5,990 research outputs found
Handling Attrition in Longitudinal Studies: The Case for Refreshment Samples
Panel studies typically suffer from attrition, which reduces sample size and
can result in biased inferences. It is impossible to know whether or not the
attrition causes bias from the observed panel data alone. Refreshment samples -
new, randomly sampled respondents given the questionnaire at the same time as a
subsequent wave of the panel - offer information that can be used to diagnose
and adjust for bias due to attrition. We review and bolster the case for the
use of refreshment samples in panel studies. We include examples of both a
fully Bayesian approach for analyzing the concatenated panel and refreshment
data, and a multiple imputation approach for analyzing only the original panel.
For the latter, we document a positive bias in the usual multiple imputation
variance estimator. We present models appropriate for three waves and two
refreshment samples, including nonterminal attrition. We illustrate the
three-wave analysis using the 2007-2008 Associated Press-Yahoo! News Election
Poll.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/13-STS414 the Statistical
Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
Dissipative production of a maximally entangled steady state
Entangled states are a key resource in fundamental quantum physics, quantum
cryp-tography, and quantum computation [1].To date, controlled unitary
interactions applied to a quantum system, so-called "quantum gates", have been
the most widely used method to deterministically create entanglement [2]. These
processes require high-fidelity state preparation as well as minimizing the
decoherence that inevitably arises from coupling between the system and the
environment and imperfect control of the system parameters. Here, on the
contrary, we combine unitary processes with engineered dissipation to
deterministically produce and stabilize an approximate Bell state of two
trapped-ion qubits independent of their initial state. While previous works
along this line involved the application of sequences of multiple
time-dependent gates [3] or generated entanglement of atomic ensembles
dissipatively but relied on a measurement record for steady-state entanglement
[4], we implement the process in a continuous time-independent fashion,
analogous to optical pumping of atomic states. By continuously driving the
system towards steady-state, the entanglement is stabilized even in the
presence of experimental noise and decoherence. Our demonstration of an
entangled steady state of two qubits represents a step towards dissipative
state engineering, dissipative quantum computation, and dissipative phase
transitions [5-7]. Following this approach, engineered coupling to the
environment may be applied to a broad range of experimental systems to achieve
desired quantum dynamics or steady states. Indeed, concurrently with this work,
an entangled steady state of two superconducting qubits was demonstrated using
dissipation [8].Comment: 25 pages, 5 figure
Using Synchronic and Diachronic Relations for Summarizing Multiple Documents Describing Evolving Events
In this paper we present a fresh look at the problem of summarizing evolving
events from multiple sources. After a discussion concerning the nature of
evolving events we introduce a distinction between linearly and non-linearly
evolving events. We present then a general methodology for the automatic
creation of summaries from evolving events. At its heart lie the notions of
Synchronic and Diachronic cross-document Relations (SDRs), whose aim is the
identification of similarities and differences between sources, from a
synchronical and diachronical perspective. SDRs do not connect documents or
textual elements found therein, but structures one might call messages.
Applying this methodology will yield a set of messages and relations, SDRs,
connecting them, that is a graph which we call grid. We will show how such a
grid can be considered as the starting point of a Natural Language Generation
System. The methodology is evaluated in two case-studies, one for linearly
evolving events (descriptions of football matches) and another one for
non-linearly evolving events (terrorist incidents involving hostages). In both
cases we evaluate the results produced by our computational systems.Comment: 45 pages, 6 figures. To appear in the Journal of Intelligent
Information System
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