Book Review

Quantitative Methods in Law represents the efforts of one legal scholar to apply mathematical probability and statistics to the solution of a wide range of legal problems. Michael O. Finkelstein has republished in book form a collection of his articles, beginning with his most famous and most widely cited: the application of mathematical probability to jury discrimination cases. After leading the reader through a series of fascinating applications of statistical problem solving to an impressively wide range of legal situations, the book concludes with the final words of one of the most engaging battles among legal scholars in recent years: the exchange between Michael Finkelstein and Laurence Tribe on the use of Bayes\u27 theorem in a criminal trial to assist the jury in integrating probabilistic evidence with nonnumerical testimony

A FLEXIBLE METHOD FOR EMPIRICALLY ESTIMATING PROBABILITY FUNCTIONS

This paper presents a hyperbolic trigonometric (HT) transformation procedure for empirically estimating a cumulative probability distribution function (cdf), from which the probability density function (pdf) can be obtained by differentiation. Maximum likelihood (ML) is the appropriate estimation technique, but a particularly appealing feature of the HT transformation as opposed to other zero-one transformations is that the transformed cdf can be fitted with ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. Although OLS estimates are biased and inconsistent, they are usually very close to ML estimates; thus use of OLS estimates as starting values greatly facilitates use of numerical search procedures to obtain ML estimates. ML estimates have desirable asymptotic properties. The procedure is no more difficult to use than unconstrained nonlinear regression. Advantages of the procedure as compared to alternative procedures for fitting probability functions are discussed in the manuscript. Use of the conditional method is illustrated by application to two sets of yield response data.Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Bayesian Plackett--Luce Mixture Models for Partially Ranked Data

The elicitation of an ordinal judgment on multiple alternatives is often required in many psychological and behavioral experiments to investigate preference/choice orientation of a specific population. The Plackett–Luce model is one of the most popular and frequently applied parametric distributions to analyze rankings of a finite set of items. The present work introduces a Bayesian finite mixture of Plackett–Luce models to account for unobserved sample heterogeneity of partially ranked data. We describe an efficient way to incorporate the latent group structure in the data augmentation approach and the derivation of existing maximum likelihood procedures as special instances of the proposed Bayesian method. Inference can be conducted with the combination of the Expectation-Maximization algorithm for maximum a posteriori estimation and the Gibbs sampling iterative procedure.We additionally investigate several Bayesian criteria for selecting the optimal mixture configuration and describe diagnostic tools for assessing the fitness of ranking distributions conditionally and unconditionally on the number of ranked items. The utility of the novel Bayesian parametric Plackett–Luce mixture for characterizing sample heterogeneity is illustrated with several applications to simulated and real preference ranked data. We compare our method with the frequentist approach and a Bayesian nonparametric mixture model both assuming the Plackett–Luce model as a mixture component. Our analysis on real datasets reveals the importance of an accurate diagnostic check for an appropriate in-depth understanding of the heterogenous nature of the partial ranking data

An evaluation framework for input variable selection algorithms for environmental data-driven models

Abstract not availableStefano Galelli, Greer B. Humphrey, Holger R. Maier, Andrea Castelletti, Graeme C. Dandy, Matthew S. Gibb

Validation of an adjusted calcium formula using the Roche calcium (NMBATPA) and albumin (BCG) methods at Groote Schuur Hospital

ABSTRACT: Validation of an adjusted calcium formula using the Roche calcium (NMBATPA) and albumin (BCG) methods at Groote Schuur Hospital Introduction: Most laboratories continue to adjust serum total calcium (tCa) concentration for serum albumin as a surrogate marker of calcium status, despite the availability of ionised calcium (iCa) measurement. Current recommendations by the Association for Clinical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine (ACB) advocate that laboratories should use formulae specific for their tCa and albumin methods and analytical platforms. The National Health Laboratory Service at Groote Schuur Hospital (GSH) undertook to investigate this recommendation. An adjusted calcium (aCa) formula specific for the Roche serum tCa and albumin methods was derived from 3131 patients. We investigated the validity and clinical utility of this locally derived aCa formula. Methods: The tCa, albumin and iCa were analysed in blood from 162 inpatients and outpatients at GSH. Corrected calcium (cCa) was calculated using the Payne cCa formula, and aCa was calculated with the new aCa formula. Patients were classified as hypo-, normoor hypercalcaemic using iCa, tCa, cCa and aCa measurements. Cohen's kappa statistic, loglinear and logistic regression models and interclass and concordance correlation coefficients were used to assess agreement between tCa, Payne cCa and aCa against iCa (gold standard). Agreement was further assessed according to renal status and albumin concentrations. Results: The aCa demonstrated good correlation with iCa, but its performance was not significantly better than tCa or Payne cCa in correctly classifying calcium status. Furthermore, albumin concentration was demonstrated to predict the performance of the calcium status classification by the aCa and cCa formulae, irrespective of renal status. Conclusion: The laboratory-specific aCa formula did not perform significantly better than tCa and the Payne cCa formula. This implies that aCa does not add value over tCa where iCa measurements are not readily available

Child Labor

In recent years, there has been an astonishing proliferation of empirical work on child labor. An Econlit search of keywords "child lab*r" reveals a total of 6 peer reviewed journal articles between 1980 and 1990, 65 between 1990 and 2000, and 143 in the first five years of the present decade. The purpose of this essay is to provide a detailed overview of the state of the recent empirical literature on why and how children work as well as the consequences of that work. Section 1 defines terms commonly used in the study of child time allocation and provides a descriptive overview of how children spend their time in low income countries today. Section 2 reviews the case for attention to the most common types of work in which children participate, focusing on that work's impact on schooling, health, as well as externalities associated with that work. Section 3 considers the literature on the determinants of child time allocation such as the influence of local labor markets, family interactions, the net return to schooling, and poverty. Section 5 discusses the limited evidence on different policy options aimed at influencing child labor. Section 6 concludes by emphasizing important research questions requiring additional research such as child and parental agency, the effectiveness of child labor policies, and the determinants of participation in the "worst forms" of child labor.

A Strategic Model for Investment in Korean Shipping Under the New Liberalisation Treaty

Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/1892 on 27.02.2017 by CS (TIS)Following trade liberalisation, shipping has been further affected by the world economic environment. Despite arguments as to whether the nature of the shipping industry is a liberalised one or not, it is now clearly seen as the case by the shipping industry itself. The primary goal of this thesis is to examine the attitudes within Korean shipping circles. An empirical study was carried out to evaluate how shipping is being influenced by liberalisation under the new rules, established by the World Trade Organisation and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The null hypothesis was that there would be no substantial changes in Korean Shipping following liberalisation. The null hypothesis was rejected, which means that it was recognised by Korean shipping practitioners that there were significant changes after liberalisation. A further study was undertaken to test for relationships between the perspectives of four groups~ financial managers of shipping companies, bankers, government policy makers and sales managers from shipbuilding companies. It transpired that there was unity in their perceptions of shipping investment. A hypothesised seven-factor strategic model of the shipping industry was initially proposed and re-interpreted following the empirical results. To cope with the new competitive market, strategic options are likely to include tax and registry considerations. Finally, following the financial crisis in Korea last year, which occurred before this research was completed, interviews and a survey were conducted, based on a random selection of previous respondents. This was to establish whether their views had changed. The results revealed that they were now very hesitant to make any new investment decisions given the present situation. However, respondents are sure that there will be no further measures to impede the current liberalisation moves in Korea. Rather they regard this financial crisis as a mechanism to accelerate liberalisation, following the International Monetary Fund's options to dismantle the Korean protectionist barriers

Dating Victorians: an experimental approach to stylochronometry

A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ofthe University of LutonThe writing style of a number of authors writing in English was empirically investigated for the purpose of detecting stylistic patterns in relation to advancing age. The aim was to identify the type of stylistic markers among lexical, syntactical, phonemic, entropic, character-based, and content ones that would be most able to discriminate between early, middle, and late works of the selected authors, and the best classification or prediction algorithm most suited for this task. Two pilot studies were initially conducted. The first one concentrated on Christina Georgina Rossetti and Edgar Allan Poe from whom personal letters and poetry were selected as the genres of study, along with a limited selection of variables. Results suggested that authors and genre vary inconsistently. The second pilot study was based on Shakespeare's plays using a wider selection of variables to assess their discriminating power in relation to a past study. It was observed that the selected variables were of satisfactory predictive power, hence judged suitable for the task. Subsequently, four experiments were conducted using the variables tested in the second pilot study and personal correspondence and poetry from two additional authors, Edna St Vincent Millay and William Butler Yeats. Stepwise multiple linear regression and regression trees were selected to deal with the first two prediction experiments, and ordinal logistic regression and artificial neural networks for two classification experiments. The first experiment revealed inconsistency in accuracy of prediction and total number of variables in the final models affected by differences in authorship and genre. The second experiment revealed inconsistencies for the same factors in terms of accuracy only. The third experiment showed total number of variables in the model and error in the final model to be affected in various degrees by authorship, genre, different variable types and order in which the variables had been calculated. The last experiment had all measurements affected by the four factors. Examination of whether differences in method within each task play an important part revealed significant influences of method, authorship, and genre for the prediction problems, whereas all factors including method and various interactions dominated in the classification problems. Given the current data and methods used, as well as the results obtained, generalizable conclusions for the wider author population have been avoided

Metadiscourse in academic writing : a corpus-based study of expert, L1 and L2 postgraduate student text

This study looks at how differences of language and genre affect the pattern of the usage of metadiscourse (MD: the rhetorical resources used to organise a discourse, or the writer's point of view towards either its content or the reader) in the academic writings produced by expert and student writers in the same discipline. The corpora consist of thirty journal articles (PRO) and fifty-five student assignments, twenty-five from native English speakers (NES) and another thirty from non-native English speakers (NNES). All texts in both the PRO and student corpora are in English, produced by a single-author, in topics of study in language, culture, and communications in the same school of Newcastle University. The research uses a typology derived from those in the literature but focussing on written texts and modified by a pilot study. From the comparison of texts produced by the NES and NNES postgraduate students, the language variable (native English vs non-native English) plays a greater role in the use of MD. The NNES writers use statistically more textual metadiscourse (TMD) while the NES writers employ more interpersonal metadiscourse (IMD) in general and there are statistical differences in the use of sequencers, code glosses which were more used by the NNES, hedges and self references which were more employed by the NES in particular. The finding indicates that the NNES writers are more concerned about expressions to show the logical order and relations between different parts of the text through TMD; the NES writers try more to involve the readers in the argument than do their NNES counterparts with IMD. The findings also show that learning a writing style which is acceptable in western academic life (e. g. 'writer-responsible') influences the use of MID in the NNES academic writing. Evidence of this comes from the interview data and the results of text analyses which show the statistically greater use of textual metadiscourse (e. g. sequencers, code glosses) and the significantly infrequent use of self-references in the NNES texts. From the results in the genre/expertnessv ariable Oournal articles vs student assignments), no overall significant differences were found in the use of the main V categories (TMD and IMD), but differential purposes (effects) and frequency were found in the use of MD subcategoriesT. he student writers do not use MD devicesi n the same way as the PRO writers, as reflected in the use of MD devices with a limited range of items and purposes in the student texts compared to a broad range of MD features and functions in the PRO texts. In fact, the PRO writers made more use of concessives, concluders, sources, hedges and self references with a broad range of purposes;t he student writers made significantly more use of sequencerst,o picalisers and more use of emphatics with limited purposes. Thus the finding proposes that the way they use MD is influenced by the two factors in the student and PRO texts; the consideration about the readership and the goal of the argument; which lead the different pattern of MID usage in the student and expert writings. This suggests that the genre variable (student assignments vs journal articles) is also a crucial one to influence the use of MID within the same discipline. As regards the language aspect from the comparison between the NES and NNES, the differences are mainly in the amount of features in the use of MD. When it comes to the student and j ournal article texts, genre variable, the differences are not only in the frequency of MD subcategories but also in the way they use the MD features.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo