A response-adaptive design in crossover trial

In the present work, whenever the response variables are binary, we frame an adaptive allocation rule for a two-treatment two-period crossover design in the presence of possible carry-over effects. The proposed rule is a combination of the play-the-winner and randomized play-the-winner rules. We study various properties of the proposed rule through asymptotics and simulations. Some related inferential problems are also considered. The proposed procedure is compared with some possible competitor.     

Measures of Deprivation and their Meaning in Terms of Social Satisfaction

This paper proposes relative and absolute measures of deprivation using social satisfaction functions. The relative (absolute) measure gives us the amount by which social satisfaction can be increased in proportional (absolute) terms by redistributing incomes equally. We also demonstrate the existence of a relationship between summary indices of deprivation (including the Gini coefficient, the maximin index, the coefficient of variation and their absolute counterparts) and social satisfaction.     

Elderly health care: diverse cultural implication

ABSTRACT

Cultural diversities, histories, communities and nations are intricately intertwined with experiencing old age. Individual and/or household culture, norms and expectations precede the decision-making process for health-seeking behaviour that influences elderly people’s choice and use of health-care services. This study addresses the understanding of this issue among migrant Bangladeshi elderly women from culturally and linguistically diverse background, residing in North 24 Parganas, West Bengal, India. Accordingly, data were collected through purposive sampling from 104 elderly women, all aged above 65. Processed data highlighted inconvenience – related to (language) pronunciation, socio-economic status, traditional health beliefs, understandings and practices, and reliance on alternative medical amenities.     

Semi-Sequential One-Shot Monitoring of Small Disorders With Controlled Type I Error Rate

We propose a simple two-stage monitoring rule for detecting small disorders in a two-sample location problem. The proposed rule is based on ranks and hence is nonparametric in nature. In the first stage, we use a sequential monitoring scheme to decide the necessity of employing a location test at some point of time. If there is urgency, we simply use a two-sample Wilcoxon rank sum test in the second stage. This leads to a semi sequential one-shot monitoring procedure. We study some asymptotic performance of the proposed rule. We also present some numerical findings obtained through Monte Carlo studies. The proposed rule meets the challenge of controlling type I error rate in sequential monitoring of an incoming series of observations.     

Exactly optimal sampling designs for processes with a product covariance structure

The author considers the problem of finding exactly optimal sampling designs for estimating a second‐order, centered random process on the basis of finitely many observations. The value of the process at an unsampled point is estimated by the best linear unbiased estimator. A weighted integrated mean squared error or the maximum mean squared error is used to measure the performance of the estimator. The author presents a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for a design to be exactly optimal for processes with a product covariance structure. Expansions of these conditions lead to conditions for asymptotic optimality.     

On the quality of life in India: An exploratory survey

This is an abridged version of a paper written for the Unesco, Paris, to explore the feasibility of studying in India the role of value systems and life goals in quality of life, with reference to social structural variations and the prevailing socioeconomic conditions. Time and money constraints did not permit the examination of Indian society in its structural and cultural diversity. The focus was on the indication of possibilities of variation in the subject matter and how to elicit such variations. Moreover, in its abridged form, the paper deals essentially with the methodology of studying the quality of life in any society instead of substantial findings.     

Failure Rate Transform of the Weibull Variate and its Properties

The failure rate of a life time distribution has so for been studied in the time domsin. The present paper extends the failure rate transform in the frequency domain. For this purpose, the parent life time distribution has been taken as the Weibull distribution and different properties of the distribution of the failure rate transform have been presented including some characterisations of the Weibull distribution. Some comparative studies have also been made between the parent distribution and the failure rate transform distribution in respect of convex, star shaped and super additive orderings and expectation.     

DECENTRALIZATION AND PARTICIPATORY SERVICE DELIVERY

User participation has been promoted to improve the quality, responsiveness, and outreach of public services in India. This qualitative study evaluates new grassroots institutions—Village Education Committees and Mothers’ Committees—in Andhra Pradesh, which promoting parents’ participation in the management and monitoring of local schools and maternal/child health services. Although the committees were found to have increased participation in public affairs by the poor and brought about some improvements in service quality, inclusive and meaningful participation has often been hindered by illiteracy and lack of information, as well as caste, gender, and socioeconomic inequalities. The article suggests that there are considerable tensions between inclusive participation and committee effectiveness as members need skills, status, and resources in order to have a meaningful impact on service provision. In addition, research findings point to the need for more structured opportunities for committee members to interact with authorities and service providers, as well as for children to voice their concerns and ideas. Lastly, in order to tackle childhood poverty more holistically, the focus of these committees should be revised to give greater emphasis to improving service quality improvements and cross-sectoral synergies, rather than the current move narrow focus on infrastructural development and singlesector initiatives.     

On the use of social indicators for planning

A social indicator in the context of planning, which induces a course of social change, is not a mere ‘good statistic’. While its validity depends on the relation drawn among its constituent properties, its relevance would depend upon the sequential relations it can draw with the other variables concerned with the envisaged course of change. And its necessity and efficiency will be rated accordingly as it can epitomize the situation which all these variables depict. A properly constructed set of indicators, therefore, may not only suggest the planning measures which should be employed but also throw light on a better formulation of the targets, goals and even the objective of planning. These points are briefly discussed in this paper with illustrations from India.     

High-dimensional regression in practice: an empirical study of finite-sample prediction,variable selection and ranking

Penalized likelihood approaches are widely used for high-dimensional regression. Although many methods have been proposed and the associated theory is now well developed, the relative efficacy of different approaches in finite-sample settings, as encountered in practice, remains incompletely understood. There is therefore a need for empirical investigations in this area that can offer practical insight and guidance to users. In this paper, we present a large-scale comparison of penalized regression methods. We distinguish between three related goals: prediction, variable selection and variable ranking. Our results span more than 2300 data-generating scenarios, including both synthetic and semisynthetic data (real covariates and simulated responses), allowing us to systematically consider the influence of various factors (sample size, dimensionality, sparsity, signal strength and multicollinearity). We consider several widely used approaches (Lasso, Adaptive Lasso, Elastic Net, Ridge Regression, SCAD, the Dantzig Selector and Stability Selection). We find considerable variation in performance between methods. Our results support a “no panacea” view, with no unambiguous winner across all scenarios or goals, even in this restricted setting where all data align well with the assumptions underlying the methods. The study allows us to make some recommendations as to which approaches may be most (or least) suitable given the goal and some data characteristics. Our empirical results complement existing theory and provide a resource to compare methods across a range of scenarios and metrics.