18,240 research outputs found
Exit polling and racial bloc voting: Combining individual-level and RC ecological data
Despite its shortcomings, cross-level or ecological inference remains a
necessary part of some areas of quantitative inference, including in United
States voting rights litigation. Ecological inference suffers from a lack of
identification that, most agree, is best addressed by incorporating
individual-level data into the model. In this paper we test the limits of such
an incorporation by attempting it in the context of drawing inferences about
racial voting patterns using a combination of an exit poll and precinct-level
ecological data; accurate information about racial voting patterns is needed to
assess triggers in voting rights laws that can determine the composition of
United States legislative bodies. Specifically, we extend and study a hybrid
model that addresses two-way tables of arbitrary dimension. We apply the hybrid
model to an exit poll we administered in the City of Boston in 2008. Using the
resulting data as well as simulation, we compare the performance of a pure
ecological estimator, pure survey estimators using various sampling schemes and
our hybrid. We conclude that the hybrid estimator offers substantial benefits
by enabling substantive inferences about voting patterns not practicably
available without its use.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-AOAS353 the Annals of
Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of
Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
Methodology for back-contamination risk assessment for a Mars sample return mission
The risk of back-contamination from Mars Surface Sample Return (MSSR) missions is assessed. The methodology is designed to provide an assessment of the probability that a given mission design and strategy will result in accidental release of Martian organisms acquired as a result of MSSR. This is accomplished through the construction of risk models describing the mission risk elements and their impact on back-contamination probability. A conceptual framework is presented for using the risk model to evaluate mission design decisions that require a trade-off between science and planetary protection considerations
Study of storm time fluxes of heavy ions
Ion composition data sets from Lockheed instruments on a variety of spacecraft were used in combination with each other and with data from other instruments to address a variety of problems regarding plasma sources, energization and transport within the magnetosphere. The availability of data from several differing orbits has given a highly flexible approach to attacking the continually evolving questions of magnetospheric physics. This approach is very successful and should be continued in the future
Direct N-body Simulations of Rubble Pile Collisions
There is increasing evidence that many km-sized bodies in the Solar System
are piles of rubble bound together by gravity. We present results from a
project to map the parameter space of collisions between km-sized spherical
rubble piles. The results will assist in parameterization of collision outcomes
for Solar System formation models and give insight into fragmentation scaling
laws. We use a direct numerical method to evolve the positions and velocities
of the rubble pile particles under the constraints of gravity and physical
collisions. We test the dependence of the collision outcomes on impact
parameter and speed, impactor spin, mass ratio, and coefficient of restitution.
Speeds are kept low (< 10 m/s, appropriate for dynamically cool systems such as
the primordial disk during early planet formation) so that the maximum strain
on the component material does not exceed the crushing strength. We compare our
results with analytic estimates and hydrocode simulations. Off-axis collisions
can result in fast-spinning elongated remnants or contact binaries while fast
collisions result in smaller fragments overall. Clumping of debris escaping
from the remnant can occur, leading to the formation of smaller rubble piles.
In the cases we tested, less than 2% of the system mass ends up orbiting the
remnant. Initial spin can reduce or enhance collision outcomes, depending on
the relative orientation of the spin and orbital angular momenta. We derive a
relationship between impact speed and angle for critical dispersal of mass in
the system. We find that our rubble piles are relatively easy to disperse, even
at low impact speed, suggesting that greater dissipation is required if rubble
piles are the true progenitors of protoplanets.Comment: 30 pages including 4 tables, 8 figures. Revised version to be
published in Icarus
The Scythe Statistical Library: An Open Source C++ Library for Statistical Computation
The Scythe Statistical Library is an open source C++ library for statistical computation. It includes a suite of matrix manipulation functions, a suite of pseudo-random number generators, and a suite of numerical optimization routines. Programs written using Scythe are generally much faster than those written in commonly used interpreted languages, such as R and \proglang{MATLAB}; and can be compiled on any system with the GNU GCC compiler (and perhaps with other C++ compilers). One of the primary design goals of the Scythe developers has been ease of use for non-expert C++ programmers. Ease of use is provided through three primary mechanisms: (1) operator and function over-loading, (2) numerous pre-fabricated utility functions, and (3) clear documentation and example programs. Additionally, Scythe is quite flexible and entirely extensible because the source code is available to all users under the GNU General Public License.
Identification and control of structures in space
The derivation of the equations of motion for the Spacecraft Control Laboratory Experiment (SCOLE) is reported and the equations of motion of a similar structure orbiting the earth are also derived. The structure is assumed to undergo large rigid-body maneuvers and small elastic deformations. A perturbation approach is proposed whereby the quantities defining the rigid-body maneuver are assumed to be relatively large, with the elastic deformations and deviations from the rigid-body maneuver being relatively small. The perturbation equations have the form of linear equations with time-dependent coefficients. An active control technique can then be formulated to permit maneuvering of the spacecraft and simultaneously suppressing the elastic vibration
MCMCpack: Markov Chain Monte Carlo in R
We introduce MCMCpack, an R package that contains functions to perform Bayesian inference using posterior simulation for a number of statistical models. In addition to code that can be used to fit commonly used models, MCMCpack also contains some useful utility functions, including some additional density functions and pseudo-random number generators for statistical distributions, a general purpose Metropolis sampling algorithm, and tools for visualization.
Cerebral small vessel disease, medial temporal lobe atrophy and cognitive status in patients with ischaemic stroke and transient ischaemic attack
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:
Small vessel disease (SVD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) are two common causes of cognitive impairment and dementia, traditionally considered as distinct processes. The relationship between radiological features suggestive of AD and SVD was explored, and the association of each of these features with cognitive status at 1 year was investigated in patients with stroke or transient ischaemic attack.
METHODS:
Anonymized data were accessed from the Virtual International Stroke Trials Archive (VISTA). Medial temporal lobe atrophy (MTA; a marker of AD) and markers of SVD were rated using validated ordinal visual scales. Cognitive status was evaluated with the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) 1 year after the index stroke. Logistic regression models were used to investigate independent associations between (i) baseline SVD features and MTA and (ii) all baseline neuroimaging features and cognitive status 1 year post-stroke.
RESULTS:
In all, 234 patients were included, mean (±SD) age 65.7 ± 13.1 years, 145 (62%) male. Moderate to severe MTA was present in 104 (44%) patients. SVD features were independently associated with MTA (P < 0.001). After adjusting for age, sex, disability after stroke, hypertension and diabetes mellitus, MTA was the only radiological feature independently associated with cognitive impairment, defined using thresholds of MMSE ≤ 26 (odds ratio 1.94; 95% confidence interval 1.28-2.94) and MMSE ≤ 23 (odds ratio 2.31; 95% confidence interval 1.48-3.62).
CONCLUSION:
In patients with ischaemic cerebrovascular disease, SVD features are associated with MTA, which is a common finding in stroke survivors. SVD and AD type neurodegeneration coexist, but the AD marker MTA, rather than SVD markers, is associated with post-stroke cognitive impairment
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