Bayesian Classifiers Applied to the Tennessee Eastman Process

Fault diagnosis includes the main task of classification. Bayesian networks (BNs) present several advantages in the classification task, and previous works have suggested their use as classifiers. Because a classifier is often only one part of a larger decision process, this article proposes, for industrial process diagnosis, the use of a Bayesian method called dynamic Markov blanket classifier that has as its main goal the induction of accurate Bayesian classifiers having dependable probability estimates and revealing actual relationships among the most relevant variables. In addition, a new method, named variable ordering multiple offspring sampling capable of inducing a BN to be used as a classifier, is presented. The performance of these methods is assessed on the data of a benchmark problem known as the Tennessee Eastman process. The obtained results are compared with naive Bayes and tree augmented network classifiers, and confirm that both proposed algorithms can provide good classification accuracies as well as knowledge about relevant variables.     

Restructuring of the Financial Industry: The Disappearance of Locally Owned Traditional Financial Services in Rural America

Restructuring in the financial services industry has altered the relationship between small business owners and capital. In the past small businesses have relied on relational, or soft data, lending from locally owned banks for capital. The proliferation of absentee‐owned local branch networks brought standardized practices, thus eliminating the autonomy of local loan officers to utilize soft data in loan decisions. In this article we examine the changes in the percentage of traditional financial services that are locally owned in three county types: metropolitan, micropolitan, and noncore. We utilize the Longitudinal Business Database at the U.S. Census Bureau Center for Economic Studies. We examine changes in local ownership of traditional financial services between 1976 and 2007. We find that the rate of decline of local ownership has been greatest in the noncore (most rural) counties. We also explore to what extent these patterns are related to the emergence of alternative financial services during the same period. We find that such alternative services are growing in all three county types, but at rates not significantly different than the population growth for these county types. We supplement our analysis with data from qualitative interviews with small business owners throughout rural Texas. We conclude with a discussion of implications and plans for future research.     

How Latinos Are Transforming the United States: Research, Theory, and Policy

The United States is entering a new era, a period marked by some important demographic changes in the composition of the population, most especially significant increases in the Latino and Latino immigrant segments of society. These population shifts require corresponding interpersonal, organizational, and structural changes. The present issue bridges research and theory across disciplines and includes studies incorporating a variety of methodologies to examine these important areas. These articles begin to fill some of the voids where a systematic and robust corpus of knowledge is lacking. The contributions address topics ranging from issues of identity and interpersonal relations to pressing matters of educational significance to general approaches to navigating the cultural transitions that mark fluid transnational adaptations. Finally, each contribution delineates the policy implications resulting from the processes and literatures that are examined.     

Dynamic reasoning and time pressure: Transition from analytical operations to experiential responses

Based upon the Decision Field Theory (Busemeyer and Townsend 1993), we tested a model of dynamic reasoning to predict the effect of time pressure on analytical and experiential processing during decision-making. Forty-six participants were required to make investment decisions under four levels of time pressure. In each decision, participants were presented with experiential cues which were either congruent or incongruent with the analytical information. The congruent/incongruent conditions allowed us to examine how many decisions were based upon the experiential versus the analytical information, and to see if this was affected by the varying degrees of time pressure. As expected, the overall accuracy was reduced with greater time pressure and accuracy was higher when the experiential and analytical cues were congruent than when they were incongruent. Of great interest was the data showing that under high time pressure participants used more experiential cues than at other time pressures. We suggest that the dynamic reasoning paradigm has some future potential for predicting the effects of experiential biases in general, and specifically under time pressure.     

Pre-term Foetal Life Times in Scotland

A proportional hazards model was used to evaluate the association between ten categorical covariates and the risk of pre-term delivery for women having their first child and women in subsequent pregnancies. An adaptation of the model for use with grouped survival times made it possible to model foetal life times between 28 and 36 completed weeks of gestation for 67,000 Scottish singleton births in 1981. The use of the model was justified by testing time-dependent effects. For both groups of women age, and a history of abortion, were major factors associated with increased hazard. For women experiencing a second or higher-order birth a history of perinatal death was also associated with substantially increased hazard to the pregnancy.     

The application of a performance management system in hospitals: A hypothetical example

Abstract

The central theme of this article is performance management, defined as activities of organizations aimed at an effective and efficient use of their human resources. The organization focused on in particular is the hospital. Three principles taken from motivation theory are dealt with which are basic to performance management: goal setting, feedback and reinforcement. Next, a recently developed procedure (Pritchard 1990, Pritchard et al. 1988, 1989) for the design of performance management systems is described. This procedure, ProMES: Productivity Measurement and Enhancement Systems, is explained using a team of ward nurses as a hypothetical example. In addition to the nursing wards example, other potential applications of the ProMES technique to several hospitals areas are mentioned. Finally, some conditions that should be fulfilled in order to successfully start a ProMES project are discussed.     

Asymptotocally nonparametric tests with censored paired data

A class of asymptotically nonparametric test with contains a test proposed by Wei(1980), is considered for testing the equality of two continuous distribution funcitons when paired observations are subject to arbitrary right censorship. It is shown that under the null hypothesis each test statistic converges in distribution to the standard normal random variable. Furthermore. the Monte Carlo simulation results indicate that some tests in this class are more powerful than Wei's test. A generalization to incomplete censored paired data is also included.     

Contraceptive Responsibility among Male University Students

Abstract

This paper assesses the male contribution to contraceptive mismanagement and unwanted pregnancy. The subjects were 109 students at the University of Melbourne. A high incidence of risk-taking was reported, and almost one-fifth of the sexually experienced men stated that they had been involved in an unwanted pregnancy. A small group of these reported more than one such incident. The underlying reasons for poor contraceptive technique seemed to be related to two beliefs: that contraception is a female responsibility, and that sexual intercourse should be entirely spontaneous and unplanned.     

Debt‐Relief Effectiveness and Institution‐Building

This article provides new evidence on the effects of recent debt‐relief programmes on different macroeconomic indicators in developing countries, focusing on the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs). The relationship between debt relief and institutional change is also investigated to assess whether donors are moving towards ex‐post governance conditionality. Results show that debt relief is only weakly associated with subsequent improvements in economic performance but is correlated with increasing domestic debt which undermines the positive achievements in reducing external debt service. There is also evidence that donors are moving towards a more sensible allocation of debt forgiveness, rewarding countries which have better policies and institutions.     

Media and the Intersectional Other

This article presents the findings of an intersectional study on migrant women on German television. Besides content and textual analyses, we conducted focus groups with audiences and interviews with migrant media workers. As the representation of Others was explored through the nodes of production, consumption, and identity, a complicated intersectional practice emerged. We found the televised representations of migrant women to be dominated by (often veiled) women as signifiers of non-integration but also by instances when gendered ethnicity was used as a marketable attribute. The audiences and producers employed various distancing strategies: they criticized specific programs for blatant stereotyping as much as didactic counter-stereotyping while downplaying systemic shortfalls of the coverage. These distancing strategies were intensified by the acceptance of individualized ideologies of success and commodified logics of media production. Ultimately, class appeared as the central demarcating category. On German television a problematic class distinction was articulated through ethnic and gender difference. Female migrants were often “othered” as lower-class. This class discourse absolved middle-class viewers and media workers from engaging in the systemic struggles over female/migrant identities, thus undermining the potential for gender and migrant solidarity and for the dynamic creation of cultural citizenship as a mode of belonging.