Selection of Variables in Regression Models Based on Inflated Distributions

Regression models based on zero inflated distributions are oftenly used in exploratory data analysis having excess zeroes. The difficulty faced by many researchers is regarding the selection of covariates to be included in the model. Following the idea of focused information criterion, observed focused information criterion is proposed for model selection. The motivation for this has its roots in the concept of observed fisher information. Using this criterion, a forward selection procedure is proposed for selection of variables in regression models based on inflated distributions. The procedure is illustrated using a dataset on DMFT index using the modified observed focused information criterion

Engendering Organizational Change: The Brac Case

Summary This article analyses the first phase of an ongoing structural intervention which works at the nexus of gender relations, organizational change, and quality improvement, with a large rural development NGO in South Asia. Identifying this new issue, and acquiring and deploying knowledge around it within the organization has involved definition and continuous reiteration of basic premises concerning gender, individual learning and systems development; an organization?wide knowledge building exercise facilitated by a series of structured diagnostic processes; negotiating premises and visions, transferring ownership, and contributing to BRAC's ongoing organizational exercises in strategic visioning and planning. The article reflects on these processes and discusses some critical dilemmas: expanding parameters versus boundary maintenance, the prerequisites for innovation versus institutional bargaining, and change options versus change realities, that is, distinguishing between what is theoretically desirable and what is programmatically possible at what costs and with what effect in a socio?political environment wherein demand for changing gender relations is weak, fundamentalist forces are increasingly dominant, and where existing structural realities ensure that the process of women's empowerment is both non?additive and non?linear. RESUME Engendrer les changements organisationnels: le cas du BRAC Cet article analyse la première phase d'une intervention structurelle soutenue qui opère au niveau des rapports entre les genres, des changements organisationnels et de l'amélioration au sein d'une ONG de développement rural de grande ampleur en Asie du Sud. L'identification de ce nouveau domaine, et l'acquisition et la vulgarisation des connaissances qui l'entourent au sein de l'organisation ont nécessité le cernement et la réitération continue des principes de base concernant le genre, l'acquisition individuelle des connaissances et le développement des systèmes; ainsi que l'instauration au niveau de l'ensemble de l'organisation d'un exercice de consolidation des compétences, réalisé par voie d'une série d'actions diagnostiques structurées; et la négociation des principes et des aspirations, le transfert de propriété, et la possibilité de contribuer aux exercices qui continuent au sein de la structure organisationnelle du BRAC en vue de mettre en valeur la conception et la planification stratégiques. L'article considère ces processus et s'interroge quant à certains dilemmes critiques: l'expansion des paramètres par opposition au maintien des démarcations, les conditions préalables à l'innovation par opposition aux négociations institutionnelles, et les options de changement par opposition aux réalités du changement, à savoir la détermination de ce qui est désirable en principe et possible en pratique, tout en tenant compte des coûts et des effets dans un environnement socio?politique où la demande en changements au niveau des rapports entre les genres reste faible, où les tendances fondamentalistes deviennent de plus en plus dominantes, et où les réalités structurelles existantes veulent que le processus d'habilitation des femmes demeure non?cumulatif et non?linéaire. RESUMEN El cambio organizativo y el género: el caso BRAC El artículo analiza la primera fase de una intervención estructural dentro de un proceso que funciona en el nexo entre relaciones de género, cambio organizativo, y mejora de calidad en una NGO para el desarrollo rural en África del Sur. La identificación de este tema, así como la adquisición y distribución de datos dentro de la organización han requerido definición y continua reiteración de premisas relativas al género, al aprendizaje individual y al desarrollo de sistemas; adquisición de datos a todos los niveles dentro de la organización, facilitada por una serie de procesos estructurados de diagnóstico; negociación de premisas y perspectivas, transferencia de propiedad, y contribución a los actuales ejercicios organizativos de BRAC relativos a planeamiento estratégico. El artículo presenta algunas reflexiones sobre estos procesos y discute algunos dilemas de crítica: la expansión de parámetros versus el mantenimiento de límites, los requisitos para la innovación versus las negociaciones institucionales, y las opciones de cambio versus las realidades del cambio, es decir, la distinción entre lo teóricamente deseable y lo programáticamente posible, con una estimación de costos y efectos en un ambiente sociopolítico en el cual la demanda de cambio en las relaciones de género es débil, las fuerzas fundamentalistas van aumentando su influencia, y las realidades estructurales existentes aseguran que el proceso de conferir poderes a las mujeres no sea linear ni aditivo

The Muek-lek Women\u27s Dairy Project in Thailand

This issue of SEEDS describes a project that was started in 1985 to encourage the growth of a new agricultural sector, dairy farming, in Thailand. While the major aim of the project was to increase incomes of rural families in the Muek-Lek Land Reform Area in Saraburi Province, Central Thailand, it also sought to integrate women into dairying activities, and offer these women, whether married or single, access to credit. The Muek-Lek Dairy Project is unique in that it channeled government resources and secured commercial bank financing to make women the key participants in a relatively new and growing agricultural sector in Thailand. Primarily the initiative of two prominent Thai women, a banker and the director of a national NGO, with the support of an international women\u27s banking organization, the project has had a major impact on increasing women\u27s income, status, and access to government and private-sector resources

Bayesian Inference for Median of the Lognormal Distribution

Lognormal distribution has many applications. The past research papers concentrated on the estimation of the mean of this distribution. This paper develops credible interval for the median of the lognormal distribution. The estimated coverage probability and average length of the credible interval is compared with the confidence interval using Monte Carlo simulation

Synthesis, Characterization and Density Functional Study of LiMn1.5Ni 0.5O4 Electrode for Lithium ion Battery

This paper analyses material issues of development of Li-ion batteries to store electrical energy. The performance of the battery is improved by developing the high energy density cathode materials at Nano level. This paper explains the synthesis of most interesting cathode material Lithium Manganese Spinel and its derivatives like transition metal oxide (LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4) using Co-Precipitation chemical method; it is one of the eco-friendly ,effective, economic and easy preparation method. The structural features of LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4 was characterized by XRD – analysis indicated that prepared sample mainly belong to cubic crystal form with Fd3m space group ,with lattice parameter a 8.265 and average crystal size of 31.59 nm and compared the experimental results with computation details from first principle computation methods with Quantum wise Atomistix Tool Kit (ATK),Virtual Nano Lab. First principle computation methods provide important role in emerging and optimizing this electrode material. In this study we present an overview of the computation approach aimed at building LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4 crystal as cathode for Lithium ion battery. We show each significant property can be related to the structural component in the material and can be computed from first principle. By direct comparison with experimental results, we assume to interpret that first principle computation can help to accelerate the design & development of LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4 as cathode material of lithium ion battery for energy storage. When you are citing the document, use the following link http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/3431

Careers and Trends of Engineering Graduates – a Case for Study

This paper provides a template for preparing papers for electronic production of the EduLearn. A well-prepared abstract enables the reader to identify the basic content of a document quickly and accurately, to determine its relevance to their interests, and thus to decide whether to read the document in its entirety. The Abstract should be informative and completely self-explanatory, provide a clear statement of the problem, the proposed approach or solution, and point out major findings and conclusions. The Abstract should be 100 to 150 words in length. The abstract should be written in the past tense. Standard nomenclature should be used and abbreviations should be avoided. No literature should be cited. The keyword list provides the opportunity to add keywords, used by the indexing and abstracting services, in addition to those already present in the title. Judicious use of keywords may increase the ease with which interested parties can locate our article

Conflicting Parameter Pair Optimization for Linear Aperiodic Antenna Array using Chebyshev Taper based Genetic Algorithm

In this study, the peak side lobe level (PSLL) in the radiation pattern of a linear antenna array (LAA) is lowered without affecting its first null beam width (FNBW). Antenna array synthesis is commonly applied to achieve high directivity, low side lobes, high gain and desired null positions in the output radiation pattern. But output parameters like PSLL, null positions and beam width conflict with each other, i.e. as one parameter improves, the other deteriorates. To avoid this problem, a multi-objective optimization algorithm can be implemented, in which both the conflicting parameters can be simultaneously optimized. This work proposes a multi-objective algorithm, which takes advantages of the well-known Chebyshev tapering and genetic algorithm (GA), to lower the PSLL without broadening the beam further. Array elements are fed using Chebyshev tapered excitations while GA is incorporated to optimize the elemental spacing. The results of 28-element LAA are compared with those of multi-objective Cauchy mutated cat swarm optimization (MO-CMCSO) existing in literature, which has also been proven to be superior to multi-objective cat swarm optimization (MO-CSO) and multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MO-PSO). Results indicate that the proposed algorithm performs better by further reducing the PSLL from -21.57 dB (MO-CMCSO) to -28.18 dB, while maintaining the same FNBW of 7.4 degrees

Synthesis, Characterization and Density Functional Study of LiMn1.5Ni 0.5O4 Electrode for Lithium ion Battery

This paper analyses material issues of development of Li-ion batteries to store electrical energy. The performance of the battery is improved by developing the high energy density cathode materials at Nano level. This paper explains the synthesis of most interesting cathode material Lithium Manganese Spinel and its derivatives like transition metal oxide (LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4) using Co-Precipitation chemical method; it is one of the eco-friendly ,effective, economic and easy preparation method. The structural features of LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4 was characterized by XRD – analysis indicated that prepared sample mainly belong to cubic crystal form with Fd3m space group ,with lattice parameter a 8.265 and average crystal size of 31.59 nm and compared the experimental results with computation details from first principle computation methods with Quantum wise Atomistix Tool Kit (ATK),Virtual Nano Lab. First principle computation methods provide important role in emerging and optimizing this electrode material. In this study we present an overview of the computation approach aimed at building LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4 crystal as cathode for Lithium ion battery. We show each significant property can be related to the structural component in the material and can be computed from first principle. By direct comparison with experimental results, we assume to interpret that first principle computation can help to accelerate the design & development of LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4 as cathode material of lithium ion battery for energy storage. When you are citing the document, use the following link http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/3581

Forecasting movie rating using k-nearest neighbor based collaborative filtering

Expressing reviews in the form of sentiments or ratings for item used or movie seen is the part of human habit. These reviews are easily available on different social websites. Based on interest pattern of a user, it is important to recommend him the items. Recommendation system is playing a vital role in everyone’s life as demand of recommendation for user’s interest increasing day by day. Movie recommendation system based on available ratings for a movie has become interesting part for new users. Till today, a lot many recommendation systems are designed using several machine learning algorithms. Still, sparsity problems, cold start problem, scalability, grey sheep problem are the hurdles for the recommendation systems that must be resolved using hybrid algorithms. We proposed in this paper, a movie rating system using a k-nearest neighbor (KNN-based) collaborative filtering (CF) approach. We compared user’s ratings for different movies to get top K users. Then we have used this top K set to find missing ratings by user for a movie using CF. Our proposed system when evaluated for various criteria shows promising results for movie recommendations compared with existing systems