Predictive Inference for Big,Spatial, Non‐Gaussian Data: MODIS Cloud Data and its Change‐of‐Support

Remote sensing of the earth with satellites yields datasets that can be massive in size, nonstationary in space, and non‐Gaussian in distribution. To overcome computational challenges, we use the reduced‐rank spatial random effects (SRE) model in a statistical analysis of cloud‐mask data from NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on board NASA's Terra satellite. Parameterisations of cloud processes are the biggest source of uncertainty and sensitivity in different climate models’ future projections of Earth's climate. An accurate quantification of the spatial distribution of clouds, as well as a rigorously estimated pixel‐scale clear‐sky‐probability process, is needed to establish reliable estimates of cloud‐distributional changes and trends caused by climate change. Here we give a hierarchical spatial‐statistical modelling approach for a very large spatial dataset of 2.75 million pixels, corresponding to a granule of MODIS cloud‐mask data, and we use spatial change‐of‐Support relationships to estimate cloud fraction at coarser resolutions. Our model is non‐Gaussian; it postulates a hidden process for the clear‐sky probability that makes use of the SRE model, EM‐estimation, and optimal (empirical Bayes) spatial prediction of the clear‐sky‐probability process. Measures of prediction uncertainty are also given.     

Caught between different worlds: how transgendered women may be "forced" into risky sex

We qualitatively explored reasons why transgendered women may engage in sexual risk that could lead to HIV infection. Specifically, we conducted this investigation with transgendered women identifying as Black/African American. Interviews from 17 participants were audio taped and analyzed. Four themes emerged. Women commonly reported they had a strong need/desire to be loved by men. Many stated they had and would engage in unprotected sex to obtain and preserve such a relationship. Nearly all were currently using female hormones. Nine obtained their hormones through non-medical means including the Internet, transgendered friends, and street vendors. For these women hormone injections often involved sharing needles/syringes. Selling sex was a common practice and many women did so without the benefit of condom use. Finally, women experienced multiple forms of societal discrimination. By being caught between worlds (straight, gay, male, and female) transgendered women may be placed into situations where avoiding HIV risk is extremely difficult.     

Home study methods for evaluating prospective resource families: history, current challenges, and promising approaches

Every state requires a home study before the placement of foster children for adoption. This article examines the history of home studies, presents results from expert interviews on the changing processes and purposes of home studies, and explores current challenges for the field. The article also introduces the Structured Analysis Family Evaluation (SAFE), a uniform home study format that encourages consistent family evaluations across workers, agencies, and jurisdictions. The article clarifies how SAFE may address challenges facing foster care and adoption practice.     

Assessing the Playing Field: A Prospective Longitudinal Study of Internet Sports Gambling Behavior

Internet gambling is growing rapidly, as is concern about its possible effect on the public’s health. This paper reports the results of the first prospective longitudinal study of actual Internet sports gambling behavior during eight study months. Data include recorded fixed-odds bets on the outcome of sporting contests and live-action bets on the outcome of events within contests for 40,499 Internet sports gambling service subscribers who enrolled during February 2005. We tracked the following primary gambling behaviors: daily totals of the number of bets made, money bet, and money won. We transformed these variables into measures of gambling involvement. We analyzed behavior for both fixed-odds and live-action bets. The median betting behavior of the 39,719 fixed-odds bettors was to place 2.5 bets of €4 (approximately $5.3 US) every fourth day during the median 4 months from first to last bet. This typical pattern incurred a loss of 29% of the amount wagered. The median betting behavior of the 24,794 live-action bettors was to place 2.8 wagers of €4 every fourth day during the median duration of 6 weeks at a loss of 18% of the amount wagered. We also examined the behavior of empirically determined groups of heavily involved bettors whose activity exceeded that of 99% of the sample.     

The critique of intelligent design: Epicurus,Marx, Darwin,and Freud and the materialist defense of science

A new version of the age-old controversy between religion and science has been launched by today’s intelligent design movement. Although ostensibly concerned simply with combating Darwinism, this new creationism seeks to drive a “wedge” into the materialist view of the world, originating with the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus and manifested in modern times by Darwin, Marx, and Freud. Intelligent design proponents thus can be seen as challenging not only natural and physical science but social science as well. In this article, we attempt to explain the long history of this controversy, stretching over millennia, and to defend science (especially social science) against the criticisms of intelligent design proponents – by defending science’s materialist roots.

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The Collegiate Learning Assessment: facts and fantasies

The Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) is a computer administered, open-ended (as opposed to multiple-choice) test of analytic reasoning, critical thinking, problem solving, and written communication skills. Because the CLA has been endorsed by several national higher education commissions, it has come under intense scrutiny by faculty members, college administrators, testing experts, legislators, and others. This article describes the CLA's measures and what they do and do not assess, how dependably they measure what they claim to measure, and how CLA scores differ from those on other direct and indirect measures of college student learning. For instance, analyses are conducted at the school rather than the student level and results are adjusted for input to assess whether the progress students are making at their school is better or worse than what would be expected given the progress of "similarly situated" students (in terms of incoming ability) at other colleges.     

Concepts,Theory, and Techniques PRINCIPLES OF MULTIOBJECTIVE OPTIMIZATION*

This paper attempts to isolate and analyze the principal ideas of multiobjective optimization. We do this without casting aspersions on single-objective optimization or championing any one multiobjective technique. We examine each fundamental idea for strengths and weaknesses and subject two—efficiency and utility—to extended consideration. Some general recommendations are made in light of this analysis. Besides the simple advice to retain single-objective optimization as a possible approach, we suggest that three broad classes of multiobjective techniques are very promising in terms of reliably, and believably, achieving a most preferred solution. These are: (1) partial generation of the efficient set, a rubric we use to unify a wide spectrum of both interactive and analytic methods; (2) explicit utility maximization, a much-overlooked approach combining multiattribute decision theory and mathematical programming; and (3) interactive implicit utility maximization, the popular class of methods introduced by Geoffrion, Dyer, and Feinberg [24] and extended significantly by others.     

ASSESSING ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING AT THE SUBUNIT LEVEL: A MULTITRAIT-MULTIMETHOD ANALYSIS*

Environmental scanning activities of over 400 top management subunits in 108 European manufacturing firms provided the data base for this research. Four traits (constructs) of scanning using three methods (interest, frequency, and time) were examined. A confirmatory factor analysis approach to multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) data was employed. Verification of the reliability as well as convergent and discriminant validity of the scanning scales are reported and discussed. The viability of confirmatory factor analysis in providing a precise analysis of partitioning variance according to trait, method, and error is demonstrated.     

A UNIVERSITY EXAMINATION-SCHEDULING MODEL TO MINIMIZE MULTIPLE-EXAMINATION DAYS FOR STUDENTS

Scheduling university examinations is often done with the objective of spreading a student's required examinations over an examination week. That is the equivalent of the problem of minimizing the number of examinations a student must take on any one day. An approach to scheduling exams which relates the problem to the classical assignment problem is discussed. The model developed is a symmetry-constrained assignment model, and the solution method requires use of a branch-and-bound algorithm. Results from application of the algorithm to six semesters of actual data are presented.     

GMM Estimation with persistent panel data: an application to production functions

This paper considers the estimation of Cobb-Douglas production functions using panel data covering a large sample of companies observed for a small number of time periods. GMM estimatorshave been found to produce large finite-sample biases when using the standard first-differenced estimator. These biases can be dramatically reduced by exploiting reasonable stationarity restrictions on the initial conditions process. Using data for a panel of R&Dperforming US manufacturing companies we find that the additional instruments used in our extended GMM estimator yield much more reasonable parameter estimates.