Income, education, and other poverty-related variables: a journey through Bayesian hierarchical models

One-shirt-size policy cannot handle poverty issues well since each area has its unique challenges, while having a custom-made policy for each area separately is unrealistic due to limitation of resources as well as having issues of ignoring dependencies of characteristics between different areas. In this work, we propose to use Bayesian hierarchical models which can potentially explain the data regarding income and other poverty-related variables in the multi-resolution governing structural data of Thailand. We discuss the journey of how we design each model from simple to more complex ones, estimate their performance in terms of variable explanation and complexity, discuss models' drawbacks, as well as propose the solutions to fix issues in the lens of Bayesian hierarchical models in order to get insight from data. We found that Bayesian hierarchical models performed better than both complete pooling (single policy) and no pooling models (custom-made policy). Additionally, by adding the year-of-education variable, the hierarchical model enriches its performance of variable explanation. We found that having a higher education level increases significantly the households' income for all the regions in Thailand. The impact of the region in the households' income is almost vanished when education level or years of education are considered. Therefore, education might have a mediation role between regions and the income. Our work can serve as a guideline for other countries that require the Bayesian hierarchical approach to model their variables and get insight from data

Rotary Friction Welding of Dissimilar Joints between SSM356 and SSM6061 Aluminium Alloys Produced by GISS

The objective of research is to investigate the parameters, microstructure and mechanical properties of butt joint SSM356 with SSM6061 aluminum alloy by using RFW processes. The main parameters for rotation speeds are 1550, 1700 and 1850 rpm and for burn of length are 2, 2.5 and 3 mm respectively. After experiment, we found that both materials showed strong weld ability although it has a different chemical composition. The microstructural changes in welded metals caused deformation leading to smaller particle sizes. The average Mg2Si particle size was at 0.998 µm long and the width of this particle was at 1.021 µm when it was rotated at 1850 rpm with burn of length at 2.5 mm. The maximum average tensile strength is 87.24 MPa, efficiency of the weld joints is 51.89 percent compared with the base metal of SSM356 aluminum alloys (base metal is 168.12 MPa), and efficiency of the weld joints is 68.45 percent compared with the base metal of SSM6061 aluminum alloys (base metal is 127.44 MPa). Besides, the small particle distribution in the welded metal promotes the hardness property increasing up to 65.56 HV

The Development of Good Citizen’s Characteristics Program for Secondary School Students in Thailand

The objectives of this research were 1) to develop a good citizen’s characteristics program for secondary school students 2) to implement and evaluate of the program, and 3) to disseminate the program through the cyber network. The research sample for program implementation was 35 volunteer students from Mahavajiravudh Songkhla School under the school network of Somdet-Phra-Maha-Theeraratchao. While the data was analyzed by Mean, Frequency, Standard Deviation (SD), and t-test. The research results showed; 1) the development of good citizen’s characters’ program for secondary school students consisted of a) rationale and principle, b) objectives, c) the training contents comprise of three modules as Discipline, Honesty, and Social Service Mind, d) activities and instructional media, and e) evaluation.  2) The result of the program implementation on the desirable characteristics showed that an increasing of the average score in all indicators; Discipline (Mean =1.19), Honesty (Mean = 1.36); and Social Service Mind (Mean = 1.21) where the statistics of t-test for pretest and posttest showed the significance different at .05, and 3) the results of program dissemination via the cyber networks entitled “Smart Thai Teen” leaded the members to a) understanding of being good citizens and having self-developments, b) inspiriting and believing in good deeds, c) valuing of good people and being aware of social problems