Bayesian nonparametric hierarchical modeling for multiple membership data in grouped attendance interventions

We develop a dependent Dirichlet process (DDP) model for repeated measures multiple membership (MM) data. This data structure arises in studies under which an intervention is delivered to each client through a sequence of elements which overlap with those of other clients on different occasions. Our interest concentrates on study designs for which the overlaps of sequences occur for clients who receive an intervention in a shared or grouped fashion whose memberships may change over multiple treatment events. Our motivating application focuses on evaluation of the effectiveness of a group therapy intervention with treatment delivered through a sequence of cognitive behavioral therapy session blocks, called modules. An open-enrollment protocol permits entry of clients at the beginning of any new module in a manner that may produce unique MM sequences across clients. We begin with a model that composes an addition of client and multiple membership module random effect terms, which are assumed independent. Our MM DDP model relaxes the assumption of conditionally independent client and module random effects by specifying a collection of random distributions for the client effect parameters that are indexed by the unique set of module attendances. We demonstrate how this construction facilitates examining heterogeneity in the relative effectiveness of group therapy modules over repeated measurement occasions.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/12-AOAS620 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Education by inspiration

Citation: Paddock, Kate. Education by inspiration. Senior thesis, Kansas State Agricultural College, 1900.Morse Department of Special CollectionsIntroduction: Nothing is more astonishing than what can be done by one person, yet how few compared with the many around us ever accomplish any thing at all. We need not restrict this to the building of some great city, or the overthrowing of an Empire; but we may also apply it to the making the best of our own lives and surroundings. The greater part of the world who would never take the trouble (and trouble is three fourths of power) to accomplish any thing themselves, are very anxious to prove that in the case of those who do accomplish, all was in their favor. On the contrary, history proves that the greatest minds and the most successful people were originally the most common place. Workers are beings in real power. Honor has been spoken of as only the shadow of which they have in their lives held the substance. It should be shown in school and public education that personality is in itself an influence and even a direct power, which held at its height, nothing can overthrow or resist. The indolent and cowardly are only too ready to say, “I can’t,” but of what good are ability and great power, if the will and the conscience do not open a channel for them. Great powers are to us a marvel and an inspiration; the more of an inspiration, the more they prove themselves natural and possible to human beings. One of the greatest victories over the tyranny of unpaid labor was won by the moral force of opinion; one might say by the cannon ball, but what was war but the resistance by the South of those forces which it saw could not help but abolish Slavery. Education by inspiration is not restricted to any age or any cause. It is the education which fits us for words and deeds by which more or fewer individuals may be benefited

A Biomimetic Total Synthesis of Clivonine

The first chapter of this thesis discusses the biomimetic total synthesis of clivonine. Clivonine is a member of the Amaryllidaceae family of alkaloids and was isolated from the plant Clivia miniata Regel by Wildman in 1956. Barton first proposed the biosynthesis of the Amaryllidaceae alkaloids in 1958, hypothesising that the key diversifying step in the biosynthesis was an intramolecular phenolic oxidative coupling of a common precursor, norbelladine. However, it was not until 2 years later, in 1960, that Barton was able to account for the biosynthesis of the lycorenine class of the Amaryllidaceae alkaloids, the class in which clivonine is a member. He proposed that a ‘ring-switch’ must occur after the initial intramolecular phenolic oxidative coupling from a lycorine type progenitor to that of a lycorenine type skeleton. Our synthesis of clivonine demonstrates for the first time the synthetic interconversion between these two classes of compounds in a manner that can be considered biomimetic. The second chapter of this thesis details our synthesis of the acetonide protected derivative of cis-3,5-cyclohexadien-1,2-diol. The first section of this chapter highlights the importance of these types of molecules and reviews the previous syntheses of this compound. The second section then details the development of a five-step three-pot synthesis of this compound in an overall 50% yield starting from commercially available 1,3-cyclohexadiene. The final chapter of this thesis discusses the studies towards the development of a catalytic asymmetric retro-Cope elimination reaction. This chapter will first highlight recent advances that have been made towards the asymmetric hydroamination (AHA) reaction before reviewing the recent progress made towards expanding the scope of the retro-Cope elimination reaction. Finally, our proposed method of developing an asymmetric retro-Cope reaction will be outlined, along with details of preliminary studies focussed on the development of a suitable system with which the asymmetric retro-Cope elimination can be studied

Grain Transportation Policy and Transformation in Western Canadian Agriculture

This paper provides an overview of grain transportation policy in Canada over the last 100 years, including the inception of the Crow Rate, the replacement of the Crow Rate with the Western Grain Transportation Act(WGTA), and finally, the repeal of the WGTA. Particular emphasis is placed on the structural change to the western agricultural economy that occurred following repeal of the WGTA in 1995. When grain transportation subsidies were removed, industry responded quickly to market signals through a diversification of crop patterns, an increase in livestock production, and an increase in value-added processing. Key Words: transportation policy, diversification, structural changetransportation policy, diversification, structural change, Agricultural and Food Policy,

Analysis of rolling group therapy data using conditionally autoregressive priors

Group therapy is a central treatment modality for behavioral health disorders such as alcohol and other drug use (AOD) and depression. Group therapy is often delivered under a rolling (or open) admissions policy, where new clients are continuously enrolled into a group as space permits. Rolling admissions policies result in a complex correlation structure among client outcomes. Despite the ubiquity of rolling admissions in practice, little guidance on the analysis of such data is available. We discuss the limitations of previously proposed approaches in the context of a study that delivered group cognitive behavioral therapy for depression to clients in residential substance abuse treatment. We improve upon previous rolling group analytic approaches by fully modeling the interrelatedness of client depressive symptom scores using a hierarchical Bayesian model that assumes a conditionally autoregressive prior for session-level random effects. We demonstrate improved performance using our method for estimating the variance of model parameters and the enhanced ability to learn about the complex correlation structure among participants in rolling therapy groups. Our approach broadly applies to any group therapy setting where groups have changing client composition. It will lead to more efficient analyses of client-level data and improve the group therapy research community's ability to understand how the dynamics of rolling groups lead to client outcomes.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-AOAS434 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org