Objective Bayes and Conditional Frequentist Inference

Objective Bayesian methods have garnered considerable interest and support among statisticians, particularly over the past two decades. It has often been ignored, however, that in some cases the appropriate frequentist inference to match is a conditional one. We present various methods for extending the probability matching prior (PMP) methods to conditional settings. A method based on saddlepoint approximations is found to be the most tractable and we demonstrate its use in the most common exact ancillary statistic models. As part of this analysis, we give a proof of an exactness property of a particular PMP in location-scale models. We use the proposed matching methods to investigate the relationships between conditional and unconditional PMPs. A key component of our analysis is a numerical study of the performance of probability matching priors from both a conditional and unconditional perspective in exact ancillary models. In concluding remarks we propose many routes for future research

How can health economics be used in the design and analysis of adaptive clinical trials? A qualitative analysis

Introduction Adaptive designs offer a flexible approach, allowing changes to a trial based on examinations of the data as it progresses. Adaptive clinical trials are becoming a popular choice, as the prudent use of finite research budgets and accurate decision-making are priorities for healthcare providers around the world. The methods of health economics, which aim to maximise the health gained for money spent, could be incorporated into the design and analysis of adaptive clinical trials to make them more efficient. We aimed to understand the perspectives of stakeholders in health technology assessments to inform recommendations for the use of health economics in adaptive clinical trials. Methods A qualitative study explored the attitudes of key stakeholders—including researchers, decision-makers and members of the public—towards the use of health economics in the design and analysis of adaptive clinical trials. Data were collected using interviews and focus groups (29 participants). A framework analysis was used to identify themes in the transcripts. Results It was considered that answering the clinical research question should be the priority in a clinical trial, notwithstanding the importance of cost-effectiveness for decision-making. Concerns raised by participants included handling the volatile nature of cost data at interim analyses; implementing this approach in global trials; resourcing adaptive trials which are designed and adapted based on health economic outcomes; and training stakeholders in these methods so that they can be implemented and appropriately interpreted. Conclusion The use of health economics in the design and analysis of adaptive clinical trials has the potential to increase the efficiency of health technology assessments worldwide. Recommendations are made concerning the development of methods allowing the use of health economics in adaptive clinical trials, and suggestions are given to facilitate their implementation in practice

Seeing Earth's Orbit in the Stars: Parallax and Aberration

During the 17th century the idea of an orbiting and rotating Earth became increasingly popular, but opponents of this view continued to point out that the theory had observable consequences that had never, in fact, been observed. Why, for instance, had astronomers failed to detect the annual parallax of the stars that must occur if Earth orbits the Sun? To address this problem, astronomers of the 17th and18th centuries sought to measure the annual parallax of stars using telescopes. None of them succeeded. Annual stellar parallax was not successfully measured until 1838, when Friedrich Bessel detected the parallax of the star 61 Cygni. But the early failures to detect annual stellar parallax led to the discovery of a new (and entirely unexpected) phenomenon: the aberration of starlight. This paper recounts the story of the discovery of stellar aberration. It is accompanied by a set of activities and computer simulations that allow students to explore this fascinating historical episode and learn important lessons about the nature of science.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, submitted to The Physics Teache

A Comparative Study of Selected Marches of Kenneth Alford and John Phillip Sousa

[No abstract provided.

Complexity and Complicity: Quality(s) and/or Effectiveness in Teacher Education

The period spanning 2001 to 2015 could best be characterized in the words “shock and awe” in the United States of America. During this tumultuous time, the public good was placed under increasingly austere measures as a direct result of war, widespread financial speculation, and crash of the financial, investment, and real estate market(s). Subsequently, a banking industry bailout of epic proportions - shouldered disproportionately by average American taxpayers - led to political upheavals, and an increasingly divided body politic. Public education was severely impacted. With the No Child Left Behind Act (2002) school districts were placed under audit and individual schools were often labelled as failures. Congress attempted to fix the law in 2007, yet reauthorization stalled. In 2008, the economic crises compounded the educational impasse with a growing disparity of financial resources, urban neglect and decay. The inauguration of President Barack Obama ushered in the American Recovery and Restoration Act (2009). This act was intended to stimulate the economy, and it did at least save some of the teaching jobs that would otherwise have been cut as local and state revenues were collapsing under the strain. However, a new paradigm also emerged in which funding to the schools would be shifted from need-based to accountability-based and a lottery system called Race to the Top (2009) changed teachers and teacher education dramatically

Grasp--a language to facilitate the synthesis of parallel programs

In the context of this thesis, the name Grasp subsumes three distinct but highly interrelated projects. First of all, Grasp is a programming language that allows the user to define properties of graph-theoretic objects by using high-level nonprocedural descriptions called specifications. Second, Grasp is a translator that converts specifications to standard sequential C functions. Finally, Grasp is a model of computation that has been left largely uninvestigated despite possessing several advantageous properties. Each of these aspects of Grasp is described in a contextually clean and detailed manner, but in the end the theoretical aspects of Grasp are espoused over the formal and practical aspects