ANALYZING BIG DATA WITH DECISION TREES

ANALYZING BIG DATA WITH DECISION TREE

[Review of] Lloyd Fernando, ed., Malaysian Short Stories; K. S. Maniam, The Return; and Wong Meng Voon, Glimpses of the Past

These three books of fiction are set in the multilingual and multiracial context of Singapore and Malaysia, two Southeast Asian nations once part of the British Empire and now a region peopled by a volatile mix of indigenous Malays (roughly 45%) and immigrant Chinese (43%), Indians (10%), and Europeans (0.4%). Reflecting the diversity of this region, one book is a short story anthology by a Chinese (Wong), another a novel by an Indian (Maniam), and the third a collection of stories edited by an Eurasian ( Fernando). All three books have some astonishing strengths and some unfortunate lapses, with Maniam\u27s being the most sustained effort and Fernando\u27s the most generous sampling from these societies

The erhu and its role as a vehicle for syncretic music performance in Singapore : a thesis presented in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Music at Wellington Conservatorium of Music, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

This thesis examines the erhu, a bowed lute from China and its development as a vehicle for syncretic music-making in Singapore. Chapter One considers the erhu's status in Chinese culture and focuses on the differences between how the erhu was perceived by the "proletariat" of the early twentieth century contrasted with the imperialists of that time. A central assumption in this study is that erhu music-making in Singapore is inextricably bound with the traditions of both Western and Chinese culture. This concept is introduced in Chapter Two, with a discussion on musical syncretism. The erhu is a member of the huqin string family and is one instrument in the new ensemble idiom of the Singapore Huqin Quartet. This ensemble is the first to have huqin set up together in the manner of a Western string quartet. This ensemble has been influential on and contributes to a broad range of musical happenings in Singapore. It also represents one development of erhu as "world music". Phoon Yew Tien, who writes for the Singapore Huqin Quartet, is introduced. Chapter Three encompasses the different instruments that make up the huqin family, as played by the Singapore Huqin Quartet (which will be referred to as the SHQ in abbreviation). It also looks at the development of the modern Chinese orchestra. Chapter Four provides the descriptions and characteristics of the erhu and its performance techniques. In Chapter Five, eminent musical figures such as Liu Tian Hua and Hua Yan Jun (also known as Abing) will be discussed. Their music composed for the erhu has become an important part of the repertoire of the SHQ. The concluding chapter outlines differences between Western and Chinese music and looks at the merging of the two. A product of this merger is the compositions of distinguished Singapore composer, Phoon Yew Tien. His works are a fine example of the erhu's musical qualities and demonstrate the compositional potential of the SHQ's syncretic idiom with the merging of the Chinese and Western art-music forces. A musical composition by Phoon viewed in a compositional perspective summarizes the possibilities of further development of this style

[Review of] Marilyn Chin. Dwarf Bamboo

This is a more than capable first book by a Chinese American woman poet whose work evinces great potential. Marilyn Chin is a San Franciscan born in Hong Kong, raised in Oregon, and schooled in the U.S. (Chinese at Massachusetts and creative writing at Iowa). Many of her poems gathered here first saw light in journals like Bridge, Massachusetts Review, New Letters, Kayak and others

The three happinesses and the happiness formula : lessons from the Hong Kong evidence

The paper draws on results of surveys conducted in Hong Kong since 2005 to test the three happinesses theory and the happiness formula. The three happinesses theory suggests that the positive or negative feelings as well as the strengths of such affective feelings associated with an activity would depend on the state of mind of the individual engaging in the activity, and this would depend on prospective as well as retrospective considerations. The three happinesses are based on a whole life experience, the capability for which can be switched on using the happiness formula consisting of Love, Insight, Fortitude, and Engagement

Statistical modeling of causal effects in continuous time

This article studies the estimation of the causal effect of a time-varying treatment on time-to-an-event or on some other continuously distributed outcome. The paper applies to the situation where treatment is repeatedly adapted to time-dependent patient characteristics. The treatment effect cannot be estimated by simply conditioning on these time-dependent patient characteristics, as they may themselves be indications of the treatment effect. This time-dependent confounding is common in observational studies. Robins [(1992) Biometrika 79 321--334, (1998b) Encyclopedia of Biostatistics 6 4372--4389] has proposed the so-called structural nested models to estimate treatment effects in the presence of time-dependent confounding. In this article we provide a conceptual framework and formalization for structural nested models in continuous time. We show that the resulting estimators are consistent and asymptotically normal. Moreover, as conjectured in Robins [(1998b) Encyclopedia of Biostatistics 6 4372--4389], a test for whether treatment affects the outcome of interest can be performed without specifying a model for treatment effect. We illustrate the ideas in this article with an example.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/009053607000000820 the Annals of Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org