spots by a single observatory and subsequent averaging of zero values over multiple stations. The main results obtained are as follows: i) The number of spotless days around the minimum of a solar cycle is statistically negatively correlated with the maximum strength of solar activity of that cycle. ii) The probability distribution of SA generally decreases monotonically with SA, but the distribution of SN generally increases first, then it decreases as a whole. The different probability distribution of SA and SN should strengthen their non-linear relation, and the correction factor [k] in the definition of SN may be one of the factors that cause the non-linearity. iii) The non-linear relation of SA and SN indeed exists statistically, and it is clearer during the maximum epoch of a solar cycle.

Statistical downscaling of precipitation using long short-term memory recurrent neural networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Misra, Saptarshi; Sarkar, Sudeshna; Mitra, Pabitra

2017-11-01

Hydrological impacts of global climate change on regional scale are generally assessed by downscaling large-scale climatic variables, simulated by General Circulation Models (GCMs), to regional, small-scale hydrometeorological variables like precipitation, temperature, etc. In this study, we propose a new statistical downscaling model based on Recurrent Neural Network with Long Short-Term Memory which captures the spatio-temporal dependencies in local rainfall. The previous studies have used several other methods such as linear regression, quantile regression, kernel regression, beta regression, and artificial neural networks. Deep neural networks and recurrent neural networks have been shown to be highly promising in modeling complex and highly non-linear relationships between input and output variables in different domains and hence we investigated their performance in the task of statistical downscaling. We have tested this model on two datasets—one on precipitation in Mahanadi basin in India and the second on precipitation in Campbell River basin in Canada. Our autoencoder coupled long short-term memory recurrent neural network model performs the best compared to other existing methods on both the datasets with respect to temporal cross-correlation, mean squared error, and capturing the extremes.

Workplace incivility affecting CRNAs: a study of prevalence, severity, and consequences with proposed interventions.

PubMed

Elmblad, Ray; Kodjebacheva, Gergana; Lebeck, Lynn

2014-12-01

Incivility in healthcare settings has potentially detrimental effects on healthcare providers and patient safety. This study examines the prevalence of incivility and the influence of workplace incivility on burnout among Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) in Michigan. It proposes interventions to prevent and manage incivility. The Nursing Incivility Scale and the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory were used to measure workplace incivility and professional burnout. Qualitative data were also collected to provide recommendations to address workplace incivility. The most notable sources of workplace incivility were general employee personnel or nonemployee individuals and physicians. A lesser prevalent source of incivility was other CRNA practitioners. The least prevalent source of incivility was CRNA supervisors. A statistically significant, direct relationship existed between workplace incivility and professional burnout. The only statistically significant factor contributing to professional burnout was experiencing workplace incivility, independent of other measured factors. The most notable recommendation was use of a zero tolerance policy for practice, regardless of title or role, in employment situations. Incivility is a major concern among CRNAs.

Psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of place attachment scale for youth in residential care.

PubMed

Magalhães, Eunice; Calheiros, María M

2015-01-01

Although the significant scientific advances on place attachment literature, no instruments exist specifically developed or adapted to residential care. 410 adolescents (11 - 18 years old) participated in this study. The place attachment scale evaluates five dimensions: Place identity, Place dependence, Institutional bonding, Caregivers bonding and Friend bonding. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, content validity, construct validity (Confirmatory Factor Analysis), concurrent validity with correlations with satisfaction with life and with institution, and reliability evidences. The relationship with individual characteristics and placement length was also verified. Content validity analysis revealed that more than half of the panellists perceive all the items as relevant to assess the construct in residential care. The structure with five dimensions revealed good fit statistics and concurrent validity evidences were found, with significant correlations with satisfaction with life and with the institution. Acceptable values of internal consistence and specific gender differences were found. The preliminary psychometric properties of this scale suggest it potential to be used with youth in care.

The biometric menagerie.

PubMed

Yager, Neil; Dunstone, Ted

2010-02-01

It is commonly accepted that users of a biometric system may have differing degrees of accuracy within the system. Some people may have trouble authenticating, while others may be particularly vulnerable to impersonation. Goats, wolves, and lambs are labels commonly applied to these problem users. These user types are defined in terms of verification performance when users are matched against themselves (goats) or when matched against others (lambs and wolves). The relationship between a user's genuine and impostor match results suggests four new user groups: worms, doves, chameleons, and phantoms. We establish formal definitions for these animals and a statistical test for their existence. A thorough investigation is conducted using a broad range of biometric modalities, including 2D and 3D faces, fingerprints, iris, speech, and keystroke dynamics. Patterns that emerge from the results expose novel, important, and encouraging insights into the nature of biometric match results. A new framework for the evaluation of biometric systems based on the biometric menagerie, as opposed to collective statistics, is proposed.

Using the Expectancy Value Model of Motivation to Understand the Relationship between Student Attitudes and Achievement in Statistics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hood, Michelle; Creed, Peter A.; Neumann, David L.

2012-01-01

We tested a model of the relationship between attitudes toward statistics and achievement based on Eccles' Expectancy Value Model (1983). Participants (n = 149; 83% female) were second-year Australian university students in a psychology statistics course (mean age = 23.36 years, SD = 7.94 years). We obtained demographic details, past performance,…

Research progress on expansive soil cracks under changing environment.

PubMed

Shi, Bei-xiao; Zheng, Cheng-feng; Wu, Jin-kun

2014-01-01

Engineering problems shunned previously rise to the surface gradually with the activities of reforming the natural world in depth, the problem of expansive soil crack under the changing environment becoming a control factor of expansive soil slope stability. The problem of expansive soil crack has gradually become a research hotspot, elaborates the occurrence and development of cracks from the basic properties of expansive soil, and points out the role of controlling the crack of expansive soil strength. We summarize the existing research methods and results of expansive soil crack characteristics. Improving crack measurement and calculation method and researching the crack depth measurement, statistical analysis method, crack depth and surface feature relationship will be the future direction.

A second-order Budkyo-type parameterization of landsurface hydrology

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Andreou, S. A.; Eagleson, P. S.

1982-01-01

A simple, second order parameterization of the water fluxes at a land surface for use as the appropriate boundary condition in general circulation models of the global atmosphere was developed. The derived parameterization incorporates the high nonlinearities in the relationship between the near surface soil moisture and the evaporation, runoff and percolation fluxes. Based on the one dimensional statistical dynamic derivation of the annual water balance, it makes the transition to short term prediction of the moisture fluxes, through a Taylor expansion around the average annual soil moisture. A comparison of the suggested parameterization is made with other existing techniques and available measurements. A thermodynamic coupling is applied in order to obtain estimations of the surface ground temperature.

Role of sufficient statistics in stochastic thermodynamics and its implication to sensory adaptation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Matsumoto, Takumi; Sagawa, Takahiro

2018-04-01

A sufficient statistic is a significant concept in statistics, which means a probability variable that has sufficient information required for an inference task. We investigate the roles of sufficient statistics and related quantities in stochastic thermodynamics. Specifically, we prove that for general continuous-time bipartite networks, the existence of a sufficient statistic implies that an informational quantity called the sensory capacity takes the maximum. Since the maximal sensory capacity imposes a constraint that the energetic efficiency cannot exceed one-half, our result implies that the existence of a sufficient statistic is inevitably accompanied by energetic dissipation. We also show that, in a particular parameter region of linear Langevin systems there exists the optimal noise intensity at which the sensory capacity, the information-thermodynamic efficiency, and the total entropy production are optimized at the same time. We apply our general result to a model of sensory adaptation of E. coli and find that the sensory capacity is nearly maximal with experimentally realistic parameters.

The Teaching of Ethics and Professionalism in Plastic Surgery Residency: A Cross-Sectional Survey.

PubMed

Bennett, Katelyn G; Ingraham, John M; Schneider, Lisa F; Saadeh, Pierre B; Vercler, Christian J

2017-05-01

The ethical practice of medicine has always been of utmost importance, and plastic surgery is no exception. The literature is devoid of information on the teaching of ethics and professionalism in plastic surgery. In light of this, a survey was sent to ascertain the status of ethics training in plastic surgery residencies. A 21-question survey was sent from the American Council of Academic Plastic Surgeons meeting to 180 plastic surgery program directors and coordinators via email. Survey questions inquired about practice environment, number of residents, presence of a formal ethics training program, among others. Binary regression was used to determine if any relationships existed between categorical variables, and Poisson linear regression was used to assess relationships between continuous variables. Statistical significance was set at a P value of 0.05. A total of 104 members responded to the survey (58% response rate). Sixty-three percent were program directors, and most (89%) practiced in academic settings. Sixty-two percent in academics reported having a formal training program, and 60% in private practice reported having one. Only 40% of programs with fewer than 10 residents had ethics training, whereas 78% of programs with more than 20 residents did. The odds of having a training program were slightly higher (odds ratio, 1.1) with more residents (P = 0.17). Despite the lack of information in the literature, formal ethics and professionalism training does exist in many plastic surgery residencies, although barriers to implementation do exist. Plastic surgery leadership should be involved in the development of standardized curricula to help overcome these barriers.

Estimating random errors due to shot noise in backscatter lidar observations.

PubMed

Liu, Zhaoyan; Hunt, William; Vaughan, Mark; Hostetler, Chris; McGill, Matthew; Powell, Kathleen; Winker, David; Hu, Yongxiang

2006-06-20

We discuss the estimation of random errors due to shot noise in backscatter lidar observations that use either photomultiplier tube (PMT) or avalanche photodiode (APD) detectors. The statistical characteristics of photodetection are reviewed, and photon count distributions of solar background signals and laser backscatter signals are examined using airborne lidar observations at 532 nm using a photon-counting mode APD. Both distributions appear to be Poisson, indicating that the arrival at the photodetector of photons for these signals is a Poisson stochastic process. For Poisson- distributed signals, a proportional, one-to-one relationship is known to exist between the mean of a distribution and its variance. Although the multiplied photocurrent no longer follows a strict Poisson distribution in analog-mode APD and PMT detectors, the proportionality still exists between the mean and the variance of the multiplied photocurrent. We make use of this relationship by introducing the noise scale factor (NSF), which quantifies the constant of proportionality that exists between the root mean square of the random noise in a measurement and the square root of the mean signal. Using the NSF to estimate random errors in lidar measurements due to shot noise provides a significant advantage over the conventional error estimation techniques, in that with the NSF, uncertainties can be reliably calculated from or for a single data sample. Methods for evaluating the NSF are presented. Algorithms to compute the NSF are developed for the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations lidar and tested using data from the Lidar In-space Technology Experiment.

Estimating Random Errors Due to Shot Noise in Backscatter Lidar Observations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Liu, Zhaoyan; Hunt, William; Vaughan, Mark A.; Hostetler, Chris A.; McGill, Matthew J.; Powell, Kathy; Winker, David M.; Hu, Yongxiang

2006-01-01

In this paper, we discuss the estimation of random errors due to shot noise in backscatter lidar observations that use either photomultiplier tube (PMT) or avalanche photodiode (APD) detectors. The statistical characteristics of photodetection are reviewed, and photon count distributions of solar background signals and laser backscatter signals are examined using airborne lidar observations at 532 nm using a photon-counting mode APD. Both distributions appear to be Poisson, indicating that the arrival at the photodetector of photons for these signals is a Poisson stochastic process. For Poisson-distributed signals, a proportional, one-to-one relationship is known to exist between the mean of a distribution and its variance. Although the multiplied photocurrent no longer follows a strict Poisson distribution in analog-mode APD and PMT detectors, the proportionality still exists between the mean and the variance of the multiplied photocurrent. We make use of this relationship by introducing the noise scale factor (NSF), which quantifies the constant of proportionality that exists between the root-mean-square of the random noise in a measurement and the square root of the mean signal. Using the NSF to estimate random errors in lidar measurements due to shot noise provides a significant advantage over the conventional error estimation techniques, in that with the NSF uncertainties can be reliably calculated from/for a single data sample. Methods for evaluating the NSF are presented. Algorithms to compute the NSF are developed for the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) lidar and tested using data from the Lidar In-space Technology Experiment (LITE). OCIS Codes:

Family Atmosphere and Relationships as Predictors of Heroin Addiction.

PubMed

Mirković-Hajdukov, Mitra; Spahić, Tamara Efendić; Softić, Rusmir; Bećirović, Elvir; Šimić, Josip

2017-05-01

Studies show that dysfunctional family relationships are important predictors of addictions to all psychoactive substances. To establish if there is a connection between family relations and heroin addiction and if found to exist, what is the quality of this connection. This research was conducted on the sample comprised of 160 subjects divided into two groups. The first group consisted of 61 heroin addicts treated at the Tuzla University Clinical Centre Psychiatric Hospital. The second group consisted of 99 subjects who were students at the Tuzla University Faculties of Philosophy and Electrical Engineering and who were not using any psychoactive substances. The subjects were tested with the Quality of Family Interactions Scale (KOBI) which measures the interactions between children and parents in two dimensions, described in literature as 'acceptance' and 'rejection'. The research team established statistically significant differences between the heroin addicts and the students, the non-users, in terms of their family relationships. The results show that the addicts families were characterized by lack of understanding, by conflicts, rejection, non-acceptance by parents, while the non-users families were characterized by understanding, acceptance by parents and good communication. There is a connection between inter-family relationships and addiction. Namely, rejection and non-acceptance of children/persons by their families and parents, bad communication and dysfunctional family relationships are significant predictors of heroin addiction.

The Relationship Between Interpersonal Cognitive Distortions and Attribution Styles Among Divorce Applicant Couples and its Impact on Sexual Satisfaction

PubMed Central

Mahdoodizaman, Morteza; Razaghi, Samira; Amirsardari, Lili; Hobbi, Omran; Ghaderi, Davod

2016-01-01

Background The current study aimed to investigate the relationship between cognitive distortions and attribution styles among divorce applicant couples and its impact on sexual satisfaction. Materials and Methods It was a cross-sectional study and its statistical samples were 55 divorce applicant couples (110 individuals) referred to Urmia courts, Urmia, Iran, from 2012 to 2013. The required data were gathered by interpersonal cognitive distortions, Larson sexual satisfaction and attribution style questionnaire. Results The findings of the research indicated the existence of a significant relationship between attribution styles for pleasant events and cognitive distortions. The results showed that an increasing amount of pleasant events reduces cognitive distortions among the divorce applicant couples (P < 0.05, r = 0.19). Attribution style has a significant relationship with sexual satisfaction among the divorced couples. As stable-unstable variables increase (P < 0.05, r = 0.22), pleasant events, (P < 0.05, r = 0.19), attribution styles (total) (P < 0.05, r = 0.19) and sexual satisfaction increases and vice versa. Also, there was no significant relationship between sexual satisfaction and cognitive distortions (P < 0.05, r = 0.04). Conclusions Normal and abnormal cognitive components are among the main factors affecting satisfaction or dissatisfaction in couples who are living together (sexual satisfaction is one of its main elements). PMID:27822285

STATISTICS AND INTELLIGENCE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: A NOTE.

PubMed

Kodila-Tedika, Oasis; Asongu, Simplice A; Azia-Dimbu, Florentin

2017-05-01

The purpose of this study is to assess the relationship between intelligence (or human capital) and the statistical capacity of developing countries. The line of inquiry is motivated essentially by the scarce literature on poor statistics in developing countries and an evolving stream of literature on the knowledge economy. A positive association is established between intelligence quotient (IQ) and statistical capacity. The relationship is robust to alternative specifications with varying conditioning information sets and control for outliers. Policy implications are discussed.

Relationship of admissions variables and college of osteopathic medicine variables to performance on COMLEX-USA level 3.

PubMed

Baker, Helen H; Shuman, Victoria L; Ridpath, Lance C; Pence, Lorenzo L; Fisk, Robert M; Boisvert, Craig S

2015-02-01

New accreditation standards require that all US colleges of osteopathic medicine (COMs) publically report the first-time pass rates of graduates on the Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination-USA (COMLEX-USA) Level 3. Little is known about the extent to which admissions variables or COM performance measures relate to Level 3 performance. To examine the relationship of admissions variables and COM performance to scores on Level 3 and to assess whether a relationship existed between Level 3 scores and sex, curriculum track, year of graduation, and residency specialty in the first postgraduate year. Data were analyzed from 4 graduating classes (2008-2011) of the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine in Lewisburg. Relationships were examined between first-attempt scores on COMLEX-USA Level 3 and Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores; undergraduate grade point averages (GPAs); GPAs in COM year 1, year 2, and clinical rotation years (years 3 and 4); and first-attempt scores on COMLEX-USA Level 1, Level 2-Cognitive Evaluation, and Level 2-Performance Evaluation. Of the 556 graduates during this 4-year period, COMLEX-USA Level 3 scores were available for 552 graduates (99.3%). No statistically significant differences were found in Level 3 scores based on sex, curriculum track, graduating class, or residency specialty. The strongest relationship between Level 3 scores and any admissions variable was with total MCAT score, which accounted for 4.2% of the variation in Level 3 scores. The strongest relationship between Level 3 scores and COM year performance measures was with year 2 GPA, which accounted for 35.4% of the variation in Level 3 scores. Level 1 scores accounted for 38.5% of the variation in Level 3 scores, and Level 2-Cognitive Evaluation scores accounted for the greatest percentage of variation (45.7%). The correlation of Level 3 scores with passing the Level 2-Performance Evaluation on the first attempt was not statistically significant. A weak relationship was found between admissions variables and performance on COMLEX-USA Level 3, suggesting that graduates with lower MCAT scores and undergraduate GPAs may have overcome their early disadvantage. Strong relationships were found between Level 3 scores and year 2 GPAs, as well as scores on COMLEX-USA Level 1 and Level 2-Cognitive Evaluation. © 2015 The American Osteopathic Association.

[Impact of childhood sexual abuse on the sexual and affective relationships of adult women].

PubMed

López, Sílvia; Faro, Concepció; Lopetegui, Lourdes; Pujol-Ribera, Enriqueta; Monteagudo, Mònica; Cobo, Jesús; Fernández, María Isabel

To analyse perceived sexual satisfaction, sexual dysfunction, satisfaction with affective relationships and confidence and communication in existing relationships, related to a past history of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and type suffered, among women treated as part of the Catalonian Sexual and Reproductive Health Care Programme (PASSIR). Multicentric, descriptive, cross-sectional study. A total of 1,013 women over the age of 18 years, who underwent psychological therapy at any of the 24 PASSIR centres, were enrolled. A structured, anonymised, self-administered Sex History Questionnaire adapted from Wyatt (1985) & Dubé et al. (2005), and the Female Sexual Function Index (Rosen, 2000), were used. Statistical analysis was descriptive, bivariate and multivariate. Women who suffered childhood sexual abuse had a significantly higher prevalence of sexual dysfunction, with lower perceived sexual satisfaction. CSA with penetration or attempted penetration was associated with greater arousal difficulties and greater rejection. Women who experienced CSA were less confident and experienced greater communication difficulties with their partner. It is necessary to identify potential childhood sexual abuse among women who seek therapy due to relationship problems. It is also necessary to continue research into protective factors and therapeutic interventions to alleviate the consequences of CSA in adult life. Copyright © 2017 SESPAS. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

Factors associated with family violence by persons with psychiatric disorders.

PubMed

Labrum, Travis; Solomon, Phyllis L

2016-10-30

Family violence by persons with psychiatric disorders (PD) is a highly under-researched area. The primary objective of the present analysis was to identify perpetrator, victim, and interaction/relationship factors associated with this phenomenon. The secondary objective was to examine the extent to which the relationship between caregiving and family violence was mediated by limit-setting practices used towards relatives with PD. 573 adults across the U.S. with an adult relative with PD completed an online survey. Multivariate logistic regression was performed examining the association of factors with the occurrence of family violence. Mediation was assessed with Sobel testing. Family violence was significantly associated with the following factors: perpetrator-income, illegal drug use, psychiatric hospitalization, treatment attendance, and use of medications; victim-age, employment status, income, and mental health status; interaction/relationship-parental relationship, co-residence, use of limit-setting practices, representative payeeship, and unofficial money management. Mediation was statistically significant. Increasing access to mental health and/or substance abuse treatment may decrease the risk of family violence. Interventions may benefit from attempting to decrease/modify the use of limit-setting practices. Where family representative payeeship or unofficial money management exists, it is advisable for practitioners to assess and address financial coercion and promote greater collaboration in financial decision-making. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

The association between ambient temperature and childhood asthma: a systematic review

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xu, Zhiwei; Crooks, James Lewis; Davies, Janet Mary; Khan, Al Fazal; Hu, Wenbiao; Tong, Shilu

2018-03-01

The objectives of this study are to review available information on the association between ambient temperature and childhood asthma, and to elucidate the possible underlying mechanisms of this relationship. A systematic review was conducted based on the papers retrieved from four databases, including PubMed, ProQuest, ScienceDirect, and Scopus. Papers examining the association of absolute temperature or temperature variation with childhood asthma published from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2016 were included. Thirteen papers have quantified the effect of absolute temperature on childhood asthma, and six papers have examined the effect of intra- or inter-day temperature variation on childhood asthma. All studies were conducted in urban areas. Aeroallergen sensitizations were only considered in the analyses of one study. Discrepancy existed in the significance of the relationship between absolute temperature and childhood asthma, and also in the shape of this relationship (i.e. linear or non-linear) and whether temperature effects were lagged. Increasing evidence is suggesting non-linear relationship between absolute temperature and childhood asthma. Future research should investigate the burden of childhood asthma specifically attributable to extreme temperatures and temperature variation using advanced statistical approach, particularly in rural areas, after properly considering aeroallergens and air pollution. Projecting future burden of childhood asthma under climate change scenarios is also warranted.

The association between ambient temperature and childhood asthma: a systematic review.

PubMed

Xu, Zhiwei; Crooks, James Lewis; Davies, Janet Mary; Khan, Al Fazal; Hu, Wenbiao; Tong, Shilu

2018-03-01

The objectives of this study are to review available information on the association between ambient temperature and childhood asthma, and to elucidate the possible underlying mechanisms of this relationship. A systematic review was conducted based on the papers retrieved from four databases, including PubMed, ProQuest, ScienceDirect, and Scopus. Papers examining the association of absolute temperature or temperature variation with childhood asthma published from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2016 were included. Thirteen papers have quantified the effect of absolute temperature on childhood asthma, and six papers have examined the effect of intra- or inter-day temperature variation on childhood asthma. All studies were conducted in urban areas. Aeroallergen sensitizations were only considered in the analyses of one study. Discrepancy existed in the significance of the relationship between absolute temperature and childhood asthma, and also in the shape of this relationship (i.e. linear or non-linear) and whether temperature effects were lagged. Increasing evidence is suggesting non-linear relationship between absolute temperature and childhood asthma. Future research should investigate the burden of childhood asthma specifically attributable to extreme temperatures and temperature variation using advanced statistical approach, particularly in rural areas, after properly considering aeroallergens and air pollution. Projecting future burden of childhood asthma under climate change scenarios is also warranted.

The economic benefits of malaria elimination: do they include increases in tourism?

PubMed

Modrek, Sepideh; Liu, Jenny; Gosling, Roland; Feachem, Richard G A

2012-07-28

Policy makers have speculated that one of the economic benefits of malaria elimination includes increases in foreign direct investment, particularly tourism. This study examines the empirical relationship between the demand for travel and malaria cases in two countries with large tourism industries around the time in which they carried out malaria-elimination campaigns. In Mauritius, this analysis examines historical, yearly tourist arrivals and malaria cases from 1978-1999, accounting for the background secular trend of increasing international travel. In Dominican Republic, a country embarking upon malaria elimination, it employs a time-series analysis of the monthly, international tourist arrivals from 1998-2010 to determine whether the timing of significant deviations in tourist arrivals coincides with malaria outbreaks. While naïve relationships exist in both cases, the results show that the relationships between tourist arrivals and malaria cases are relatively weak and statistically insignificant once secular confounders are accounted for. This suggests that any economic benefits from tourism that may be derived from actively pursuing elimination in countries that have high tourism potential are likely to be small when measured at a national level. Rather, tourism benefits are likely to be experienced with greater impact in more concentrated tourist areas within countries, and future studies should seek to assess these relationships at a regional or local level.

What influences the choice of assessment methods in health technology assessments? Statistical analysis of international health technology assessments from 1989 to 2002.

PubMed

Draborg, Eva; Andersen, Christian Kronborg

2006-01-01

Health technology assessment (HTA) has been used as input in decision making worldwide for more than 25 years. However, no uniform definition of HTA or agreement on assessment methods exists, leaving open the question of what influences the choice of assessment methods in HTAs. The objective of this study is to analyze statistically a possible relationship between methods of assessment used in practical HTAs, type of assessed technology, type of assessors, and year of publication. A sample of 433 HTAs published by eleven leading institutions or agencies in nine countries was reviewed and analyzed by multiple logistic regression. The study shows that outsourcing of HTA reports to external partners is associated with a higher likelihood of using assessment methods, such as meta-analysis, surveys, economic evaluations, and randomized controlled trials; and with a lower likelihood of using assessment methods, such as literature reviews and "other methods". The year of publication was statistically related to the inclusion of economic evaluations and shows a decreasing likelihood during the year span. The type of assessed technology was related to economic evaluations with a decreasing likelihood, to surveys, and to "other methods" with a decreasing likelihood when pharmaceuticals were the assessed type of technology. During the period from 1989 to 2002, no major developments in assessment methods used in practical HTAs were shown statistically in a sample of 433 HTAs worldwide. Outsourcing to external assessors has a statistically significant influence on choice of assessment methods.

Linearity and nonlinearity of basin response as a function of scale: Discussion of alternative definitions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sivapalan, M.; Jothityangkoon, C.; Menabde, M.

2002-02-01

Two uses of the terms ``linearity'' and ``nonlinearity'' appear in recent literature. The first definition of nonlinearity is with respect to the dynamical property such as the rainfall-runoff response of a catchment, and nonlinearity in this sense refers to a nonlinear dependence of the storm response on the magnitude of the rainfall inputs [Minshall, 1960; Wang et al., 1981]. The second definition of nonlinearity [Huang and Willgoose, 1993; Goodrich et al., 1997] is with respect to the dependence of a catchment statistical property, such as the mean annual flood, on the area of the catchment. They are both linked to important and interconnected hydrologic concepts, and furthermore, the change of nonlinearity with area (scale) has been an important motivation for hydrologic research. While both definitions are correct mathematically, they refer to hydrologically different concepts. In this paper we show that nonlinearity in the dynamical sense and that in the statistical sense can exist independently of each other (i.e., can be unrelated). If not carefully distinguished, the existence of these two definitions can lead to a catchment's response being described as being both linear and nonlinear at the same time. We therefore recommend separating these definitions by reserving the term ``nonlinearity'' for the classical, dynamical definition with respect to rainfall inputs, while adopting the term ``scaling relationship'' for the dependence of a catchment hydrological property on catchment area.

Transient coupling relationships of the Holocene Australian monsoon

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McRobie, F. H.; Stemler, T.; Wyrwoll, K.-H.

2015-08-01

The northwest Australian summer monsoon owes a notable degree of its interannual variability to interactions with other regional monsoon systems. Therefore, changes in the nature of these relationships may contribute to variability in monsoon strength over longer time scales. Previous attempts to evaluate how proxy records from the Indonesian-Australian monsoon region correspond to other records from the Indian and East Asian monsoon regions, as well as to El Niño-related proxy records, have been qualitative, relying on 'curve-fitting' methods. Here, we seek a quantitative approach for identifying coupling relationships between paleoclimate proxy records, employing statistical techniques to compute the interdependence of two paleoclimate time series. We verify the use of complex networks to identify coupling relationships between modern climate indices. This method is then extended to a set of paleoclimate proxy records from the Asian, Australasian and South American regions spanning the past 9000 years. The resulting networks demonstrate the existence of coupling relationships between regional monsoon systems on millennial time scales, but also highlight the transient nature of teleconnections during this period. In the context of the northwest Australian summer monsoon, we recognise a shift in coupling relationships from strong interhemispheric links with East Asian and ITCZ-related proxy records in the mid-Holocene to significantly weaker coupling in the later Holocene. Although the identified links cannot explain the underlying physical processes leading to coupling between regional monsoon systems, this method provides a step towards understanding the role that changes in teleconnections play in millennial-to orbital-scale climate variability.

Earthquake prediction evaluation standards applied to the VAN Method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jackson, David D.

Earthquake prediction research must meet certain standards before it can be suitably evaluated for potential application in decision making. For methods that result in a binary (on or off) alarm condition, requirements include (1) a quantitative description of observables that trigger an alarm, (2) a quantitative description, including ranges of time, location, and magnitude, of the predicted earthquakes, (3) documented evidence of all previous alarms, (4) a complete list of predicted earthquakes, (5) a complete list of unpredicted earthquakes. The VAN technique [Varotsos and Lazaridou, 1991; Varotsos et al., 1996] has not yet been stated as a testable hypothesis. It fails criteria (1) and (2) so it is not ready to be evaluated properly. Although telegrams were transmitted in advance of claimed successes, these telegrams did not fully specify the predicted events, and all of the published statistical evaluations involve many subjective ex post facto decisions. Lacking a statistically demonstrated relationship to earthquakes, a candidate prediction technique should satisfy several plausibility criteria, including: (1) a reasonable relationship between the location of the candidate precursor and that of the predicted earthquake, (2) some demonstration that the candidate precursory observations are related to stress, strain, or other quantities related to earthquakes, and (3) the existence of co-seismic as well as pre-seismic variations of the candidate precursor. The VAN technique meets none of these criteria.

Relationship between sociability toward humans and physiological stress in dogs.

PubMed

Shin, Yoon-Joo; Shin, Nam-Shik

2017-07-28

Sociability is an essential trait for dogs to successfully interact with humans. In this study, the relationship between sociability and physiological stress was examined. Additionally, whether differences exist between companion dogs (C group) and shelter dogs (S group) was examined. Overall, healthy 37 dogs (C group=21 and S group=16) were examined. After 5 min of walking, the dog and the owner (or the chief manager) rested freely in the experimental location for 5 min. The behavioral test with 6 categories was conducted to evaluate sociability over 4 min. The establishment of two groups (H group=dogs with high sociability; L group=dogs with low sociability) was supported by the statistical results of the behavioral tests. Saliva was collected before (P1) and after the test period (P2), and salivary cortisol levels were determined and statistically analyzed. The cortisol concentrations at P2 and the differences in concentrations between P1 and P2 (P2-P1) in the groups with high sociability were significantly lower than those in the groups with low sociability. These results may demonstrate that sociable dogs adapt more comfortably to strangers and unfamiliar situations. Meanwhile, there were significant differences in hormonal results between the C and S groups. For this reason, their sociability should be evaluated using behavioral and physiological assessments before re-adoption to ensure their successful adaptation.

A multi-agency investigation of Heat and human Health relationships in the state of Vermont: Towards actionable science.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Oswald, E.

2015-12-01

This talk focuses on an assemblage of work conducted primarily between the Vermont State Climate Office and the Vermont Department of Health for better understanding, communicating, and anticipating the impact which elevated air temperatures have, and my have in the future, on public health. This is an example in how several agencies, spanning scientific fields and levels, can all play roles in in producing important understanding and actionable consequences in the face of health risk. This talk starts with an investigation of the relationships between Vermont health statistics and daily maximum air temperature with a focus on the temperatures where the health statistics changed most rapidly with temperature changes, or "changepoints". The results of this investigation suggested that meaningful temperature changepoints exist below 90F. The local WFO considered a day as "hot" when it reached or exceeded 90F unless the day was particularly sunny and humid. Discussions with the local National Weather Service Forecast Office were productive and led to some rethinking of how they consider a "Hot" day. The changepoints information was also incorporated into a health impacts report prepared by the Vermont Department of Health for the CDC's Building Resilience Against Climate Effects, by utilizing climate indices tailored to a temperature less than 90F. This work stands as a demonstration that the co-production of knowledge can produce actionable science.

Life cycle cost analysis of aging aircraft airframe maintenance

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sperry, Kenneth Robert

Scope and method of study. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between an aircraft's age and its annual airframe maintenance costs. Common life cycle costing methodology has previously not recognized the existence of this cost growth potential, and has therefor not determined the magnitude nor significance of this cost element. This study analyzed twenty-five years of DOT Form 41-airframe maintenance cost data for the Boeing 727, 737, 747 and McDonnell Douglas DC9 and DC-10 aircraft. Statistical analysis included regression analysis, Pearson's r, and t-tests to test the null hypothesis. Findings and conclusion. Airframe maintenance cost growth was confirmed to be increasing after an aircraft's age exceeded its designed service objective of approximately twenty-years. Annual airframe maintenance cost growth increases were measured ranging from 3.5% annually for a DC-9, to approximately 9% annually for a DC-10 aircraft. Average measured coefficient of determination between age and airframe maintenance, exceeded .80, confirming a strong relationship between cost: and age. The statistical significance of the difference between airframe costs sampled in 1985, compared to airframe costs sampled in 1998 was confirmed by t-tests performed on each subject aircraft group. Future cost forecasts involving aging aircraft subjects must address cost growth due to aging when attempting to model an aircraft's economic service life.

The propagation of inventory-based positional errors into statistical landslide susceptibility models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Steger, Stefan; Brenning, Alexander; Bell, Rainer; Glade, Thomas

2016-12-01

There is unanimous agreement that a precise spatial representation of past landslide occurrences is a prerequisite to produce high quality statistical landslide susceptibility models. Even though perfectly accurate landslide inventories rarely exist, investigations of how landslide inventory-based errors propagate into subsequent statistical landslide susceptibility models are scarce. The main objective of this research was to systematically examine whether and how inventory-based positional inaccuracies of different magnitudes influence modelled relationships, validation results, variable importance and the visual appearance of landslide susceptibility maps. The study was conducted for a landslide-prone site located in the districts of Amstetten and Waidhofen an der Ybbs, eastern Austria, where an earth-slide point inventory was available. The methodological approach comprised an artificial introduction of inventory-based positional errors into the present landslide data set and an in-depth evaluation of subsequent modelling results. Positional errors were introduced by artificially changing the original landslide position by a mean distance of 5, 10, 20, 50 and 120 m. The resulting differently precise response variables were separately used to train logistic regression models. Odds ratios of predictor variables provided insights into modelled relationships. Cross-validation and spatial cross-validation enabled an assessment of predictive performances and permutation-based variable importance. All analyses were additionally carried out with synthetically generated data sets to further verify the findings under rather controlled conditions. The results revealed that an increasing positional inventory-based error was generally related to increasing distortions of modelling and validation results. However, the findings also highlighted that interdependencies between inventory-based spatial inaccuracies and statistical landslide susceptibility models are complex. The systematic comparisons of 12 models provided valuable evidence that the respective error-propagation was not only determined by the degree of positional inaccuracy inherent in the landslide data, but also by the spatial representation of landslides and the environment, landslide magnitude, the characteristics of the study area, the selected classification method and an interplay of predictors within multiple variable models. Based on the results, we deduced that a direct propagation of minor to moderate inventory-based positional errors into modelling results can be partly counteracted by adapting the modelling design (e.g. generalization of input data, opting for strongly generalizing classifiers). Since positional errors within landslide inventories are common and subsequent modelling and validation results are likely to be distorted, the potential existence of inventory-based positional inaccuracies should always be considered when assessing landslide susceptibility by means of empirical models.

Crystallographic Orientation Relationships (CORs) between rutile inclusions and garnet hosts: towards using COR frequencies as a petrogenetic indicator

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Griffiths, Thomas; Habler, Gerlinde; Schantl, Philip; Abart, Rainer

2017-04-01

Crystallographic orientation relationships (CORs) between crystalline inclusions and their hosts are commonly used to support particular inclusion origins, but often interpretations are based on a small fraction of all inclusions in a system. The electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) method allows collection of large COR datasets more quickly than other methods while maintaining high spatial resolution. Large datasets allow analysis of the relative frequencies of different CORs, and identification of 'statistical CORs', where certain limited degrees of freedom exist in the orientation relationship between two neighbour crystals (Griffiths et al. 2016). Statistical CORs exist in addition to completely fixed 'specific' CORs (previously the only type of COR considered). We present a comparison of three EBSD single point datasets (all N > 200 inclusions) of rutile inclusions in garnet hosts, covering three rock systems, each with a different geological history: 1) magmatic garnet in pegmatite from the Koralpe complex, Eastern Alps, formed at temperatures > 600°C and low pressures; 2) granulite facies garnet rims on ultra-high-pressure garnets from the Kimi complex, Rhodope Massif; and 3) a Moldanubian granulite from the southeastern Bohemian Massif, equilibrated at peak conditions of 1050°C and 1.6 GPa. The present study is unique because all datasets have been analysed using the same catalogue of potential CORs, therefore relative frequencies and other COR properties can be meaningfully compared. In every dataset > 94% of the inclusions analysed exhibit one of the CORs tested for. Certain CORs are consistently among the most common in all datasets. However, the relative abundances of these common CORs show large variations between datasets (varying from 8 to 42 % relative abundance in one case). Other CORs are consistently uncommon but nonetheless present in every dataset. Lastly, there are some CORs that are common in one of the datasets and rare in the remainder. These patterns suggest competing influences on relative COR frequencies. Certain CORs seem consistently favourable, perhaps pointing to very stable low energy configurations, whereas some CORs are favoured in only one system, perhaps due to particulars of the formation mechanism, kinetics or conditions. Variations in COR frequencies between datasets seem to correlate with the conditions of host-inclusion system evolution. The two datasets from granulite-facies metamorphic samples show more similarities to each other than to the pegmatite dataset, and the sample inferred to have experienced the highest temperatures (Moldanubian granulite) shows the lowest diversity of CORs, low frequencies of statistical CORs and the highest frequency of specific CORs. These results provide evidence that petrological information is being encoded in COR distributions. They make a strong case for further studies of the factors influencing COR development and for measurements of COR distributions in other systems and between different phases. Griffiths, T.A., Habler, G., Abart, R. (2016): Crystallographic orientation relationships in host-inclusion systems: New insights from large EBSD data sets. Amer. Miner., 101, 690-705.

Incidence of postoperative hypothermia and the relationship to clinical variables.

PubMed

Burns, Shari M; Piotrowski, Kathy; Caraffa, Guy; Wojnakowski, Mary

2010-10-01

A prospective, quantitative, correlational study was conducted to determine the incidence of postoperative hypothermia and the relationship of hypothermia to numerous clinical variables previously studied. The study reflects the researchers' interest in updating previous data regarding the incidence of hypothermia. Although hypothermia remains a significant clinical concern, interventions aimed at minimizing hypothermia have evolved over the past 20 years, thus prompting new interest in determining the extent to which hypothermia exists in today's PACU patients. A convenience sample of 287 adult, nonemergency patients scheduled for surgery were included in the study. Hypothermia (temperature <36°C) was demonstrated in only 4% of the sample (N = 287). Because of the low incidence of hypothermia, correlation statistics were not performed. The study provides a foundation for future research regarding this important clinical phenomenon while offering evidence supporting efforts to avoid hypothermia in today's surgical patients. Copyright © 2010 American Society of PeriAnesthesia Nurses. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Relationship Between Job Characteristics and Organizational Commitment: A Descriptive Analytical Study.

PubMed

Faraji, Obeidollah; Ramazani, Abbas Ali; Hedaiati, Pouria; Aliabadi, Ali; Elhamirad, Samira; Valiee, Sina

2015-11-01

Many factors influence the organizational commitment of employees. One of these factors is job designing since it affects the attitude, beliefs, and feelings of the organization employees. We aimed to determine the relationship between job characteristics and organizational commitment among the employees of hospitals. In this descriptive and correlational study, 152 Iranian employees of the hospitals (physicians, nurses, and administrative staff) were selected through stratified random sampling. Data gathered using 3-part questionnaire of "demographic information", "job characteristics model," and "organizational commitment," in 2011. Study data were analyzed using SPSS v. 16. There was significant statistical correlation between organizational commitment and variables of educational level (P = 0.001) and job category (P = 0.001). Also, a direct and significant correlation existed between motivating potential score and job feedback on one hand and organizational commitment on the other hand (P = 0.014). According to the results, managers of the hospitals should increase staff's commitment through paying attention to proper job designing.

Network Analysis of Rodent Transcriptomes in Spaceflight

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ramachandran, Maya; Fogle, Homer; Costes, Sylvain

2017-01-01

Network analysis methods leverage prior knowledge of cellular systems and the statistical and conceptual relationships between analyte measurements to determine gene connectivity. Correlation and conditional metrics are used to infer a network topology and provide a systems-level context for cellular responses. Integration across multiple experimental conditions and omics domains can reveal the regulatory mechanisms that underlie gene expression. GeneLab has assembled rich multi-omic (transcriptomics, proteomics, epigenomics, and epitranscriptomics) datasets for multiple murine tissues from the Rodent Research 1 (RR-1) experiment. RR-1 assesses the impact of 37 days of spaceflight on gene expression across a variety of tissue types, such as adrenal glands, quadriceps, gastrocnemius, tibalius anterior, extensor digitorum longus, soleus, eye, and kidney. Network analysis is particularly useful for RR-1 -omics datasets because it reinforces subtle relationships that may be overlooked in isolated analyses and subdues confounding factors. Our objective is to use network analysis to determine potential target nodes for therapeutic intervention and identify similarities with existing disease models. Multiple network algorithms are used for a higher confidence consensus.

Intermuscular relationship of human muscle fiber type proportions: slow leg muscles predict slow neck muscles.

PubMed

Vikne, Harald; Gundersen, Kristian; Liestøl, Knut; Maelen, Jan; Vøllestad, Nina

2012-04-01

Our aim in this study was to examine whether the muscle fiber type proportions in different muscles from the same individual are interrelated. Samples were excised from five skeletal muscles in each of 12 human autopsy cases, and the fiber type proportions were determined by immunohistochemistry. We further examined the intermuscular relationship in fiber type proportion by reanalyzing three previously published data sets involving other muscles. Subjects demonstrated a predominantly high or low proportion of type 1 fibers in all examined muscles, and the overall difference between individuals was statistically significant (P < 0.001). Accordingly, the type 1 fiber proportions in most muscles were positively correlated (median r = 0.42, range -0.03-0.80). Similar results were also obtained from the three reanalyzed data sets. We suggest the existence of an across-muscle phenotype with respect to fiber type proportions; some individuals display generally faster muscles and some individuals slower muscles when compared with others. Copyright © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

19 CFR 351.102 - Definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-04-01

... financing; and close supplier relationships. The Secretary will not find that control exists on the basis of these factors unless the relationship has the potential to impact decisions concerning the production... temporal aspect of a relationship in determining whether control exists; normally, temporary circumstances...

Teacher Invitations and Effectiveness.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lambeth, Charlotte Reed

The relationships that exist between perceived teacher behaviors and the achievement of selected secondary students in Virginia, and the relationships that exist between perceived teacher behaviors and curriculum type were determined. Additionally, the relationship between sets of teacher behaviors and achievement were investigated. Five…

Social Network Analysis of Crowds

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-10-29

Response to non-lethal weapons fire depends on social relationships among crowd members – Pre-existing Personal Relationships – Ongoing Real Time...weapons and systems – Prior, existing social relationships – Real time social interactions – Formal/informal hierarchies 13-Feb-15 24UNCLASSIFIED

The association between varicella (chickenpox) and group A streptococcus infections in historical perspective

PubMed Central

Coleman, Stephen

2016-01-01

Objectives: The aim of the research is to investigate the historical relationship between varicella and Streptococcus pyogenes infections. In the past few decades, varicella has been identified as a risk factor for invasive group A streptococcus infections. The question is whether this relationship also existed between varicella and scarlet fever in the historical era. Methods: The analysis begins with a search of historical medical reports on the relationship between varicella and scarlet fever epidemics in the late 19th and early 20th century, as well as in more recent empirical studies. Correlations and cross-correlations between varicella and scarlet fever are analyzed using weekly public health case reports from 1924 to 1932 for Boston, Chicago, New York City, and Philadelphia. Regression models are used to estimate the relationship between varicella and scarlet fever after controlling for seasonal forcing. Results: Historical records give limited support for a causal relationship between varicella and scarlet fever but indicate that these diseases often occurred close in time to each other. Likewise, statistical analysis shows that varicella and scarlet fever epidemics are closely aligned with each other, and varicella has a strong relationship with scarlet fever. The relationship is stronger than reported in any previous research on the two diseases. Conclusion: The close correspondence of the two diseases likely depends on multiple factors, including seasonal forcing, a causal relationship, and co-infections. The results raise questions about whether this close relationship might have had a synergistic effect or a role in the evolution of S. pyogenes from the virulent, high incidence epidemics of the 19th century to the relatively benign scarlet fever of the 1950s. PMID:27504182

Mechanical and Statistical Evidence of Human-Caused Earthquakes - A Global Data Analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Klose, C. D.

2012-12-01

The causality of large-scale geoengineering activities and the occurrence of earthquakes with magnitudes of up to M=8 is discussed and mechanical and statistical evidence is provided. The earthquakes were caused by artificial water reservoir impoundments, underground and open-pit mining, coastal management, hydrocarbon production and fluid injections/extractions. The presented global earthquake catalog has been recently published in the Journal of Seismology and is available for the public at www.cdklose.com. The data show evidence that geomechanical relationships exist with statistical significance between a) seismic moment magnitudes of observed earthquakes, b) anthropogenic mass shifts on the Earth's crust, and c) lateral distances of the earthquake hypocenters to the locations of the mass shifts. Research findings depend on uncertainties, in particular, of source parameter estimations of seismic events before instrumental recoding. First analyses, however, indicate that that small- to medium size earthquakes (M6) tend to be triggered. The rupture propagation of triggered events might be dominated by pre-existing tectonic stress conditions. Besides event specific evidence, large earthquakes such as China's 2008 M7.9 Wenchuan earthquake fall into a global pattern and can not be considered as outliers or simply seen as an act of god. Observations also indicate that every second seismic event tends to occur after a decade, while pore pressure diffusion seems to only play a role when injecting fluids deep underground. The chance of an earthquake to nucleate after two or 20 years near an area with a significant mass shift is 25% or 75% respectively. Moreover, causative effects of seismic activities highly depend on the tectonic stress regime in the Earth's crust in which geoengineering takes place.

Robust identification of transcriptional regulatory networks using a Gibbs sampler on outlier sum statistic.

PubMed

Gu, Jinghua; Xuan, Jianhua; Riggins, Rebecca B; Chen, Li; Wang, Yue; Clarke, Robert

2012-08-01

Identification of transcriptional regulatory networks (TRNs) is of significant importance in computational biology for cancer research, providing a critical building block to unravel disease pathways. However, existing methods for TRN identification suffer from the inclusion of excessive 'noise' in microarray data and false-positives in binding data, especially when applied to human tumor-derived cell line studies. More robust methods that can counteract the imperfection of data sources are therefore needed for reliable identification of TRNs in this context. In this article, we propose to establish a link between the quality of one target gene to represent its regulator and the uncertainty of its expression to represent other target genes. Specifically, an outlier sum statistic was used to measure the aggregated evidence for regulation events between target genes and their corresponding transcription factors. A Gibbs sampling method was then developed to estimate the marginal distribution of the outlier sum statistic, hence, to uncover underlying regulatory relationships. To evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed method, we compared its performance with that of an existing sampling-based method using both simulation data and yeast cell cycle data. The experimental results show that our method consistently outperforms the competing method in different settings of signal-to-noise ratio and network topology, indicating its robustness for biological applications. Finally, we applied our method to breast cancer cell line data and demonstrated its ability to extract biologically meaningful regulatory modules related to estrogen signaling and action in breast cancer. The Gibbs sampler MATLAB package is freely available at http://www.cbil.ece.vt.edu/software.htm. xuan@vt.edu Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Robust identification of transcriptional regulatory networks using a Gibbs sampler on outlier sum statistic

PubMed Central

Gu, Jinghua; Xuan, Jianhua; Riggins, Rebecca B.; Chen, Li; Wang, Yue; Clarke, Robert

2012-01-01

Motivation: Identification of transcriptional regulatory networks (TRNs) is of significant importance in computational biology for cancer research, providing a critical building block to unravel disease pathways. However, existing methods for TRN identification suffer from the inclusion of excessive ‘noise’ in microarray data and false-positives in binding data, especially when applied to human tumor-derived cell line studies. More robust methods that can counteract the imperfection of data sources are therefore needed for reliable identification of TRNs in this context. Results: In this article, we propose to establish a link between the quality of one target gene to represent its regulator and the uncertainty of its expression to represent other target genes. Specifically, an outlier sum statistic was used to measure the aggregated evidence for regulation events between target genes and their corresponding transcription factors. A Gibbs sampling method was then developed to estimate the marginal distribution of the outlier sum statistic, hence, to uncover underlying regulatory relationships. To evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed method, we compared its performance with that of an existing sampling-based method using both simulation data and yeast cell cycle data. The experimental results show that our method consistently outperforms the competing method in different settings of signal-to-noise ratio and network topology, indicating its robustness for biological applications. Finally, we applied our method to breast cancer cell line data and demonstrated its ability to extract biologically meaningful regulatory modules related to estrogen signaling and action in breast cancer. Availability and implementation: The Gibbs sampler MATLAB package is freely available at http://www.cbil.ece.vt.edu/software.htm. Contact: xuan@vt.edu Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. PMID:22595208

Shift work, long working hours and preterm birth: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

PubMed

van Melick, M J G J; van Beukering, M D M; Mol, B W; Frings-Dresen, M H W; Hulshof, C T J

2014-11-01

Specific physical activities or working conditions are suspected for increasing the risk of preterm birth (PTB). The aim of this meta-analysis is to review and summarize the pre-existing evidence on the effect of shift work or long working hours on the risk of PTB. We conducted a systematic search in MEDLINE and EMBASE (1990-2013) for observational and intervention studies with original data. We only included articles that met our specific criteria for language, exposure, outcome, data collection and original data that were of at least of moderate quality. The data of the included studies were pooled. Eight high-quality studies and eight moderate-quality studies were included in the meta-analysis. In these studies, no clear or statistically significant relationship between shift work and PTB was found. The summary estimate OR for performing shift work during pregnancy and the risk of PTB were 1.04 (95% CI 0.90-1.20). For long working hours during pregnancy, the summary estimate OR was 1.25 (95% CI 1.01-1.54), indicating a marginally statistically significant relationship but an only slightly elevated risk. Although in many of the included studies a positive association between long working hours and PTB was seen this did reach only marginal statistical significance. In the studies included in this review, working in shifts or in night shifts during pregnancy was not significantly associated with an increased risk for PTB. For both risk factors, due to the lack of high-quality studies focusing on the risks per trimester, in particular the third trimester, a firm conclusion about an association cannot be stated.

An analysis of leading, lagging, and coincident economic indicators in the United States and its relationship to the volume of plastic surgery procedures performed.

PubMed

Hoppe, Ian C; Pastor, Craig J; Paik, Angie M

2012-10-01

In plastic surgery, 2 predominant practice environments exist, namely, the academic setting and private practice. These 2 groups cater their practice toward the needs and demands of 2 very different patient populations. The goal of this paper is to examine well-established economic indicators and delineate their relationship, if any, with the volume of different plastic surgical procedures performed in the United States. Information from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons' annual reports on plastic surgery statistics was collected from the year 2000 through 2010 and compared to readily available and established economic indicators. There was a significant positive relationship with total cosmetic procedures and gross domestic product (GDP), GDP per capita, personal income, consumer price index (CPI) (all), and CPI (medical). There was a significant positive relationship between cosmetic surgical procedures and the issuance of new home permits and the average prime rate charged by banks. There was a significant positive relationship with cosmetic minimally invasive procedures and GDP, GDP per capita, personal income, CPI (all), and CPI (medical). There was a significant negative relationship between reconstructive procedures and GDP, GDP per capita, personal income, CPI (all), and CPI (medical). Cosmetic minimally invasive procedures seem to be decided on relatively quickly during good economic times. Cosmetic surgical procedures seem to be more planned and less related to the economic environment. The plastic surgeon may use this relationship to tailor the focus of his or her practice to be best situated for economic fluctuations.

A comparison of the wear resistance and hardness of indirect composite resins.

PubMed

Mandikos, M N; McGivney, G P; Davis, E; Bush, P J; Carter, J M

2001-04-01

Various new, second-generation indirect composites have been developed with claimed advantages over existing tooth-colored restorative materials. To date, little independent research has been published on these materials, and the properties specified in the advertising materials are largely derived from in-house or contracted testing. Four second-generation indirect composites (Artglass, belleGlass, Sculpture, and Targis) were tested for wear resistance and hardness against 2 control materials with well-documented clinical application. Human enamel was also tested for comparison. Twelve specimens of each material were fabricated according to the manufacturers' directions and subjected to accelerated wear in a 3-body abrasion, toothbrushing apparatus. Vickers hardness was measured for each of the tested materials, and energy dispersive x-ray (EDX) spectroscopy was performed to determine the elemental composition of the composite fillers. The statistical tests used for wear and hardness were the Kruskal-Wallis 1-way ANOVA test with Mann-Whitney tests and 1-way ANOVA with multiple comparisons (Tukey HSD). The Pearson correlation coefficient was used to determine the existence of a relationship between the hardness of the materials and the degree to which they had worn. The level of statistical significance chosen was alpha=.05. The control material Concept was superior to the other composites in wear resistance and hardness and had the lowest surface roughness. Significant relationships were observed between depth of wear and hardness and between depth of wear and average surface roughness. Enamel specimens were harder and more wear resistant than any of the composites. EDX spectroscopy revealed that the elemental composition of the fillers of the 4 new composites was almost identical, as was the composition of the 2 control composites. The differences in wear, hardness, and average surface roughness may have been due to differences in the chemistry or method of polymerization of the composites. Further research in this area should be encouraged. It was also apparent that the filler present in the tested composites did not exactly fit the manufacturers' descriptions.

Color edges extraction using statistical features and automatic threshold technique: application to the breast cancer cells.

PubMed

Ben Chaabane, Salim; Fnaiech, Farhat

2014-01-23

Color image segmentation has been so far applied in many areas; hence, recently many different techniques have been developed and proposed. In the medical imaging area, the image segmentation may be helpful to provide assistance to doctor in order to follow-up the disease of a certain patient from the breast cancer processed images. The main objective of this work is to rebuild and also to enhance each cell from the three component images provided by an input image. Indeed, from an initial segmentation obtained using the statistical features and histogram threshold techniques, the resulting segmentation may represent accurately the non complete and pasted cells and enhance them. This allows real help to doctors, and consequently, these cells become clear and easy to be counted. A novel method for color edges extraction based on statistical features and automatic threshold is presented. The traditional edge detector, based on the first and the second order neighborhood, describing the relationship between the current pixel and its neighbors, is extended to the statistical domain. Hence, color edges in an image are obtained by combining the statistical features and the automatic threshold techniques. Finally, on the obtained color edges with specific primitive color, a combination rule is used to integrate the edge results over the three color components. Breast cancer cell images were used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method both quantitatively and qualitatively. Hence, a visual and a numerical assessment based on the probability of correct classification (PC), the false classification (Pf), and the classification accuracy (Sens(%)) are presented and compared with existing techniques. The proposed method shows its superiority in the detection of points which really belong to the cells, and also the facility of counting the number of the processed cells. Computer simulations highlight that the proposed method substantially enhances the segmented image with smaller error rates better than other existing algorithms under the same settings (patterns and parameters). Moreover, it provides high classification accuracy, reaching the rate of 97.94%. Additionally, the segmentation method may be extended to other medical imaging types having similar properties.

Killing Barney Fife: Law Enforcements Socially Constructed Perception of Violence and its Influence on Police Militarization

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-09-01

then examines the correlation between violence and police militarization. A statistical analysis of crime data found an inverse relationship between...violence and police militarization. A statistical analysis of crime data found an inverse relationship between levels of reported violence and...events. The research then focused on the correlation between violence and police militarization. The research began with a detailed statistical

Statistical representation of multiphase flow

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Subramaniam

2000-11-01

The relationship between two common statistical representations of multiphase flow, namely, the single--point Eulerian statistical representation of two--phase flow (D. A. Drew, Ann. Rev. Fluid Mech. (15), 1983), and the Lagrangian statistical representation of a spray using the dropet distribution function (F. A. Williams, Phys. Fluids 1 (6), 1958) is established for spherical dispersed--phase elements. This relationship is based on recent work which relates the droplet distribution function to single--droplet pdfs starting from a Liouville description of a spray (Subramaniam, Phys. Fluids 10 (12), 2000). The Eulerian representation, which is based on a random--field model of the flow, is shown to contain different statistical information from the Lagrangian representation, which is based on a point--process model. The two descriptions are shown to be simply related for spherical, monodisperse elements in statistically homogeneous two--phase flow, whereas such a simple relationship is precluded by the inclusion of polydispersity and statistical inhomogeneity. The common origin of these two representations is traced to a more fundamental statistical representation of a multiphase flow, whose concepts derive from a theory for dense sprays recently proposed by Edwards (Atomization and Sprays 10 (3--5), 2000). The issue of what constitutes a minimally complete statistical representation of a multiphase flow is resolved.

Nonlinear bivariate dependency of price-volume relationships in agricultural commodity futures markets: A perspective from Multifractal Detrended Cross-Correlation Analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

He, Ling-Yun; Chen, Shu-Peng

2011-01-01

Nonlinear dependency between characteristic financial and commodity market quantities (variables) is crucially important, especially between trading volume and market price. Studies on nonlinear dependency between price and volume can provide practical insights into market trading characteristics, as well as the theoretical understanding of market dynamics. Actually, nonlinear dependency and its underlying dynamical mechanisms between price and volume can help researchers and technical analysts in understanding the market dynamics by integrating the market variables, instead of investigating them in the current literature. Therefore, for investigating nonlinear dependency of price-volume relationships in agricultural commodity futures markets in China and the US, we perform a new statistical test to detect cross-correlations and apply a new methodology called Multifractal Detrended Cross-Correlation Analysis (MF-DCCA), which is an efficient algorithm to analyze two spatially or temporally correlated time series. We discuss theoretically the relationship between the bivariate cross-correlation exponent and the generalized Hurst exponents for time series of respective variables. We also perform an empirical study and find that there exists a power-law cross-correlation between them, and that multifractal features are significant in all the analyzed agricultural commodity futures markets.

Chemical Sensor Array Response Modeling Using Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationships Technique

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shevade, Abhijit V.; Ryan, Margaret A.; Homer, Margie L.; Zhou, Hanying; Manfreda, Allison M.; Lara, Liana M.; Yen, Shiao-Pin S.; Jewell, April D.; Manatt, Kenneth S.; Kisor, Adam K.

We have developed a Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationships (QSAR) based approach to correlate the response of chemical sensors in an array with molecular descriptors. A novel molecular descriptor set has been developed; this set combines descriptors of sensing film-analyte interactions, representing sensor response, with a basic analyte descriptor set commonly used in QSAR studies. The descriptors are obtained using a combination of molecular modeling tools and empirical and semi-empirical Quantitative Structure-Property Relationships (QSPR) methods. The sensors under investigation are polymer-carbon sensing films which have been exposed to analyte vapors at parts-per-million (ppm) concentrations; response is measured as change in film resistance. Statistically validated QSAR models have been developed using Genetic Function Approximations (GFA) for a sensor array for a given training data set. The applicability of the sensor response models has been tested by using it to predict the sensor activities for test analytes not considered in the training set for the model development. The validated QSAR sensor response models show good predictive ability. The QSAR approach is a promising computational tool for sensing materials evaluation and selection. It can also be used to predict response of an existing sensing film to new target analytes.

The relationship between self-efficacy and diabetic foot self-care.

PubMed

Wendling, Stacey; Beadle, Vera

2015-03-01

Research has shown that the ongoing rate of diabetes-related amputations remains significant despite the existence of prevention methods and that amputation in most cases can be prevented. The purpose of the study was to assess the relationship between the level of self-efficacy and performance of foot self-care in those with diabetes as they relate to the prevention of lower extremity amputation (LEA). A descriptive correlational study was conducted using the theoretical framework of Bandura's social cognitive theory. The Foot Care Confidence Scale (FCCS) and the Nottingham Assessment of Functional Footcare (NAFF) survey instruments were distributed to individuals over 18 years old with diabetes Type 1 and 2 in the lower peninsula of Michigan ( N  = 223). No significant correlation was identified between the level of self-efficacy and performance of foot self-care behaviors. Statistical significance was found between foot self-care behaviors and gender with males scoring higher than females. This study adds to the body of knowledge regarding self-efficacy and diabetic foot self-care behaviors. Further research is needed to explore the relationship of gender, diabetes education attendance, and foot self-care behaviors as influencing factors in LEA prevention.

Can Leader–Member Exchange Contribute to Safety Performance in An Italian Warehouse?

PubMed Central

Mariani, Marco G.; Curcuruto, Matteo; Matic, Mirna; Sciacovelli, Paolo; Toderi, Stefano

2017-01-01

Introduction: The research considers safety climate in a warehouse and wants to analyze the Leader–Member Exchange (LMX) role in respect to safety performance. Griffin and Neal’s safety model was adopted and Leader-Member Exchange was inserted as moderator in the relationships between safety climate and proximal antecedents (motivation and knowledge) of safety performance constructs (compliance and participation). Materials and Methods: Survey data were collected from a sample of 133 full-time employees in an Italian warehouse. The statistical framework of Hayes (2013) was adopted for moderated mediation analysis. Results: Proximal antecedents partially mediated the relationship between Safety climate and safety participation, but not safety compliance. Moreover, the results from the moderation analysis showed that the Leader–Member Exchange moderated the influence of safety climate on proximal antecedents and the mediation exist only at the higher level of LMX. Conclusion: The study shows that the different aspects of leadership processes interact in explaining individual proficiency in safety practices. Practical Implications: Organizations as warehouses should improve the quality of the relationship between a leader and a subordinate based upon the dimensions of respect, trust, and obligation for high level of safety performance. PMID:28553244

Can Leader-Member Exchange Contribute to Safety Performance in An Italian Warehouse?

PubMed

Mariani, Marco G; Curcuruto, Matteo; Matic, Mirna; Sciacovelli, Paolo; Toderi, Stefano

2017-01-01

Introduction: The research considers safety climate in a warehouse and wants to analyze the Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) role in respect to safety performance. Griffin and Neal's safety model was adopted and Leader-Member Exchange was inserted as moderator in the relationships between safety climate and proximal antecedents (motivation and knowledge) of safety performance constructs (compliance and participation). Materials and Methods: Survey data were collected from a sample of 133 full-time employees in an Italian warehouse. The statistical framework of Hayes (2013) was adopted for moderated mediation analysis. Results: Proximal antecedents partially mediated the relationship between Safety climate and safety participation, but not safety compliance. Moreover, the results from the moderation analysis showed that the Leader-Member Exchange moderated the influence of safety climate on proximal antecedents and the mediation exist only at the higher level of LMX. Conclusion: The study shows that the different aspects of leadership processes interact in explaining individual proficiency in safety practices. Practical Implications: Organizations as warehouses should improve the quality of the relationship between a leader and a subordinate based upon the dimensions of respect, trust, and obligation for high level of safety performance.

Importance-performance analysis of dental satisfaction among three ethnic groups in malaysia.

PubMed

Dewi, Fellani Danasra; Gundavarapu, Kalyan C; Cugati, Navaneetha

2013-01-01

To find the differences in patient satisfaction related to dental services among three ethnic groups - Chinese, Indian and Malay - at AIMST University Dental Centre and analyse them with an importance-performance grid, identifying the weak and strong points, in order to provide better service. This questionnaire-based study consisted of convenience samples of 174 patients of Chinese, Indian and Malay ethnicity. Importance-performance analysis for 20 attributes were compared using Likert's scale. The data obtained were statistically analysed using the Kruskal-Wallis test. Chinese and Indians both emphasised low performance on the interpersonal relationship attribute in terms of the receptionist's courtesy, whereas the Malay participants were concerned with convenience attributes. All the ethnic groups favoured maintaining existing major attributes towards technical competency, interpersonal relationship and facility factors. This study demonstrated priority differences between the ethnic groups' perception of the quality of dental services, where ethnic Chinese showed the highest gap (measure of dissatisfaction) between importance and performance compared to ethnic Malays, followed by ethnic Indians. The patients from the three major ethnic groups of Malaysia were generally well satisfied. Perhaps more priority should be placed on improving the interpersonal relationship attribute, especially with the receptionists.

Physical characteristics related to bra fit.

PubMed

Chen, Chin-Man; LaBat, Karen; Bye, Elizabeth

2010-04-01

Producing well-fitting garments has been a challenge for retailers and manufacturers since mass production began. Poorly fitted bras can cause discomfort or pain and result in lost sales for retailers. Because body contours are important factors affecting bra fit, this study analyses the relationship of physical characteristics to bra-fit problems. This study has used 3-D body-scanning technology to extract upper body angles from a sample of 103 college women; these data were used to categorise physical characteristics into shoulder slope, bust prominence, back curvature and acromion placement. Relationships between these physical categories and bra-fit problems were then analysed. Results show that significant main effects and two-way interactions of the physical categories exist in the fit problems of poor bra support and bra-motion restriction. The findings are valuable in helping the apparel industry create better-fitting bras. STATEMENT OF RELEVANCE: Poorly fitted bras can cause discomfort or pain and result in lost sales for retailers. The findings regarding body-shape classification provide researchers with a statistics method to quantify physical characteristics and the findings regarding the relationship analysis between physical characteristics and bra fit offer bra companies valuable information about bra-fit perceptions attributable to women with figure variations.

Spatial variability of turbulent fluxes in the roughness sublayer of an even-aged pine forest

USGS Publications Warehouse

Katul, G.; Hsieh, C.-I.; Bowling, D.; Clark, K.; Shurpali, N.; Turnipseed, A.; Albertson, J.; Tu, K.; Hollinger, D.; Evans, B. M.; Offerle, B.; Anderson, D.; Ellsworth, D.; Vogel, C.; Oren, R.

1999-01-01

The spatial variability of turbulent flow statistics in the roughness sublayer (RSL) of a uniform even-aged 14 m (= h) tall loblolly pine forest was investigated experimentally. Using seven existing walkup towers at this stand, high frequency velocity, temperature, water vapour and carbon dioxide concentrations were measured at 15.5 m above the ground surface from October 6 to 10 in 1997. These seven towers were separated by at least 100 m from each other. The objective of this study was to examine whether single tower turbulence statistics measurements represent the flow properties of RSL turbulence above a uniform even-aged managed loblolly pine forest as a best-case scenario for natural forested ecosystems. From the intensive space-time series measurements, it was demonstrated that standard deviations of longitudinal and vertical velocities (??(u), ??(w)) and temperature (??(T)) are more planar homogeneous than their vertical flux of momentum (u(*)2) and sensible heat (H) counterparts. Also, the measured H is more horizontally homogeneous when compared to fluxes of other scalar entities such as CO2 and water vapour. While the spatial variability in fluxes was significant (> 15%), this unique data set confirmed that single tower measurements represent the 'canonical' structure of single-point RSL turbulence statistics, especially flux-variance relationships. Implications to extending the 'moving-equilibrium' hypothesis for RSL flows are discussed. The spatial variability in all RSL flow variables was not constant in time and varied strongly with spatially averaged friction velocity u(*), especially when u(*) was small. It is shown that flow properties derived from two-point temporal statistics such as correlation functions are more sensitive to local variability in leaf area density when compared to single point flow statistics. Specifically, that the local relationship between the reciprocal of the vertical velocity integral time scale (I(w)) and the arrival frequency of organized structures (u??/h) predicted from a mixing-layer theory exhibited dependence on the local leaf area index. The broader implications of these findings to the measurement and modelling of RSL flows are also discussed.

Contested psychiatric ontology and feminist critique

PubMed Central

Angel, Katherine

2012-01-01

In this article I discuss the emergence of Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD) within American psychiatry and beyond in the postwar period, setting out what I believe to be important and suggestive questions neglected in existing scholarship. Tracing the nomenclature within successive editions of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), I consider the reification of the term ‘FSD’, and the activism and scholarship that the rise of the category has occasioned. I suggest that analysis of FSD benefits from scrutiny of a wider range of sources (especially since the popular and scientific cross-pollinate). I explore the multiplicity of FSD that emerges when one examines this wider range, but I also underscore a reinscribing of anxieties about psychogenic aetiologies. I then argue that what makes the FSD case additionally interesting, over and above other conditions with a contested status, is the historically complex relationship between psychiatry and feminism that is at work in contemporary debates. I suggest that existing literature on FSD has not yet posed some of the most important and salient questions at stake in writing about women’s sexual problems in this period, and can only do this when the relationship between ‘second-wave’ feminism, ‘post-feminism’, psychiatry and psychoanalysis becomes part of the terrain to be analysed, rather than the medium through which analysis is conducted. PMID:23355764

Comparison of connectivity analyses for resting state EEG data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Olejarczyk, Elzbieta; Marzetti, Laura; Pizzella, Vittorio; Zappasodi, Filippo

2017-06-01

Objective. In the present work, a nonlinear measure (transfer entropy, TE) was used in a multivariate approach for the analysis of effective connectivity in high density resting state EEG data in eyes open and eyes closed. Advantages of the multivariate approach in comparison to the bivariate one were tested. Moreover, the multivariate TE was compared to an effective linear measure, i.e. directed transfer function (DTF). Finally, the existence of a relationship between the information transfer and the level of brain synchronization as measured by phase synchronization value (PLV) was investigated. Approach. The comparison between the connectivity measures, i.e. bivariate versus multivariate TE, TE versus DTF, TE versus PLV, was performed by means of statistical analysis of indexes based on graph theory. Main results. The multivariate approach is less sensitive to false indirect connections with respect to the bivariate estimates. The multivariate TE differentiated better between eyes closed and eyes open conditions compared to DTF. Moreover, the multivariate TE evidenced non-linear phenomena in information transfer, which are not evidenced by the use of DTF. We also showed that the target of information flow, in particular the frontal region, is an area of greater brain synchronization. Significance. Comparison of different connectivity analysis methods pointed to the advantages of nonlinear methods, and indicated a relationship existing between the flow of information and the level of synchronization of the brain.

The effect of EarthPulse on learning of declarative knowledge

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McKinney, Heather E.

The purpose of this double-blind, bio-medical research study was to investigate the effect of EarthPulse, a brainwave entrainment and pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) device, on learning of declarative knowledge. Currently, PEMF research explores physiological and psychological effects but a gap exists in the potential effects of PEMF on learning. The study explored whether a relationship existed between receiving a thirty minute EarthPulse treatment on the "Entrain Up" setting and learning of declarative knowledge; whether the relationship remained over time; whether EarthPulse had an effect on sleep; and whether EarthPulse had an effect on attrition. Ninety-eight, randomly assigned, undergraduate students participated in this double-blind, experimental design study, of which 87 remained after attrition. After receiving a thirty minute EarthPulse or placebo treatment, experimental and control groups read identical passages and completed identical instruments to test learning and retention of declarative knowledge. Participants completed the same test in two intervals: an immediate (learning) and delayed (retention) posttest. Assumptions for normality and reliability were met. One-way ANOVA revealed no statistically significant effects on learning or retention at the 0.05 level. However, Chi square analysis revealed those who received the EarthPulse treatment were significantly less likely to fall asleep than those who received the control treatment (p=0.022) and very closely approached significance for attrition (p=0.051).

Age- and sex-associated changes in cerebral glucose metabolism in normal healthy subjects: statistical parametric mapping analysis of F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose brain positron emission tomography.

PubMed

Kim, In-Ju; Kim, Seong-Jang; Kim, Yong-Ki

2009-12-01

The age- and sex-associated changes of brain development are unclear and controversial. Several previous studies showed conflicting results of a specific pattern of cerebral glucose metabolism or no differences of cerebral glucose metabolism in association with normal aging process and sex. To investigate the effects of age and sex on changes in cerebral glucose metabolism in healthy subjects using fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (F-18 FDG) brain positron emission tomography (PET) and statistical parametric mapping (SPM) analysis. Seventy-eight healthy subjects (32 males, mean age 46.6+/-18.2 years; 46 females, mean age 40.6+/-19.8 years) underwent F-18 FDG brain PET. Using SPM, age- and sex-associated changes in cerebral glucose metabolism were investigated. In males, a negative correlation existed in several gray matter areas, including the right temporopolar (Brodmann area [BA] 38), right orbitofrontal (BA 47), left orbitofrontal gyrus (BA 10), left dorsolateral frontal gyrus (BA 8), and left insula (BA 13) areas. A positive relationship existed in the left claustrum and left thalamus. In females, negative changes existed in the left caudate body, left temporopolar area (BA 38), right orbitofrontal gyri (BA 47 and BA 10), and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA 46). A positive association was demonstrated in the left subthalamic nucleus and the left superior frontal gyrus. In white matter, an age-associated decrease in FDG uptake in males was shown in the left insula, and increased FDG uptake was found in the left corpus callosum. The female group had an age-associated negative correlation of FDG uptake only in the right corpus callosum. Using SPM, we found not only similar areas of brain, but also sex-specific cerebral areas of age-associated changes of FDG uptake.

The Effects of Pregnancy on Student Progress

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Steinkamp, Sarah Hope

2017-01-01

Ample evidence exists establishing the relationship between pregnancy during high school and subsequent educational difficulties, yet little research has investigated the relationship between pregnancy during college and subsequent educational difficulties. The purpose of this study was to determine if a relationship exists between pregnancy in…

Effect of resealing on microleakage of resin composite restorations in relationship to margin design and composite type

PubMed Central

Antonson, Sibel A.; Yazici, A. Ruya; Okte, Zeynep; Villalta, Patricia; Antonson, Donald E.; Hardigan, Patrick C.

2012-01-01

Objective: To determine the relationship between margin preparation design and resin-composite type on microleakage with or without re-application of surface-penetrating sealant. Methods: Class-I resin-composite restorations were completed for 128 extracted human molars. Half of the margins were beveled, the other half, butt-joint. Half of each group was restored with Filtek-Supreme (FS), the other half with Esthet-X (EX) using their respective adhesive systems. Margins were etched and sealed with a surface-penetrating sealant, Fortify. The samples were stored in water 24h, and thermocycled (5,000 cycles, 5°C–55°C). Then, samples were abraded using a toothbrush machine (6,000 strokes). Half of the restorations from each sealant group (n=16) were resealed, and the other half had no further treatment. Thermocycling and tooth brushing were repeated. The samples were sealed with nail polish, immersed in methylene-blue for 8h, sectioned, and magnified digital photographs were taken. Three examiners assessed dye penetration. A 2×2×2 multi-layered Chi-Square analysis, using Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel test was conducted for statistical analysis. Results: No difference was observed between sealed and resealed FS and EX restorations with butt-joint margins. In beveled margins, resealing caused significantly less microleakage (P<.01). No differences were found between restorations either sealed or resealed with bevel margins. In butt-joint margins, at the leakage level deeper than 2/3 of the preparation depth, resealed FS showed less microleakage than EX resealed restorations (P<.01). Conclusion: Resealing reduced microleakage in bevel margins, however, in butt-joint margins resealing did not affect the leakage. A significant statistical relationship exists between and within resealing, margin preparation design, type of composite, and microleakage. PMID:23077418

78 FR 959 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Existing Collection; Comments Requested: Extension of a...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-01-07

... DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE [OMB Number 1121-0094] Agency Information Collection Activities: Existing...: 60-day notice. The Department of Justice (DOJ), Bureau of Justice Statistics, will be submitting the... information, please contact Todd D. Minton, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 810 Seventh Street NW., Washington...

Inference of Gene Regulatory Networks Incorporating Multi-Source Biological Knowledge via a State Space Model with L1 Regularization

PubMed Central

Hasegawa, Takanori; Yamaguchi, Rui; Nagasaki, Masao; Miyano, Satoru; Imoto, Seiya

2014-01-01

Comprehensive understanding of gene regulatory networks (GRNs) is a major challenge in the field of systems biology. Currently, there are two main approaches in GRN analysis using time-course observation data, namely an ordinary differential equation (ODE)-based approach and a statistical model-based approach. The ODE-based approach can generate complex dynamics of GRNs according to biologically validated nonlinear models. However, it cannot be applied to ten or more genes to simultaneously estimate system dynamics and regulatory relationships due to the computational difficulties. The statistical model-based approach uses highly abstract models to simply describe biological systems and to infer relationships among several hundreds of genes from the data. However, the high abstraction generates false regulations that are not permitted biologically. Thus, when dealing with several tens of genes of which the relationships are partially known, a method that can infer regulatory relationships based on a model with low abstraction and that can emulate the dynamics of ODE-based models while incorporating prior knowledge is urgently required. To accomplish this, we propose a method for inference of GRNs using a state space representation of a vector auto-regressive (VAR) model with L1 regularization. This method can estimate the dynamic behavior of genes based on linear time-series modeling constructed from an ODE-based model and can infer the regulatory structure among several tens of genes maximizing prediction ability for the observational data. Furthermore, the method is capable of incorporating various types of existing biological knowledge, e.g., drug kinetics and literature-recorded pathways. The effectiveness of the proposed method is shown through a comparison of simulation studies with several previous methods. For an application example, we evaluated mRNA expression profiles over time upon corticosteroid stimulation in rats, thus incorporating corticosteroid kinetics/dynamics, literature-recorded pathways and transcription factor (TF) information. PMID:25162401

Cell-type specificity of lung cancer associated with low-dose soil heavy metal contamination in Taiwan: An ecological study

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Numerous studies have examined the association between heavy metal contamination (including arsenic [As], cadmium [Cd], chromium [Cr], copper [Cu], mercury [Hg], nickel [Ni], lead [Pb], and zinc [Zn]) and lung cancer. However, data from previous studies on pathological cell types are limited, particularly regarding exposure to low-dose soil heavy metal contamination. The purpose of this study was to explore the association between soil heavy metal contamination and lung cancer incidence by specific cell type in Taiwan. Methods We conducted an ecological study and calculated the annual averages of eight soil heavy metals (i.e., As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb, and Zn) by using data from the Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration from1982 to 1986. The age-standardized incidence rates of lung cancer according to two major pathological types (adenocarcinoma [AC] and squamous cell carcinoma [SCC]) were obtained from the National Cancer Registry Program conducted in Taiwan from 2001 to 2005. A geographical information system was used to plot the maps of soil heavy metal concentration and lung cancer incidence rates. Poisson regression models were used to obtain the adjusted relative ratios (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the lung cancer incidence associated with soil heavy metals. Results For males, the trend test for lung SCC incidence caused by exposure to Cr, Cu, Hg, Ni, and Zn showed a statistically significant dose–response relationship. However, for lung AC, only Cu and Ni had a significant dose–response relationship. As for females, those achieving a statistically significant dose–response relationship for the trend test were Cr (P = 0.02), Ni (P = 0.02), and Zn (P= 0.02) for lung SCC, and Cu (P < 0.01) and Zn (P = 0.02) for lung AC. Conclusion The current study suggests that a dose–response relationship exists between low-dose soil heavy metal concentration and lung cancer occurrence by specific cell-type; however, the relevant mechanism should be explored further. PMID:23575356

Certification of medical librarians, 1949--1977 statistical analysis.

PubMed

Schmidt, D

1979-01-01

The Medical Library Association's Code for Training and Certification of Medical Librarians was in effect from 1949 to August 1977, a period during which 3,216 individuals were certified. Statistics on each type of certificate granted each year are provided. Because 54.5% of those granted certification were awarded it in the last three-year, two-month period of the code's existence, these applications are reviewed in greater detail. Statistics on each type of certificate granted each year are provided. Because 54.5% of those granted certification were awarded it in the last three-year, two-month period of the code's existence, these applications are reviewed in greater detail. Statistics on MLA membership, sex, residence, library school, and method of meeting requirements are detailed. Questions relating to certification under the code now in existence are raised.

Certification of medical librarians, 1949--1977 statistical analysis.

PubMed Central

Schmidt, D

1979-01-01

The Medical Library Association's Code for Training and Certification of Medical Librarians was in effect from 1949 to August 1977, a period during which 3,216 individuals were certified. Statistics on each type of certificate granted each year are provided. Because 54.5% of those granted certification were awarded it in the last three-year, two-month period of the code's existence, these applications are reviewed in greater detail. Statistics on each type of certificate granted each year are provided. Because 54.5% of those granted certification were awarded it in the last three-year, two-month period of the code's existence, these applications are reviewed in greater detail. Statistics on MLA membership, sex, residence, library school, and method of meeting requirements are detailed. Questions relating to certification under the code now in existence are raised. PMID:427287

12 CFR 1022.20 - Coverage and definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... contain personal identifiers such as account numbers, names, or addresses. (4) Pre-existing business relationship—(i) In general. The term “pre-existing business relationship” means a relationship between a... by this subpart. (ii) Examples of pre-existing business relationships. (A) If a consumer has a time...

Factors related to student performance in statistics courses in Lebanon

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Naccache, Hiba Salim

The purpose of the present study was to identify factors that may contribute to business students in Lebanese universities having difficulty in introductory and advanced statistics courses. Two statistics courses are required for business majors at Lebanese universities. Students are not obliged to be enrolled in any math courses prior to taking statistics courses. Drawing on recent educational research, this dissertation attempted to identify the relationship between (1) students’ scores on Lebanese university math admissions tests; (2) students’ scores on a test of very basic mathematical concepts; (3) students’ scores on the survey of attitude toward statistics (SATS); (4) course performance as measured by students’ final scores in the course; and (5) their scores on the final exam. Data were collected from 561 students enrolled in multiple sections of two courses: 307 students in the introductory statistics course and 260 in the advanced statistics course in seven campuses across Lebanon over one semester. The multiple regressions results revealed four significant relationships at the introductory level: between students’ scores on the math quiz with their (1) final exam scores; (2) their final averages; (3) the Cognitive subscale of the SATS with their final exam scores; and (4) their final averages. These four significant relationships were also found at the advanced level. In addition, two more significant relationships were found between students’ final average and the two subscales of Effort (5) and Affect (6). No relationship was found between students’ scores on the admission math tests and both their final exam scores and their final averages in both the introductory and advanced level courses. On the other hand, there was no relationship between students’ scores on Lebanese admissions tests and their final achievement. Although these results were consistent across course formats and instructors, they may encourage Lebanese universities to assess the effectiveness of prerequisite math courses. Moreover, these findings may lead the Lebanese Ministry of Education to make changes to the admissions exams, course prerequisites, and course content. Finally, to enhance the attitude of students, new learning techniques, such as group work during class meetings can be helpful, and future research should aim to test the effectiveness of these pedagogical techniques on students’ attitudes toward statistics.

Agile Combat Support Doctrine and Logistics Officer Training: Do We Need an Integrated Logistics School for the Expeditionary Air and Space Force?

DTIC Science & Technology

2003-02-01

Rank-Order Correlation Coefficients statistical analysis via SPSS 8.0. Interview informants’ perceptions and perspec­ tives are combined with...logistics training in facilitating the em­ ployment of doctrinal tenets in a deployed environment. Statistical Correlations: Confirmed Relationships...integration of technology and cross-func­ tional training for the tactical practitioners. Statistical Correlations: Confirmed Relationships on the Need

Is GAISE Evident? College Students' Perceptions of Statistics Classes as "Almost Not Math"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hedges, Sarai; Harkness, Shelly Sheats

2017-01-01

The connection between mathematics and statistics is an important aspect in understanding college students' learning of statistics because studies have shown relationships among mathematics attitudes and performance and statistics attitudes. Statistics attitudes, in turn, are related to performance in statistics courses. Little research has been…

The correlation between running economy and maximal oxygen uptake: cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships in highly trained distance runners.

PubMed

Shaw, Andrew J; Ingham, Stephen A; Atkinson, Greg; Folland, Jonathan P

2015-01-01

A positive relationship between running economy and maximal oxygen uptake (V̇O2max) has been postulated in trained athletes, but previous evidence is equivocal and could have been confounded by statistical artefacts. Whether this relationship is preserved in response to running training (changes in running economy and V̇O2max) has yet to be explored. This study examined the relationships of (i) running economy and V̇O2max between runners, and (ii) the changes in running economy and V̇O2max that occur within runners in response to habitual training. 168 trained distance runners (males, n = 98, V̇O2max 73.0 ± 6.3 mL∙kg-1∙min-1; females, n = 70, V̇O2max 65.2 ± 5.9 mL kg-1∙min-1) performed a discontinuous submaximal running test to determine running economy (kcal∙km-1). A continuous incremental treadmill running test to volitional exhaustion was used to determine V̇O2max 54 participants (males, n = 27; females, n = 27) also completed at least one follow up assessment. Partial correlation analysis revealed small positive relationships between running economy and V̇O2max (males r = 0.26, females r = 0.25; P<0.006), in addition to moderate positive relationships between the changes in running economy and V̇O2max in response to habitual training (r = 0.35; P<0.001). In conclusion, the current investigation demonstrates that only a small to moderate relationship exists between running economy and V̇O2max in highly trained distance runners. With >85% of the variance in these parameters unexplained by this relationship, these findings reaffirm that running economy and V̇O2max are primarily determined independently.

A Generalized Approach for Measuring Relationships Among Genes.

PubMed

Wang, Lijun; Ahsan, Md Asif; Chen, Ming

2017-07-21

Several methods for identifying relationships among pairs of genes have been developed. In this article, we present a generalized approach for measuring relationships between any pairs of genes, which is based on statistical prediction. We derive two particular versions of the generalized approach, least squares estimation (LSE) and nearest neighbors prediction (NNP). According to mathematical proof, LSE is equivalent to the methods based on correlation; and NNP is approximate to one popular method called the maximal information coefficient (MIC) according to the performances in simulations and real dataset. Moreover, the approach based on statistical prediction can be extended from two-genes relationships to multi-genes relationships. This application would help to identify relationships among multi-genes.

12 CFR 334.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... depository institution does not have a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and none of the...) By an affiliate that has or has previously had a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer... business relationship with the consumer. (b) Making solicitations—(1) In general. For purposes of this...

12 CFR 222.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

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12 CFR 41.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

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16 CFR 680.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

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12 CFR 334.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

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12 CFR 41.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... relationship with the depository institution's securities affiliate for management of the consumer's securities... institution does not have a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and none of the other... affiliate that has or has previously had a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer; or (ii) As...

12 CFR 222.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... depository institution does not have a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and none of the...) By an affiliate that has or has previously had a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer... business relationship with the consumer. (b) Making solicitations—(1) In general. For purposes of this...

12 CFR 334.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... depository institution does not have a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and none of the...) By an affiliate that has or has previously had a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer... business relationship with the consumer. (b) Making solicitations—(1) In general. For purposes of this...

16 CFR 680.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... has a relationship with the creditor's securities affiliate for management of the consumer's.... The creditor does not have a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and none of the... affiliate that has or has previously had a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer; or (ii) As...

12 CFR 41.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... relationship with the depository institution's securities affiliate for management of the consumer's securities... institution does not have a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and none of the other... affiliate that has or has previously had a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer; or (ii) As...

12 CFR 41.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... relationship with the depository institution's securities affiliate for management of the consumer's securities... institution does not have a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and none of the other... affiliate that has or has previously had a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer; or (ii) As...

12 CFR 334.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... depository institution does not have a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and none of the...) By an affiliate that has or has previously had a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer... business relationship with the consumer. (b) Making solicitations—(1) In general. For purposes of this...

16 CFR 680.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... has a relationship with the creditor's securities affiliate for management of the consumer's.... The creditor does not have a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and none of the... affiliate that has or has previously had a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer; or (ii) As...

Strategic activity and financial performance of U.S. rural hospitals: a national study, 1983 to 1988.

PubMed

Mick, S S; Morlock, L L; Salkever, D; de Lissovoy, G; Malitz, F; Wise, C G; Jones, A

1994-01-01

This study examines the effect of 13 strategic management activities on the financial performance of a national sample of 797 U.S. rural hospitals during the period of 1983-1988. Controlled for environment-market, geographic-region, and hospital-related variables, the results show almost no measurable effect of strategic adoption on rural hospital profitability and liquidity. Where statistically significant relationships existed, they were more often negative than positive. These findings were not expected; it was hypothesized that positive effects across a broad range of strategies would emerge, other things being equal. Discussed are possible explanations for these findings as well as their implication for a rural health policy relying on individual rural hospital strategic adaptation to environmental change.

Nonparametric Methods in Astronomy: Think, Regress, Observe—Pick Any Three

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Steinhardt, Charles L.; Jermyn, Adam S.

2018-02-01

Telescopes are much more expensive than astronomers, so it is essential to minimize required sample sizes by using the most data-efficient statistical methods possible. However, the most commonly used model-independent techniques for finding the relationship between two variables in astronomy are flawed. In the worst case they can lead without warning to subtly yet catastrophically wrong results, and even in the best case they require more data than necessary. Unfortunately, there is no single best technique for nonparametric regression. Instead, we provide a guide for how astronomers can choose the best method for their specific problem and provide a python library with both wrappers for the most useful existing algorithms and implementations of two new algorithms developed here.

Adaptive web sampling.

PubMed

Thompson, Steven K

2006-12-01

A flexible class of adaptive sampling designs is introduced for sampling in network and spatial settings. In the designs, selections are made sequentially with a mixture distribution based on an active set that changes as the sampling progresses, using network or spatial relationships as well as sample values. The new designs have certain advantages compared with previously existing adaptive and link-tracing designs, including control over sample sizes and of the proportion of effort allocated to adaptive selections. Efficient inference involves averaging over sample paths consistent with the minimal sufficient statistic. A Markov chain resampling method makes the inference computationally feasible. The designs are evaluated in network and spatial settings using two empirical populations: a hidden human population at high risk for HIV/AIDS and an unevenly distributed bird population.

Understanding the Cycle

PubMed Central

Currie, Janet; Tekin, Erdal

2013-01-01

Child maltreatment is a major social problem. This paper focuses on measuring the relationship between child maltreatment and crime using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). We focus on crime because it is one of the most costly potential outcomes of maltreatment. Our work addresses two main limitations of the existing literature on child maltreatment. First, we use a large national sample, and investigate different types of maltreatment in a unified framework. Second, we pay careful attention to controlling for possible confounders using a variety of statistical methods that make differing assumptions. The results suggest that maltreatment greatly increases the probability of engaging in crime and that the probability increases with the experience of multiple forms of maltreatment. PMID:24204082

Thermodynamic constraints on fluctuation phenomena

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maroney, O. J. E.

2009-12-01

The relationships among reversible Carnot cycles, the absence of perpetual motion machines, and the existence of a nondecreasing globally unique entropy function form the starting point of many textbook presentations of the foundations of thermodynamics. However, the thermal fluctuation phenomena associated with statistical mechanics has been argued to restrict the domain of validity of this basis of the second law of thermodynamics. Here we demonstrate that fluctuation phenomena can be incorporated into the traditional presentation, extending rather than restricting the domain of validity of the phenomenologically motivated second law. Consistency conditions lead to constraints upon the possible spectrum of thermal fluctuations. In a special case this uniquely selects the Gibbs canonical distribution and more generally incorporates the Tsallis distributions. No particular model of microscopic dynamics need be assumed.

Thermodynamic constraints on fluctuation phenomena.

PubMed

Maroney, O J E

2009-12-01

The relationships among reversible Carnot cycles, the absence of perpetual motion machines, and the existence of a nondecreasing globally unique entropy function form the starting point of many textbook presentations of the foundations of thermodynamics. However, the thermal fluctuation phenomena associated with statistical mechanics has been argued to restrict the domain of validity of this basis of the second law of thermodynamics. Here we demonstrate that fluctuation phenomena can be incorporated into the traditional presentation, extending rather than restricting the domain of validity of the phenomenologically motivated second law. Consistency conditions lead to constraints upon the possible spectrum of thermal fluctuations. In a special case this uniquely selects the Gibbs canonical distribution and more generally incorporates the Tsallis distributions. No particular model of microscopic dynamics need be assumed.

The Surprisingly Modest Relationship between SES and Educational Achievement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harwell, Michael; Maeda, Yukiko; Bishop, Kyoungwon; Xie, Aolin

2017-01-01

Measures of socioeconomic status (SES) are routinely used in analyses of achievement data to increase statistical power, statistically control for the effects of SES, and enhance causality arguments under the premise that the SES-achievement relationship is moderate to strong. Empirical evidence characterizing the strength of the SES-achievement…

Statistics Anxiety, Trait Anxiety, Learning Behavior, and Academic Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Macher, Daniel; Paechter, Manuela; Papousek, Ilona; Ruggeri, Kai

2012-01-01

The present study investigated the relationship between statistics anxiety, individual characteristics (e.g., trait anxiety and learning strategies), and academic performance. Students enrolled in a statistics course in psychology (N = 147) filled in a questionnaire on statistics anxiety, trait anxiety, interest in statistics, mathematical…

Factors influencing scholarly impact: does urology fellowship training affect research output?

PubMed

Kasabwala, Khushabu; Morton, Christopher M; Svider, Peter F; Nahass, Thomas A; Eloy, Jean Anderson; Jackson-Rosario, Imani

2014-01-01

Residents seek postresidency fellowship training to increase competency with novel surgical techniques and augment their fund of knowledge. Research productivity is a vital component of advancement in academic urology. Our objectives were to use the h-index (an objective and readily available bibliometric that has been repeatedly shown to correlate with scholarly impact, funding procurement, and academic promotion in urology as well as other specialties) to determine whether any relationship exists between fellowship training and scholarly impact among academic urologists. Additional examination was performed to determine whether any differences in scholarly influence are present among practitioners in the major urologic subspecialties. Overall, 851 faculty members from 101 academic urology departments were organized by academic rank and fellowship completed. Research productivity was calculated using the h-index, calculated from the Scopus database. There was no statistical difference in h-index found between fellowship-trained and nonfellowship-trained academic urologists. The highest h-indices were seen among urologic oncologists (18.1 ± 0.95) and nonfellowship-trained urologists (14.62 ± 0.80). Nearly 70% of department chairs included in this analysis were urologic oncologists or general urologists. No difference in h-index existed between fellowship-trained and nonfellowship-trained urologists, although practitioners in the subspecialty cohorts with the highest research productivity (nonfellowship-trained and urologic oncologists) comprised 70% of department chairpersons. This relationship suggests that a strong research profile is highly valued during selection for academic promotion. Differences existed on further comparison by subspecialty. Fellowship training may represent another potential opportunity to introduce structured research experiences for trainees. © 2013 Published by Association of Program Directors in Surgery on behalf of Association of Program Directors in Surgery.

[Relationship between endometriosis stage, characteristics of enodmetriotic lesions and severity of dysmenorrhoea].

PubMed

Ye, Mingzhu; Guo, Hongyan; Han, Jinsong; He, Haojie; Zhang, Kun; Xiong, Guangwu; Yang, Yan

2015-03-10

To explore the association between endometriosis stage, characteristics of endometriotic lesions and severity of dysmenorrhoea. The clinical data were collected from 140 patients with laparoscopically diagnosed endometriosis between May 2013 and December 2013. They were scored by visual analogue scale (VAS) according to their preoperative dysmenorrhoea. Endometriotic lesions were recorded by their anatomical distributions. And endometriosis was staged and scored according to the score of Revised American Fertility Society (r-AFS). The relationship between dysmenorrhoea and endometriosis stage as well as endometriotic foci was analyzed. Chi-square test and Logistic regression were used for statistical analyses. Among them, there were 95 (67.86%) patients with dysmenorrhoea and 45(32.14%) without dysmenorrhoea. No significant inter-group difference existed in age (P > 0.05). The interval from menarche to the onset of dysmenorrhoea was (8 ± 9) years and duration of dysmenorrhoea (2.3 ± 1.5) days each month. A correlation existed between endometriosis stage and severity of dysmenorrhoea (χ² = 20.677, P < 0.05). A strong association was found between posterior cul-de-sac obliteration and severity of dysmenorrhoea (χ² = 8.471, P < 0.05). No significant difference was found for ovarian endometriomas, ovarian adhesion, superficial peritoneal lesions and deep infiltrating endometriosis in non- and minimal dysmenorrhoea groups with moderate and severe dysmenorrhoea (P > 0.05). Posterior cul-de-sac obliteration was an independent influencing factor for dysmenorrhoea. The odds ratio (OR) was 3.291 and 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.453-7.454. However, no relevance existed between ovarian endometriomas and dysmenorrhoea by Logistic analysis. The severity of dysmenorrhoea has close correlation with posterior cul-de-sac obliteration. However, there is a weak relevance with ovarian endometreaiomas.

Quantum probabilistic logic programming

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Balu, Radhakrishnan

2015-05-01

We describe a quantum mechanics based logic programming language that supports Horn clauses, random variables, and covariance matrices to express and solve problems in probabilistic logic. The Horn clauses of the language wrap random variables, including infinite valued, to express probability distributions and statistical correlations, a powerful feature to capture relationship between distributions that are not independent. The expressive power of the language is based on a mechanism to implement statistical ensembles and to solve the underlying SAT instances using quantum mechanical machinery. We exploit the fact that classical random variables have quantum decompositions to build the Horn clauses. We establish the semantics of the language in a rigorous fashion by considering an existing probabilistic logic language called PRISM with classical probability measures defined on the Herbrand base and extending it to the quantum context. In the classical case H-interpretations form the sample space and probability measures defined on them lead to consistent definition of probabilities for well formed formulae. In the quantum counterpart, we define probability amplitudes on Hinterpretations facilitating the model generations and verifications via quantum mechanical superpositions and entanglements. We cast the well formed formulae of the language as quantum mechanical observables thus providing an elegant interpretation for their probabilities. We discuss several examples to combine statistical ensembles and predicates of first order logic to reason with situations involving uncertainty.

Identification of Major Histocompatibility Complex-Regulated Body Odorants by Statistical Analysis of a Comparative Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry Experiment

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Willse, Alan R.; Belcher, Ann; Preti, George

2005-04-15

Gas chromatography (GC), combined with mass spectrometry (MS) detection, is a powerful analytical technique that can be used to separate, quantify, and identify volatile compounds in complex mixtures. This paper examines the application of GC-MS in a comparative experiment to identify volatiles that differ in concentration between two groups. A complex mixture might comprise several hundred or even thousands of volatile compounds. Because their number and location in a chromatogram generally are unknown, and because components overlap in populous chromatograms, the statistical problems offer significant challenges beyond traditional two-group screening procedures. We describe a statistical procedure to compare two-dimensional GC-MSmore » profiles between groups, which entails (1) signal processing: baseline correction and peak detection in single ion chromatograms; (2) aligning chromatograms in time; (3) normalizing differences in overall signal intensities; and (4) detecting chromatographic regions that differ between groups. Compared to existing approaches, the proposed method is robust to errors made at earlier stages of analysis, such as missed peaks or slightly misaligned chromatograms. To illustrate the method, we identify differences in GC-MS chromatograms of ether-extracted urine collected from two nearly identical inbred groups of mice, to investigate the relationship between odor and genetics of the major histocompatibility complex.« less

A Recommended Procedure for Estimating the Cosmic-Ray Spectral Parameter of a Simple Power Law With Applications to Detector Design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Howell, L. W.

2001-01-01

A simple power law model consisting of a single spectral index alpha-1 is believed to be an adequate description of the galactic cosmic-ray (GCR) proton flux at energies below 10(exp 13) eV. Two procedures for estimating alpha-1 the method of moments and maximum likelihood (ML), are developed and their statistical performance compared. It is concluded that the ML procedure attains the most desirable statistical properties and is hence the recommended statistical estimation procedure for estimating alpha-1. The ML procedure is then generalized for application to a set of real cosmic-ray data and thereby makes this approach applicable to existing cosmic-ray data sets. Several other important results, such as the relationship between collecting power and detector energy resolution, as well as inclusion of a non-Gaussian detector response function, are presented. These results have many practical benefits in the design phase of a cosmic-ray detector as they permit instrument developers to make important trade studies in design parameters as a function of one of the science objectives. This is particularly important for space-based detectors where physical parameters, such as dimension and weight, impose rigorous practical limits to the design envelope.

Four hundred or more participants needed for stable contingency table estimates of clinical prediction rule performance.

PubMed

Kent, Peter; Boyle, Eleanor; Keating, Jennifer L; Albert, Hanne B; Hartvigsen, Jan

2017-02-01

To quantify variability in the results of statistical analyses based on contingency tables and discuss the implications for the choice of sample size for studies that derive clinical prediction rules. An analysis of three pre-existing sets of large cohort data (n = 4,062-8,674) was performed. In each data set, repeated random sampling of various sample sizes, from n = 100 up to n = 2,000, was performed 100 times at each sample size and the variability in estimates of sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative likelihood ratios, posttest probabilities, odds ratios, and risk/prevalence ratios for each sample size was calculated. There were very wide, and statistically significant, differences in estimates derived from contingency tables from the same data set when calculated in sample sizes below 400 people, and typically, this variability stabilized in samples of 400-600 people. Although estimates of prevalence also varied significantly in samples below 600 people, that relationship only explains a small component of the variability in these statistical parameters. To reduce sample-specific variability, contingency tables should consist of 400 participants or more when used to derive clinical prediction rules or test their performance. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A study of students' learning styles and mathematics anxiety amongst form four students in Kerian Perak

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Esa, Suraya; Mohamed, Nurul Akmal

2017-05-01

This study aims to identify the relationship between students' learning styles and mathematics anxiety amongst Form Four students in Kerian, Perak. The study involves 175 Form Four students as respondents. The instrument which is used to assess the students' learning styles and mathematic anxiety is adapted from the Grasha's Learning Styles Inventory and the Mathematics Anxiety Scale (MAS) respectively. The types of learning styles used are independent, avoidant, collaborative, dependent, competitive and participant. The collected data is processed by SPSS (Statistical Packages for Social Sciences 16.0). The data is analysed by using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics that include t-test and Pearson correlation. The results show that majority of the students adopt collaborative learning style and the students have moderate level of mathematics anxiety. Moreover, it is found that there is significant difference between learning style avoidant, collaborative, dependent and participant based on gender. Amongst all students' learning style, there exists a weak but significant correlation between avoidant, independent and participant learning style and mathematics anxiety. It is very important for the teachers need to be concerned about the effects of learning styles on mathematics anxiety. Therefore, the teachers should understand mathematics anxiety and implement suitable learning strategies in order for the students to overcome their mathematics anxiety.

Risk management in inpatient units in the Czech Republic from the point of view of nurses in leadership positions.

PubMed

Prokešová, Radka; Brabcová, Iva; Pokojová, Radka; Bártlová, Sylva

2016-12-01

The goal of this study was to assess specific features of risk management from the point of view of nurses in leadership positions in inpatient units in Czech hospitals. The study was performed using a quantitative research strategy, i.e., a questionnaire. The data sample was analyzed using SPSS v. 23.0. Pearson's chi-square and analysis of adjusted residues were used for identifying the existence associations of nominal and/or ordinal quantities. 315 nurses in leadership positions working in inpatient units of Czech hospitals were included in the sample. The sample was created using random selection by means of quotas. Based on the study results, statistically significant relations between the respondents' education and the utilization of methods to identify risks were identified. Furthermore, statistically significant relationships were found between a nurse's functional role within the system and regular analysis and evaluation of risks and between the type of the healthcare facility and the degree of patient involvement in risk management. The study found statistically significant correlations that can be used to increase the effectiveness of risk management in inpatient units of Czech hospitals. From this perspective, the fact that patient involvement in risk management was only reported by 37.8% of respondents seems to be the most notable problem.

The influence of lifestyle on cardiovascular risk factors. Analysis using a neural network.

PubMed

Gueli, Nicoló; Piccirillo, Gianfanco; Troisi, Giovanni; Cicconetti, Paolo; Meloni, Fortunato; Ettorre, Evaristo; Verico, Paola; D'Arcangelo, Enzo; Cacciafesta, Mauro

2005-01-01

The cardiovascular pathologies are the most common causes of death in the elderly patient. To single out the main risk factors in order to effectively prevent the onset of the disease, the authors experimented a special computerized tool, the neural network, that works out a mathematical relation that can obtain certain data (defined as output) as a function of other data (defined as input). Data were processed from a sample of 276 subjects of both sexes aged 26-69 years old. The output data were: high/low cholesterolemia, HDL cholesterol, triglyceridemia with respect to an established cut-off; the input data were: sex, age, build, weight, married/single, number of children, number of cigarettes smoked/day, amount of wine and number of cups of coffee. We conclude that: (i) a relationship exists, deduced from a neural network, between a set of input variables and a dichotomous output variable; (ii) this relationship can be expressed as a mathematical function; (iii) a neural network, having learned the data on a sufficiently large population, can provide valid predictive data for a single individual with a high probability (up to 93.33%) that the response it gives is correct. In this study, such a result is found for two of the three cardiovascular risk indicators considered (cholesterol and triglycerides); (iv) the repetition of the neural network analysis of the cases in question after a "pruning" operation provided a somewhat less good performance; (v) a statistical analysis conducted on those same cases has confirmed the existence of a strong relationship between the input and the output variables. Therefore the neural network is a valid instrument for providing predictive in a single subject on cardiovascular pathology risks.

Empirical models for the prediction of ground motion duration for intraplate earthquakes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Anbazhagan, P.; Neaz Sheikh, M.; Bajaj, Ketan; Mariya Dayana, P. J.; Madhura, H.; Reddy, G. R.

2017-07-01

Many empirical relationships for the earthquake ground motion duration were developed for interplate region, whereas only a very limited number of empirical relationships exist for intraplate region. Also, the existing relationships were developed based mostly on the scaled recorded interplate earthquakes to represent intraplate earthquakes. To the author's knowledge, none of the existing relationships for the intraplate regions were developed using only the data from intraplate regions. Therefore, an attempt is made in this study to develop empirical predictive relationships of earthquake ground motion duration (i.e., significant and bracketed) with earthquake magnitude, hypocentral distance, and site conditions (i.e., rock and soil sites) using the data compiled from intraplate regions of Canada, Australia, Peninsular India, and the central and southern parts of the USA. The compiled earthquake ground motion data consists of 600 records with moment magnitudes ranging from 3.0 to 6.5 and hypocentral distances ranging from 4 to 1000 km. The non-linear mixed-effect (NLMEs) and logistic regression techniques (to account for zero duration) were used to fit predictive models to the duration data. The bracketed duration was found to be decreased with an increase in the hypocentral distance and increased with an increase in the magnitude of the earthquake. The significant duration was found to be increased with the increase in the magnitude and hypocentral distance of the earthquake. Both significant and bracketed durations were predicted higher in rock sites than in soil sites. The predictive relationships developed herein are compared with the existing relationships for interplate and intraplate regions. The developed relationship for bracketed duration predicts lower durations for rock and soil sites. However, the developed relationship for a significant duration predicts lower durations up to a certain distance and thereafter predicts higher durations compared to the existing relationships.

The Development of Introductory Statistics Students' Informal Inferential Reasoning and Its Relationship to Formal Inferential Reasoning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jacob, Bridgette L.

2013-01-01

The difficulties introductory statistics students have with formal statistical inference are well known in the field of statistics education. "Informal" statistical inference has been studied as a means to introduce inferential reasoning well before and without the formalities of formal statistical inference. This mixed methods study…

An extension of the coevolution theory of the origin of the genetic code

PubMed Central

Di Giulio, Massimo

2008-01-01

Background The coevolution theory of the origin of the genetic code suggests that the genetic code is an imprint of the biosynthetic relationships between amino acids. However, this theory does not seem to attribute a role to the biosynthetic relationships between the earliest amino acids that evolved along the pathways of energetic metabolism. As a result, the coevolution theory is unable to clearly define the very earliest phases of genetic code origin. In order to remove this difficulty, I here suggest an extension of the coevolution theory that attributes a crucial role to the first amino acids that evolved along these biosynthetic pathways and to their biosynthetic relationships, even when defined by the non-amino acid molecules that are their precursors. Results It is re-observed that the first amino acids to evolve along these biosynthetic pathways are predominantly those codified by codons of the type GNN, and this observation is found to be statistically significant. Furthermore, the close biosynthetic relationships between the sibling amino acids Ala-Ser, Ser-Gly, Asp-Glu, and Ala-Val are not random in the genetic code table and reinforce the hypothesis that the biosynthetic relationships between these six amino acids played a crucial role in defining the very earliest phases of genetic code origin. Conclusion All this leads to the hypothesis that there existed a code, GNS, reflecting the biosynthetic relationships between these six amino acids which, as it defines the very earliest phases of genetic code origin, removes the main difficulty of the coevolution theory. Furthermore, it is here discussed how this code might have naturally led to the code codifying only for the domains of the codons of precursor amino acids, as predicted by the coevolution theory. Finally, the hypothesis here suggested also removes other problems of the coevolution theory, such as the existence for certain pairs of amino acids with an unclear biosynthetic relationship between the precursor and product amino acids and the collocation of Ala between the amino acids Val and Leu belonging to the pyruvate biosynthetic family, which the coevolution theory considered as belonging to different biosyntheses. Reviewers This article was reviewed by Rob Knight, Paul Higgs (nominated by Laura Landweber), and Eugene Koonin. PMID:18775066

Text Mining to inform construction of Earth and Environmental Science Ontologies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schildhauer, M.; Adams, B.; Rebich Hespanha, S.

2013-12-01

There is a clear need for better semantic representation of Earth and environmental concepts, to facilitate more effective discovery and re-use of information resources relevant to scientists doing integrative research. In order to develop general-purpose Earth and environmental science ontologies, however, it is necessary to represent concepts and relationships that span usage across multiple disciplines and scientific specialties. Traditional knowledge modeling through ontologies utilizes expert knowledge but inevitably favors the particular perspectives of the ontology engineers, as well as the domain experts who interacted with them. This often leads to ontologies that lack robust coverage of synonymy, while also missing important relationships among concepts that can be extremely useful for working scientists to be aware of. In this presentation we will discuss methods we have developed that utilize statistical topic modeling on a large corpus of Earth and environmental science articles, to expand coverage and disclose relationships among concepts in the Earth sciences. For our work we collected a corpus of over 121,000 abstracts from many of the top Earth and environmental science journals. We performed latent Dirichlet allocation topic modeling on this corpus to discover a set of latent topics, which consist of terms that commonly co-occur in abstracts. We match terms in the topics to concept labels in existing ontologies to reveal gaps, and we examine which terms are commonly associated in natural language discourse, to identify relationships that are important to formally model in ontologies. Our text mining methodology uncovers significant gaps in the content of some popular existing ontologies, and we show how, through a workflow involving human interpretation of topic models, we can bootstrap ontologies to have much better coverage and richer semantics. Because we base our methods directly on what working scientists are communicating about their research, it gives us an alternative bottom-up approach to populating and enriching ontologies, that complements more traditional knowledge modeling endeavors.

Exploring assistive technology and post-school outcomes for students with severe disabilities.

PubMed

Bouck, Emily C; Flanagan, Sara M

2016-11-01

This study sought to understand the extent to which students with severe disabilities receive assistive technology in school and out-of-school, and the relationship between receipt of assistive technology in school and post-school outcomes for these students. This study was a secondary analysis of the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2) from the USA. To analyze the data in this correlational study, researchers conducted frequency distributions, Chi Square Tests of Associations, significance tests and logistic regressions. The main results suggest (a) receipt of assistive technology in school varied greatly by disability identification; (b) receipt of assistive technology post-school also varied by disability identification, but receipt was generally lower; and (c) few statistically significant post-school outcome differences existed between students who received assistive technology and those who did not. An under-utilization of assistive technology exists in practice in the USA for students with severe disabilities. Implications for Rehabilitation An under-utilization of assistive technology for secondary students and adults with severe disabilities likely exists. A need exists for improved collaboration between professionals in rehabilitation and professionals in schools to ensure continuation of needed services or aids, such as assistive technology. Additional research is needed to better understand the adult life (or post-school) outcomes of individuals with severe disabilities, factors from PK-12 schooling or post-school services that positively and negative impact those outcomes.

Worry, Intolerance of Uncertainty, and Statistics Anxiety

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Williams, Amanda S.

2013-01-01

Statistics anxiety is a problem for most graduate students. This study investigates the relationship between intolerance of uncertainty, worry, and statistics anxiety. Intolerance of uncertainty was significantly related to worry, and worry was significantly related to three types of statistics anxiety. Six types of statistics anxiety were…

Relationship of Psychosocial Resources with Allostatic Load: A Systematic Review

PubMed Central

Wiley, Joshua F.; Bei, Bei; Bower, Julienne E.; Stanton, Annette L.

2016-01-01

Objective Allostatic load (AL) represents cumulative wear-and-tear on the body, and is operationalized as a multi-system index of biomarkers. AL is associated with morbidities and mortality, leading to a growing body of literature that uses AL as an outcome on its own right. Psychosocial resources (PSRs), such as mastery and social support, may influence health outcomes in part via AL, and the current review seeks to characterize the relations between PSRs and AL. Methods A systematic review was conducted by searching PubMed, CINAHL Plus, PsycINFO, Scopus, and Embase for studies examining the relation between PSR(s) and AL in humans. From 1,417 abstracts screened, 60 full-text articles were reviewed, and 24 studies met inclusion criteria. Results Mixed evidence exists for a relationship between PSRs and AL. Most (14/24) studies used a cross-sectional design and only one study investigated whether a PSR predicted change in AL. Compared to cross-sectional studies, longitudinal studies were more likely to report a significant relationship (8/14 versus 8/10, respectively). Studies with statistically significant main or moderated effects had larger sample sizes than those reporting null effects. Whether a study reported a significant main or moderated relationship did not differ by whether psychological (8/11) or social (10/16) resources were assessed. Conclusions Evidence for a relationship between PSRs and AL is equivocal, and obtained significant relationships are generally small in magnitude. Gaps in the current literature and directions for future research are discussed. Longitudinal studies are needed that repeatedly assess PSRs and AL. PMID:27768647

Quality of the leader-member relationship and the organizational commitment of nurses.

PubMed

Nunes, Elisabete Maria Garcia Teles; Gaspar, Maria Filomena Mendes

2017-12-18

To understand the perception of the quality of leadership relationships and the organizational commitment of nurses, and to analyze the influence of this relationship quality. Cross-sectional and correlational study, with a quantitative approach, using a non-probability convenience sampling with 408 nurses. The data were collected through questionnaires at Central Hospital in Lisbon, between January and March 2013. The statistical analysis of the data was carried out using IBM® SPSS® Statistics 19 software. Three hundred forty-two questionnaires were considered valid. The quality of the leadership relationship was satisfactory, and the nurses were poorly committed to the organization. The quality of the leadership relationship was statistically correlated with organizational commitment: there was found a moderate association to affective commitment (rs=0.42, p<0.05), a low association with the normative commitment (rs=0.37, p<0.05), and a very low association with the calculative commitment (rs=0.14, p<0.05). Leadership exerts influence on organizational commitment. An opportunity to improve the quality of the leadership relationship between nurses and their leaders was found, with the consequent possibility of developing organizational commitment.

A Longitudinal Investigation of the Relationship between Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms and Posttraumatic Growth in a Cohort of Israeli Jews and Palestinians during Ongoing Violence

PubMed Central

Hall, Brian J.; Saltzman, Leia Y.; Canetti, Daphna; Hobfoll, Stevan E.

2015-01-01

Objectives Meta-analytic evidence based on cross-sectional investigations between posttraumatic growth (PTG) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) demonstrates that the two concepts are positively related and that ethnic minorities report greater PTG. Few longitudinal studies have quantified this relationship so the evidence is limited regarding the potential benefit PTG may have on post-traumatic adjustment and whether differences between ethnic groups exist. Methods The current study attempts to fill a substantial gap in the literature by exploring the relationship between PTG and PTSD symptom clusters longitudinally using a nationally representative cohort of 1613 Israelis and Palestinian Citizens of Israel (PCI) interviewed via telephone on three measurement occasions during one year. Latent cross-lagged structural models estimated the relationship between PTG and each PTSD symptom cluster, derived from confirmatory factor analysis, representing latent and statistically invariant PTSD symptom factors, best representing PTSD for both ethnic groups. Results PTG was not associated with less PTSD symptom severity in any of the four PTSD clusters, for Jews and PCI. In contrast, PTSD symptom severity assessed earlier was related to later reported PTG in both groups. Conclusions This study demonstrates that PTSD symptoms contribute to greater reported PTG, but that PTG does not provide a salutatory benefit by reducing symptoms of PTSD. PMID:25910043

The economic benefits of malaria elimination: do they include increases in tourism?

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Policy makers have speculated that one of the economic benefits of malaria elimination includes increases in foreign direct investment, particularly tourism. Methods This study examines the empirical relationship between the demand for travel and malaria cases in two countries with large tourism industries around the time in which they carried out malaria-elimination campaigns. In Mauritius, this analysis examines historical, yearly tourist arrivals and malaria cases from 1978–1999, accounting for the background secular trend of increasing international travel. In Dominican Republic, a country embarking upon malaria elimination, it employs a time-series analysis of the monthly, international tourist arrivals from 1998–2010 to determine whether the timing of significant deviations in tourist arrivals coincides with malaria outbreaks. Results While naïve relationships exist in both cases, the results show that the relationships between tourist arrivals and malaria cases are relatively weak and statistically insignificant once secular confounders are accounted for. Conclusions This suggests that any economic benefits from tourism that may be derived from actively pursuing elimination in countries that have high tourism potential are likely to be small when measured at a national level. Rather, tourism benefits are likely to be experienced with greater impact in more concentrated tourist areas within countries, and future studies should seek to assess these relationships at a regional or local level. PMID:22839351

A change in paradigm: lowering blood pressure in everyone over a certain age.

PubMed

Law, Malcolm

2012-06-01

Dividing people into 'hypertensives' and 'normotensives' is commonplace but problematic. The relationship between blood pressure and cardiovascular disease is continuous. The Prospective Studies Collaboration analysis shows a continuous straight line dose-response relationship across the entire population down to blood pressure levels of 115 mmHg systolic and 75 mmHg diastolic, the confidence limits on the individual data points being sufficiently narrow to exclude even a minor deviation from a linear relationship. Meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials shows that blood pressure-lowering drugs produce similar proportional reductions in risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke irrespective of pre-treatment blood pressure, down to levels of 110 mmHg systolic and 70 mmHg diastolic. There are also now sufficient trial data to show a statistically significant risk reduction in 'normotensive' people without known vascular disease on entry. The straight line (log-linear) relationship means that the benefit derived from lowering blood pressure is proportional to existing risk, so the decision on whom to treat with blood pressure-lowering drugs should depend on a person's overall absolute risk irrespective of blood pressure. In primary prevention, basing treatment on age alone rather than overall absolute risk entails little loss of efficacy and may be preferred on the basis of simplicity and avoidance of anxiety in telling people they are at elevated risk.

12 CFR 717.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... federal credit union does not have a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and none of the... provided: (i) By an affiliate that has or has previously had a pre-existing business relationship with the... business relationship with the consumer. (b) Making solicitations. (1) In general. For purposes of this...

12 CFR 571.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... institution does not have a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and none of the other... affiliate that has or has previously had a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer; or (ii) As... relationship with the consumer. (b) Making solicitations—(1) In general. For purposes of this subpart, you make...

12 CFR 1022.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... about its home equity loan products. The creditor does not have a pre-existing business relationship... relationship with the consumer; or (ii) As part of a joint notice from two or more members of an affiliated... previously had a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer. (b) Making solicitations—(1) In...

12 CFR 571.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... institution does not have a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and none of the other... affiliate that has or has previously had a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer; or (ii) As... relationship with the consumer. (b) Making solicitations—(1) In general. For purposes of this subpart, you make...

12 CFR 717.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... federal credit union does not have a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and none of the... provided: (i) By an affiliate that has or has previously had a pre-existing business relationship with the... business relationship with the consumer. (b) Making solicitations. (1) In general. For purposes of this...

12 CFR 1022.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... about its home equity loan products. The creditor does not have a pre-existing business relationship... relationship with the consumer; or (ii) As part of a joint notice from two or more members of an affiliated... previously had a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer. (b) Making solicitations—(1) In...

12 CFR 1022.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... about its home equity loan products. The creditor does not have a pre-existing business relationship... relationship with the consumer; or (ii) As part of a joint notice from two or more members of an affiliated... previously had a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer. (b) Making solicitations. (1) In...

12 CFR 717.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... federal credit union does not have a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and none of the... provided: (i) By an affiliate that has or has previously had a pre-existing business relationship with the... business relationship with the consumer. (b) Making solicitations. (1) In general. For purposes of this...

12 CFR 571.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... institution does not have a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer and none of the other... affiliate that has or has previously had a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer; or (ii) As... relationship with the consumer. (b) Making solicitations—(1) In general. For purposes of this subpart, you make...

12 CFR 222.21 - Affiliate marketing opt-out and exceptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... loan products. The depository institution does not have a pre-existing business relationship with the... relationship with the consumer; or (ii) As part of a joint notice from two or more members of an affiliated... previously had a pre-existing business relationship with the consumer. (b) Making solicitations—(1) In...

The mediating effect of calling on the relationship between medical school students' academic burnout and empathy.

PubMed

Chae, Su Jin; Jeong, So Mi; Chung, Yoon-Sok

2017-09-01

This study is aimed at identifying the relationships between medical school students' academic burnout, empathy, and calling, and determining whether their calling has a mediating effect on the relationship between academic burnout and empathy. A mixed method study was conducted. One hundred twenty-seven medical students completed a survey. Scales measuring academic burnout, medical students' empathy, and calling were utilized. For statistical analysis, correlation analysis, descriptive statistics analysis, and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted. For qualitative approach, eight medical students participated in a focus group interview. The study found that empathy has a statistically significant, negative correlation with academic burnout, while having a significant, positive correlation with calling. Sense of calling proved to be an effective mediator of the relationship between academic burnout and empathy. This result demonstrates that calling is a key variable that mediates the relationship between medical students' academic burnout and empathy. As such, this study provides baseline data for an education that could improve medical students' empathy skills.

Comparing estimates of climate change impacts from process-based and statistical crop models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lobell, David B.; Asseng, Senthold

2017-01-01

The potential impacts of climate change on crop productivity are of widespread interest to those concerned with addressing climate change and improving global food security. Two common approaches to assess these impacts are process-based simulation models, which attempt to represent key dynamic processes affecting crop yields, and statistical models, which estimate functional relationships between historical observations of weather and yields. Examples of both approaches are increasingly found in the scientific literature, although often published in different disciplinary journals. Here we compare published sensitivities to changes in temperature, precipitation, carbon dioxide (CO2), and ozone from each approach for the subset of crops, locations, and climate scenarios for which both have been applied. Despite a common perception that statistical models are more pessimistic, we find no systematic differences between the predicted sensitivities to warming from process-based and statistical models up to +2 °C, with limited evidence at higher levels of warming. For precipitation, there are many reasons why estimates could be expected to differ, but few estimates exist to develop robust comparisons, and precipitation changes are rarely the dominant factor for predicting impacts given the prominent role of temperature, CO2, and ozone changes. A common difference between process-based and statistical studies is that the former tend to include the effects of CO2 increases that accompany warming, whereas statistical models typically do not. Major needs moving forward include incorporating CO2 effects into statistical studies, improving both approaches’ treatment of ozone, and increasing the use of both methods within the same study. At the same time, those who fund or use crop model projections should understand that in the short-term, both approaches when done well are likely to provide similar estimates of warming impacts, with statistical models generally requiring fewer resources to produce robust estimates, especially when applied to crops beyond the major grains.

Using assemblage data in ecological indicators: A comparison and evaluation of commonly available statistical tools

USGS Publications Warehouse

Smith, Joseph M.; Mather, Martha E.

2012-01-01

Ecological indicators are science-based tools used to assess how human activities have impacted environmental resources. For monitoring and environmental assessment, existing species assemblage data can be used to make these comparisons through time or across sites. An impediment to using assemblage data, however, is that these data are complex and need to be simplified in an ecologically meaningful way. Because multivariate statistics are mathematical relationships, statistical groupings may not make ecological sense and will not have utility as indicators. Our goal was to define a process to select defensible and ecologically interpretable statistical simplifications of assemblage data in which researchers and managers can have confidence. For this, we chose a suite of statistical methods, compared the groupings that resulted from these analyses, identified convergence among groupings, then we interpreted the groupings using species and ecological guilds. When we tested this approach using a statewide stream fish dataset, not all statistical methods worked equally well. For our dataset, logistic regression (Log), detrended correspondence analysis (DCA), cluster analysis (CL), and non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) provided consistent, simplified output. Specifically, the Log, DCA, CL-1, and NMDS-1 groupings were ≥60% similar to each other, overlapped with the fluvial-specialist ecological guild, and contained a common subset of species. Groupings based on number of species (e.g., Log, DCA, CL and NMDS) outperformed groupings based on abundance [e.g., principal components analysis (PCA) and Poisson regression]. Although the specific methods that worked on our test dataset have generality, here we are advocating a process (e.g., identifying convergent groupings with redundant species composition that are ecologically interpretable) rather than the automatic use of any single statistical tool. We summarize this process in step-by-step guidance for the future use of these commonly available ecological and statistical methods in preparing assemblage data for use in ecological indicators.

Deriving Criteria-supporting Benchmark Values from Empirical Response Relationships: Comparison of Statistical Techniques and Effect of Log-transforming the Nutrient Variable

EPA Science Inventory

In analyses supporting the development of numeric nutrient criteria, multiple statistical techniques can be used to extract critical values from stressor response relationships. However there is little guidance for choosing among techniques, and the extent to which log-transfor...

A Review of the Statistical and Quantitative Methods Used to Study Alcohol-Attributable Crime.

PubMed

Fitterer, Jessica L; Nelson, Trisalyn A

2015-01-01

Modelling the relationship between alcohol consumption and crime generates new knowledge for crime prevention strategies. Advances in data, particularly data with spatial and temporal attributes, have led to a growing suite of applied methods for modelling. In support of alcohol and crime researchers we synthesized and critiqued existing methods of spatially and quantitatively modelling the effects of alcohol exposure on crime to aid method selection, and identify new opportunities for analysis strategies. We searched the alcohol-crime literature from 1950 to January 2014. Analyses that statistically evaluated or mapped the association between alcohol and crime were included. For modelling purposes, crime data were most often derived from generalized police reports, aggregated to large spatial units such as census tracts or postal codes, and standardized by residential population data. Sixty-eight of the 90 selected studies included geospatial data of which 48 used cross-sectional datasets. Regression was the prominent modelling choice (n = 78) though dependent on data many variations existed. There are opportunities to improve information for alcohol-attributable crime prevention by using alternative population data to standardize crime rates, sourcing crime information from non-traditional platforms (social media), increasing the number of panel studies, and conducting analysis at the local level (neighbourhood, block, or point). Due to the spatio-temporal advances in crime data, we expect a continued uptake of flexible Bayesian hierarchical modelling, a greater inclusion of spatial-temporal point pattern analysis, and shift toward prospective (forecast) modelling over small areas (e.g., blocks).

A Review of the Statistical and Quantitative Methods Used to Study Alcohol-Attributable Crime

PubMed Central

Fitterer, Jessica L.; Nelson, Trisalyn A.

2015-01-01

Modelling the relationship between alcohol consumption and crime generates new knowledge for crime prevention strategies. Advances in data, particularly data with spatial and temporal attributes, have led to a growing suite of applied methods for modelling. In support of alcohol and crime researchers we synthesized and critiqued existing methods of spatially and quantitatively modelling the effects of alcohol exposure on crime to aid method selection, and identify new opportunities for analysis strategies. We searched the alcohol-crime literature from 1950 to January 2014. Analyses that statistically evaluated or mapped the association between alcohol and crime were included. For modelling purposes, crime data were most often derived from generalized police reports, aggregated to large spatial units such as census tracts or postal codes, and standardized by residential population data. Sixty-eight of the 90 selected studies included geospatial data of which 48 used cross-sectional datasets. Regression was the prominent modelling choice (n = 78) though dependent on data many variations existed. There are opportunities to improve information for alcohol-attributable crime prevention by using alternative population data to standardize crime rates, sourcing crime information from non-traditional platforms (social media), increasing the number of panel studies, and conducting analysis at the local level (neighbourhood, block, or point). Due to the spatio-temporal advances in crime data, we expect a continued uptake of flexible Bayesian hierarchical modelling, a greater inclusion of spatial-temporal point pattern analysis, and shift toward prospective (forecast) modelling over small areas (e.g., blocks). PMID:26418016

Exploiting mineral data: applications to the diversity, distribution, and social networks of copper mineral

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Morrison, S. M.; Downs, R. T.; Golden, J. J.; Pires, A.; Fox, P. A.; Ma, X.; Zednik, S.; Eleish, A.; Prabhu, A.; Hummer, D. R.; Liu, C.; Meyer, M.; Ralph, J.; Hystad, G.; Hazen, R. M.

2016-12-01

We have developed a comprehensive database of copper (Cu) mineral characteristics. These data include crystallographic, paragenetic, chemical, locality, age, structural complexity, and physical property information for the 689 Cu mineral species approved by the International Mineralogical Association (rruff.info/ima). Synthesis of this large, varied dataset allows for in-depth exploration of statistical trends and visualization techniques. With social network analysis (SNA) and cluster analysis of minerals, we create sociograms and chord diagrams. SNA visualizations illustrate the relationships and connectivity between mineral species, which often form cliques associated with rock type and/or geochemistry. Using mineral ecology statistics, we analyze mineral-locality frequency distribution and predict the number of missing mineral species, visualized with accumulation curves. By assembly of 2-dimensional KLEE diagrams of co-existing elements in minerals, we illustrate geochemical trends within a mineral system. To explore mineral age and chemical oxidation state, we create skyline diagrams and compare trends with varying chemistry. These trends illustrate mineral redox changes through geologic time and correlate with significant geologic occurrences, such as the Great Oxidation Event (GOE) or Wilson Cycles.

treespace: Statistical exploration of landscapes of phylogenetic trees.

PubMed

Jombart, Thibaut; Kendall, Michelle; Almagro-Garcia, Jacob; Colijn, Caroline

2017-11-01

The increasing availability of large genomic data sets as well as the advent of Bayesian phylogenetics facilitates the investigation of phylogenetic incongruence, which can result in the impossibility of representing phylogenetic relationships using a single tree. While sometimes considered as a nuisance, phylogenetic incongruence can also reflect meaningful biological processes as well as relevant statistical uncertainty, both of which can yield valuable insights in evolutionary studies. We introduce a new tool for investigating phylogenetic incongruence through the exploration of phylogenetic tree landscapes. Our approach, implemented in the R package treespace, combines tree metrics and multivariate analysis to provide low-dimensional representations of the topological variability in a set of trees, which can be used for identifying clusters of similar trees and group-specific consensus phylogenies. treespace also provides a user-friendly web interface for interactive data analysis and is integrated alongside existing standards for phylogenetics. It fills a gap in the current phylogenetics toolbox in R and will facilitate the investigation of phylogenetic results. © 2017 The Authors. Molecular Ecology Resources Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Mediators and moderators in early intervention research.

PubMed

Breitborde, Nicholas J K; Srihari, Vinod H; Pollard, Jessica M; Addington, Donald N; Woods, Scott W

2010-05-01

The goal of this paper is to provide clarification with regard to the nature of mediator and moderator variables and the statistical methods used to test for the existence of these variables. Particular attention will be devoted to discussing the ways in which the identification of mediator and moderator variables may help to advance the field of early intervention in psychiatry. We completed a literature review of the methodological strategies used to test for mediator and moderator variables. Although several tests for mediator variables are currently available, recent evaluations suggest that tests which directly evaluate the indirect effect are superior. With regard to moderator variables, two approaches ('pick-a-point' and regions of significance) are available, and we provide guidelines with regard to how researchers can determine which approach may be most appropriate to use for their specific study. Finally, we discuss how to evaluate the clinical importance of mediator and moderator relationships as well as the methodology to calculate statistical power for tests of mediation and moderation. Further exploration of mediator and moderator variables may provide valuable information with regard to interventions provided early in the course of a psychiatric illness.

Identifying hearing loss by means of iridology.

PubMed

Stearn, Natalie; Swanepoel, De Wet

2006-11-13

Isolated reports of hearing loss presenting as markings on the iris exist, but to date the effectiveness of iridology to identify hearing loss has not been investigated. This study therefore aimed to determine the efficacy of iridological analysis in the identification of moderate to profound sensorineural hearing loss in adolescents. A controlled trial was conducted with an iridologist, blind to the actual hearing status of participants, analyzing the irises of participants with and without hearing loss. Fifty hearing impaired and fifty normal hearing subjects, between the ages of 15 and 19 years, controlled for gender, participated in the study. An experienced iridologist analyzed the randomised set of participants' irises. A 70% correct identification of hearing status was obtained by iridological analyses with a false negative rate of 41% compared to a 19% false positive rate. The respective sensitivity and specificity rates therefore came to 59% and 81%. Iridological analysis of hearing status indicated a statistically significant relationship to actual hearing status (P < 0.05). Although statistically significant sensitivity and specificity rates for identifying hearing loss by iridology were not comparable to those of traditional audiological screening procedures.

Relationship between career motivation and perceived spiritual leadership in health professional educators: a correlational study in Iran.

PubMed

Sadeghifar, Jamil; Bahadori, Mohammadkarim; Baldacchino, Donia; Raadabadi, Mehdi; Jafari, Mehdi

2013-12-20

Career motivation in university educators through efficient ways and appropriate with the educational system, is considered one of the important factors affecting education of students and their competence. This study aimed to determine the relationship between career motivation and spiritual leadership among a university of medical sciences in the west, Iran. This descriptive, cross-sectional correlation study was conducted among the university educators of medical sciences in the west, Iran in 2012. All of the educators (N=230) were selected and recruited according to census method. The data were collected by two established self-completed questionnaires on spiritual leadership (SL) and career motivation. Data were analyzed statistically by parametric tests: Pearson correlation, independent student t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The Pearson correlation test identified a significant relationship between educators' career motivation and vision, altruistic love, hope/faith, meaning/calling and membership dimensions of spiritual leadership (p<0.05). The independent t-test detected a significant relationship between the 'hope/faith' (p=0.04) and organizational commitment (p=0.004) dimensions and the gender of educators. ANOVA revealed significant differences in educators' years of work experience and their overall career motivation (p=0.003) and the dimension of 'membership' (p<0.04). A significant relationship was found in 'altruistic love' and 'Hope/faith', and the educators' academic rank place in the university (p=0.03). Also a significant relationship was found in 'vision' (p=0.03) and 'altruistic love' (p=0.002) and 'membership' (p=0.04) dimensions, and the type of faculty. The results indicate that the dimensions of existence of spiritual leadership may have a positive relationship with educators' career motivation.

Relationship between Career Motivation and Perceived Spiritual Leadership in Health Professional Educators: A Correlational Study in Iran

PubMed Central

Sadeghifar, Jamil; Bahadori, Mohammadkarim; Baldacchino, Donia; Raadabadi, Mehdi; Jafari, Mehdi

2014-01-01

Background and Aims: Career motivation in university educators through efficient ways and appropriate with the educational system, is considered one of the important factors affecting education of students and their competence. This study aimed to determine the relationship between career motivation and spiritual leadership among a university of medical sciences in the west, Iran. Methods: This descriptive, cross-sectional correlation study was conducted among the university educators of medical sciences in the west, Iran in 2012. All of the educators (N=230) were selected and recruited according to census method. The data were collected by two established self-completed questionnaires on spiritual leadership (SL) and career motivation. Data were analyzed statistically by parametric tests: Pearson correlation, independent student t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results: The Pearson correlation test identified a significant relationship between educators’ career motivation and vision, altruistic love, hope/faith, meaning/calling and membership dimensions of spiritual leadership (p<0.05). The independent t-test detected a significant relationship between the ‘hope/faith’ (p=0.04) and organizational commitment (p=0.004) dimensions and the gender of educators. ANOVA revealed significant differences in educators’ years of work experience and their overall career motivation (p=0.003) and the dimension of ‘membership’ (p<0.04). A significant relationship was found in ‘altruistic love’ and ‘Hope/faith’, and the educators’ academic rank place in the university (p=0.03). Also a significant relationship was found in ‘vision’ (p=0.03) and ‘altruistic love’ (p=0.002) and ‘membership’ (p=0.04) dimensions, and the type of faculty. Conclusion: The results indicate that the dimensions of existence of spiritual leadership may have a positive relationship with educators’ career motivation. PMID:24576374

Study on the relationship between the lake area variations of Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau and the corresponding climate change in their basins

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guozhuang, Shen; Jingjuan, Liao; Huadong, Guo; Yingkui, Li

2014-03-01

Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau is the largest lake area in China, with a total area of existing lakes of 36,900km2, accounting for 52% of the total lake area of China. Lakes on the Tibetan Plateau play critical roles in the water cycle and ecological and environment systems of the Plateau. The global trend of warming up is increasing obviously, which has led to major changes in the climate conditions in China, even in the world. Whereas, when they analyse the relationship they just use the weather station's recording data, without any spatial analysis of the climate data. Here, we will do some researches on the relationship between the 10 selected lakes' area variation and the corresponding climate change in their drainage basin and discuss how the lakes changes in recent 40 years using the climate data processed using the spatial kriging. Thus, the drainage area can be taken into account and a real relationship can be pointed out. In order to study the relationship, Landsat MSS data, Landsat TM, Landsat ETM images, the topographic map have been collected to extract the variation of lake area. The 131 weather stations climate data, including precipitation, temperature, sun shine duration, evaporation are chosen to study the relationship. After extraction of the area of the lakes, a multivariate statistical analysis method was used to test the relationship between the area of the lakes and the global climate change, including the change of the temperature, the precipitation, and other factors. The variation of lakes in Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau is related to the mean temperature, the precipitation and saturation vapour pressure. But the frozen soil may affect the lake area variation to some extent.

The Relationship Between Training Load and Injury in Athletes: A Systematic Review.

PubMed

Eckard, Timothy G; Padua, Darin A; Hearn, Darren W; Pexa, Brett S; Frank, Barnett S

2018-06-26

The relationship between training load and musculoskeletal injury is a rapidly advancing area of research in need of an updated systematic review. This systematic review examined the evidence for the relationship between training load and musculoskeletal injury risk in athlete, military, and first responder (i.e. law enforcement, firefighting, rescue service) populations. The CINAHL, EMBASE, MEDLINE, SportDISCUS, and SCOPUS databases were searched using a comprehensive strategy. Studies published prior to July 2017 were included if they prospectively examined the relationship between training load and injury risk. Study quality was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale (NOS) and Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine levels of evidence. A narrative synthesis of findings was conducted. A total of 2047 articles were examined for potential inclusion. Forty-six met the inclusion criteria and 11 known to the authors but not found in the search were added, for a total of 57 articles. Overall, 47 studies had at least partially statistically significant results, demonstrating a relationship between training load and injury risk. Included articles were rated as poor (n = 15), fair (n = 6), and good (n = 36) based on NOS score. Articles assessed as 'good' were considered level 2b evidence on the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine Model, and articles assessed as 'fair' or 'poor' were considered level 4 evidence. Our results demonstrate that the existence of a relationship between training load and injury continues to be well supported in the literature and is strongest for subjective internal training load. The directionality of this relationship appears to depend on the type and timeframe of load measured.

Inference on network statistics by restricting to the network space: applications to sexual history data.

PubMed

Goyal, Ravi; De Gruttola, Victor

2018-01-30

Analysis of sexual history data intended to describe sexual networks presents many challenges arising from the fact that most surveys collect information on only a very small fraction of the population of interest. In addition, partners are rarely identified and responses are subject to reporting biases. Typically, each network statistic of interest, such as mean number of sexual partners for men or women, is estimated independently of other network statistics. There is, however, a complex relationship among networks statistics; and knowledge of these relationships can aid in addressing concerns mentioned earlier. We develop a novel method that constrains a posterior predictive distribution of a collection of network statistics in order to leverage the relationships among network statistics in making inference about network properties of interest. The method ensures that inference on network properties is compatible with an actual network. Through extensive simulation studies, we also demonstrate that use of this method can improve estimates in settings where there is uncertainty that arises both from sampling and from systematic reporting bias compared with currently available approaches to estimation. To illustrate the method, we apply it to estimate network statistics using data from the Chicago Health and Social Life Survey. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Pathway analysis with next-generation sequencing data.

PubMed

Zhao, Jinying; Zhu, Yun; Boerwinkle, Eric; Xiong, Momiao

2015-04-01

Although pathway analysis methods have been developed and successfully applied to association studies of common variants, the statistical methods for pathway-based association analysis of rare variants have not been well developed. Many investigators observed highly inflated false-positive rates and low power in pathway-based tests of association of rare variants. The inflated false-positive rates and low true-positive rates of the current methods are mainly due to their lack of ability to account for gametic phase disequilibrium. To overcome these serious limitations, we develop a novel statistic that is based on the smoothed functional principal component analysis (SFPCA) for pathway association tests with next-generation sequencing data. The developed statistic has the ability to capture position-level variant information and account for gametic phase disequilibrium. By intensive simulations, we demonstrate that the SFPCA-based statistic for testing pathway association with either rare or common or both rare and common variants has the correct type 1 error rates. Also the power of the SFPCA-based statistic and 22 additional existing statistics are evaluated. We found that the SFPCA-based statistic has a much higher power than other existing statistics in all the scenarios considered. To further evaluate its performance, the SFPCA-based statistic is applied to pathway analysis of exome sequencing data in the early-onset myocardial infarction (EOMI) project. We identify three pathways significantly associated with EOMI after the Bonferroni correction. In addition, our preliminary results show that the SFPCA-based statistic has much smaller P-values to identify pathway association than other existing methods.

Job satisfaction and horizontal violence in hospital staff registered nurses: the mediating role of peer relationships.

PubMed

Purpora, Christina; Blegen, Mary A

2015-08-01

To describe the association between horizontal violence and job satisfaction in hospital staff registered nurses and the degree to which peer relationships mediates the relationship. Additionally, the association between nurse and work characteristics and job satisfaction were determined. Horizontal violence is a major predictor of nurses' job satisfaction. Yet, not enough is known about the relationship between these variables. Job satisfaction is an important variable to study because it is a predictor of patient care quality and safety internationally. Peer relationships, a job satisfier for nurses, was identified as a potential mediator in the association between horizontal violence and job satisfaction. Cross-sectional mediational model testing. An anonymous four-part survey of a random sample of 175 hospital staff registered nurses working in California provided the data. Data about horizontal violence, peer relationships, job satisfaction, and nurse and work characteristics were collected between March-August 2010. A statistically significant negative relationship was found between horizontal violence and peer relationships, job satisfaction and a statistically significant positive relationship was found between peer relationships and job satisfaction. Peer relationships mediated the association between horizontal violence and job satisfaction. Job satisfaction was reported as higher by nurses who worked in teaching hospitals. There were no statistically significant differences in job satisfaction based on gender, ethnicity, basic registered nurse education, highest degree held, size of hospital or clinical area. The results suggest that peer relationships can attenuate the negative relationship between horizontal violence and job satisfaction. This adds to the extant literature on the relationship between horizontal violence and job satisfaction. The findings highlight peer relationships as an important factor when considering effective interventions that foster hospital staff registered nurses' job satisfaction in the presence of horizontal violence. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Correlating off-axis tension tests to shear modulus of wood-based panels

Treesearch

Edmond P. Saliklis; Robert H. Falk

2000-01-01

The weakness of existing relationships correlating off-axis modulus of elasticity E q to shear modulus G 12 for wood composite panels is demonstrated through presentation of extensive experimental data. A new relationship is proposed that performs better than existing equations found in the literature. This relationship can be manipulated to calculate the shear modulus...

26 CFR 1.1313(c)-1 - Related taxpayer.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-04-01

..., provided that such taxpayers stand in one of the relationships specified in section 1313(c). The concept of... 1313(c)(7); it does not apply in the circumstances specified in § 1.1312-7. If such relationship exists... existence of the relationship. For example, if the error with respect to which an adjustment is sought under...

Changes in Library Technology and Reference Desk Statistics: Is There a Relationship?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thomsett-Scott, Beth; Reese, Patricia E.

2006-01-01

The incorporation of technology into library processes has tremendously impacted staff and users alike. The University of North Texas (UNT) Libraries is no exception. Sixteen years of reference statistics are analyzed to examine the relationships between the implementation of CD-ROMs and web-based resources and the number of reference questions.…

Statistics Anxiety and Instructor Immediacy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Williams, Amanda S.

2010-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between instructor immediacy and statistics anxiety. It was predicted that students receiving immediacy would report lower levels of statistics anxiety. Using a pretest-posttest-control group design, immediacy was measured using the Instructor Immediacy scale. Statistics anxiety was…

Hemovigilance in Massachusetts and the adoption of statewide hospital blood bank reporting using the National Healthcare Safety Network.

PubMed

Cumming, Melissa; Osinski, Anthony; O'Hearn, Lynne; Waksmonski, Pamela; Herman, Michele; Gordon, Deborah; Griffiths, Elzbieta; Knox, Kim; McHale, Eileen; Quillen, Karen; Rios, Jorge; Pisciotto, Patricia; Uhl, Lynne; DeMaria, Alfred; Andrzejewski, Chester

2017-02-01

A collaboration that grew over time between local hemovigilance stakeholders and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) resulted in the change from a paper-based method of reporting adverse reactions and monthly transfusion activity for regulatory compliance purposes to statewide adoption of electronic reporting via the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN). The NHSN is a web-based surveillance system that offers the capacity to capture transfusion-related adverse events, incidents, and monthly transfusion statistics from participating facilities. Massachusetts' hospital blood banks share the data they enter into NHSN with the MDPH to satisfy reporting requirements. Users of the NHSN Hemovigilance Module adhere to specified data entry guidelines, resulting in data that are comparable and standardized. Keys to successful statewide adoption of this reporting method include the fostering of strong partnerships with local hemovigilance champions and experts, engagement of regulatory and epidemiology divisions at the state health department, the leveraging of existing relationships with hospital NHSN administrators, and the existence of a regulatory deadline for implementation. Although limitations exist, successful implementation of statewide use of the NHSN Hemovigilance Module for hospital blood bank reporting is possible. The result is standardized, actionable data at both the hospital and state level that can facilitate interfacility comparisons, benchmarking, and opportunities for practice improvement. © 2016 AABB.

A Method for Search Engine Selection using Thesaurus for Selective Meta-Search Engine

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goto, Shoji; Ozono, Tadachika; Shintani, Toramatsu

In this paper, we propose a new method for selecting search engines on WWW for selective meta-search engine. In selective meta-search engine, a method is needed that would enable selecting appropriate search engines for users' queries. Most existing methods use statistical data such as document frequency. These methods may select inappropriate search engines if a query contains polysemous words. In this paper, we describe an search engine selection method based on thesaurus. In our method, a thesaurus is constructed from documents in a search engine and is used as a source description of the search engine. The form of a particular thesaurus depends on the documents used for its construction. Our method enables search engine selection by considering relationship between terms and overcomes the problems caused by polysemous words. Further, our method does not have a centralized broker maintaining data, such as document frequency for all search engines. As a result, it is easy to add a new search engine, and meta-search engines become more scalable with our method compared to other existing methods.

Underlying construct of empathy, optimism, and burnout in medical students.

PubMed

Hojat, Mohammadreza; Vergare, Michael; Isenberg, Gerald; Cohen, Mitchell; Spandorfer, John

2015-01-29

This study was designed to explore the underlying construct of measures of empathy, optimism, and burnout in medical students. Three instruments for measuring empathy (Jefferson Scale of Empathy, JSE); Optimism (the Life Orientation Test-Revised, LOT-R); and burnout (the Maslach Burnout Inventory, MBI, which includes three scales of Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization, and Personal Accomplishment) were administered to 265 third-year students at Sidney Kimmel (formerly Jefferson) Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. Data were subjected to factor analysis to examine relationships among measures of empathy, optimism, and burnout in a multivariate statistical model. Factor analysis (principal component with oblique rotation) resulted in two underlying constructs, each with an eigenvalue greater than one. The first factor involved "positive personality attributes" (factor coefficients greater than .58 for measures of empathy, optimism, and personal accomplishment). The second factor involved "negative personality attributes" (factor coefficients greater than .78 for measures of emotional exhaustion, and depersonalization). Results confirmed that an association exists between empathy in the context of patient care and personality characteristics that are conducive to relationship building, and considered to be "positive personality attributes," as opposed to personality characteristics that are considered as "negative personality attributes" that are detrimental to interpersonal relationships. Implications for the professional development of physicians-in-training and in-practice are discussed.

Navigating emotions and relationship dynamics: family life review as a clinical tool for older adults during a relocation transition into an assisted living facility.

PubMed

O'Hora, Kendra A; Roberto, Karen A

2018-01-16

Relocation for the purpose of receiving care may be one of the more challenging transitions for older adults. The purpose of this study was to facilitate a family life review (FLR) session aimed at enhancing family relationships and assisting older adults in coping with the challenges associated with a relocation. Fourteen dyads comprised of older adults who relocated to an assisted living facility (ALF) and a chosen family member or friend participated in a FLR session and semi-structured follow up interview. Data were analyzed using the constant comparative method and triangulated with descriptive statistics. Emergent themes suggested participating in FLR influenced families by raising emotions, systemically thinking, and navigating the relocation. FLR facilitated positive connections, enhanced existing relationships, and promoted self-acceptance. Families indicated mutual storytelling was enjoyable and reminded them of the urgency to share their story. FLR allowed dyads to reflect and thus prompted a renewed perspective on some of the more challenging components of the relocation transition. Study findings provide insight into how families organize individual and interpersonal narratives and use these narratives during transitional times. FLR can aid families in making a smoother and fulfilling move to an ALF and other late life transitions.

Anxiety, Depression and Hopelessness in Adolescents: A Structural Equation Model

PubMed Central

Cunningham, Shaylyn; Gunn, Thelma; Alladin, Assen; Cawthorpe, David

2008-01-01

Objective This study tested a structural model, examining the relationship between a latent variable termed demoralization and measured variables (anxiety, depression and hopelessness) in a community sample of Canadian youth. Methods The combined sample consisted of data collected from four independent studies from 2001 to 2005. Nine hundred and seventy one (n=971) participants were high school students (grades 10–12) from three geographic locations: Calgary, Saskatchewan and Lethbridge. Participants completed the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Beck Depression Inventory-Revised (BDI-II), Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS), and demographic survey. Structural equation modeling was used for statistical analysis. Results The analysis revealed that the final model, including depression, anxiety and hopelessness and one latent variable demoralization, fit the data (chi-square value, X2 (2) = 7.25, p< .001, goodness of fit indices (CFI=0.99, NFI=0.98) and standardized error (0.05). Overall, the findings suggest that close relationships exist among depression, anxiety, hopelessness and demoralization that is stable across demographic variables. Further, the model explains the relationship between sub-clinical anxiety, depression and hopelessness. Conclusion These findings contribute to a theoretical framework, which has implications for educational and clinical intervention. The present findings will help guide further preventative research on examining demoralization as a precursor to sub-clinical anxiety and depression. PMID:18769644

ON THE MAGNETIC AND ENERGY CHARACTERISTICS OF RECURRENT HOMOLOGOUS JETS FROM AN EMERGING FLUX

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Liu, Jiajia; Wang, Yuming; Liu, Rui

In this paper, we present the detailed analysis of recurrent homologous jets originating from an emerging negative magnetic flux at the edge of an active region. The observed jets show multithermal features. Their evolution shows high consistence with the characteristic parameters of the emerging flux, suggesting that with more free magnetic energy, the eruptions tend to be more violent, frequent, and blowout-like. The average temperature, average electron number density, and axial speed are found to be similar for different jets, indicating that they should have been formed by plasmas from similar origins. Statistical analysis of the jets and their footpointmore » region conditions reveals a strong positive relationship between the footpoint region total 131 Å intensity enhancement and jets’ length/width. Stronger linearly positive relationships also exist between the total intensity enhancement/thermal energy of the footpoint regions and jets’ mass/kinetic/thermal energy, with higher cross-correlation coefficients. All the above results together confirm the direct relationship between the magnetic reconnection and the jets and validate the important role of magnetic reconnection in transporting large amounts of free magnetic energy into jets. It is also suggested that there should be more free energy released during the magnetic reconnection of blowout than of standard jet events.« less

The relationship between nurses' stress and nurse staffing factors in a hospital setting.

PubMed

Purcell, Stacey R; Kutash, Mary; Cobb, Sarah

2011-09-01

The present study objective was to examine the relationships between nurses' stress and nurse staffing in a hospital setting. Nurses have many job-related stressors. There is a lack of research exploring the relationship between job stressors to staffing and day of week worked. The sample consisted of registered nurses (RNs) (N = 197) providing direct patient care. Data were collected via electronic software. Variables included demographic information, work setting information, Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) scores and Nursing Stress Scale (NSS) scores. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, correlations and analysis of variance. Among respondents, a positive correlation (r = 0.363, P  0.05) was found between the NSS and PSS and between age and patient work load (i.e. number of patients the nurse cared for) (r = 0.218, P < 0.05). A negative correlation (r = -0.142, P < 0.05) existed between NSS and respondents' age. Analysis of variance showed that younger nurses had more nursing stress than older nurses (F(1,195) = 4.283, P < 0.05). Age, patient work load and day of the week worked are important factors affecting nurses' stress levels. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMEN: Nurse managers should consider scheduling as a potential stressor for nurses. 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Cyberbullying and self-esteem.

PubMed

Patchin, Justin W; Hinduja, Sameer

2010-12-01

This article examines the relationship between middle school students' experience with cyberbullying and their level of self-esteem. Previous research on traditional bullying among adolescents has found a relatively consistent link between victimization and lower self-esteem, while finding an inconsistent relationship between offending and lower self-esteem. It is therefore important to extend this body of research by determining how bullying augmented through the use of technology (such as computers and cell phones) is linked to differing levels of self-esteem. During March and April 2007, a random sample of 1963 middle school students (mean age 12.6) from 30 schools in one of the largest school districts in the United States completed a self-report survey of Internet use and cyberbullying experiences. This work found that students who experienced cyberbullying, both as a victim and an offender, had significantly lower self-esteem than those who had little or no experience with cyberbullying. A moderate and statistically significant relationship exists between low self-esteem and experiences with cyberbullying. As such, bullying prevention programs incorporated in school curricula should also include substantive instruction on cyberbullying. Moreover, educators need to intervene in cyberbullying incidents, as failure to do so may impact the ability of students to be successful at school. © 2010, American School Health Association.

Translational MRI volumetry with NeuroQuant: Effects of version and normative data on relationships with memory performance in healthy older adults and patients with mild cognitive impairment

PubMed Central

Stelmokas, Julija; Yassay, Lance; Giordani, Bruno; Dodge, Hiroko H.; Dinov, Ivo D.; Bhaumik, Arijit; Sathian, K.; Hampstead, Benjamin M.

2018-01-01

NeuroQuant (NQ) is a fully-automated program that overcomes several existing limitations in the clinical translation of MRI-derived volumetry. The current study characterized differences between the original (NQ1) and an updated NQ version (NQ2) by (i) replicating previously identified relationships between neuropsychological test performance and medial temporal lobe volumes, (ii) evaluating the level of agreement between NQ versions, and (iii) determining if the addition of NQ2 age-/sex-based z-scores hold greater clinical utility for prediction of memory impairment than standard percent of intracranial volume (%ICV) values. Sixty-seven healthy older adults and 65 MCI patients underwent structural MRI and completed cognitive testing, including the Immediate and Delayed Memory indices from the RBANS. Results generally replicated previous relationships between key medial temporal lobe regions and memory test performance, though comparison of NQ regions revealed statistically different values that were biased toward one version or the other depending on the region. NQ2 hippocampal z-scores explained additional variance in memory performance relative to %ICV values. Findings indicate that NQ1/2 medial temporal lobe volumes, especially age- and sex-based z-scores, hold clinical value, though caution is warranted when directly comparing volumes across NQ versions. PMID:29060939

Slow or swift, your patients' experience won't drift: absence of correlation between physician productivity and the patient experience.

PubMed

Lenz, Kasia; McRae, Andrew; Wang, Dongmei; Higgins, Benjamin; Innes, Grant; Cook, Timothy; Lang, Eddy

2017-09-01

Absract OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the relationship between Emergency Physician (EP) productivity and patient satisfaction with Emergency Department (ED) care. This retrospective observational study linked administrative and patient experience databases to measure correlations between the patient experience and EP productivity. The study was performed across three Calgary EDs (from June 2010 to July 2013). Patients>16 years old with completed Health Quality Council of Alberta (HQCA) ED Patient Experience Surveys were included. EP productivity was measured at the individual physician level and defined as the average number of patients seen per hour. The association between physician productivity and patient experience scores from six composite domains of the HQCA ED Patient Experience Survey were examined using Pearson correlation coefficients, linear regression modelling, and a path analysis. We correlated 3,794 patient experience surveys with productivity data for 130 EPs. Very weak non-significant negative correlations existed between productivity and survey composites: "Staff Care and Communication" (r=-0.057, p=0.521), "Discharge Communication" (r=-0.144, p=0.102), and "Respect" (r=-0.027, p=0.760). Very weak, non-significant positive correlations existed between productivity and the composite domains: "Medication Communication" (r=0.003, p=0.974) and "Pain management" (r=0.020, p=0.824). A univariate general linear model yielded no statistically significant correlations between EP productivity and patient experience, and the path analysis failed to show a relationship between the variables. We found no correlation between EP productivity and the patient experience.

Causality and cointegration analysis between macroeconomic variables and the Bovespa.

PubMed

da Silva, Fabiano Mello; Coronel, Daniel Arruda; Vieira, Kelmara Mendes

2014-01-01

The aim of this study is to analyze the causality relationship among a set of macroeconomic variables, represented by the exchange rate, interest rate, inflation (CPI), industrial production index as a proxy for gross domestic product in relation to the index of the São Paulo Stock Exchange (Bovespa). The period of analysis corresponded to the months from January 1995 to December 2010, making a total of 192 observations for each variable. Johansen tests, through the statistics of the trace and of the maximum eigenvalue, indicated the existence of at least one cointegration vector. In the analysis of Granger (1988) causality tests via error correction, it was found that a short-term causality existed between the CPI and the Bovespa. Regarding the Granger (1988) long-term causality, the results indicated a long-term behaviour among the macroeconomic variables with the BOVESPA. The results of the long-term normalized vector for the Bovespa variable showed that most signals of the cointegration equation parameters are in accordance with what is suggested by the economic theory. In other words, there was a positive behaviour of the GDP and a negative behaviour of the inflation and of the exchange rate (expected to be a positive relationship) in relation to the Bovespa, with the exception of the Selic rate, which was not significant with that index. The variance of the Bovespa was explained by itself in over 90% at the twelfth month, followed by the country risk, with less than 5%.

Causality and Cointegration Analysis between Macroeconomic Variables and the Bovespa

PubMed Central

da Silva, Fabiano Mello; Coronel, Daniel Arruda; Vieira, Kelmara Mendes

2014-01-01

The aim of this study is to analyze the causality relationship among a set of macroeconomic variables, represented by the exchange rate, interest rate, inflation (CPI), industrial production index as a proxy for gross domestic product in relation to the index of the São Paulo Stock Exchange (Bovespa). The period of analysis corresponded to the months from January 1995 to December 2010, making a total of 192 observations for each variable. Johansen tests, through the statistics of the trace and of the maximum eigenvalue, indicated the existence of at least one cointegration vector. In the analysis of Granger (1988) causality tests via error correction, it was found that a short-term causality existed between the CPI and the Bovespa. Regarding the Granger (1988) long-term causality, the results indicated a long-term behaviour among the macroeconomic variables with the BOVESPA. The results of the long-term normalized vector for the Bovespa variable showed that most signals of the cointegration equation parameters are in accordance with what is suggested by the economic theory. In other words, there was a positive behaviour of the GDP and a negative behaviour of the inflation and of the exchange rate (expected to be a positive relationship) in relation to the Bovespa, with the exception of the Selic rate, which was not significant with that index. The variance of the Bovespa was explained by itself in over 90% at the twelth month, followed by the country risk, with less than 5%. PMID:24587019

Capturing the semiotic relationship between terms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hargood, Charlie; Millard, David E.; Weal, Mark J.

2010-04-01

Tags describing objects on the web are often treated as facts about a resource, whereas it is quite possible that they represent more subjective observations. Existing methods of term expansion expand terms based on dictionary definitions or statistical information on term occurrence. Here we propose the use of a thematic model for term expansion based on semiotic relationships between terms; this has been shown to improve a system's thematic understanding of content and tags and to tease out the more subjective implications of those tags. Such a system relies on a thematic model that must be made by hand. In this article, we explore a method to capture a semiotic understanding of particular terms using a rule-based guide to authoring a thematic model. Experimentation shows that it is possible to capture valid definitions that can be used for semiotic term expansion but that the guide itself may not be sufficient to support this on a large scale. We argue that whilst the formation of super definitions will mitigate some of these problems, the development of an authoring support tool may be necessary to solve others.

Relational Care for Perinatal Substance Use: A Systematic Review.

PubMed

Kramlich, Debra; Kronk, Rebecca

2015-01-01

The purpose of this systematic review of the literature is to highlight published studies of perinatal substance use disorder that address relational aspects of various care delivery models to identify opportunities for future studies in this area. Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods studies that included relational variables, such as healthcare provider engagement with pregnant women and facilitation of maternal-infant bonding, were identified using PubMed, Scopus, and EBSCO databases. Key words included neonatal abstinence syndrome, drug, opioid, substance, dependence, and pregnancy. Six studies included in this review identified statistically and/or clinically significant positive maternal and neonatal outcomes thought to be linked to engagement in antenatal care and development of caring relationships with healthcare providers. Comprehensive, integrated multidisciplinary services for pregnant women with substance use disorder aimed at harm reduction are showing positive results. Evidence exists that pregnant women's engagement with comprehensive services facilitated by caring relationships with healthcare providers may improve perinatal outcomes. Gaps in the literature remain; studies have yet to identify the relative contribution of multiple risk factors to adverse outcomes as well as program components most likely to improve outcomes.

Genome data from a sixteenth century pig illuminate modern breed relationships

PubMed Central

Ramírez, O; Burgos-Paz, W; Casas, E; Ballester, M; Bianco, E; Olalde, I; Santpere, G; Novella, V; Gut, M; Lalueza-Fox, C; Saña, M; Pérez-Enciso, M

2015-01-01

Ancient DNA (aDNA) provides direct evidence of historical events that have modeled the genome of modern individuals. In livestock, resolving the differences between the effects of initial domestication and of subsequent modern breeding is not straight forward without aDNA data. Here, we have obtained shotgun genome sequence data from a sixteenth century pig from Northeastern Spain (Montsoriu castle), the ancient pig was obtained from an extremely well-preserved and diverse assemblage. In addition, we provide the sequence of three new modern genomes from an Iberian pig, Spanish wild boar and a Guatemalan Creole pig. Comparison with both mitochondrial and autosomal genome data shows that the ancient pig is closely related to extant Iberian pigs and to European wild boar. Although the ancient sample was clearly domestic, admixture with wild boar also occurred, according to the D-statistics. The close relationship between Iberian, European wild boar and the ancient pig confirms that Asian introgression in modern Iberian pigs has not existed or has been negligible. In contrast, the Guatemalan Creole pig clusters apart from the Iberian pig genome, likely due to introgression from international breeds. PMID:25204303

Response of School Districts to the New York State Concussion Awareness and Management Act: Review of Policies and Procedures.

PubMed

Kajankova, Maria; Oswald, Jennifer M; Terranova, Lauren M; Kaplen, Michael V; Ambrose, Anne F; Spielman, Lisa A; Gordon, Wayne A

2017-06-01

By 2014, all states implemented concussion laws that schools must translate into daily practice; yet, limited knowledge exists regarding implementation of these laws. We examined the extent to which concussion management policies and procedure (P&P) documents of New York State school districts comply with the State's Concussion Awareness and Management Act (the Act). We also aimed to identify barriers to compliance. Forty-seven school districts provided P&P documents. We examined compliance with the Act and the relationship between compliance and each district's demographics. Compliance varied across school districts, with higher overall compliance in large city school districts compared to county districts. However, there was low compliance for several critical items. We found no statistically significant relationship between compliance and demographics. School districts need to increase compliance with concussion legislation to ensure the adequate implementation necessary for the law to impact health and educational outcomes. The results provide important information to individuals charged with the responsibility of implementation and ultimately reducing the negative outcomes associated with brain injuries in schools. © 2017, American School Health Association.

Streamflow prediction using multi-site rainfall obtained from hydroclimatic teleconnection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kashid, S. S.; Ghosh, Subimal; Maity, Rajib

2010-12-01

SummarySimultaneous variations in weather and climate over widely separated regions are commonly known as "hydroclimatic teleconnections". Rainfall and runoff patterns, over continents, are found to be significantly teleconnected, with large-scale circulation patterns, through such hydroclimatic teleconnections. Though such teleconnections exist in nature, it is very difficult to model them, due to their inherent complexity. Statistical techniques and Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools gain popularity in modeling hydroclimatic teleconnection, based on their ability, in capturing the complicated relationship between the predictors (e.g. sea surface temperatures) and predictand (e.g., rainfall). Genetic Programming is such an AI tool, which is capable of capturing nonlinear relationship, between predictor and predictand, due to its flexible functional structure. In the present study, gridded multi-site weekly rainfall is predicted from El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) indices, Equatorial Indian Ocean Oscillation (EQUINOO) indices, Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR) and lag rainfall at grid points, over the catchment, using Genetic Programming. The predicted rainfall is further used in a Genetic Programming model to predict streamflows. The model is applied for weekly forecasting of streamflow in Mahanadi River, India, and satisfactory performance is observed.

An investigation to improve the Menhaden fishery prediction and detection model through the application of ERTS-A data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Maughan, P. M. (Principal Investigator)

1972-01-01

The author has identified the following significant results. Preliminary analyses indicate that several important relationships have been observed utilizing ERTS-1 imagery. Of most significance is that in the Mississippi Sound, as elsewhere, considerable detail exists as to turbidity patterns in the water column. Simple analysis is complicated by the apparent interaction between actual turbidity, turbidity induced by shoal water, and actual imaging of the bottom in extreme shoal water. A statistical approach is being explored which shows promise of at least partially separating these effects so that partitioning of true turbid plumes can be accomplished. This partitioning is of great importance to this program in that supportive data seem to indicate that menhaden occur more frequently in turbid areas. In this connection four individual captures have been associated with a major turbid feature imaged on 6 August. If a significant relationship between imaged turbid features and catch distribution can be established, for example by graphic and/or numeric analysis, it will represent a major advancement for short term prediction of commercially accessible menhaden.

Geomagnetic South Atlantic Anomaly and global sea level rise: A direct connection?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Santis, A.; Qamili, E.; Spada, G.; Gasperini, P.

2012-01-01

We highlight the existence of an intriguing and to date unreported relationship between the surface area of the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) of the geomagnetic field and the current trend in global sea level rise. These two geophysical variables have been growing coherently during the last three centuries, thus strongly suggesting a causal relationship supported by some statistical tests. The monotonic increase of the SAA surface area since 1600 may have been associated with an increased inflow of radiation energy through the inner Van Allen belt with a consequent warming of the Earth's atmosphere and finally global sea level rise. An alternative suggestive and original explanation is also offered, in which pressure changes at the core-mantle boundary cause surface deformations and relative sea level variations. Although we cannot establish a clear connection between SAA dynamics and global warming, the strong correlation between the former and global sea level supports the idea that global warming may be at least partly controlled by deep Earth processes triggering geomagnetic phenomena, such as the South Atlantic Anomaly, on a century time scale.

Relationship Between Job Characteristics and Organizational Commitment: A Descriptive Analytical Study

PubMed Central

Faraji, Obeidollah; Ramazani, Abbas Ali; Hedaiati, Pouria; Aliabadi, Ali; Elhamirad, Samira; Valiee, Sina

2015-01-01

Background: Many factors influence the organizational commitment of employees. One of these factors is job designing since it affects the attitude, beliefs, and feelings of the organization employees. Objectives: We aimed to determine the relationship between job characteristics and organizational commitment among the employees of hospitals. Patients and Methods: In this descriptive and correlational study, 152 Iranian employees of the hospitals (physicians, nurses, and administrative staff) were selected through stratified random sampling. Data gathered using 3-part questionnaire of “demographic information”, “job characteristics model,” and “organizational commitment,” in 2011. Study data were analyzed using SPSS v. 16. Results: There was significant statistical correlation between organizational commitment and variables of educational level (P = 0.001) and job category (P = 0.001). Also, a direct and significant correlation existed between motivating potential score and job feedback on one hand and organizational commitment on the other hand (P = 0.014). Conclusions: According to the results, managers of the hospitals should increase staff’s commitment through paying attention to proper job designing. PMID:26734472

Teachers and Textbooks: On Statistical Definitions in Senior Secondary Mathematics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dunn, Peter K.; Marshman, Margaret; McDougall, Robert; Wiegand, Aaron

2015-01-01

The new "Australian Senior Secondary Curriculum: Mathematics" contains more statistics than the existing Australian Curricula. This case study examines how a group of Queensland mathematics teachers define the word "statistics" and five statistical terms from the new curricula. These definitions are compared to those used in…

Six Sigma and Introductory Statistics Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Maleyeff, John; Kaminsky, Frank C.

2002-01-01

A conflict exists between the way statistics is practiced in contemporary business environments and the way statistics is taught in schools of management. While businesses are embracing programs, such as six sigma and TQM, that bring statistical methods to the forefront of management decision making, students do not graduate with the skills to…

Surveys Assessing Students' Attitudes toward Statistics: A Systematic Review of Validity and Reliability

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nolan, Meaghan M.; Beran, Tanya; Hecker, Kent G.

2012-01-01

Students with positive attitudes toward statistics are likely to show strong academic performance in statistics courses. Multiple surveys measuring students' attitudes toward statistics exist; however, a comparison of the validity and reliability of interpretations based on their scores is needed. A systematic review of relevant electronic…

A Tablet-PC Software Application for Statistics Classes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Probst, Alexandre C.

2014-01-01

A significant deficiency in the area of introductory statistics education exists: Student performance on standardized assessments after a full semester statistics course is poor and students report a very low desire to learn statistics. Research on the current generation of students indicates an affinity for technology and for multitasking.…

Social Network Analysis of Crowds

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-08-06

crowd responses to non-lethal weapons d tan sys ems – Prior, existing social relationships – Real time social interactions – Formal/informal...Crowd Behavior Testbed Layout Video Cameras on Trusses Importance of Social Factors • Response to non-lethal weapons fire depends on social ... relationships among crowd members – Pre-existing Personal Relationships – Ongoing Real Time Social Interactions – Formal/Informal Hierarchies • Therefore

The relationship between the number of loci and the statistical support for the topology of UPGMA trees obtained from genetic distance data.

PubMed

Highton, R

1993-12-01

An analysis of the relationship between the number of loci utilized in an electrophoretic study of genetic relationships and the statistical support for the topology of UPGMA trees is reported for two published data sets. These are Highton and Larson (Syst. Zool.28:579-599, 1979), an analysis of the relationships of 28 species of plethodonine salamanders, and Hedges (Syst. Zool., 35:1-21, 1986), a similar study of 30 taxa of Holarctic hylid frogs. As the number of loci increases, the statistical support for the topology at each node in UPGMA trees was determined by both the bootstrap and jackknife methods. The results show that the bootstrap and jackknife probabilities supporting the topology at some nodes of UPGMA trees increase as the number of loci utilized in a study is increased, as expected for nodes that have groupings that reflect phylogenetic relationships. The pattern of increase varies and is especially rapid in the case of groups with no close relatives. At nodes that likely do not represent correct phylogenetic relationships, the bootstrap probabilities do not increase and often decline with the addition of more loci.

Emerging correlations between measures of population well-being, suicide and homicide: a look at global and Australian data.

PubMed

Lee, Adrian Ys; Pridmore, Saxby

2014-04-01

Our aim was (1) to examine global and Australian data with a view to determining the presence of an inverse relationship between suicide and homicide rates, and (2) to examine global Human Development Index (HDI) values and suicide and homicide rates, with a view to determining any statistical relationship. Suicide and homicide rates and HDI values were available for 102 countries, and suicide and homicide rates were available for the states and territories of Australia. The three data sets had non-normal distributions, and the non-parametric Spearman's ρ was used for correlation statistics with α = 0.05. We found a weak, statistically significant inverse relationship between the suicide and homicide rates of 102 countries (ρ = -0.244, p = 0.014). No relationship was established for the Australian values, however. As anticipated, we found a significant negative correlation between homicide and HDI values. We unexpectedly demonstrated a positive correlation between suicide rates and HDI values. The notion that suicide and homicide have an inverse relationship now has some scientific support; but additional research is warranted to characterise and explain this relationship. The unexpected finding of a positive correlation between suicide rates and HDI values requires further examination.

Breeds of risk-adjusted fundamentalist strategies in an order-driven market

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

LiCalzi, Marco; Pellizzari, Paolo

2006-01-01

This paper studies an order-driven stock market where agents have heterogeneous estimates of the fundamental value of the risky asset. The agents are budget-constrained and follow a value-based trading strategy which buys or sells depending on whether the price of the asset is below or above its risk-adjusted fundamental value. This environment generates returns that are remarkably leptokurtic and fat-tailed. By extending the study over a grid of different parameters for the fundamentalist trading strategy, we exhibit the existence of monotone relationships between the bid-ask spread demanded by the agents and several statistics of the returns. We conjecture that this effect, coupled with positive dependence of the risk premium on the volatility, generates positive feedbacks that might explain volatility bursts.

Inferring Markov chains: Bayesian estimation, model comparison, entropy rate, and out-of-class modeling.

PubMed

Strelioff, Christopher C; Crutchfield, James P; Hübler, Alfred W

2007-07-01

Markov chains are a natural and well understood tool for describing one-dimensional patterns in time or space. We show how to infer kth order Markov chains, for arbitrary k , from finite data by applying Bayesian methods to both parameter estimation and model-order selection. Extending existing results for multinomial models of discrete data, we connect inference to statistical mechanics through information-theoretic (type theory) techniques. We establish a direct relationship between Bayesian evidence and the partition function which allows for straightforward calculation of the expectation and variance of the conditional relative entropy and the source entropy rate. Finally, we introduce a method that uses finite data-size scaling with model-order comparison to infer the structure of out-of-class processes.

DEFINITION OF MULTIVARIATE GEOCHEMICAL ASSOCIATIONS WITH POLYMETALLIC MINERAL OCCURRENCES USING A SPATIALLY DEPENDENT CLUSTERING TECHNIQUE AND RASTERIZED STREAM SEDIMENT DATA - AN ALASKAN EXAMPLE.

USGS Publications Warehouse

Jenson, Susan K.; Trautwein, C.M.

1984-01-01

The application of an unsupervised, spatially dependent clustering technique (AMOEBA) to interpolated raster arrays of stream sediment data has been found to provide useful multivariate geochemical associations for modeling regional polymetallic resource potential. The technique is based on three assumptions regarding the compositional and spatial relationships of stream sediment data and their regional significance. These assumptions are: (1) compositionally separable classes exist and can be statistically distinguished; (2) the classification of multivariate data should minimize the pair probability of misclustering to establish useful compositional associations; and (3) a compositionally defined class represented by three or more contiguous cells within an array is a more important descriptor of a terrane than a class represented by spatial outliers.

Self-esteem and obsessive compulsive disorder.

PubMed

Husain, Nusrat; Chaudhry, Imran; Raza-ur-Rehman; Ahmed, Ghazal Riaz

2014-01-01

To explore the association between self-esteem and obsessive compulsive disorder in a low-income country, and to conduct an in-depth analysis into the said relationship by identifying any confounding variables that might exist. The cross-sectional study was conducted at the psychiatry out-patient clinic of Civil Hospital, Karachi, from January to March 2008, and comprised 65 patients diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder and 30 healthy controls. The participatnts completed the Janis and Field Social Adequacy scale and the Rosenberg Self-esteem scale. SPSS 15 was used for statistical analysis. Significantly different scores were reported on both measures of self-esteem between the patients and the controls (p<0.001 each), indicating reduced levels of self-esteem in the patients compared to the controls. Data replicated earlier findings from populations in high-income countries.

Understanding the relationship between duration of untreated psychosis and outcomes: A statistical perspective.

PubMed

Hannigan, Ailish; Bargary, Norma; Kinsella, Anthony; Clarke, Mary

2017-06-14

Although the relationships between duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) and outcomes are often assumed to be linear, few studies have explored the functional form of these relationships. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the potential of recent advances in curve fitting approaches (splines) to explore the form of the relationship between DUP and global assessment of functioning (GAF). Curve fitting approaches were used in models to predict change in GAF at long-term follow-up using DUP for a sample of 83 individuals with schizophrenia. The form of the relationship between DUP and GAF was non-linear. Accounting for non-linearity increased the percentage of variance in GAF explained by the model, resulting in better prediction and understanding of the relationship. The relationship between DUP and outcomes may be complex and model fit may be improved by accounting for the form of the relationship. This should be routinely assessed and new statistical approaches for non-linear relationships exploited, if appropriate. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

The mediating effect of calling on the relationship between medical school students’ academic burnout and empathy

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

Purpose This study is aimed at identifying the relationships between medical school students’ academic burnout, empathy, and calling, and determining whether their calling has a mediating effect on the relationship between academic burnout and empathy. Methods A mixed method study was conducted. One hundred twenty-seven medical students completed a survey. Scales measuring academic burnout, medical students’ empathy, and calling were utilized. For statistical analysis, correlation analysis, descriptive statistics analysis, and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted. For qualitative approach, eight medical students participated in a focus group interview. Results The study found that empathy has a statistically significant, negative correlation with academic burnout, while having a significant, positive correlation with calling. Sense of calling proved to be an effective mediator of the relationship between academic burnout and empathy. Conclusion This result demonstrates that calling is a key variable that mediates the relationship between medical students’ academic burnout and empathy. As such, this study provides baseline data for an education that could improve medical students’ empathy skills. PMID:28870019

Statistical relationship between the succeeding solar flares detected by the RHESSI satellite

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Balázs, L. G.; Gyenge, N.; Korsós, M. B.; Baranyi, T.; Forgács-Dajka, E.; Ballai, I.

2014-06-01

The Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager has observed more than 80 000 solar energetic events since its launch on 2002 February 12. Using this large sample of observed flares, we studied the spatiotemporal relationship between succeeding flares. Our results show that the statistical relationship between the temporal and spatial differences of succeeding flares can be described as a power law of the form R(t) ˜ tp with p = 0.327 ± 0.007. We discuss the possible interpretations of this result as a characteristic function of a supposed underlying physics. Different scenarios are considered to explain this relation, including the case where the connectivity between succeeding events is realized through a shock wave in the post Sedov-Taylor phase or where the spatial and temporal relationship between flares is supposed to be provided by an expanding flare area in the sub-diffusive regime. Furthermore, we cannot exclude the possibility that the physical process behind the statistical relationship is the reordering of the magnetic field by the flare or it is due to some unknown processes.

Aspects of Gay Male Couples’ Sexual Agreements Vary by Their Relationship Length

PubMed Central

Mitchell, Jason W.

2014-01-01

Few HIV preventing interventions exist for gay male couples in the U.S., yet estimates indicate that between one- and two-thirds of U.S. men who have sex with men acquire HIV while in a primary relationship (e.g., gay male couples). In response to these statistics, research has been conducted to better understand gay male couples’ relationships, including their sexual agreements. Many gay male couples in the U.S. establish a sexual agreement, which is an explicit mutual understanding between two main partners about what sexual and other behaviors they agree to engage in and with whom while in the relationship. Although some research about sexual agreements has been conducted, little is known on whether aspects of gay male couples’ sexual agreements (e.g., establishment, type, and adherence) vary as a function of their relationship length. The present study aimed to fulfill this gap of knowledge, which may lead to a better understanding of how agreements can be used for developing HIV/STI prevention interventions. A national, cross-sectional, Internet-based study was used to collect dyadic data from 361 US gay male couples. Men in each couple completed the questionnaire independently. All analyses were employed at the couple-level. Our findings showed that the longer the couples had been in their relationship, the more likely they would concur about having a sexual agreement. As relationship length increased, the proportion of couples who disagreed about their current agreement type increased. No direct trend was found for recent adherence to an agreement; however, the likelihood of ever breaking an agreement increased as relationship length increased. Findings from this study indicate there is a need to help gay male couples’ establish and maintain their agreements, particularly for those who are in their early formative stages, as well as, for those who are experiencing challenges and/or changes in their relationships. PMID:24512593

Mechanical and statistical evidence of the causality of human-made mass shifts on the Earth's upper crust and the occurrence of earthquakes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Klose, Christian D.

2013-01-01

A global catalog of small- to large-sized earthquakes was systematically analyzed to identify causality and correlatives between human-made mass shifts in the upper Earth's crust and the occurrence of earthquakes. The mass shifts, ranging between 1 kt and 1 Tt, result from large-scale geoengineering operations, including mining, water reservoirs, hydrocarbon production, fluid injection/extractions, deep geothermal energy production and coastal management. This article shows evidence that geomechanical relationships exist with statistical significance between (a) seismic moment magnitudes M of observed earthquakes, (b) lateral distances of the earthquake hypocenters to the geoengineering "operation points" and (c) mass removals or accumulations on the Earth's crust. Statistical findings depend on uncertainties, in particular, of source parameter estimations of seismic events before instrumental recoding. Statistical observations, however, indicate that every second, seismic event tends to occur after a decade. The chance of an earthquake to nucleate after 2 or 20 years near an area with a significant mass shift is 25 or 75 %, respectively. Moreover, causative effects of seismic activities highly depend on the tectonic stress regime in which the operations take place (i.e., extensive, transverse or compressive). Results are summarized as follows: First, seismic moment magnitudes increase the more mass is locally shifted on the Earth's crust. Second, seismic moment magnitudes increase the larger the area in the crust is geomechanically polluted. Third, reverse faults tend to be more trigger-sensitive than normal faults due to a stronger alteration of the minimum vertical principal stress component. Pure strike-slip faults seem to rupture randomly and independently from the magnitude of the mass changes. Finally, mainly due to high estimation uncertainties of source parameters and, in particular, of shallow seismic events (<10 km), it remains still very difficult to discriminate between induced and triggered earthquakes with respect to the data catalog of this study. However, first analyses indicate that small- to medium-sized earthquakes (M6) seem to be triggered. The rupture propagation of triggered events might be dominated by pre-existing tectonic stress conditions.

TOWARDS REFINED USE OF TOXICITY DATA IN ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

In 2003, an International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) Working Group examined the potential of statistically based structure-activity relationship (SAR) models for use in screening environmental contaminants for possible developmental toxicants. In 2003, an International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) Working Group examined the potential of statistically based structure-activity relationship (SAR) models for use in screening environmental contaminants for possible developmental toxicants.

Relationship between urban eco-environment and competitiveness with the background of globalization: statistical explanation based on industry type newly classified with environment demand and environment pressure.

PubMed

Kang, Xiao-guang; Ma, Qing-Bin

2005-01-01

Within the global urban system, the statistical relationship between urban eco-environment (UE) and urban competitiveness (UC) (RUEC) is researched. Data showed that there is a statistically inverted-U relationship between UE and UC. Eco-environmental factor is put into the classification of industries, and gets six industrial types by two indexes viz. industries' eco-environmental demand and pressure. The statistical results showed that there is a strong relationship, for new industrial classification, between the changes of industrial structure and evolvement of UE. The drive mechanism of the evolvement of urban eco-environment, with human demand and global work division was analyzed. The conclusion is that the development stratege, industrial policies of cities, and environmental policies fo cities must be fit with their ranks among the global urban system. At the era of globalization, so far as the environmental policies, their rationality could not be assessed with the level of strictness, but it can enhance cities' competitiveness when they are fit with cities' capabilities to attract and control some sections of the industry's value-chain. None but these kinds of environmental policies can probably enhance the UC.

[Satisfaction with hospital care among diabetic outpatients and its associated factors. Secondary use of official statistics].

PubMed

Tsuboi, Satoshi; Uehara, Ritei; Oguma, Taeko; Kojo, Takao; Enkh-Oyun, Tsogzolbaatar; Kotani, Kazuhiko; Aoyama, Yasuko; Okayama, Akira; Hashimoto, Shuji; Yamagata, Zentaro; Ohashi, Yasuo; Katanoda, Kota; Nakamura, Yosikazu; Sobue, Tomotaka

2014-01-01

Generalizable data on current satisfaction levels are required to establish a scientific basis for the political advancement of measures to improve satisfaction with hospital care among patients with diabetes. The present study made secondary use of existing official statistics in order to demonstrate the range of satisfaction levels with hospital care among diabetic outpatients and to closely examine related factors. Data sets that consolidated the Patient Survey, the Survey of Medical Care Institutions, and the Patient Behavior Survey (all from 2008) were created. Shared medical institution survey reference numbers were used to consolidate the data from the Patient Survey and the Survey of Medical Care Institutions, and in addition, sex and date of birth were used to consolidate the Patient Behavior Survey data. The range of satisfaction levels with hospital care among diabetic outpatients was investigated along with any relationship with the following potentially related factors: visitation status (first or repeat examination); waiting time until examination; examination duration; care-seeking status (any use of other medical facilities, etc.); diabetic complications; other complications; coverage under the Public Assistance Act; smoking cessation outpatient services; hospitals that specialized in treating diabetes (metabolic medicine); medical care on Saturday, Sunday, and public holidays; and provision of health checkups. Overall, 62.3% of diabetic outpatients were either fairly or extremely satisfied with their hospital care, whereas 5.6% expressed dissatisfaction. Satisfaction levels with hospital care were found to be significantly related to visitation status, waiting time until examination, examination duration, care-seeking status, and Saturday medical care. Multivariate analysis with the factors demonstrated to be significantly related to satisfaction revealed significant relationships between high satisfaction levels and repeat examinations, short waiting times, no use of any other medical facilities, and long examinations. Consolidating official statistics from multiple sources indicated the range of satisfaction levels with hospital care among diabetic outpatients and facilitated the clarification of factors affecting satisfaction. Reducing waiting times and ensuring sufficient time spent on examinations are important for increasing satisfaction levels with hospital care among patients with diabetes. It is hoped that official statistics can be further applied to many future public health policy studies.

Coastal Response, a system of detached breakwaters

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

García Ortiz, Isabelo; Negro Valdecantos, Vicente; Santos López, Jose; Esteban, María Dolores

2017-04-01

The coastline's sedimentary response in the form of a tombolo or semi-tombolo (salient) as a result of the construction of detached breakwaters is an aspect that should be known in the design phase so that these marine structures may be properly designed. In achieving an ecological, social and economic value, such areas must also be properly managed. All design methods in existence since Dean (1978) are mainly based on hypotheses formulated from geometric studies on existing formations. No relationship at all is established with climate and littoral dynamics typical of the location (only Suh and Darlymple (1987) and the Japanese Ministry of Construction (1986) present relationships depending on wave variables). Neither has the influence on systems with more than two breakwaters been studied. These methods are not fully adapted to the cases existing on the Spanish Mediterranean littoral. The lines of investigation as proposed by L. Bricio and V. Negro (2010) were continued with for this study. These researchers developed a method for dimensioning isolated, detached breakwaters and their semi-tombolo or tombolo associated formations using all the characteristics of the site (energy, geometric and structural), specific climate and geomorphology and littoral dynamics' characteristics. This methodology is currently acknowledged and accepted in works undertaken on the Spanish Mediterranean littoral. A linear regression was obtained in the investigation undertaken on the 18 detached breakwater systems along the whole of the 1670 km of the Spanish Mediterranean littoral using the proposals made by L. Bricio and V. Negro. The adjustment of R2 ≥ 0.90 was used for the sandy, tombolo formations behind all the detached breakwater systems between several non-dimensional monomials displaying the most representative characteristics of the site. L/H12 + (2ṡB)/G =12,15ṡ(X/Xc)+7,3231 X: Distance of breakwaters from coastline Xc: Distance from coastline where the closure depth is reached L: Wave length in average statistical regime at foot of breakwater depth H12: Significant wave height only surpassed or exceeded twelve hours a year in average statistical regime B: Length of breakwater G: Distance between breakwaters On being adapted to all cases on the Spanish littoral, this expression proves that tombolo formations are minimally affected by the existence of more than two breakwaters. However, this influence should be even further studied in future investigations requiring the said expression. Climate and structural geometry parameters are therefore related through the expression mentioned in the form of monomials on unconsolidated, moving sediment bottoms. The distance between detached structures will be established on the basis of sustainability and respect for the environment for the circulation and renewal of sheltered water.

The relationship between learning styles, emotional social intelligence, and academic success of undergraduate nursing students.

PubMed

Suliman, Wafika A

2010-06-01

Feelings or emotions and thinking have been identified as forces that may affect one's learning styles (D. A. Kolb, 1984), emotional social intelligence, and success (R. Bar-On, 2004). This study on the relationship between academic success and the two variables of learning abilities or styles and emotional social intelligence was conducted at two colleges of nursing in Saudi Arabia. Both offer conventional and accelerated undergraduate nursing education programs. This study was designed to explore the preferred learning abilities or styles of Saudi nursing students in conventional and accelerated programs, the difference in emotional social intelligence between the two, and the relationships between academic success and learning styles and emotional social intelligence. A convenience sample was recruited, consisting of a total of 98 students, 50 and 48 of whom were enrolled, respectively, in conventional and accelerated programs. Self-administered instruments including the Kolb learning style inventory and the Bar-On emotional quotient inventory (EQ-i) were used to collect data, which were analyzed quantitatively. Both groups were found to favor a diverger style of learning, with total EQ-i scores showing no statistical difference between the two (t = 1.251, p =.214). "Self-regard" and "problem solving" earned the highest EQ-i content subscale scores for both groups. Pearson's correlation coefficient showed no significant relationship between learning abilities or styles and emotional social intelligence and academic success. The findings suggest that either no actual relationship exists or that emotional social intelligence may be confounded with factors such as professional and cultural values.

The Relationship Between Maternal Domestic Violence and Infant and Toddlers' Emotional Regulation: Highlighting the Need for Preventive Services.

PubMed

Geyer, Chelsea; Ogbonnaya, Ijeoma Nwabuzor

2017-11-01

In an effort to further understand the impact of domestic violence (DV) on infant and toddlers' development, this research utilized data from the second cohort of National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW II) to examine the relationship between maternal DV and infant and toddlers' emotional regulation, and determine whether mothers' receipt of DV services mediated this relationship. The sample was limited to children aged 0 to 3 years and included (a) infants less than 1 year old ( n = 603), (b) infants 1 to less than 2 years old ( n = 310), and (c) toddlers 2 to 3 years old ( n = 268). Infant/toddlers' emotional regulation was measured using mothers' response on the How My Infant/Toddler/Child Usually Acts questionnaire. In addition, data were collected to assess whether (a) active DV was present during the time of the Child Protective Services (CPS) investigation and (b) mothers received DV services during the past year. Study research questions were examined using a series of multiple regression analyses. Mediation was tested based on Baron and Kenny's recommended model for establishing mediation. The mediational model was not found to be significant; however, a positive relationship existed between maternal DV and emotional regulation among infants aged less than 1 year old (β = 1.61, p = .039). There were no statistically significant relationships between DV and emotional regulation in the other age groups. These findings highlight the need to provide CPS-involved families victimized by DV with services that focus on preventing poor infant emotional regulation.

Does access to fast food lead to super-sized pregnant women and whopper babies?

PubMed

Lhila, Aparna

2011-12-01

Rise in the availability of fast-food restaurants has been blamed, at least partly, for the increasing obesity in the U.S. The existing studies of obesity have focused primarily on children, adolescents, and adults, and this paper extends the literature by raising a little-studied question and using nationally representative data to answer it. It examines the relationship between the supply of fast-food restaurants and weight gain of pregnant women and their newborns. I study prenatal weight gain because excessive weight gain has been linked to postpartum overweight/obesity and I study both tails of the birthweight distribution because the origin of obesity may be traced to the prenatal period and both tail outcomes have been associated with obesity later in life. I merge the 1998 and 2004 Natality Detail Files with the Area Resource File, and County Business Patterns, which provide data on the number of fast-food restaurants in the metropolitan area where the mother resides. The empirical model includes an extensive list of MSA characteristics and MSA fixed effects to control for factors that may be correlated with both health outcomes and restaurants' location decision. Results reveal that the fast-food and weight gain relationship is robust to the inclusion of these controls but these controls greatly mitigate the fast food-infant health relationship. Greater access to fast-food restaurants is positively related to mothers' probability of excessive weight gain but it does not share a statistically significant relationship with birthweight. These relationships hold in all the socioeconomic and demographic subgroups studied. 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Adolescent cigarette smoking and health risk behavior.

PubMed

Busen, N H; Modeland, V; Kouzekanani, K

2001-06-01

During the past 30 years, tobacco use among adolescents has substantially increased, resulting in major health problems associated with tobacco consumption. The purpose of this study was to identify adolescent smoking behaviors and to determine the relationship among smoking, specific demographic variables, and health risk behaviors. The sample consisted of 93 self-selecting adolescents. An ex post facto design was used for this study and data were analyzed by using nonparametric statistics. Findings included a statistically significant relationship between lifetime cigarette use and ethnicity. Statistically significant relationships were also found among current cigarette use and ethnicity, alcohol use, marijuana use, suicidal thoughts, and age at first sexual intercourse. Nurses and other providers must recognize that cigarette smoking may indicate other risk behaviors common among adolescents. Copyright 2001 by W.B. Saunders Company

APOE Modulates the Correlation Between Triglycerides, Cholesterol, and CHD Through Pleiotropy, and Gene-by-Gene Interactions

PubMed Central

Maxwell, Taylor J.; Ballantyne, Christie M.; Cheverud, James M.; Guild, Cameron S.; Ndumele, Chiadi E.; Boerwinkle, Eric

2013-01-01

Relationship loci (rQTL) exist when the correlation between multiple traits varies by genotype. rQTL often occur due to gene-by-gene (G × G) or gene-by-environmental interactions, making them a powerful tool for detecting G × G. Here we present an empirical analysis of apolipoprotein E (APOE) with respect to lipid traits and incident CHD leading to the discovery of loci that interact with APOE to affect these traits. We found that the relationship between total cholesterol (TC) and triglycerides (ln TG) varies by APOE isoform genotype in African-American (AA) and European-American (EA) populations. The e2 allele is associated with strong correlation between ln TG and TC while the e4 allele leads to little or no correlation. This led to a priori hypotheses that APOE genotypes affect the relationship of TC and/or ln TG with incident CHD. We found that APOE*TC was significant (P = 0.016) for AA but not EA while APOE*ln TG was significant for EA (P = 0.027) but not AA. In both cases, e2e2 and e2e3 had strong relationships between TC and ln TG with CHD while e2e4 and e4e4 results in little or no relationship between TC and ln TG with CHD. Using ARIC GWAS data, scans for loci that significantly interact with APOE produced four loci for African Americans (one CHD, one TC, and two HDL). These interactions contribute to the rQTL pattern. rQTL are a powerful tool to identify loci that modify the relationship between risk factors and disease and substantially increase statistical power for detecting G × G. PMID:24097412

Assessing Relationship and Sexual Satisfaction in Adolescent Relationships Formed Online and Offline.

PubMed

Blunt-Vinti, Heather D; Wheldon, Christopher; McFarlane, Mary; Brogan, Natalie; Walsh-Buhi, Eric R

2016-01-01

Using the Internet to meet new people is becoming more common; however, such behavior is often considered risky, particularly for adolescents. Nevertheless, adolescents are meeting people through online venues and some are forming romantic/sexual relationships. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship and sexual satisfaction reported by teens in online- and offline-initiated relationships. Data were collected from 273 13-19 year olds visiting a publicly funded clinic through 2010 and 2011. Questions included where respondents met the partner (online vs. offline), time between meeting and first sex, how well they knew the partner, and relationship and sexual (R&S) satisfaction. Analyses consisted of descriptive statistics, t tests, and path analysis, exploring R&S satisfaction in online- and offline-initiated relationships. R&S satisfaction scores were moderate for adolescents who reported meeting partners online and in person but were statistically higher in offline-initiated relationships. There was an inverse relationship between having an online partner and both relationship and sexual satisfaction. Additionally, knowing partners for a longer period of time and feeling more knowledgeable about partners before having sex were statistically significantly related to higher R&S satisfaction. Teens in this study reported more satisfying relationships with partners met offline compared with online. Results suggest that encouraging teens to wait longer and to get to know their partner(s) better before engaging in sex may improve satisfaction with, and quality of, those relationships. These findings provide an important contribution to sexual health promotion among young people, with whom technology use is ubiquitous. Copyright © 2016 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. All rights reserved.

41 CFR 105-50.202-1 - Copies of statistical or other studies.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 41 Public Contracts and Property Management 3 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Copies of statistical or... Services Administration § 105-50.202-1 Copies of statistical or other studies. This material includes a copy of any existing statistical or other studies and compilations, results of technical tests and...

41 CFR 105-50.202-1 - Copies of statistical or other studies.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... 41 Public Contracts and Property Management 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Copies of statistical or... Services Administration § 105-50.202-1 Copies of statistical or other studies. This material includes a copy of any existing statistical or other studies and compilations, results of technical tests and...

Statistical Models of At-Grade Intersection Accidents. Addendum.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2000-03-01

This report is an addendum to the work published in FHWA-RD-96-125 titled Statistical Models of At-Grade Intersection Accidents. The objective of both research studies was to develop statistical models of the relationship between traffic accide...

A unified statistical approach to non-negative matrix factorization and probabilistic latent semantic indexing

PubMed Central

Wang, Guoli; Ebrahimi, Nader

2014-01-01

Non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) is a powerful machine learning method for decomposing a high-dimensional nonnegative matrix V into the product of two nonnegative matrices, W and H, such that V ∼ W H. It has been shown to have a parts-based, sparse representation of the data. NMF has been successfully applied in a variety of areas such as natural language processing, neuroscience, information retrieval, image processing, speech recognition and computational biology for the analysis and interpretation of large-scale data. There has also been simultaneous development of a related statistical latent class modeling approach, namely, probabilistic latent semantic indexing (PLSI), for analyzing and interpreting co-occurrence count data arising in natural language processing. In this paper, we present a generalized statistical approach to NMF and PLSI based on Renyi's divergence between two non-negative matrices, stemming from the Poisson likelihood. Our approach unifies various competing models and provides a unique theoretical framework for these methods. We propose a unified algorithm for NMF and provide a rigorous proof of monotonicity of multiplicative updates for W and H. In addition, we generalize the relationship between NMF and PLSI within this framework. We demonstrate the applicability and utility of our approach as well as its superior performance relative to existing methods using real-life and simulated document clustering data. PMID:25821345

A unified statistical approach to non-negative matrix factorization and probabilistic latent semantic indexing.

PubMed

Devarajan, Karthik; Wang, Guoli; Ebrahimi, Nader

2015-04-01

Non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) is a powerful machine learning method for decomposing a high-dimensional nonnegative matrix V into the product of two nonnegative matrices, W and H , such that V ∼ W H . It has been shown to have a parts-based, sparse representation of the data. NMF has been successfully applied in a variety of areas such as natural language processing, neuroscience, information retrieval, image processing, speech recognition and computational biology for the analysis and interpretation of large-scale data. There has also been simultaneous development of a related statistical latent class modeling approach, namely, probabilistic latent semantic indexing (PLSI), for analyzing and interpreting co-occurrence count data arising in natural language processing. In this paper, we present a generalized statistical approach to NMF and PLSI based on Renyi's divergence between two non-negative matrices, stemming from the Poisson likelihood. Our approach unifies various competing models and provides a unique theoretical framework for these methods. We propose a unified algorithm for NMF and provide a rigorous proof of monotonicity of multiplicative updates for W and H . In addition, we generalize the relationship between NMF and PLSI within this framework. We demonstrate the applicability and utility of our approach as well as its superior performance relative to existing methods using real-life and simulated document clustering data.

MR imaging of knees having isolated and combined ligament injuries.

PubMed

Rubin, D A; Kettering, J M; Towers, J D; Britton, C A

1998-05-01

Although clinical evaluation and MR imaging both accurately reveal injuries in knees with isolated ligament tears, physical examination becomes progressively less reliable when multiple lesions exist. We investigated the accuracy of MR imaging of knees having varying degrees and numbers of ligament injuries. We prospectively interpreted the MR images of 340 consecutive injured knees and compared these interpretations with the results of subsequent arthroscopy or open surgery, which served as the gold standard. Our interpretations of MR images focused on five soft-tissue supporting structures (the two cruciate ligaments, the two collateral ligaments, and the patellar tendon) and the two menisci. Patients were divided into three groups: no ligament injuries, single ligament injuries, and multiple ligament injuries. Using MR imaging, we found overall sensitivity and specificity for diagnosing ligament tears to be 94% and 99%, respectively, when no or one ligament was torn and 88% and 84%, respectively, when two or more supporting structures were torn. The difference in specificity was statistically significant (p < .0001). Sensitivity for diagnosing meniscal tears decreased as the number of injured structures increased, but the relationship achieved statistical significance (p = .001) only for the medial meniscus. For all categories of injury, MR imaging was more accurate than clinical evaluation, statistics for which were taken from the orthopedic literature. In knees with multiple ligament injuries, the diagnostic specificity of MR imaging for ligament tears decreases, as does the sensitivity for medial meniscal tears.

Relationships between brightness of nighttime lights and population density

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Naizhuo, Z.

2012-12-01

Brightness of nighttime lights has been proven to be a good proxy for socioeconomic and demographic statistics. Moreover, the satellite nighttime lights data have been used to spatially disaggregate amounts of gross domestic product (GDP), fossil fuel carbon dioxide emission, and electric power consumption (Ghosh et al., 2010; Oda and Maksyutov, 2011; Zhao et al., 2012). Spatial disaggregations were performed in these previous studies based on assumed linear relationships between digital number (DN) value of pixels in the nighttime light images and socioeconomic data. However, reliability of the linear relationships was never tested due to lack of relative high-spatial-resolution (equal to or finer than 1 km × 1 km) statistical data. With the similar assumption that brightness linearly correlates to population, Bharti et al. (2011) used nighttime light data as a proxy for population density and then developed a model about seasonal fluctuations of measles in West Africa. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory used sub-national census population data and high spatial resolution remotely-sensed-images to produce LandScan population raster datasets. The LandScan population datasets have 1 km × 1 km spatial resolution which is consistent with the spatial resolution of the nighttime light images. Therefore, in this study I selected 2008 LandScan population data as baseline reference data and the contiguous United State as study area. Relationships between DN value of pixels in the 2008 Defense Meteorological Satellite Program's Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS) stable light image and population density were established. Results showed that an exponential function can more accurately reflect the relationship between luminosity and population density than a linear function. Additionally, a certain number of saturated pixels with DN value of 63 exist in urban core areas. If directly using the exponential function to estimate the population density for the whole brightly lit area, relatively large under-estimations would emerge in the urban core regions. Previous studies have shown that GDP, carbon dioxide emission, and electric power consumption strongly correlate to urban population (Ghosh et al., 2010; Sutton et al., 2007; Zhao et al., 2012). Thus, although this study only examined the relationships between brightness of nighttime lights and population density, the results can provide insight for the spatial disaggregations of socioeconomic data (e.g. GDP, carbon dioxide emission, and electric power consumption) using the satellite nighttime light image data. Simply distributing the socioeconomic data to each pixel in proportion to the DN value of the nighttime light images may generate relatively large errors. References Bharit N, Tatem AJ, Ferrari MJ, Grais RF, Djibo A, Grenfell BT, 2011. Science, 334:1424-1427. Ghosh T, Elvidge CD, Sutton PC, Baugh KE, Ziskin D, Tuttle BT, 2010. Energies, 3:1895-1913. Oda T, Maksyutov S, 2011. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 11:543-556. Sutton PC, Elvidge CD, Ghosh T, 2007. International Journal of Ecological Economics and Statistics, 8:5-21. Zhao N, Ghosh T, Samson EL, 2012. International Journal of Remote sensing, 33:6304-6320.

Rapid radiation events in the family Ursidae indicated by likelihood phylogenetic estimation from multiple fragments of mtDNA.

PubMed

Waits, L P; Sullivan, J; O'Brien, S J; Ward, R H

1999-10-01

The bear family (Ursidae) presents a number of phylogenetic ambiguities as the evolutionary relationships of the six youngest members (ursine bears) are largely unresolved. Recent mitochondrial DNA analyses have produced conflicting results with respect to the phylogeny of ursine bears. In an attempt to resolve these issues, we obtained 1916 nucleotides of mitochondrial DNA sequence data from six gene segments for all eight bear species and conducted maximum likelihood and maximum parsimony analyses on all fragments separately and combined. All six single-region gene trees gave different phylogenetic estimates; however, only for control region data was this significantly incongruent with the results from the combined data. The optimal phylogeny for the combined data set suggests that the giant panda is most basal followed by the spectacled bear. The sloth bear is the basal ursine bear, and there is weak support for a sister taxon relationship of the American and Asiatic black bears. The sun bear is sister taxon to the youngest clade containing brown bears and polar bears. Statistical analyses of alternate hypotheses revealed a lack of strong support for many of the relationships. We suggest that the difficulties surrounding the resolution of the evolutionary relationships of the Ursidae are linked to the existence of sequential rapid radiation events in bear evolution. Thus, unresolved branching orders during these time periods may represent an accurate representation of the evolutionary history of bear species. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.

Perception of Symmetry in Aesthetic Rhinoplasty Patients: Anthropometric, Demographic, and Psychological Analysis.

PubMed

Abbas, Ozan Luay; Kurkcuoglu, Ayla; Aytop, Cigdem Derya; Uysal, Cengiz; Pelin, Can

2017-10-01

Visual perception of symmetry is a major determinant of satisfaction after aesthetic rhinoplasty. In this study, we sought to investigate the existence of any relationship between anthropometric characteristics of the face and visual perceptions of asymmetry among rhinoplasty patients and to evaluate tools that can shed light on patients who appear at high risk for exaggerating potential asymmetries. In the first part, 168 rhinoplasty patients were asked to fill out the demographic questionnaire, nasal shape evaluation scale, and the somatosensory amplification scale. In the second part, we examined the relationship between anthropometric characteristics of the face and visual perceptions of asymmetry using standardized photographs of 100 medical students. In the third part, patients answered the rhinoplasty outcome evaluation questionnaire 6 months after the surgery. Objectively, no symmetrical face was observed in the anthropometric evaluation. Subjectively, only 73% and 54% of the faces were considered asymmetrical by the rhinoplasty and the control groups, respectively. The rate of asymmetry perception was significantly greater in revision patients when compared with primary rhinoplasty patients. The relationship between the rate of subjective perception of asymmetry and the somatosensory amplification scale scores was statistically significant. We found a significant inverse relationship between the rate of asymmetry perception and the rhinoplasty outcome evaluation scores. Plastic surgeons should be aware of this high selectivity in asymmetry perception, which is associated with poor postoperative satisfaction. Somatosensory amplification scale may help identify rhinoplasty patients at a high risk for exaggerating potential asymmetries. III.

Comment on and reinterpretation of Gabriel et Al. (2014) 'fish mercury and surface water sulfate relationships in the everglades protection area'.

PubMed

Julian, Paul; Gu, Binhe; Redfield, Garth

2015-01-01

Mercury (Hg) methylation and bioaccumulation is a major environmental issue in the Everglades Protection Area (EvPA). Therefore, it is critical to improve our predictive understanding of Hg dynamics. This commentary critically reviews a recently published manuscript concerning the possible relationship between Hg in fish tissue and surface water sulfate within EvPA marshes. The commentary addresses fundamental issues with the authors' data analysis, results and interpretation as well as highlights inconsistencies with published literature and the lack of support for their suggested ecosystem management actions. A number of chemical, biological, and physical factors influence Hg methylation and bioaccumulation, and water sulfate is sometimes viewed as a keystone factor, Gabriel et al. (2014) conclude that Hg bioaccumulation is favored at elevated sulfate concentrations, and suggest mitigation strategies to reduce sulfate inputs to the EvPA. A careful review of their data and conclusions reveals major flaws and in fact, a more straightforward and defensible interpretation of their data would be that no predictable relationship exists between fish tissue Hg and surface water sulfate concentrations in south Florida. Given the complexity of Hg cycling and the influence of trophic and habitat characteristics on aquatic consumer Hg accumulation, expecting one parameter to predict Hg accumulation dynamics within fish species within a dynamic marsh environment is unrealistic. Furthermore, proposing any management guidance from this relationship with little to no quantitative statistical analysis is inappropriate and misleading.

Civil Registration and Vital Statistics, Emergencies, and International Law: Understanding the Intersection.

PubMed

Brolan, Claire E; Gouda, Hebe

2017-05-01

Civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems are typically run by governments to record every birth, adoption, death, marriage, and divorce that occurs among a country's population. Registration of vital events provides individuals with a formal relationship with the State and each other, and is the foundation of a person's identity, nationality, and legal status. At a population level, vital statistics are essential for effective planning and implementation of policies and services. Globally, strong CRVS systems are increasingly recognised as a crucial backbone for redressing health inequities and as a priority in strengthening global health and development efforts. Many countries, however, currently lack adequate and reliable CRVS systems, leaving many people vulnerable to statelessness, limited access to important government services (such as education and health services), and effective legal protection. Public health and humanitarian emergencies in such contexts can expose those already disadvantaged and marginalised to heightened risk. CRVS systems weakened by crises make registration difficult or impossible and unregistered people may be displaced or separated from their families, exacerbating their susceptibility. The presence of a strong CRVS system, therefore, can facilitate effective and cost-effective emergency responses, help prevent exploitation of individuals (particularly women and children), and help to rebuild communities post-crisis. This article will consequently review the international legal mandates that exist to strengthen CRVS systems globally, with particular view to public health and humanitarian emergencies. Identity and citizenship, and the socio-political contexts in which these concepts co-exist, are inevitably interconnected with CRVS. This can create potential for CRVS systems and data to be exploited as a political instrument. Grounding CRVS strengthening in a single binding, human rights law instrument is a potential way forward. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Developing statistical wildlife habitat relationships for assessing cumulative effects of fuels treatments: Final Report for Joint Fire Science Program Project

Treesearch

Samuel A. Cushman; Kevin S. McKelvey

2006-01-01

The primary weakness in our current ability to evaluate future landscapes in terms of wildlife lies in the lack of quantitative models linking wildlife to forest stand conditions, including fuels treatments. This project focuses on 1) developing statistical wildlife habitat relationships models (WHR) utilizing Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) and National Vegetation...

Relationship between academic motivation and mathematics achievement among Indian adolescents in Canada and India.

PubMed

Areepattamannil, Shaljan

2014-01-01

This study examined the relationships between academic motivation-intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, amotivation-and mathematics achievement among 363 Indian adolescents in India and 355 Indian immigrant adolescents in Canada. Results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation were not statistically significantly related to mathematics achievement among Indian adolescents in India. In contrast, both intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation were statistically significantly related to mathematics achievement among Indian immigrant adolescents in Canada. While intrinsic motivation was a statistically significant positive predictor of mathematics achievement among Indian immigrant adolescents in Canada, extrinsic motivation was a statistically significant negative predictor of mathematics achievement among Indian immigrant adolescents in Canada. Amotivation was not statistically significantly related to mathematics achievement among Indian immigrant adolescents in Canada. Implications of the findings for pedagogy and practice are discussed.

I Cannot Read My Statistics Textbook: The Relationship between Reading Ability and Statistics Anxiety

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Collins, Kathleen M. T.; Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J.

2007-01-01

Although several antecedents of statistics anxiety have been identified, many of these factors are relatively immutable (e.g., gender) and, at best, identify students who are at risk for debilitative levels of statistics anxiety, thereby having only minimal implications for intervention. Furthermore, the few interventions that have been designed…

Facilitating Student Experimentation with Statistical Concepts.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smith, Patricia K.

2002-01-01

Offers a Web page with seven Java applets allowing students to experiment with key concepts in an introductory statistics course. Indicates the applets can be used in three ways: to place links to the applets, to create in-class demonstrations of statistical concepts, and to lead students through experiments and discover statistical relationships.…

Fostering Change in College Students' Statistical Reasoning and Motivation through Statistical Investigation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ramirez-Faghih, Caroline Ann

2012-01-01

The goal of this study was to examine the reciprocal relationship between statistical investigation and motivation of college students in a Mathematical Reasoning course (Math 1). Unlike previous studies in which students' projects or statistical investigations have been examined as the final product that shows evidence of statistical…

An Endangered Relationship

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Trousdale, Ann M.

2008-01-01

There exist three essential relationships in the human experience: relationship with oneself, relationship with others, and relationship with the natural world. This article focuses on one of these relationships and how children's literature may be used to support and enhance it: relationship with the natural world. The author chose this…

Royalty, Racing, and Rolling Pigs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Groth, Randall E.

2015-01-01

Some statisticians have pointed out that the field of statistics essentially exists to study the variability seen in everyday life. Because variability is so foundational, the "Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education" (GAISE 2007), published by the American Statistical Association (ASA), recommend that teachers…

Applied immuno-epidemiological research: an approach for integrating existing knowledge into the statistical analysis of multiple immune markers.

PubMed

Genser, Bernd; Fischer, Joachim E; Figueiredo, Camila A; Alcântara-Neves, Neuza; Barreto, Mauricio L; Cooper, Philip J; Amorim, Leila D; Saemann, Marcus D; Weichhart, Thomas; Rodrigues, Laura C

2016-05-20

Immunologists often measure several correlated immunological markers, such as concentrations of different cytokines produced by different immune cells and/or measured under different conditions, to draw insights from complex immunological mechanisms. Although there have been recent methodological efforts to improve the statistical analysis of immunological data, a framework is still needed for the simultaneous analysis of multiple, often correlated, immune markers. This framework would allow the immunologists' hypotheses about the underlying biological mechanisms to be integrated. We present an analytical approach for statistical analysis of correlated immune markers, such as those commonly collected in modern immuno-epidemiological studies. We demonstrate i) how to deal with interdependencies among multiple measurements of the same immune marker, ii) how to analyse association patterns among different markers, iii) how to aggregate different measures and/or markers to immunological summary scores, iv) how to model the inter-relationships among these scores, and v) how to use these scores in epidemiological association analyses. We illustrate the application of our approach to multiple cytokine measurements from 818 children enrolled in a large immuno-epidemiological study (SCAALA Salvador), which aimed to quantify the major immunological mechanisms underlying atopic diseases or asthma. We demonstrate how to aggregate systematically the information captured in multiple cytokine measurements to immunological summary scores aimed at reflecting the presumed underlying immunological mechanisms (Th1/Th2 balance and immune regulatory network). We show how these aggregated immune scores can be used as predictors in regression models with outcomes of immunological studies (e.g. specific IgE) and compare the results to those obtained by a traditional multivariate regression approach. The proposed analytical approach may be especially useful to quantify complex immune responses in immuno-epidemiological studies, where investigators examine the relationship among epidemiological patterns, immune response, and disease outcomes.

A Theory of Density Layering in Stratified Turbulence using Statistical State Dynamics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fitzgerald, J.; Farrell, B.

2016-12-01

Stably stratified turbulent fluids commonly develop density structures that are layered in the vertical direction (e.g., Manucharyan et al., 2015). Within layers, density is approximately constant and stratification is weak. Between layers, density varies rapidly and stratification is strong. A common explanation for the existence of layers invokes the negative diffusion mechanism of Phillips (1972) & Posmentier (1977). The physical principle underlying this mechanism is that the flux-gradient relationship connecting the turbulent fluxes of buoyancy to the background stratification must have the special property of weakening fluxes with strengthening gradient. Under these conditions, the evolution of the stratification is governed by a negative diffusion problem which gives rise to spontaneous layer formation. In previous work on stratified layering, this flux-gradient property is often assumed (e.g, Posmentier, 1977) or drawn from phenomenological models of turbulence (e.g., Balmforth et al., 1998).In this work we develop the theoretical underpinnings of layer formation by applying stochastic turbulence modeling and statistical state dynamics (SSD) to predict the flux-gradient relation and analyze layer formation directly from the equations of motion. We show that for stochastically-forced homogeneous 2D Boussinesq turbulence, the flux-gradient relation can be obtained analytically and indicates that the fluxes always strengthen with stratification. The Phillips mechanism thus does not operate in this maximally simplified scenario. However, when the problem is augmented to include a large scale background shear, we show that the flux-gradient relationship is modified so that the fluxes weaken with stratification. Sheared and stratified 2D Boussinesq turbulence thus spontaneously forms density layers through the Phillips mechanism. Using SSD (Farrell & Ioannou 2003), we obtain a closed, deterministic dynamics for the stratification and the statistical turbulent state. We show that density layers form as a linear instability of the sheared turbulence, associated with a supercritical bifurcation. We further show that SSD predicts the nonlinear equilibration and maintenance of the layers, and captures the phenomena of layer growth and mergers (Radko, 2007).

MAFsnp: A Multi-Sample Accurate and Flexible SNP Caller Using Next-Generation Sequencing Data

PubMed Central

Hu, Jiyuan; Li, Tengfei; Xiu, Zidi; Zhang, Hong

2015-01-01

Most existing statistical methods developed for calling single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) using next-generation sequencing (NGS) data are based on Bayesian frameworks, and there does not exist any SNP caller that produces p-values for calling SNPs in a frequentist framework. To fill in this gap, we develop a new method MAFsnp, a Multiple-sample based Accurate and Flexible algorithm for calling SNPs with NGS data. MAFsnp is based on an estimated likelihood ratio test (eLRT) statistic. In practical situation, the involved parameter is very close to the boundary of the parametric space, so the standard large sample property is not suitable to evaluate the finite-sample distribution of the eLRT statistic. Observing that the distribution of the test statistic is a mixture of zero and a continuous part, we propose to model the test statistic with a novel two-parameter mixture distribution. Once the parameters in the mixture distribution are estimated, p-values can be easily calculated for detecting SNPs, and the multiple-testing corrected p-values can be used to control false discovery rate (FDR) at any pre-specified level. With simulated data, MAFsnp is shown to have much better control of FDR than the existing SNP callers. Through the application to two real datasets, MAFsnp is also shown to outperform the existing SNP callers in terms of calling accuracy. An R package “MAFsnp” implementing the new SNP caller is freely available at http://homepage.fudan.edu.cn/zhangh/softwares/. PMID:26309201

Euler equation existence, non-uniqueness and mesh converged statistics

PubMed Central

Glimm, James; Sharp, David H.; Lim, Hyunkyung; Kaufman, Ryan; Hu, Wenlin

2015-01-01

We review existence and non-uniqueness results for the Euler equation of fluid flow. These results are placed in the context of physical models and their solutions. Non-uniqueness is in direct conflict with the purpose of practical simulations, so that a mitigating strategy, outlined here, is important. We illustrate these issues in an examination of mesh converged turbulent statistics, with comparison to laboratory experiments. PMID:26261361

Modelling the participation decision and duration of sporting activity in Scotland

PubMed Central

Eberth, Barbara; Smith, Murray D.

2010-01-01

Motivating individuals to actively engage in physical activity due to its beneficial health effects has been an integral part of Scotland's health policy agenda. The current Scottish guidelines recommend individuals participate in physical activity of moderate vigour for 30 min at least five times per week. For an individual contemplating the recommendation, decisions have to be made in regard of participation, intensity, duration and multiplicity. For the policy maker, understanding the determinants of each decision will assist in designing an intervention to effect the recommended policy. With secondary data sourced from the 2003 Scottish Health Survey (SHeS) we statistically model the combined decisions process, employing a copula approach to model specification. In taking this approach the model flexibly accounts for any statistical associations that may exist between the component decisions. Thus, we model the endogenous relationship between the decision of individuals to participate in sporting activities and, amongst those who participate, the duration of time spent undertaking their chosen activities. The main focus is to establish whether dependence exists between the two random variables assuming the vigour with which sporting activity is performed to be independent of the participation and duration decision. We allow for a variety of controls including demographic factors such as age and gender, economic factors such as income and educational attainment, lifestyle factors such as smoking, alcohol consumption, healthy eating and medical history. We use the model to compare the effect of interventions designed to increase the vigour with which individuals undertake their sport, relating it to obesity as a health outcome. PMID:20640033

Occurrence of pharmaceutically active compounds during 1-year period in wastewaters from four wastewater treatment plants in Seville (Spain).

PubMed

Santos, J L; Aparicio, I; Callejón, M; Alonso, E

2009-05-30

Several pharmaceutically active compounds have been monitored during 1-year period in influent and effluent wastewater from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) to evaluate their temporal evolution and removal from wastewater and to know which variables have influence in their removal rates. Pharmaceutical compounds monitored were four antiinflammatory drugs (diclofenac, ibuprofen, ketoprofen and naproxen), an antiepileptic drug (carbamazepine) and a nervous stimulant (caffeine). All of the pharmaceutically active compounds monitored, except diclofenac, were detected in influent and effluent wastewater. Mean concentrations measured in influent wastewater were 6.17, 0.48, 93.6, 1.83 and 5.41 microg/L for caffeine, carbamazepine, ibuprofen, ketoprofen and naproxen, respectively. Mean concentrations measured in effluent wastewater were 2.02, 0.56, 8.20, 0.84 and 2.10 microg/L for caffeine, carbamazepine, ibuprofen, ketoprofen and naproxen, respectively. Mean removal rates of the pharmaceuticals varied from 8.1% (carbamazepine) to 87.5% (ibuprofen). The existence of relationships between the concentrations of the pharmaceutical compounds, their removal rates, the characterization parameters of influent wastewaters and the WWTP control design parameters has been studied by means of statistical analysis (correlation and principal component analysis). With both statistical analyses, high correlations were obtained between the concentration of the pharmaceutical compounds and the characterization parameters of influent wastewaters; and between the removal rates of the pharmaceutical compounds, the removal rates of the characterization parameters of influent wastewaters and the WWTP hydraulic retention times. Principal component analysis showed the existence of two main components accounting for 76% of the total variability.

Evaluation of maxillary anterior teeth and their relation to the golden proportion in Malaysian population.

PubMed

Al-Marzok, Maan Ibrahim; Majeed, Kais Raad Abdul; Ibrahim, Ibrahim Khalil

2013-01-24

The maxillary anterior teeth are important in achieving pleasing dental aesthetics. Various methods are used to measure the size and form of them, including the golden proportion between their perceived widths, and the width-to-height ratio, referred to as the golden standard. The purpose of this study was conducted to evaluate whether consistent relationships exist between tooth width and height of the clinical crown dimensions; and to investigate the occurrence of the golden proportion of the maxillary anterior teeth. Dental casts of the maxillary arches were made in this cross-sectional study from MAHSA University College students who met the inclusion criteria. The 49 participants represented the Malaysian population main ethnics. The dimensions of the anterior teeth and the perceived width of anterior teeth viewed from front were measured using a digital caliper. Comparison of the perceived width ratio of lateral to central incisor and canine to lateral incisor with the golden proportion of 0.618 revealed there were a significant statistical difference (p < 0.05). The statistical difference was significant for the width-to-height ratio of central incisors to the golden standard of 80%. There was no significant difference in the comparison among ethnic groups for the golden proportion and the golden standard. The golden proportion was not found to exist between the perceived widths of maxillary anterior teeth. No golden standard were detected for the width-to-height proportions of maxillary incisors. Specific population characteristics and perception of beauty must be considered. However, ethnicity has no association with the proportions of maxillary anterior teeth.

Population models for passerine birds: structure, parameterization, and analysis

USGS Publications Warehouse

Noon, B.R.; Sauer, J.R.; McCullough, D.R.; Barrett, R.H.

1992-01-01

Population models have great potential as management tools, as they use infonnation about the life history of a species to summarize estimates of fecundity and survival into a description of population change. Models provide a framework for projecting future populations, determining the effects of management decisions on future population dynamics, evaluating extinction probabilities, and addressing a variety of questions of ecological and evolutionary interest. Even when insufficient information exists to allow complete identification of the model, the modelling procedure is useful because it forces the investigator to consider the life history of the species when determining what parameters should be estimated from field studies and provides a context for evaluating the relative importance of demographic parameters. Models have been little used in the study of the population dynamics of passerine birds because of: (1) widespread misunderstandings of the model structures and parameterizations, (2) a lack of knowledge of life histories of many species, (3) difficulties in obtaining statistically reliable estimates of demographic parameters for most passerine species, and (4) confusion about functional relationships among demographic parameters. As a result, studies of passerine demography are often designed inappropriately and fail to provide essential data. We review appropriate models for passerine bird populations and illustrate their possible uses in evaluating the effects of management or other environmental influences on population dynamics. We identify environmental influences on population dynamics. We identify parameters that must be estimated from field data, briefly review existing statistical methods for obtaining valid estimates, and evaluate the present status of knowledge of these parameters.

Rigorous Statistical Bounds in Uncertainty Quantification for One-Layer Turbulent Geophysical Flows

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Qi, Di; Majda, Andrew J.

2018-04-01

Statistical bounds controlling the total fluctuations in mean and variance about a basic steady-state solution are developed for the truncated barotropic flow over topography. Statistical ensemble prediction is an important topic in weather and climate research. Here, the evolution of an ensemble of trajectories is considered using statistical instability analysis and is compared and contrasted with the classical deterministic instability for the growth of perturbations in one pointwise trajectory. The maximum growth of the total statistics in fluctuations is derived relying on the statistical conservation principle of the pseudo-energy. The saturation bound of the statistical mean fluctuation and variance in the unstable regimes with non-positive-definite pseudo-energy is achieved by linking with a class of stable reference states and minimizing the stable statistical energy. Two cases with dependence on initial statistical uncertainty and on external forcing and dissipation are compared and unified under a consistent statistical stability framework. The flow structures and statistical stability bounds are illustrated and verified by numerical simulations among a wide range of dynamical regimes, where subtle transient statistical instability exists in general with positive short-time exponential growth in the covariance even when the pseudo-energy is positive-definite. Among the various scenarios in this paper, there exist strong forward and backward energy exchanges between different scales which are estimated by the rigorous statistical bounds.

The relationship between individualized care and the practice environment: an international study.

PubMed

Papastavrou, Evridiki; Acaroglu, Rengin; Sendir, Merdiye; Berg, Agneta; Efstathiou, Georgios; Idvall, Ewa; Kalafati, Maria; Katajisto, Jouko; Leino-Kilpi, Helena; Lemonidou, Chryssoula; da Luz, Maria Deolinda Antunes; Suhonen, Riitta

2015-01-01

Previous research studies have found that the better the quality of practice environments in hospitals, the better the outcomes for nurses and patients. Practice environment may influence nurses' ability to individualize care but the detailed relationship between individualized care and the professional practice environment has not been investigated widely. Some evidence exists about the association of practice environments with the level of individualization of nursing care, but this evidence is based on single national studies. The aim of this study was to determine whether nurses' views of their professional practice environment associate with their views of the level of care individualization in seven countries. This study had an international, multisite, prospective, cross-sectional, exploratory survey design. The study involved acute orthopedic and trauma surgical inpatient wards (n=91) in acute care hospitals (n=34) in seven countries, Cyprus, Finland, Greece, the State of Kansas, USA, Portugal, Sweden, and Turkey. Nurses (n=1163), registered or licensed practical, working in direct patient care, in orthopedic and trauma inpatient units in acute care hospitals in seven countries participated in the study. Self-administered questionnaires, including two instruments, the Revised Professional Practice Environment and the Individualized Care Scale-Nurse (Individualized Care Scale-Nurse A and B) were used for data collection. Data were analyzed statistically using descriptive statistics, simultaneous multiple regression analysis, and generalized linear model. Two regression models were applied to assess the predictive validity of the Revised Professional Practice Environment on the Individualized Care Scale-Nurse-A and B. The results showed that elements of the professional practice environment were associated with care individualization. Internal work motivation, cultural sensitivity, control over practice, teamwork, and staff relationship with physicians were predictors of support (Individualized Care Scale-A) for and the delivery (Individualized Care Scale-B) of individualized care. The results of this study provide evidence that environment aspect could explain variations in care individualization. These findings support the assertion that individualized care needs to be understood in a broader context than the immediate nurse-patient relationship and that careful development of the care environment may be an effective way to improve care quality and outcomes. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The effect of anatomic differences on the relationship between renal artery and diaphragmatic crus.

PubMed

Esen, K; Tok, S; Balci, Yuksel; Apaydin, F D; Kara, E; Uzmansel, D

2018-01-01

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of anatomic differences on the relationship between renal artery and diaphragmatic crus via the touch of two structures. The study included dynamic computed tomography (CT) scans of 308 patients performed mainly for characterisation of liver and renal masses. Anatomic differences including the thickness of the diaphragmatic crus, the localisation of renal artery ostium at the wall of aorta, the level of renal artery origin with respect to superior mesenteric artery were evaluated. Statistical relationships between renal artery-diaphragmatic crus contact and the anatomic differences were assessed. Thickness of the diaphragmatic crus at the level of renal artery origin exhibited a statistically significant relationship to renal artery-diaphragmatic crus contact at the left (p < 0.001) and right side (p < 0.001). There was a statistically significant relationship between high renal artery origin and renal artery- -diaphragmatic crus contact at the left (p < 0.001) and right side (p = 0.01). The localisation of renal artery ostium at the wall of aorta (right side, p = 0.436, left side, p = 0.681) did not demonstrate a relationship to renal artery-diaphragmatic crus contact. Thickness of the diaphragmatic crus and high renal artery origin with respect to superior mesenteric artery are crucial anatomic differences determining the relationship of renal artery and diaphragmatic crus. (Folia Morphol 2018; 77, 1: 22-28).

The relationship between organizational trust and nurse administrators’ productivity in hospitals

PubMed Central

Bahrami, Susan; Hasanpour, Marzieh; Rajaeepour, Saeed; Aghahosseni, Taghi; Hodhodineghad, Nilofar

2012-01-01

Context: Management of health care organizations based on employee’s mutual trust will increase the improvement in functions and tasks. Aims: The present study was performed to investigate the relationship between organizational trust and the nurse administrators’ productivity in educational health centers of in Health-Education Centers of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. Settings and Design: This research was a descriptive and correlational study. Materials and Methods: The population included all nurse administrators. In this research, 165 nurses were selected through random sampling method. Data collection instruments were organizational trust questionnaire based on Robbins’s model and productivity questionnaire based on Hersy and Blanchard’s model. Validity of these questionnaires was determined through content validity and their reliability was calculated through Cranach’s alpha. Statistical analysis was used: The data analysis was done using the SPSS (18) statistical software. Results: The indicators of organizational trust such as loyalty, competence, honesty, and stability were more than average level but explicitness indicator was at average level. The components of productivity such as ability, job knowledge, environmental compatibility, performance feedback, and validity were more than average level but motivation factor was at average level and organizational support was less than average level. There were a significant multiple correlations between organizational trust and productivity. Beta coefficients among organizational trust and productivity were significant and no autocorrelation existed and regression model was significant. Conclusions: Committed employees, timely performing the tasks and developing the sense of responsibility among employees can enhance production and productivity in the health care organizations. PMID:23922588

Anger in Adolescent Communities: How Angry Are They?

PubMed

Pullen, Lisa; Modrcin, Mary Anne; McGuire, Sandra L; Lane, Karen; Kearnely, Melissa; Engle, Sonya

2015-01-01

Anger is a common factor in two causes of death in adolescence: homicide and suicide. This study looked at the level of anger in non-clinical convenience sample of adolescents (N = 139) between the ages of 12 and 19 years (early: 12 to 14 years, mid: 15 to 16 years, late: 17 to 19 years) from a large Southeastern Baptist church. Participants completed the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory, Beck and Children's Depression Inventories, and Children of Alcoholics Screening Test (CAST). The level of self-reported anger was low. The difference in anger between the three age groups was not statistically significant. Differences in gender were generally not significant statistically. A strong correlation exists between stress and anger. A minor relationship between parental drinking behaviors, as measured by the CAST, and anger was found. A significant relationship between anger and depression, and frequency of participation in religious activity and decreased anger was established. By increasing the current knowledge of anger in adolescents, it may be possible to gain insight into risk factors or triggers that cause anger. Interventions must be implemented early to prevent juvenile detention and to help adolescents remain in the community. Public policies addressing anger in adolescents are essential. Health care providers must work together to identify adolescents with disorders or feelings of isolation or disconnect and provide treatment based in communities so adolescents can still function and not be isolated. It is relevant that a mentor or someone that can be trusted is provided to build a safe and secure environment. This greater knowledge may aid in assessment and treatment of adolescents with dysfunctional anger.

[The relationship between career decision-making self efficacy and anxiety].

PubMed

Yao, Chen; Cai, Yun; Liu, Jia; Shan, Dan; Zhou, Xia

2012-03-01

The purpose of the paper is to examine the relationship among Career Decision-Making Self Efficacy, existential anxiety and anxiety in the sample of college students during the professional choice. Data on The Revised Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy-Shot Form, Existential Anxiety Scale (EAS), SCL-90 and self-identity status were collected and analyzed on a sample of 500 college students. 201 rural students' career decision making self-efficacy scores were as follows: self-appraisal (12.58 ± 3.48), occupational information (12.07 ± 3.05), goal selection (12.48 ± 3.51), planning (12.17 ± 3.10), problem solving (9.75 ± 2.38), all scores were lower than urban students, the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.01). Rural Students' anxiety dimension score were as follows: death and the fate of anxiety (14.75 ± 2.56), the meaningless and empty anxiety (19.32 ± 2.88), condemnation and guilt anxiety (13.72 ± 2.38), alienation and loneliness anxiety (16.82 ± 2.51), all scores are higher than urban students, the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.01). There is negative correlation between Anxiety and career decision making self-efficacy. There is a significant positive correlation between anxiety and existential anxiety. There exists a significant negative correlation among factors of student and career decision making self-efficacy and anxiety. Meaningless and emptiness anxiety on career decision making self-efficacy are significant predictors. There is negative correlation among existential anxiety, occupational information and anxiety during the professional choice.

Investment, managerial capacity, and bias in public health preparedness.

PubMed

Langabeer, James R; DelliFraine, Jami L; Tyson, Sandra; Emert, Jamie M; Herbold, John

2009-01-01

Nearly $7 billion has been invested through national cooperative funding since 2002 to strengthen state and local response capacity. Yet, very little outcome evidence exists to analyze funding effectiveness. The objective of this research is to analyze the relationship between investment (funding) and capacity (readiness) for public health preparedness (PHP). The aim of the authors is to use a management framework to evaluate capacity, and to explore the "immediacy bias" impact on investment stability. This study employs a longitudinal study design, incorporating survey research of the entire population of 68 health departments in the state of Texas. The authors assessed the investment-capacity relationship through several statistical methods. The authors created a structural measure of managerial capacity through principal components analysis, factorizing 10 independent variables and augment this with a perceived readiness level reported from PHP managers. The authors then employ analysis of variance, correlation analyses, and other descriptive statistics. There has been a 539 percent coefficient of variation in funding at the local level between the years 2004 and 2008, and a 63 percent reduction in total resources since the peak of funding, using paired sample data. Results suggest that investment is positively associated with readiness and managerial capacity in local health departments. The authors also find that investment was related to greater community collaboration, higher adoption of Incident Command System (ICS) structure, and more frequent operational drills and exercises. Greater investment is associated with higher levels of capacity and readiness. The authors conclude from this that investment should be stabilized and continued, and not be influenced by historical cognitive biases.

The relationship between promoter methylation of p16 gene and bladder cancer risk: a meta-analysis

PubMed Central

Qi, Defeng; Li, Jinhui; Jiang, Mei; Liu, Chenli; Hu, Yuan; Li, Mengxi; Su, Jialin; Que, Biao; Ji, Weidong

2015-01-01

Purpose: Many scientific evidences suggested that the methylation of p16INK4a (p16) was associated with bladder cancer, but some existing studies have yielded inconclusive results about the relationship between p16 promoter methylation and pathological features or the tumor grade of bladder cancer. This meta-analysis of studies aims to evaluate the clinical and prognostic significance of p16 methylation in bladder carcinogenesis. Methods: Studies were systemically searched via PubMed and Google Scholar in English up to Sept 2015 and a total of ten appropriate studies (693 cases and 290 controls) with an average NOS score of 6.8 were included. The quality of the appropriate studies was measured by the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) assessment. Results: The meta-analysis results revealed that the methylation state of p16 was statistically significantly associated with an increased risk of bladder cancer (OR=6.71, 95% CI=3.79-11.87) compared to control, and there is no statistically significantly association between the p16 methylation and the tumor pTNM staging (OR=0.59, 95% CI=0.22-1.60) or the tumor grade (OR=1.01, 95% CI=0.52-1.94) in p16 methylated patients compared to unmethylated patients. Conclusions: our meta-analysis indicates that p16 promoter methylation may be a promising biomarker for the diagnosis of bladder cancer and the inactivation of p16 may be an early event in bladder carcinogenesis. More studies with larger numbers of participants worldwide are needed to further identify the obvious association above. PMID:26884993

Gender Differences in Physicians' Financial Ties to Industry: A Study of National Disclosure Data.

PubMed

Rose, Susannah L; Sanghani, Ruchi M; Schmidt, Cory; Karafa, Matthew T; Kodish, Eric; Chisolm, Guy M

2015-01-01

Academic literature extensively documents gender disparities in the medical profession with regard to salary, promotion, and government funded research. However, gender differences in the value of financial ties to industry have not been adequately studied despite industry's increasing contribution to income and research funding to physicians in the U.S. We analyzed publicly reported financial relationships among 747,603 physicians and 432 pharmaceutical, device and biomaterials companies. Demographic and payment information were analyzed using hierarchical regression models to determine if statistically significant gender differences exist in physician-industry interactions regarding financial ties, controlling for key covariates. In 2011, 432 biomedical companies made an excess of $17,991,000 in payments to 220,908 physicians. Of these physicians, 75.1% were male. Female physicians, on average, received fewer total dollars (-$3,598.63, p<0.001) per person than men. Additionally, female physicians received significantly lower amounts for meals (-$41.80, p<0.001), education (-$1,893.14, p<0.001), speaker fees (-$2,898.44, p<0.001), and sponsored research (-$15,049.62, p=0.05). For total dollars, an interaction between gender and institutional reputation was statistically significant, implying that the differences between women and men differed based on industry's preference for an institution, with larger differences at higher reputation institutions. Female physicians receive significantly lower compensation for similarly described activities than their male counterparts after controlling for key covariates. As regulations lead to increased transparency regarding these relationships, efforts to standardize compensation should be considered to promote equitable opportunities for all physicians.

Dysphagia in individuals with tetraplegia: incidence and risk factors

PubMed Central

Shem, Kazuko; Castillo, Kathleen; Wong, Sandra; Chang, James

2011-01-01

Background/objective Dysphagia following cervical spinal cord injury (SCI) can increase risk for pulmonary complications that may delay the rehabilitative process. The objective of this study was to identify risk factors for dysphagia after cervical SCI. Design Prospective cohort study. Methods Individuals with cervical SCI within 31 days of injury underwent a bedside swallow evaluation (BSE) followed by a videofluoroscopy swallow study (VFSS) within 72 hours of the BSE. Subjects were diagnosed as having dysphagia if they had positive findings in either BSE or VFSS. Results Twenty-nine patients (7 female and 22 male) were enrolled. Of these, 21 (72%) had high cervical tetraplegia (C4 or higher) and 8 (38%) had lower cervical tetraplegia. A tracheostomy was present in 18 (62%) patients; 15 (52%) subjects were on ventilators. Dysphagia was diagnosed in 12 (41%) subjects. Dysphagia was noted in 62% of the subjects with tracheostomy and 53% of the subjects on the ventilator, but only tracheostomy resulted in a statistically significant association with dysphagia (P = 0.047). All three subjects who had nasogastric tubes were diagnosed with dysphagia (P = 0.029). The relationships between dysphagia and gender, high versus low tetraplegia, presence of halo or collar, head injury, and ventilator use were not statistically significant, but age was a significant risk factor (P = 0.028). Conclusions Dysphagia is present in about 41% of individuals with acute tetraplegia. Only age, tracheostomy, and nasogastric tubes were identified as significant risk factors for dysphagia for individuals with tetraplegia. No relationship between dysphagia and level of SCI, spine surgery, collar, and ventilator use was found to exist. PMID:21528631

Gender Differences in Physicians’ Financial Ties to Industry: A Study of National Disclosure Data

PubMed Central

Rose, Susannah L.; Sanghani, Ruchi M.; Schmidt, Cory; Karafa, Matthew T.; Kodish, Eric; Chisolm, Guy M.

2015-01-01

Background Academic literature extensively documents gender disparities in the medical profession with regard to salary, promotion, and government funded research. However, gender differences in the value of financial ties to industry have not been adequately studied despite industry’s increasing contribution to income and research funding to physicians in the U.S. Methods & Findings We analyzed publicly reported financial relationships among 747,603 physicians and 432 pharmaceutical, device and biomaterials companies. Demographic and payment information were analyzed using hierarchical regression models to determine if statistically significant gender differences exist in physician-industry interactions regarding financial ties, controlling for key covariates. In 2011, 432 biomedical companies made an excess of $17,991,000 in payments to 220,908 physicians. Of these physicians, 75.1% were male. Female physicians, on average, received fewer total dollars (-$3,598.63, p<0.001) per person than men. Additionally, female physicians received significantly lower amounts for meals (-$41.80, p<0.001), education (-$1,893.14, p<0.001), speaker fees (-$2,898.44, p<0.001), and sponsored research (-$15,049.62, p=0.05). For total dollars, an interaction between gender and institutional reputation was statistically significant, implying that the differences between women and men differed based on industry’s preference for an institution, with larger differences at higher reputation institutions. Conclusions Female physicians receive significantly lower compensation for similarly described activities than their male counterparts after controlling for key covariates. As regulations lead to increased transparency regarding these relationships, efforts to standardize compensation should be considered to promote equitable opportunities for all physicians. PMID:26067810

Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol was inversely associated with 3-year all-cause mortality among Chinese oldest old: data from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey.

PubMed

Lv, Yue-Bin; Yin, Zhao-Xue; Chei, Choy-Lye; Qian, Han-Zhu; Kraus, Virginia Byers; Zhang, Juan; Brasher, Melanie Sereny; Shi, Xiao-Ming; Matchar, David Bruce; Zeng, Yi

2015-03-01

Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) is a risk factor for survival in middle-aged individuals, but conflicting evidence exists on the relationship between LDL-C and all-cause mortality among the elderly. The goal of this study was to assess the relationship between LDL-C and all-cause mortality among Chinese oldest old (aged 80 and older) in a prospective cohort study. LDL-C concentration was measured at baseline and all-cause mortality was calculated over a 3-year period. Multiple statistical models were used to adjust for demographic and biological covariates. During three years of follow-up, 447 of 935 participants died, and the overall all-cause mortality was 49.8%. Each 1 mmol/L increase of LDL-C concentration corresponded to a 19% decrease in 3-year all-cause mortality (hazard ratio [HR] 0.81, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.71-0.92). The crude HR for abnormally higher LDL-C concentration (≥3.37 mmol/L) was 0.65 (0.41-1.03); and the adjusted HR was statistically significant around 0.60 (0.37-0.95) when adjusted for different sets of confounding factors. Results of sensitivity analysis also showed a significant association between higher LDL-C and lower mortality risk. Among the Chinese oldest old, higher LDL-C level was associated with lower risk of all-cause mortality. Our findings suggested the necessity of re-evaluating the optimal level of LDL-C among the oldest old. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

Low-density Lipoprotein Cholesterol was Inversely Associated with 3-Year All-Cause Mortality among Chinese Oldest Old: Data from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey

PubMed Central

LV, Yue-Bin; YIN, Zhao-Xue; CHEI, Choy-Lye; QIAN, Han-Zhu; Kraus, Virginia Byers; ZHANG, Juan; Brasher, Melanie Sereny; SHI, Xiao-Ming; Matchar, David Bruce; ZENG, Yi

2015-01-01

Objective Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) is a risk factor for survival in middle-aged individuals, but conflicting evidence exists on the relationship between LDL-C and all-cause mortality among the elderly. The goal of this study was to assess the relationship between LDL-C and all-cause mortality among Chinese oldest old (aged 80 and older) in a prospective cohort study. Methods LDL-C concentration was measured at baseline and all-cause mortality was calculated over a 3-year period. Multiple statistical models were used to adjust for demographic and biological covariates. Results During three years of follow-up, 447 of 935 participants died, and the overall all-cause mortality was 49.8%. Each 1 mmol/L increase of LDL-C concentration corresponded to a 19% decrease in 3-year all-cause mortality (hazard ratio [HR] 0.81, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.71–0.92). The crude HR for abnormally higher LDL-C concentration (≥3.37 mmol/L) was 0.65 (0.41–1.03); and the adjusted HR was statistically significant around 0.60 (0.37–0.95) when adjusted for different sets of confounding factors. Results of sensitivity analysis also showed a significant association between higher LDL-C and lower mortality risk. Conclusions Among the Chinese oldest old, higher LDL-C level was associated with lower risk of all-cause mortality. Our findings suggested the necessity of re-evaluating the optimal level of LDL-C among the oldest old. PMID:25602855

Attitudes about high school physics in relationship to gender and ethnicity: A mixed method analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hafza, Rabieh Jamal

There is an achievement gap and lack of participation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) by minority females. The number of minority females majoring in STEM related fields and earning advanced degrees in these fields has not significantly increased over the past 40 years. Previous research has evaluated the relationship between self-identity concept and factors that promote the academic achievement as well the motivation of students to study different subject areas. This study examined the interaction between gender and ethnicity in terms of physics attitudes in the context of real world connections, personal interest, sense making/effort, problem solving confidence, and problem solving sophistication. The Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) was given to 131 students enrolled in physics classes. There was a statistically significant Gender*Ethnicity interaction for attitude in the context of Real World Connections, Personal Interest, Sense Making/Effort, Problem Solving Confidence, and Problem Solving Sophistication as a whole. There was also a statistically significant Gender*Ethnicity interaction for attitude in the context of Real World Connections, Personal Interest, and Sense Making/Effort individually. Five Black females were interviewed to triangulate the quantitative results and to describe the experiences of minority females taking physics classes. There were four themes that emerged from the interviews and supported the findings from the quantitative results. The data supported previous research done on attitudes about STEM. The results reported that Real World Connections and Personal Interest could be possible factors that explain the lack of participation and achievement gaps that exists among minority females.

Disentangling Vulnerabilities from Outcomes: Distinctions between Trait Affect and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescent and Adult Samples

PubMed Central

Harding, Kaitlin A.; Willey, Brittany; Ahles, Joshua; Mezulis, Amy

2016-01-01

Background Trait negative affect and trait positive affect are affective vulnerabilities to depressive symptoms in adolescence and adulthood. While trait affect and the state affect characteristic of depressive symptoms are proposed to be theoretically distinct, no studies have established that these constructs are statistically distinct. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to determine whether the trait affect (e.g. temperament dimensions) that predicts depressive symptoms and the state affect characteristic of depressive symptoms are statistically distinct among early adolescents and adults. We hypothesized that trait negative affect, trait positive affect, and depressive symptoms would represent largely distinct factors in both samples. Method Participants were 268 early adolescents (53.73% female) and 321 young adults (70.09% female) who completed self-report measures of demographic information, trait affect, and depressive symptoms. Results Principal axis factoring with oblique rotation for both samples indicated distinct adolescent factor loadings and overlapping adult factor loadings. Confirmatory factor analyses in both samples supported distinct but related relationships between trait NA, trait PA, and depressive symptoms. Limitations Study limitations include our cross-sectional design that prevented examination of self-reported fluctuations in trait affect and depressive symptoms and the unknown potential effects of self-report biases among adolescents and adults. Conclusions Findings support existing theoretical distinctions between adolescent constructs but highlight a need to revise or remove items to distinguish measurements of adult trait affect and depressive symptoms. Adolescent trait affect and depressive symptoms are statistically distinct, but adult trait affect and depressive symptoms statistically overlap and warrant further consideration. PMID:27085163

A new statistic for identifying batch effects in high-throughput genomic data that uses guided principal component analysis.

PubMed

Reese, Sarah E; Archer, Kellie J; Therneau, Terry M; Atkinson, Elizabeth J; Vachon, Celine M; de Andrade, Mariza; Kocher, Jean-Pierre A; Eckel-Passow, Jeanette E

2013-11-15

Batch effects are due to probe-specific systematic variation between groups of samples (batches) resulting from experimental features that are not of biological interest. Principal component analysis (PCA) is commonly used as a visual tool to determine whether batch effects exist after applying a global normalization method. However, PCA yields linear combinations of the variables that contribute maximum variance and thus will not necessarily detect batch effects if they are not the largest source of variability in the data. We present an extension of PCA to quantify the existence of batch effects, called guided PCA (gPCA). We describe a test statistic that uses gPCA to test whether a batch effect exists. We apply our proposed test statistic derived using gPCA to simulated data and to two copy number variation case studies: the first study consisted of 614 samples from a breast cancer family study using Illumina Human 660 bead-chip arrays, whereas the second case study consisted of 703 samples from a family blood pressure study that used Affymetrix SNP Array 6.0. We demonstrate that our statistic has good statistical properties and is able to identify significant batch effects in two copy number variation case studies. We developed a new statistic that uses gPCA to identify whether batch effects exist in high-throughput genomic data. Although our examples pertain to copy number data, gPCA is general and can be used on other data types as well. The gPCA R package (Available via CRAN) provides functionality and data to perform the methods in this article. reesese@vcu.edu

Analysing home-ownership of couples: the effect of selecting couples at the time of the survey.

PubMed

Mulder, C H

1996-09-01

"The analysis of events encountered by couple and family households may suffer from sample selection bias when data are restricted to couples existing at the moment of interview. The paper discusses the effect of sample selection bias on event history analyses of buying a home [in the Netherlands] by comparing analyses performed on a sample of existing couples with analyses of a more complete sample including past as well as current partner relationships. The results show that, although home-buying in relationships that have ended differs clearly from behaviour in existing relationships, sample selection bias is not alarmingly large." (SUMMARY IN FRE) excerpt

Online Statistical Modeling (Regression Analysis) for Independent Responses

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Made Tirta, I.; Anggraeni, Dian; Pandutama, Martinus

2017-06-01

Regression analysis (statistical analmodelling) are among statistical methods which are frequently needed in analyzing quantitative data, especially to model relationship between response and explanatory variables. Nowadays, statistical models have been developed into various directions to model various type and complex relationship of data. Rich varieties of advanced and recent statistical modelling are mostly available on open source software (one of them is R). However, these advanced statistical modelling, are not very friendly to novice R users, since they are based on programming script or command line interface. Our research aims to developed web interface (based on R and shiny), so that most recent and advanced statistical modelling are readily available, accessible and applicable on web. We have previously made interface in the form of e-tutorial for several modern and advanced statistical modelling on R especially for independent responses (including linear models/LM, generalized linier models/GLM, generalized additive model/GAM and generalized additive model for location scale and shape/GAMLSS). In this research we unified them in the form of data analysis, including model using Computer Intensive Statistics (Bootstrap and Markov Chain Monte Carlo/ MCMC). All are readily accessible on our online Virtual Statistics Laboratory. The web (interface) make the statistical modeling becomes easier to apply and easier to compare them in order to find the most appropriate model for the data.

75 FR 1410 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Existing Collection; Comments Requested

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-01-11

... DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Bureau of Justice Statistics [OMB Number 1121-0094] Agency Information... of Justice (DOJ), Bureau of Justice Statistics, will be submitting the following information... contact Todd D. Minton, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 810 Seventh Street, NW., Washington, DC 20531 (phone...

A Statistical Test for Comparing Nonnested Covariance Structure Models.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Levy, Roy; Hancock, Gregory R.

While statistical procedures are well known for comparing hierarchically related (nested) covariance structure models, statistical tests for comparing nonhierarchically related (nonnested) models have proven more elusive. While isolated attempts have been made, none exists within the commonly used maximum likelihood estimation framework, thereby…

Proportioning Cats and Rats

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Markworth, Kimberly A.

2012-01-01

Students may be able to set up a relevant proportion and solve through cross multiplication. However, this ability may not reflect the desired mathematical understanding of the covarying relationship that exists between two variables or the equivalent relationship that exists between two ratios. Students who lack this understanding are likely to…

Factors Associated with Discussion of Disasters by Final Year High School Students: An International Cross-sectional Survey.

PubMed

Codreanu, Tudor A; Celenza, Antonio; Alabdulkarim, Ali A Rahman

2015-08-01

Introduction The effect on behavioral change of educational programs developed to reduce the community's disaster informational vulnerability is not known. This study describes the relationship of disaster education, age, sex, and country-specific characteristics with students discussing disasters with friends and family, a measure of proactive behavioral change in disaster preparedness. Three thousand eight hundred twenty-nine final year high school students were enrolled in an international, multi-center prospective, cross-sectional study using a pre-validated written questionnaire. In order to obtain information from different educational systems, from countries with different risk of exposure to disasters, and from countries with varied economic development status, students from Bahrain, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Romania, and Timor-Leste were surveyed. Logistic regression analyses examined the relationship between the likelihood of discussing disasters with friends and family (dependent variable) and a series of independent variables (age, gender, participation in school lessons about disasters, existence of a national disaster educational program, ability to list pertinent example of disasters, country's economic group, and disaster risk index) captured by the questionnaire or available as published data. There was no statistically significant relationship between age, awareness of one's surroundings, planning for the future, and foreseeing consequences of events with discussions about potential hazards and risks with friends and/or family. The national educational budget did not have a statistically significant influence. Participants who lived in a low disaster risk and high income Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country were more likely to discuss disasters. While either school lessons or a national disaster education program had a unique, significant contribution to the model, neither had a better predictive utility. The predictors (national disaster program, school lessons, gender, ability to list examples of disasters, country's disaster risk index, and level of economic development), although significant, were not sufficient in predicting disaster discussions amongst teenagers.

Disruption of White Matter Integrity in Adult Survivors of Childhood Brain Tumors: Correlates with Long-Term Intellectual Outcomes.

PubMed

King, Tricia Z; Wang, Liya; Mao, Hui

2015-01-01

Although chemotherapy and radiation treatment have contributed to increased survivorship, treatment-induced brain injury has been a concern when examining long-term intellectual outcomes of survivors. Specifically, disruption of brain white matter integrity and its relationship to intellectual outcomes in adult survivors of childhood brain tumors needs to be better understood. Fifty-four participants underwent diffusion tensor imaging in addition to structural MRI and an intelligence test (IQ). Voxel-wise group comparisons of fractional anisotropy calculated from DTI data were performed using Tract Based Spatial Statistics (TBSS) on 27 survivors (14 treated with radiation with and without chemotherapy and 13 treated without radiation treatment on average over 13 years since diagnosis) and 27 healthy comparison participants. Whole brain white matter fractional anisotropy (FA) differences were explored between each group. The relationships between IQ and FA in the regions where statistically lower FA values were found in survivors were examined, as well as the role of cumulative neurological factors. The group of survivors treated with radiation with and without chemotherapy had lower IQ relative to the group of survivors without radiation treatment and the healthy comparison group. TBSS identified white matter regions with significantly different mean fractional anisotropy between the three different groups. A lower level of white matter integrity was found in the radiation with or without chemotherapy treated group compared to the group without radiation treatment and also the healthy control group. The group without radiation treatment had a lower mean FA relative to healthy controls. The white matter disruption of the radiation with or without chemotherapy treated survivors was positively correlated with IQ and cumulative neurological factors. Lower long-term intellectual outcomes of childhood brain tumor survivors are associated with lower white matter integrity. Radiation and adjunct chemotherapy treatment may play a role in greater white matter disruption. The relationships between white matter integrity and IQ, as well as cumulative neurological risk factors exist in young adult survivors of childhood brain tumors.

Correlation and simple linear regression.

PubMed

Zou, Kelly H; Tuncali, Kemal; Silverman, Stuart G

2003-06-01

In this tutorial article, the concepts of correlation and regression are reviewed and demonstrated. The authors review and compare two correlation coefficients, the Pearson correlation coefficient and the Spearman rho, for measuring linear and nonlinear relationships between two continuous variables. In the case of measuring the linear relationship between a predictor and an outcome variable, simple linear regression analysis is conducted. These statistical concepts are illustrated by using a data set from published literature to assess a computed tomography-guided interventional technique. These statistical methods are important for exploring the relationships between variables and can be applied to many radiologic studies.

LATENT SPACE MODELS FOR MULTIVIEW NETWORK DATA

PubMed Central

Salter-Townshend, Michael; McCormick, Tyler H.

2018-01-01

Social relationships consist of interactions along multiple dimensions. In social networks, this means that individuals form multiple types of relationships with the same person (e.g., an individual will not trust all of his/her acquaintances). Statistical models for these data require understanding two related types of dependence structure: (i) structure within each relationship type, or network view, and (ii) the association between views. In this paper, we propose a statistical framework that parsimoniously represents dependence between relationship types while also maintaining enough flexibility to allow individuals to serve different roles in different relationship types. Our approach builds on work on latent space models for networks [see, e.g., J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 97 (2002) 1090–1098]. These models represent the propensity for two individuals to form edges as conditionally independent given the distance between the individuals in an unobserved social space. Our work departs from previous work in this area by representing dependence structure between network views through a multivariate Bernoulli likelihood, providing a representation of between-view association. This approach infers correlations between views not explained by the latent space model. Using our method, we explore 6 multiview network structures across 75 villages in rural southern Karnataka, India [Banerjee et al. (2013)]. PMID:29721127

LATENT SPACE MODELS FOR MULTIVIEW NETWORK DATA.

PubMed

Salter-Townshend, Michael; McCormick, Tyler H

2017-09-01

Social relationships consist of interactions along multiple dimensions. In social networks, this means that individuals form multiple types of relationships with the same person (e.g., an individual will not trust all of his/her acquaintances). Statistical models for these data require understanding two related types of dependence structure: (i) structure within each relationship type, or network view, and (ii) the association between views. In this paper, we propose a statistical framework that parsimoniously represents dependence between relationship types while also maintaining enough flexibility to allow individuals to serve different roles in different relationship types. Our approach builds on work on latent space models for networks [see, e.g., J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 97 (2002) 1090-1098]. These models represent the propensity for two individuals to form edges as conditionally independent given the distance between the individuals in an unobserved social space. Our work departs from previous work in this area by representing dependence structure between network views through a multivariate Bernoulli likelihood, providing a representation of between-view association. This approach infers correlations between views not explained by the latent space model. Using our method, we explore 6 multiview network structures across 75 villages in rural southern Karnataka, India [Banerjee et al. (2013)].

Making Meaning of MSW Students' Statistical Abilities: The Role of Self-Efficacy and Knowledge-Based Assessment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mirick, Rebecca G.; Davis, Ashley

2017-01-01

Although statistics and research are key components of social work education, students are often described as reluctant consumers and users of statistics. Self-efficacy theory has been used to understand students' engagement with the statistical knowledge needed for practice. This quantitative study explores the relationship between self-efficacy,…

Approximations to the distribution of a test statistic in covariance structure analysis: A comprehensive study.

PubMed

Wu, Hao

2018-05-01

In structural equation modelling (SEM), a robust adjustment to the test statistic or to its reference distribution is needed when its null distribution deviates from a χ 2 distribution, which usually arises when data do not follow a multivariate normal distribution. Unfortunately, existing studies on this issue typically focus on only a few methods and neglect the majority of alternative methods in statistics. Existing simulation studies typically consider only non-normal distributions of data that either satisfy asymptotic robustness or lead to an asymptotic scaled χ 2 distribution. In this work we conduct a comprehensive study that involves both typical methods in SEM and less well-known methods from the statistics literature. We also propose the use of several novel non-normal data distributions that are qualitatively different from the non-normal distributions widely used in existing studies. We found that several under-studied methods give the best performance under specific conditions, but the Satorra-Bentler method remains the most viable method for most situations. © 2017 The British Psychological Society.

An Adaptive Association Test for Multiple Phenotypes with GWAS Summary Statistics.

PubMed

Kim, Junghi; Bai, Yun; Pan, Wei

2015-12-01

We study the problem of testing for single marker-multiple phenotype associations based on genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics without access to individual-level genotype and phenotype data. For most published GWASs, because obtaining summary data is substantially easier than accessing individual-level phenotype and genotype data, while often multiple correlated traits have been collected, the problem studied here has become increasingly important. We propose a powerful adaptive test and compare its performance with some existing tests. We illustrate its applications to analyses of a meta-analyzed GWAS dataset with three blood lipid traits and another with sex-stratified anthropometric traits, and further demonstrate its potential power gain over some existing methods through realistic simulation studies. We start from the situation with only one set of (possibly meta-analyzed) genome-wide summary statistics, then extend the method to meta-analysis of multiple sets of genome-wide summary statistics, each from one GWAS. We expect the proposed test to be useful in practice as more powerful than or complementary to existing methods. © 2015 WILEY PERIODICALS, INC.

Temperature changes, temperature extremes, and their relationship to emergency department visits and hospitalizations for sickle cell crisis.

PubMed

Smith, Wally R; Coyne, Patrick; Smith, Virginia S; Mercier, Bruce

2003-09-01

Weather changes are among the proposed precursors of painful sickle cell crises. However, epidemiologic data are mixed regarding the relationship between ambient temperature and crisis frequency. To study this relationship among a local sickle cell disease population, emergency department (ED) visits and admissions were evaluated in adults with sickle cell crisis as the primary diagnosis at a major teaching hospital in a temperate climate. Official daily ambient temperatures (average for that day) were obtained from the National Climate Data Center for the days patients visited the ED or were hospitalized, and for 24 or 48 hours prior. Daily ED visit counts and admission counts were correlated with the visit/admission day's ambient temperature, with the ambient temperature 24 hours before admission, and with the magnitude of change in daily ambient temperature over the prior 24 or 48 hours. For all correlations, statistical significance was defined as a p value of <0.01 and clinical significance was defined as a moderate or greater correlation, absolute value of r >/= 0.30. ED visits or admissions correlated statistically, but not clinically, with daily temperatures. On days when temperatures were <32 degrees F or >80 degrees F, these correlations were statistically significant, but clinical significance was variable. ED visits or admissions correlated only statistically with temperatures 24 hours prior, even on days when temperatures were <32 degrees F. When temperatures were >80 degrees F, the correlations were statistically significant, but there was a reverse, clinically significant correlation between admissions and temperatures. Finally, only statistically significant correlations were found between ED visits or admissions and change in temperature over the prior 24 or 48 hours. Weak or inconsistent confirmation of a relationship was found between daily ambient temperatures and ED visits or hospital admissions for sickle cell crises.

Mediators and moderators in early intervention research

PubMed Central

Breitborde, Nicholas J. K.; Srihari, Vinod H.; Pollard, Jessica M.; Addington, Donald N.; Woods, Scott W.

2015-01-01

Aim The goal of this paper is to provide clarification with regard to the nature of mediator and moderator variables and the statistical methods used to test for the existence of these variables. Particular attention will be devoted to discussing the ways in which the identification of mediator and moderator variables may help to advance the field of early intervention in psychiatry. Methods We completed a literature review of the methodological strategies used to test for mediator and moderator variables. Results Although several tests for mediator variables are currently available, recent evaluations suggest that tests which directly evaluate the indirect effect are superior. With regard to moderator variables, two approaches (‘pick-a-point’ and regions of significance) are available, and we provide guidelines with regard to how researchers can determine which approach may be most appropriate to use for their specific study. Finally, we discuss how to evaluate the clinical importance of mediator and moderator relationships as well as the methodology to calculate statistical power for tests of mediation and moderation. Conclusion Further exploration of mediator and moderator variables may provide valuable information with regard to interventions provided early in the course of a psychiatric illness. PMID:20536970

Towards an Obesity-Cancer Knowledge Base: Biomedical Entity Identification and Relation Detection

PubMed Central

Lossio-Ventura, Juan Antonio; Hogan, William; Modave, François; Hicks, Amanda; Hanna, Josh; Guo, Yi; He, Zhe; Bian, Jiang

2017-01-01

Obesity is associated with increased risks of various types of cancer, as well as a wide range of other chronic diseases. On the other hand, access to health information activates patient participation, and improve their health outcomes. However, existing online information on obesity and its relationship to cancer is heterogeneous ranging from pre-clinical models and case studies to mere hypothesis-based scientific arguments. A formal knowledge representation (i.e., a semantic knowledge base) would help better organizing and delivering quality health information related to obesity and cancer that consumers need. Nevertheless, current ontologies describing obesity, cancer and related entities are not designed to guide automatic knowledge base construction from heterogeneous information sources. Thus, in this paper, we present methods for named-entity recognition (NER) to extract biomedical entities from scholarly articles and for detecting if two biomedical entities are related, with the long term goal of building a obesity-cancer knowledge base. We leverage both linguistic and statistical approaches in the NER task, which supersedes the state-of-the-art results. Further, based on statistical features extracted from the sentences, our method for relation detection obtains an accuracy of 99.3% and a f-measure of 0.993. PMID:28503356

Covariations in ecological scaling laws fostered by community dynamics.

PubMed

Zaoli, Silvia; Giometto, Andrea; Maritan, Amos; Rinaldo, Andrea

2017-10-03

Scaling laws in ecology, intended both as functional relationships among ecologically relevant quantities and the probability distributions that characterize their occurrence, have long attracted the interest of empiricists and theoreticians. Empirical evidence exists of power laws associated with the number of species inhabiting an ecosystem, their abundances, and traits. Although their functional form appears to be ubiquitous, empirical scaling exponents vary with ecosystem type and resource supply rate. The idea that ecological scaling laws are linked has been entertained before, but the full extent of macroecological pattern covariations, the role of the constraints imposed by finite resource supply, and a comprehensive empirical verification are still unexplored. Here, we propose a theoretical scaling framework that predicts the linkages of several macroecological patterns related to species' abundances and body sizes. We show that such a framework is consistent with the stationary-state statistics of a broad class of resource-limited community dynamics models, regardless of parameterization and model assumptions. We verify predicted theoretical covariations by contrasting empirical data and provide testable hypotheses for yet unexplored patterns. We thus place the observed variability of ecological scaling exponents into a coherent statistical framework where patterns in ecology embed constrained fluctuations.

Unreliable Yet Still Replicable: A Comment on LeBel and Paunonen (2011)

PubMed Central

De Schryver, Maarten; Hughes, Sean; Rosseel, Yves; De Houwer, Jan

2016-01-01

Lebel and Paunonen (2011) highlight that despite their importance and popularity in both theoretical and applied research, many implicit measures continue to be plagued by a persistent and troublesome issue—low reliability. In their paper, they offer a conceptual analysis of the relationship between reliability, power and replicability, and then provide a series of recommendations for researchers interested in using implicit measures in an experimental setting. At the core of their account is the idea that reliability can be equated with statistical power, such that “lower levels of reliability are associated with decreasing probabilities of detecting a statistically significant effect, given one exists in the population” (p. 573). They also take the additional step of equating reliability and replicability. In our commentary, we draw attention to the fact that there is no direct, fixed or one-to-one relation between reliability and power or replicability. More specifically, we argue that when adopting an experimental (rather than a correlational) approach, researchers strive to minimize inter-individual variation, which has a direct impact on sample based reliability estimates. We evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the LeBel and Paunonen's recommendations and refine them where appropriate. PMID:26793150

Fluctuation-dissipation theory of input-output interindustrial relations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Iyetomi, Hiroshi; Nakayama, Yasuhiro; Aoyama, Hideaki; Fujiwara, Yoshi; Ikeda, Yuichi; Souma, Wataru

2011-01-01

In this study, the fluctuation-dissipation theory is invoked to shed light on input-output interindustrial relations at a macroscopic level by its application to indices of industrial production (IIP) data for Japan. Statistical noise arising from finiteness of the time series data is carefully removed by making use of the random matrix theory in an eigenvalue analysis of the correlation matrix; as a result, two dominant eigenmodes are detected. Our previous study successfully used these two modes to demonstrate the existence of intrinsic business cycles. Here a correlation matrix constructed from the two modes describes genuine interindustrial correlations in a statistically meaningful way. Furthermore, it enables us to quantitatively discuss the relationship between shipments of final demand goods and production of intermediate goods in a linear response framework. We also investigate distinctive external stimuli for the Japanese economy exerted by the current global economic crisis. These stimuli are derived from residuals of moving-average fluctuations of the IIP remaining after subtracting the long-period components arising from inherent business cycles. The observation reveals that the fluctuation-dissipation theory is applicable to an economic system that is supposed to be far from physical equilibrium.

Microscopic hematuria and calculus-related ureteral obstruction.

PubMed

Stewart, D P; Kowalski, R; Wong, P; Krome, R

1990-01-01

The evaluation of patients with ureteral calculi in the emergency department has historically included urinalysis (UA) and intravenous pyelograms (IVP). This retrospective study was done to determine if a statistically significant relationship existed between the degree of calculus-related ureteral obstruction, proven by IVP, and the presence or absence of microscopic hematuria. Urine red blood cells were recorded as less than 3 rbc/hpf (negative) or greater than or equal to 3 rbc/hpf (positive). IVPs were recorded as nonsevere or severe. IVP criteria were based on the presence or absence of extravasation, greater than 2-hour ureteral filling times, and a numerical scoring system of 1 to 4 for ureteral or calyceal dilatation and nephrogenic effect. Eighty-nine men (72%) had non-severe obstructions and 34 (28%) had severe obstructions. Twenty-five women (68%) had nonsevere obstructions and 12 (32%) had severe obstructions. Of the 28 patients with normal UAs, 11 had severe ureteral obstructions and 17 had nonsevere ureteral obstructions. There were no statistically significant differences between the presence or absence of significant microscopic hematuria and the presence or absence of severe ureteral obstruction. Microscopic hematuria is neither sensitive nor specific in determining the degree of calculus-related ureteral obstruction.

Mental Task Classification Scheme Utilizing Correlation Coefficient Extracted from Interchannel Intrinsic Mode Function.

PubMed

Rahman, Md Mostafizur; Fattah, Shaikh Anowarul

2017-01-01

In view of recent increase of brain computer interface (BCI) based applications, the importance of efficient classification of various mental tasks has increased prodigiously nowadays. In order to obtain effective classification, efficient feature extraction scheme is necessary, for which, in the proposed method, the interchannel relationship among electroencephalogram (EEG) data is utilized. It is expected that the correlation obtained from different combination of channels will be different for different mental tasks, which can be exploited to extract distinctive feature. The empirical mode decomposition (EMD) technique is employed on a test EEG signal obtained from a channel, which provides a number of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs), and correlation coefficient is extracted from interchannel IMF data. Simultaneously, different statistical features are also obtained from each IMF. Finally, the feature matrix is formed utilizing interchannel correlation features and intrachannel statistical features of the selected IMFs of EEG signal. Different kernels of the support vector machine (SVM) classifier are used to carry out the classification task. An EEG dataset containing ten different combinations of five different mental tasks is utilized to demonstrate the classification performance and a very high level of accuracy is achieved by the proposed scheme compared to existing methods.

Statistical properties of the personal social network in the Facebook

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guo, Q.; Shao, F.; Hu, Z. L.; Liu, J. G.

2013-10-01

The statistical properties of the user interaction behaviors in a city have great significance for developing the network marketing strategy, promoting personalized service and so on. In this paper, we investigate the interaction property of the users from New Orleans network in the Facebook, and find that one's out-degree and in-degree are approximately the same. In addition, when the number of a user friends is less than 65, the number of their posts would linearly grow with the slope 4.2, but when one user's friends are more than 65, their posts would grow with the slope 2.1. Further, the average link weight is relatively flat when the out-degree ranges from 28 to 65, and before or after the section it is on the rise or in decline, respectively, from which we can conclude that one could not maintain stable and meaningful relationships with more than 65 people in a single city. We present a null model to reshuffle the network to guarantee that the empirical results are not obtained by accident. The result obtained after reshuffling suggests that there exists a limit that restricts people's social activities.

Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Parent-Adolescent Discrepancies: Existing Findings and Future Directions.

PubMed

Rescorla, Leslie A

2016-10-01

As summarized in this commentary, the first generation of cross-informant agreement research focused on perceptions of child and adolescent mental health. Contributions of this research include demonstrating that modest cross-informant agreement is a very robust phenomenon, utilizing numerous statistical approaches to measure degree of agreement, and identifying many factors that moderate agreement. An important focus of this work has been using multi-society international comparisons to examine cross-cultural similarities and differences in cross-informant agreement. The articles in this Special Issue represent a significant paradigm shift in which cross-informant agreement is examined as an independent variable predicting a wide variety of outcomes. Furthermore, moving beyond perceptions of adolescent mental health, these articles compare parent and adolescent perceptions of diverse aspects of family functioning (e.g., family conflict, parent-adolescent communication, family relationships, parental authority). Additionally, the research presented in this Special Issue employs innovative and sophisticated statistical techniques. Although the Special Issue represents some first steps toward considering cross-cultural aspects of perceptions of family functioning, much work still needs to be done in this area. Some suggestions for future research strategies to accomplish this goal conclude this commentary.

Statistical Learning and Language: An Individual Differences Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Misyak, Jennifer B.; Christiansen, Morten H.

2012-01-01

Although statistical learning and language have been assumed to be intertwined, this theoretical presupposition has rarely been tested empirically. The present study investigates the relationship between statistical learning and language using a within-subject design embedded in an individual-differences framework. Participants were administered…

Synthesizing the Effect of Building Condition Quality on Academic Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gunter, Tracey; Shao, Jing

2016-01-01

Since the late 1970s, researchers have examined the relationship between school building condition and student performance. Though many literature reviews have claimed that a relationship exists, no meta-analysis has quantitatively examined this literature. The purpose of this review was to synthesize the existing literature on the relationship…

Teenage Social Relationships: Effect on Social Adjustment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wyche, Yolandria; McGahey, James Todd; Jenkins, Marvin

2017-01-01

High school female students often have challenges transitioning to high school. There are many possible obstacles that exist but some female students may experience difficulties with maintaining interpersonal relationship with their female peers. It is very common for high school settings to have various types of social cliques that exist. In some…

Faculty Leadership in Baccalaureate Study Abroad Programs: The Relationship between Faculty Preparedness and Intercultural Competence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

MacDonald, Carla J.

2012-01-01

The dissertation describes projected research to investigate whether a relationship exists between faculty in baccalaureate education who lead short term study abroad programs (SAPS) and their levels of intercultural competency. Specifically, the research collected considers whether a connection exists between those faculty who received…

Why Choose Online Learning: Relationship of Existing Factors and Chronobiology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Luo, Yi; Pan, Rui; Choi, Jea H.; Mellish, Linda; Strobel, Johannes

2011-01-01

Existing research on choice of online learning utilized factors such as perceived level of control, independence, and satisfaction, yet the relationship among these factors is under-researched. Due to the value of "learning anytime," biological factors underlying "choice of time" might provide additional insights. This article…

Can Counter-Gang Models be Applied to Counter ISIS’s Internet Recruitment Campaign

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-06-10

limitation that exists is the lack of reliable statistics from social media companies in regards to the quantity of ISIS-affiliated sites, which exist on... statistics , they have approximately 320-million monthly active users with thirty-five-plus languages supported and 77 percent of accounts located...Justice and Delinquency Prevention program. For deterrence-based models, the primary point of research is focused deterrence models with emphasis placed

Information theoretical assessment of digital imaging systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

John, Sarah; Rahman, Zia-Ur; Huck, Friedrich O.; Reichenbach, Stephen E.

1990-01-01

The end-to-end performance of image gathering, coding, and restoration as a whole is considered. This approach is based on the pivotal relationship that exists between the spectral information density of the transmitted signal and the restorability of images from this signal. The information-theoretical assessment accounts for (1) the information density and efficiency of the acquired signal as a function of the image-gathering system design and the radiance-field statistics, and (2) the improvement in information efficiency and data compression that can be gained by combining image gathering with coding to reduce the signal redundancy and irrelevancy. It is concluded that images can be restored with better quality and from fewer data as the information efficiency of the data is increased. The restoration correctly explains the image gathering and coding processes and effectively suppresses the image-display degradations.

The physician-patient relationship as a game of strategic information transmission.

PubMed

De Jaegher, K; Jegers, M

2001-10-01

We show that the intuition underlying the supplier-induced demand (SID) hypothesis is reflected in the cheap-talk literature from game theory, and in the credence-good literature from the economics of information. Applying these theories, we conclude that a neoclassical version of the SID hypothesis is only relevant for treatment decisions involving an expensive treatment that is equally effective in curing several states, but efficient in curing only some of these states (in that a cheaper treatment is efficient otherwise). For a simple game involving such a treatment decision, we show that a Nash equilibrium exists where the patient is able to constrain the physician in inducing demand, without the market for the potentially induced treatment failing. This equilibrium allows us to derive comparative statistics and welfare results. Copyright 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Information theoretical assessment of digital imaging systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

John, Sarah; Rahman, Zia-Ur; Huck, Friedrich O.; Reichenbach, Stephen E.

1990-10-01

The end-to-end performance of image gathering, coding, and restoration as a whole is considered. This approach is based on the pivotal relationship that exists between the spectral information density of the transmitted signal and the restorability of images from this signal. The information-theoretical assessment accounts for (1) the information density and efficiency of the acquired signal as a function of the image-gathering system design and the radiance-field statistics, and (2) the improvement in information efficiency and data compression that can be gained by combining image gathering with coding to reduce the signal redundancy and irrelevancy. It is concluded that images can be restored with better quality and from fewer data as the information efficiency of the data is increased. The restoration correctly explains the image gathering and coding processes and effectively suppresses the image-display degradations.

A Comparison of Genetic Programming Variants for Hyper-Heuristics

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Harris, Sean

Modern society is faced with ever more complex problems, many of which can be formulated as generate-and-test optimization problems. General-purpose optimization algorithms are not well suited for real-world scenarios where many instances of the same problem class need to be repeatedly and efficiently solved, such as routing vehicles over highways with constantly changing traffic flows, because they are not targeted to a particular scenario. Hyper-heuristics automate the design of algorithms to create a custom algorithm for a particular scenario. Hyper-heuristics typically employ Genetic Programming (GP) and this project has investigated the relationship between the choice of GP and performance inmore » Hyper-heuristics. Results are presented demonstrating the existence of problems for which there is a statistically significant performance differential between the use of different types of GP.« less

Topological Galleries: A High Level User Interface for Topology Controlled Volume Rendering

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

MacCarthy, Brian; Carr, Hamish; Weber, Gunther H.

2011-06-30

Existing topological interfaces to volume rendering are limited by their reliance on sophisticated knowledge of topology by the user. We extend previous work by describing topological galleries, an interface for novice users that is based on the design galleries approach. We report three contributions: an interface based on hierarchical thumbnail galleries to display the containment relationships between topologically identifiable features, the use of the pruning hierarchy instead of branch decomposition for contour tree simplification, and drag-and-drop transfer function assignment for individual components. Initial results suggest that this approach suffers from limitations due to rapid drop-off of feature size in themore » pruning hierarchy. We explore these limitations by providing statistics of feature size as function of depth in the pruning hierarchy of the contour tree.« less