Peakedness for weighted sums of symmetric random variables

In this paper, we provide sufficient conditions on weighted coefficients under which the peakedness comparison between weighted sums of independent random variables can be carried out. These results extend and enrich the existing peakedness results in the literature including those presented by Proschan (1965) and Ma (1998).     

The smallest user campaign to decrease energy consumption in two Mid-South neighborhoods: A field experiment

This report describes a partnership and campaign to build awareness and support for energy conservation in a Mid-South community. The partners included a state university, the local power company, and two neighborhoods in the local community. This partnership led to a field experiment that built community esprit along with increased knowledge of and attitudes toward energy conservation. It did not result in lower electricity and gas consumption. This attempt to influence citizen behavior featured extremely powerful pre-and post-test measures of unit electric and gas consumption.     

A general caxedorical data memddology for evaluating medical diagnostic tests

Measures of sensitivity, predictive accuracy, and agreement are currently used to evaluate the efficiency of diagnostic tests reported on dichotomous scales. This paper presents a unified approach to the evaluation of diagnostic tests in terns of generalized Lnuices of sensitivity, misclassification, predictive accuracy and inaccuracy, classification agreement and prediction agreement for polytomous measurement scales. It Is sufficiently general to accommodate additional complications of study design factors such as multiple testing, known and unknown disease prevalence distributions, and multiple subpopulations defined by the cross-classification of independent factors. Estimation and hypothesis testing are developed within a general linear models approach to the analysis of categorical data from repeated measurement lesigns using weighted least squares computations. This methodology is illustrated within the context of data from a. large cotmiunity-based epidemiologic study of obstructive airways disease,Two diagnostic criteria for inpaired lung function are compared on the basis of their generalized sensitivity and classification agreement measures. The outcomes of the tests are reported on the same three-point scale (normal, questionable, impaired) and are examined within several subpopulations determined by age and sex.     

The Importance of Multiple Performance Criteria for Understanding Trust in Risk Managers

Effective risk management requires balancing several, sometimes competing, goals, such as protecting public health and ensuring cost control. Research examining public trust of risk managers has largely focused on trust that is unspecified or for a single goal. Yet it can be reasonable to have a high level of trust in one aspect of a target's performance but not another. Two studies involving redevelopment of contaminated land (Study 1) and drinking water standards (Study 2) present preliminary evidence on the value of distinguishing between performance criteria for understanding of trust. Study 1 assessed perceptions of several trust targets (councilors, developers, scientists, residents) on their competence (capacity to achieve goals) and willingness to take action under uncertainty for four criteria. Study 2 assessed competence, willingness, and trust for five criteria regarding a single government agency. In both studies overall trust in each target was significantly better explained by considering perceptions of their performance on multiple criteria than on the single criterion of public health. In Study 1, the influence of criteria also varied plausibly across trust targets (e.g., willingness to act under uncertainty increased trust in developers on cost control and councilors on local economic improvement, but decreased it for both targets on environmental protection). Study 2 showed that explained variance in trust increased with both dimension‐ and trust‐based measures of criteria. Further conceptual and methodological development of the notion of multiple trust criteria could benefit our understanding of stated trust judgments.     

Sexual offenders' perceptions of their early interpersonal relationships: An attachment perspective

The present study examined the perceptions of early interpersonal experiences of sexual offenders (child molesters and rapists) and two criminal comparison groups. A grounded theory approach was applied to a comprehensive list of responses provided by the participants to questions about their early interpersonal experiences. The raw data was collapsed into 14 basic categories by grouping together responses of similar meanings. The categories were responsiveness, consistency, acceptance, boundaries, emotional regulation, autonomy, self‐evaluation, developmental trauma sexual abuse and deviation, physical abuse, loss, conflict, safety, and positive mediating interactions. In the second part of the study, the four groups were compared using the categories and the differences noted. All four groups experienced significantly negative early interpersonal experiences.     

The SLA DBIO 100 Poll: 100 Journals Voted by SLA’s BioMedical and Life Sciences Division as the Most Influential over the Last 100 Years

An expert opinion poll of the members of the BioMedical and Life Sciences Division (DBIO) of the Special Libraries Association (SLA), conducted on the occasion of the SLA's Centennial (Washington, DC, June 14–17, 2009), identified 100 journals across three major categories (Clinical Medicine and Allied Health Sciences, Journals Primarily Reporting Molecular and Cellular Biology, and Journals of Natural History) as the most influential over the last 100 years. The Top Ten, containing winners from all three of these groups, were also named, as were a “Journal” and a “Publisher” of the Centennial.”     

Hilda Mary Woods MBE, DSc, LRAM, FSS (1892-1971): reflections on a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society

We have previously described the content of a text by Woods and Russell, An Introduction to Medical Statistics, compared it with Principles of Medical Statistics by Hill and set both volumes against the background of vital statistics up until 1937. The two books mark a watershed in the history of medical statistics. Very little has been recorded about the life and career of the first author of the earlier textbook, who was a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society for at least 25 years, an omission which we can now rectify with this paper. We describe her education, entry into medical statistics, relationship with Major Greenwood and her subsequent career and life in Ceylon, Kenya, Australia, England and South Africa.