Sources of Epidemiological Equivocacy

Mr. Sly discusses five sources of uncertainty and ambiguity in health and medical research that can interfere with decision making

Risk Regulation and the Faces of Uncertainty

Dr. Walker addresses the difficulty of regulators\u27 working with potentially inaccurate information and clarifies related aspects of decision making by presenting a taxonomy for the kinds of uncertainty inherent in necessarily incomplete data

Estimating Top Income and Wealth Shares: Sensitivity to Data and Methods

Administrative income tax data indicate that U.S. top income and wealth shares are both substantial and larger than shares observed in household surveys. However, these estimates are sensitive to the unit of analysis, the income concept measured in tax records, and, in the case of wealth, to assumptions about the correlation between income and wealth. We constrain a household survey—the Survey of Consumer Finances—to be conceptually comparable to tax records and are able to reconcile the much of the difference between the survey and administrative estimates. Wealth estimates from administrative income tax data are sensitive to model parameters

Variance estimation after Kernel Ridge Regression Imputation

Imputation is a popular technique for handling missing data. Variance estimation after imputation is an important practical problem in statistics. In this paper, we consider variance estimation of the imputed mean estimator under the kernel ridge regression imputation. We consider a linearization approach which employs the covariate balancing idea to estimate the inverse of propensity scores. The statistical guarantee of our proposed variance estimation is studied when a Sobolev space is utilized to do the imputation, where n-consistency can be obtained. Synthetic data experiments are presented to confirm our theory

The economic impact of recreational fishing in Western Australia.

The Minister for Fisheries commissioned Economic Research Associates to carry out a study of the economic impact of recreational fishing in Western Australia. Two surveys were conducted to determine how much recreational fishers spend during the year on goods and services in order to go fishing. One involved telephone interviews of 401 recreational fishers, who were selected from a stratified random sample of households in five major regions of the state. The other survey employed a self enumeration questionnaire sent to randomly selected licensed recreational fishers, as well as being made available on non-random self-selection basis through fishing clubs and tackle shops

Some ratio type estimators under measurement errors

This article addresses the problem of estimating the population mean using auxiliary information in the presence of measurement errors

A Messy, but Instructive, Case Study in Design of Experiments

A company manufacturing fans wished to conduct an experimental design to determine the best combination of three factors affecting the breaking torque of the fans. Analysis of the data ceased to be straightforward when the authors found that the data failed the test for homogeneity of variances. After unsuccessfully attempting to transform the data and thereby meet the assumptions necessary to carry on the analysis, the authors relied upon a graphical analysis and a careful study of the means for each design point. This paper describes a statistically sound but novel strategy used to complete the analysis

Some Conceptual and Scaling Evaluations of Snowmelt Events Forced by Warm Soil

Snowfall occasionally occurs over bare soil with high thermal storage in its upper layer. Quantification and generalization of the potential impact of the thermal storage on episodic snowmelt is evaluated using a scaling approach and assuming negligible net thermal flux at the snow cover top. Soil thermal flux contribution to snowmelt is found to be affected significantly by the level of soil wetness. It is shown that, for a soil temperature of 10°C prior to the snowfall, the contribution of wet soil thermal flux is significant within the first 12 h when compared with intense surface moist enthalpy flux or solar radiation. Implications of these results to modeling of snowmelt using coupled soil–atmosphere models are elaborated

Learning Outcomes for Library Student Workers

Our Dean of Libraries, Patty Iannuzzi has indicated that employment in the library can and should offer value to the student worker beyond convenience and flexible hours. In her words, The libraries are well positioned to add value to our students\u27 work experience in ways that can contribute to their academic success. As one of the largest employers of student workers on campus, we owe this to our students. As an organization, we want to clearly send a message that we care about them as students -- not just our employees. In Spring 2011, the Libraries partnered with Campus Life to survey student workers concerning their perceived learning as a result of working in Campus Life and in the Libraries

The dirty “S” word: Innovative teaching techniques for counselor educators facilitating learning in statistics and research

Innovative pedagogy will be presented and discussed to help make research a less painful class to both teach and learn. Foci include teaching methods, potential assignments, and suggestions for activities to help facilitate a more fluid learning process for counselors. Attendees will explore aspects of helping students overcome their fear of both statistics and research