Bayesian estimation and case influence diagnostics for the zero-inflated negative binomial regression model

In recent years, there has been considerable interest in regression models based on zero-inflated distributions. These models are commonly encountered in many disciplines, such as medicine, public health, and environmental sciences, among others. The zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) model has been typically considered for these types of problems. However, the ZIP model can fail if the non-zero counts are overdispersed in relation to the Poisson distribution, hence the zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB) model may be more appropriate. In this paper, we present a Bayesian approach for fitting the ZINB regression model. This model considers that an observed zero may come from a point mass distribution at zero or from the negative binomial model. The likelihood function is utilized to compute not only some Bayesian model selection measures, but also to develop Bayesian case-deletion influence diagnostics based on q-divergence measures. The approach can be easily implemented using standard Bayesian software, such as WinBUGS. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated with a simulation study. Further, a real data set is analyzed, where we show that ZINB regression models seems to fit the data better than the Poisson counterpart.     

Generalized Estimation of the BLUP in Mixed-Effects Models: A Comparison with ML and REML

The Best Linear Unbiased Predictor (BLUP) in mixed models is a function of the variance components and they are estimated using maximum likelihood (ML) or restricted ML methods. Nonconvergence of BLUP would occur due to a drawback of the standard likelihood-based approaches. In such situations, ML and REML either do not provide any BLUPs or all become equal. To overcome this drawback, we provide a generalized estimate (GE) of BLUP that does not suffer from the problem of negative or zero variance components, and compare its performance against the ML and REML estimates of BLUP. Simulated and published data are used to compare BLUP.     

A Comparison of the Performance of Phase II Simple Linear Profile Control Charts when Parameters are Estimated

The standard deviation of the average run length (SDARL) is an important performance metric in studying the performance of control charts with estimated in-control parameters. Only a few studies in the literature, however, have considered this measure when evaluating control chart performance. The current study aims at comparing the in-control performance of three phase II simple linear profile monitoring approaches; namely, those of Kang and Albin (2000), Kim et al. (2003), and Mahmoud et al. (2010). The comparison is performed under the assumption of estimated parameters using the SDARL metric. In general, the simulation results of the current study show that the method of Kim et al. (2003) has better overall statistical performance than the competing methods in terms of SDARL values. Some of the recommended approaches based solely on the usual average run length properties can have poor SDARL performance.     

一致性分数阶优化灰色模型及其应用

传统的分数阶灰色预测模型在时间序列预测中具有较好的适应性和预测的有效性,但其累加和差分计算式比较复杂。一致性分数阶累加相对于一般的分数阶累加,形式更简单,更便于计算和理论推导。为了提高模型的适应性和预测能力,文章在CFGM(1,1)白化方程中引入一个新的可变系数,扩大了原有白化方程的适用范围,并在此基础上构建了一致性分数阶优化灰色模型,即CFOGM(1,1)模型。最优一致性分数阶阶数和可变系数通过PSO算法最小化平均相对误差获得。将构建的模型运用到两个实例中并与其他经典的灰色预测模型进行对比,结果表明所提出的模型具有较高的拟合和预测精度。     

国外关于企业社会责任的理论评介

通过对近年来国外学者关于企业社会责任理论文献的回顾,将国外有关其起源,内涵和表现的理论做一个综合的介绍,并回顾了其两个基本“流派”或两方面观点的争论,通过对这两个流派基本观点的阐述指出他们的观点是根本对立的,不过近年来这两个流派的观点也出现了融合的趋势。     

关于构建社会主义和谐社会的十个问题

社会主义和谐社会理论的重要性,社会主义和谐社会的含义,和谐社会发展的一般规律,和谐社会的现实存在性,市场经济与和谐社会的关系,和谐社会建设中存在的不和谐问题,我国市场化改革存在的偏差,政治经济学与西方经济学的关系,非此即彼的思维方式,和谐社会建设中的共产党的领导等十个问题,需要认真探讨、理解和把握.