Compatible Weighted Proper Scoring Rules

Many proper scoring rules such as the Brier and log scoring rules implicitly reward a probability forecaster relative to a uniform baseline distribution. Recent work has motivated weighted proper scoring rules, which have an additional baseline parameter. To date two families of weighted proper scoring rules have been introduced, the weighted power and pseudospherical scoring families. These families are compatible with the log scoring rule: when the baseline maximizes the log scoring rule over some set of distributions, the baseline also maximizes the weighted power and pseudospherical scoring rules over the same set. We characterize all weighted proper scoring families and prove a general property: every proper scoring rule is compatible with some weighted scoring family, and every weighted scoring family is compatible with some proper scoring rule

Projecting Livestock Numbers

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) undertakes forecasts and projections of livestock numbers as part of the twice yearly contribution to The Treasury’s economic and fiscal updates. MAF’s Pastoral Supply Response Model (PSRM) was recently re-developed and used for the first time in the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update round of 2004. The PSRM projects annual inventory numbers as at 30 June, births and livestock numbers for slaughter. The paper discusses the PSRM, the post-model adjustments process, and the feed through to a simplistic assessment of land use changes within pasture areas.Livestock numbers, forecasting, supply response, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management, Land Economics/Use, Livestock Production/Industries, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Linear Estimating Equations for Exponential Families with Application to Gaussian Linear Concentration Models

In many families of distributions, maximum likelihood estimation is intractable because the normalization constant for the density which enters into the likelihood function is not easily available. The score matching estimator of Hyv\"arinen (2005) provides an alternative where this normalization constant is not required. The corresponding estimating equations become linear for an exponential family. The score matching estimator is shown to be consistent and asymptotically normally distributed for such models, although not necessarily efficient. Gaussian linear concentration models are examples of such families. For linear concentration models that are also linear in the covariance we show that the score matching estimator is identical to the maximum likelihood estimator, hence in such cases it is also efficient. Gaussian graphical models and graphical models with symmetries form particularly interesting subclasses of linear concentration models and we investigate the potential use of the score matching estimator for this case

A Fast Algorithm for Sampling from the Posterior of a von Mises distribution

Motivated by molecular biology, there has been an upsurge of research activities in directional statistics in general and its Bayesian aspect in particular. The central distribution for the circular case is von Mises distribution which has two parameters (mean and concentration) akin to the univariate normal distribution. However, there has been a challenge to sample efficiently from the posterior distribution of the concentration parameter. We describe a novel, highly efficient algorithm to sample from the posterior distribution and fill this long-standing gap

Productivity in the New Zealand primary and downstream sectors

In New Zealand, there has been increasing interest in productivity growth, both at economywide and sector levels. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry maintains a total factor productivity series for the primary sectors. As part of the ministry's flagship project on growth and productivity, we are reviewing the methodology and extending productivity derivation to downstream industries. This paper presents our research results to date.total factor productivity, New Zealand, agriculture, forestry, downstream sectors, Productivity Analysis,

Theoretical development and social capital measurement

Chapter 4, by Sarah Hean and colleagues, highlights the importance of theory development in making the concept useful to the practice of public health. The authors present an innovative way of thinking about the different facets of social capital, describe the development of a survey instrument that attempts to make explicit the inputs and outputs of social capital and describe how these can be operationalised in a practice setting. The survey tool takes account of the dynamic nature of social capital and offers a useful way of evaluating community projects

Fingerprint Analysis with Marked Point Processes

We present a framework for fingerprint matching based on marked point process models. An efficient Monte Carlo algorithm is developed to calculate the marginal likelihood ratio for the hypothesis that two observed prints originate from the same finger against the hypothesis that they originate from different fingers. Our model achieves good performance on an NIST-FBI fingerprint database of 258 matched fingerprint pairs

Workers' Councils In Portugal 1974-1975

Democratic workplace organisations have provided the basic component of every significant working class revolutionary movement. One of the characteristics of revolutionary periods is how readily workplace organisations coordinate their struggles by establishing higher level bodies on the basis of elected delegates. The term "workers' council" is used in this sense - an organisation which links workers from different enterprises. This thesis provides a substantial background chapter covering the events in Portugal in 1974/5 before describing, in depth, four studies of embryonic workers' councils. The case studies are of: the Inter-Empresas (May 74 - March 75) the CRTSMs (April 75 - June 75) the Popular Assemblies (July 75 - November 75) the Setubal Comite de Lute (October 75 - November 75) In choosing the examples the following criteria were selected: a) the democratic nature of the organisations b) the importance of the revolutionary left c) their potential role, as envisaged by the organisation, as an alternative form of power? The study draws upon first hand experiences as a political organiser in Lisbon, working for a British organisation, and upon interviews, mainly with activists from the revolutionary left. It tries to show some inter-relationship between this revolutionary left and the development of the workers' movement. The conclusion is in two parts. The first is at the general level. It argues that the organisations managed to capture the limelight for brief moments, yet in retrospect, they never attained a leading role. By looking at the military, the role and failure of the popular power movement and the strength of its counterpart reformism, some suggestions are made as to why the workers' council movement was relatively weak. At the micro level workers' councils type formations are compared, looking specifically at the features identified as being salient. The conclusion attempts to draw a distinction between the actual strength of the embryonic councils and their potential. However embryonic, the developments have a significance beyond that of the Portuguese political history insofar as they contribute to the body of knowledge about workers' councils and revolutionary activity