MS

thesisThe relationship between knowledge and adherence post-myocardial infarction was studies. Knowledge of cardiac disease and guidelines for rehabilitation was measured pre-discharge and at two and four week post-discharge. Each subject rated adherence to diet, smoking, and exercise guidelines at two and four week post-discharge. Knowledge and adherence scores were than correlated to assess the degree of relationship between the two variables. No significant relationship was found between the two variables. This may have been due to the small sample size or to changing guidelines for discharge. Knowledge and adherence scores were also analyzed with respect to demographic variables. Age was significantly correlated with knowledge (p < .05). That is, as age increased, knowledge scored decreased. Decreasing scores in the aged may reflect sensory limitation diminishing test taking ability or lack of familiarity with multiple choice test; also, the aged may have slower learning processes which would result in lower scores. ANOVA revealed a significant relationship between family size and test scores (p < .05). After discharge, the individuals with high numbers of children had significantly higher scores than the individuals with three or fewer children. Members of large families may have participated in answering the questions, or the men may have been under more pressure to learn and rehabilitate so as to return to work. Only the variable hobbies were found to have a significant effect on adherence (P < .05). Analysis showed individuals with physically active hobbies were less adherent to exercised restrictions. Finally, test scores were analyzed for change over time. There appeared to be an increase in scores from pre-discharge to post-discharge, but test scores were consistent after discharge

Statistical Inference and the Plethora of Probability Paradigms: A Principled Pluralism

The major competing statistical paradigms share a common remarkable but unremarked thread: in many of their inferential applications, different probability interpretations are combined. How this plays out in different theories of inference depends on the type of question asked. We distinguish four question types: confirmation, evidence, decision, and prediction. We show that Bayesian confirmation theory mixes what are intuitively “subjective” and “objective” interpretations of probability, whereas the likelihood-based account of evidence melds three conceptions of what constitutes an “objective” probability

A5_1 A Drop of Rain

How much energy could we transfer from rainfall to power a 60 W lightbulb by fitting a hydroturbine into the base of a drainpipe attached to the Physics building at the University of Leicester (UoL)? We discovered that the maximum energy you could produce would be enough to power a 60 W lightbulb for approximately 8.5 hours over the course of a year

Investigation into Bias and Variability in Estimates of Population Size and Biomass when Catches of Individuals are Large Relative to the Total Population

Biomass of fish populations has traditionally been estimated by multiplying the average weight of captured fish by the estimated number of fish, with its variance estimated as the product of two variances. We present a method for estimating fish biomass in small streams (&lt; 5 m wetted width) that uses a finite population correction factor (FPC) to take advantage of the fact that a relatively high proportion of the total population is normally captured and can be weighed during removal estimates. For these captured fish, measurement error is related to scale accuracy and field conditions. For the portion of the population that is not captured, we used a randomly stopped sums estimator (RSS) to estimate the total weight and variance of this non-captured proportion of the population. We also evaluated FPC and RSS methods individually to determine which of the four methods--(1) combination of FPC and RSS (FPCRSS), (2) traditional (hereafter OLD), (3) FPC, or (4) RSS—performed best. We also incorporated biomass estimates for fish that were captured, but not weighed, using length-weight regression predictions (FPCRSSreg). Performance of these estimators was evaluated using both simulated and field data. We based performance on reduction in the coefficient of variation (CV) of the biomass estimate and coverage of 95-percent confidence intervals (proportion of trials for which the 95-percent estimated biomass confidence intervals included the true biomass). The FPCRSS method had the narrowest CVs and the OLD method had the widest CVs for both the field and simulated data. Because of the high variance for the OLD method, 95-percent CIs for this method included the true biomass for a higher proportion of trials (nearly 100%) than 95-percent CIs for the FPCRSS method, but the coverage of the FPCRSS method for two-pass removal estimates was 80 percent or better for capture probabilities of 0.5 or higher. Using simulated data, we found that removal estimators are biased and that these biases are more pronounced at lower capture probabilities and lower population sizes. This bias in removal population estimators causes a bias in biomass estimates and was partly responsible for poorer coverage of 95-percent CIs. Our attempts to correct for population estimate bias resulted in much wider confidence intervals for both population and biomass estimates. For 607 field biomass estimates where all captured fish were weighed, the median CV for the FPCRSS method (0.05) was significantly lower (Wilcoxon sign-ranked test: P &lt; 0.001) than the OLD method (0.76). When a portion of captured fish was not weighed, but estimated using length-weight regression relationships, the FPCRSSreg method had significantly lower CVs (median = 0.06; Wilcoxon sign-ranked test: P &lt; 0.001, n = 130) than the old method (median = 0.86)

A5_7 Popeye vs. The Sun

Popeye is a fictional character able to perform amazing feats after eating a can of spinach. One such feat involves him blowing out the Sun. The paper models this situation by using a density profile, and temperature ranges for different layers of the Sun to work out the energy needed to cool the Sun to 0 K. This was found to be 2.4×10^38 J. When compared to the rest energy of the spinach, it has been found that Popeye’s efficiency at converting the spinach to energy was 7.0×10^23 %. Thus, Popeye must be able to perpetually create energy in order to perform this feat

A5_4 Splash Mountain

In the Gen V Pokédex entry for the Pokémon Magikarp it is stated that Magikarp can jump over mountains using the move ‘Splash’.  This is a Pokémon move that does 0 damage in the game.  By comparing the power of a horse’s kick and the move ‘Stomp’, we have determined that ‘Splash’ should have 424 Poképower in the game (much larger than any other move) but also a very low accuracy  due  to  the  jump  taking  36.94  s  in  total.   Perhaps  this  is  why  the  move  is  said  to  be useless

A5_10 Red Bull Gives You Wings?

Assuming that there is a mechanism to transfer Red Bull’s nutritional energy into kinetic energy to propel a person in a wingsuit, we found that at maximum lift a standard can of Red Bull would propel someone for 799 m. Although, this is not a maximum possible distance

A5_8 The Chalk Is Mightier Than The Board

Using experimental data collected about the rate of use of chalk when drawing on a chalkboard, found to be -0.0189 ± 3.95×10^−5 g/m, and the mean size of characters in the English alphabet we were able to determine that each stick of Crayola writing chalk could write 549.4 ± 1.475 m and it would require 0.6855 ± 0.0979 sticks of chalk to write out the complete Wikipedia page for ‘Chalk’