Conflict resolution using statistical approach

African Journal of Mathematics and Computer Science Research Vol. 3(2), pp. 026-030, February, 2010 Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/AJMCSR ISSN 2006-9731© 2010 Academic JournalsConflict can be described as a condition in which actions of one person prevent or compel some outcome at the resistance of the other. Quite often this can be seen as “two or more competing, often incompatible, responses to same event”. In this paper, a statistical approach to conflict resolution using the concept of bargaining game theory is presented. The approach gives chances of failure that are minimal since any offer made in a conflict situation is tied to the likelihood of it being accepted as it takes into considerations the demands from the other party. The approach presents a fair way of solving a conflict without affecting a system. An employer-employee relationship was used to illustrate the application of the approachConflict can be described as a condition in which actions of one person prevent or compel some outcome at the resistance of the other. Quite often this can be seen as “two or more competing, often incompatible, responses to same event”. In this paper, a statistical approach to conflict resolution using the concept of bargaining game theory is presented. The approach gives chances of failure that are minimal since any offer made in a conflict situation is tied to the likelihood of it being accepted as it takes into considerations the demands from the other party. The approach presents a fair way of solving a conflict without affecting a system. An employer-employee relationship was used to illustrate the application of the approach

School Heads’ Effectiveness in Fulfilling their Leadership Roles in Tanzania Public Secondary Schools: Prospects and Challenges at Kahama Town Council.

This studied participants’ perspective on the experienced prospects and challenges facing school heads’ effectiveness in fulfilling their leadership roles within Kahama town council. The raised main question, what have been prospects and challenges among school heads in fulfilling their leadership roles effectively? The post-positivists’ paradigm, qualitative approach and exploratory research design were used in this study. The sample size was 49 research participants. The data collection and analysis were done through triangulated methods: questionnaire instrument and interview guides. Data were analysed by triangulated methods, of Microsoft Office Excel and calculator for questionnaire data, while the qualitative data were sorted, categorised, coded, compared and contrasted. Findings revealed that roles of school heads include: unifying institution workers to work hard and supervising school resources; democratic leadership style, is preferred in studied schools. Also, different education levels among teachers in studied secondary schools; financial constraints are the leading leadership challenges. The in-service leadership workshops training are the best-recommended solution for faced challenges in studied schools among the school heads. As well, the democratic leadership style be used regularly in their activities to increase teachers’ participation in decision making. High education level qualifications should be considered in appointing school heads in the town council. The comparative study on similar problem be done in other districts of Shinyanga with larger sample preferably at the primary school level. Keywords: School Heads, Effectiveness, and Leadershi

An Application Of Extreme Value Theory In Modelling Electricity Production In Kenya

Extreme Value Theory provides a well-established statistical model for the computation of extreme risk measure which includes, Value at Risk and Expected Shortfall. In this paper we apply Univariate Extreme Value Theory to model extreme production for the Kenyan Electricity. We demonstrate that Extreme value theory can successfully be applied in predicting future Value at Risk to the electricity production. This will provide solutions to the problems faced by producers and consumers in the electricity market. In this paper Value at Risk is estimated using a Peak Over Threshold method. This technique models the distribution of exceedances over a high threshold rather than the individual observations. It concentrates on observation that exceeds central limits, focusing on the tail of the distribution. Extreme value theory is also applied to compute the tail risk measures at given confidence interval.  An overview of the Extreme Value Theory and Peaks Over Threshold Method are also given. These methods are applied to electricity production in Kenya and the data exhibit some trend and modeled as a Gumbel distribution since the shape parameter is not significantly different from zero. Keywords: Risk Modeling, Value at Risk, Extreme Value Theory

Bootstrap of Kernel Smoothing in Quantile Autoregression Process

Abstract The paper considers the problem of bootstrapping kernel estimator of conditional quantiles for time series, under independent and identically distributed errors, by mimicking the kernel smoothing in nonparametric autoregressive scheme. A quantile autoregression bootstrap generating process is constructed and the estimator given. Under appropriate assumptions, the bootstrap estimator is shown to be consistent

Limit Theory of Model Order Change-Point Estimator for GARCH Models

The limit theory of a change-point process which is based on the Manhattan distance of the sample autocorrelation function with applications to GARCH processes is examined. The general theory of the sample autocovariance and sample autocorrelation functions of a stationary GARCH process forms the basis of this study. Specifically the point processes theory is utilized to obtain their weak convergence limit at different lags. This is further extended to the change-point process. The limits are found to be generally random as a result of the infinite variance

Consistency of the Model Order Change-Point Estimator for GARCH Models

GARCH models have been commonly used to capture volatility dynamics in financial time series. A key assumption utilized is that the series is stationary as this allows for model identifiability. This however violates the volatility clustering property exhibited by financial returns series. Existing methods attribute this phenomenon to parameter change. However, the assumption of fixed model order is too restrictive for long time series. This paper proposes a change-point estimator based on Manhattan distance. The estimator is applicable to GARCH model order change-point detection. Procedures are based on the sample autocorrelation function of squared series. The asymptotic consistency of the estimator is proven theoretically

A hybrid digital parenting programme to prevent abuse of adolescents in Tanzania: statistical analysis plan for a pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial

Background: Globally, violence against children poses substantial health and economic challenges, with estimated costs nearing USD 7 trillion. This prompts the urgent call for effective evidence-based interventions in preventing and mitigating violence against children. ParentApp is a mobile, open-source application designed to offer a remote version of the Parenting for Lifelong Health (PLH) programme. ParentApp is the first digital parenting intervention for caregivers of adolescents aged 10–17 years to be tested in low- and middle-income settings. Methods: This study is a pragmatic, two-arm, cluster-randomised trial in Mwanza, Tanzania’s urban and peri-urban areas. Assessments are set for baseline, 1 month post-intervention, and 12 months post-intervention. We randomised 80 clusters, each with about 30 caregiver-adolescent dyads, with a 1:1 ratio stratified by urban or peri-urban location. Both arms receive an entry-level smartphone preloaded with Kiswahili apps—ParentApp for intervention and WashApp control. The primary method of analysis will be generalised linear mixed-effects models with adjustment for person-level characteristics and multiple imputation. In three-level models, measurement waves are nested within a person, nested within a sub-ward. Regressions will constrain groups to be equal at baseline and include covariates for stratification, percentage of male caregivers, and individual-level characteristics. Discussions: Preparations for the trial began in December 2022, including community mobilisation and sensitisation. Rolling recruitment, baseline data collection, and implementation onboarding took place between April and September 2023. One-month post-test data collection began in August 2023 and thus far achieved 97% and 94% retention rates for caregivers and adolescents respectively. Final post-test data collection will begin in September 2024, anticipated to run until April 2025. This SAP was submitted to the journal before the interim analysis to preserve scientific integrity under a superiority hypothesis testing framework. Trial registration: The trial was registered on the Open Science Framework on 14 March 2023: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/T9FXZ. The trial protocol was published in Trials 25, 119 (2024): Baerecke, L., Ornellas, A., Wamoyi, J. et al. A hybrid digital parenting programme to prevent abuse of adolescents in Tanzania: study protocol for a pragmatic cluster-randomised controlled trial. Trials 25, 119 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-023-07893-x

Asthma Prevalence, Knowledge, and Perceptions among Secondary School Pupils in Rural and Urban Costal Districts in Tanzania.

Asthma is a common chronic disease of childhood that is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. We aimed to estimate the prevalence of asthma among secondary school pupils in urban and rural areas of coast districts of Tanzania. The study also aimed to describe pupils' perception towards asthma, and to assess their knowledge on symptoms, triggers, and treatment of asthma. A total of 610 pupils from Ilala district and 619 pupils from Bagamoyo district formed the urban and rural groups, respectively. Using a modified International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) questionnaire, a history of "diagnosed" asthma or the presence of a wheeze in the previous 12 months was obtained from all the studied pupils, along with documentation of their perceptions regarding asthma. Pupils without asthma or wheeze in the prior 12 months were subsequently selected and underwent a free running exercise testing. A >= 20% decrease in the post-exercise Peak Expiratory Flow Rate (PEFR) values was the criterion for diagnosing exercise-induced asthma. The mean age of participants was 16.8 (+/-1.8) years. The prevalence of wheeze in the past 12 months was 12.1% in Bagamoyo district and 23.1% in Ilala district (p < 0.001). Self-reported asthma was found in 17.6% and 6.4% of pupils in Ilala and Bagamoyo districts, respectively (p < 0.001). The prevalence of exercise-induced asthma was 2.4% in Bagamoyo, and 26.3% in Ilala (P < 0.002). In both districts, most information on asthma came from parents, and there was variation in symptoms and triggers of asthma reported by the pupils. Non-asthmatic pupils feared sleeping, playing, and eating with their asthmatic peers. The prevalence rates of self-reported asthma, wheezing in the past 12 months, and exercise-induced asthma were significantly higher among urban than rural pupils. Although bronchial asthma is a common disease, pupils' perceptions about asthma were associated with fear of contact with their asthmatic peers in both rural and urban schools

Gene expression regulation in the plant growth promoting Bacillus atrophaeus UCMB-5137 stimulated by maize root exudates

Despite successful use of Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR) in agriculture, little is known about specific mechanisms of gene regulation facilitating the effective communication between bacteria and plants during plant colonization. Active PGPR strain B. atrophaeus UCMB-5137 was studied in this research. RNA sequencing profiles were generated in experiments where root exudate stimulations were used to mimic interactions between bacteria and plants. It was found that the gene regulation in B. atrophaeus UCMB-5137 in response to the root exudate stimuli differed from the reported gene regulation at similar conditions in B. amyloliquefaciens FZB42, which was considered as a paradigm PGPR. This difference was explained by hypersensitivity of UCMB-5137 to the root exudate stimuli impelling it to a sessile root colonization behavior through the CcpA-CodY-AbrB regulation. It was found that the transcriptional factor DegU also could play an important role in gene regulations during plant colonization. A significant stress caused by the root exudates on in vitro cultivated B. atrophaeus UCMB-5137 was noticed and discussed. Multiple cases of conflicted gene regulations showed scantiness of our knowledge on the regulatory network in Bacillus. Some of these conflicted regulations could be explained by interference of non-coding RNA (ncRNA). Search through differential expressed intergenic regions revealed 49 putative loci of ncRNA regulated by the root exudate stimuli. Possible target mRNA were predicted and a general regulatory network of B. atrophaeus UCMB-5137 genome was designed.This study was funded by the PhD fellowship grant provided by the Southern African Biochemistry and Informatics for Natural Products (SABINA, www.sabina-africa.org/), and the National Research Foundation of South Africa (NRF) grants 73983, 86941 and 93664 for travels and collaboration. Sequencing was funded by the Genomics Research Institute (GRI) at the University of Pretoria.http://www.elsevier.com/locate/gene2017-09-30hb2016BiochemistryMicrobiology and Plant Patholog