Lifetime distributions motivated by series and parallel structures

According to Ross, any system can be represented either as a series arrangement of parallel structures or as a parallel arrangement of series structures. Motivated by this, we propose new three-parameter lifetime distributions by compounding geometric, power series, and exponential distributions. The distributions can allow for decreasing, increasing, bathtub-shaped, and upside down bathtub-shaped hazard rates. A mathematical treatment of the new distributions is provided including expressions for their density functions, Shannon and Rényi entropies, mean residual life functions, hazard rate functions, quantiles, and moments. The method of maximum likelihood is used for estimating parameters. Five of the new distributions are studied in detail. Finally, two illustrative data examples and a sensitivity analysis are presented.     

The Geometric ArcTan distribution with applications to model demand for health services

In this paper , a new discrete two–parameter distribution α ∈ ? ? {0} and 0 < θ < 1, the Geometric ArcTan (GAT) distribution is introduced. The geometric distribution is a limiting case of this model when α tends to zero. Similarly to the the latter distribution, this probabilistic family is unimodal but the mode can be located at zero or in other point of the support. Then, after deriving some of its more relevant properties , the issue of parameter investigation is investigated. Next, the GAT distribution is used to explain the demand for health services by means of a regression model. Numerical results show that this new model outperforms the negative binomial distribution.     

Don't Be Frightened: It's Just a Backlog of Government Documents Serials Records

ABSTRACT

This article summarizes the presentation by Elisabeth Garner at the 26th annual North Carolina Serials Conference in 2017. Garner described the workflow she developed to reconcile previously cataloged government document serial records with newly updated U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) catalog records from MARCIVE, Inc., through the Cataloging Record Distribution Program (CRDP).     

Testing the validity of the logistic model based on the empirical distribution function

The logistic distribution is one of the fundamental distribution and is widely used for describing model growth curves in survival analysis and biological studies. Applications of this distribution are presented in statistical literature. In this article, goodness of fit tests for the logistic distribution based on the empirical distribution function (EDF) are considered. In order to compute the test statistics, because the MLEs cannot be obtained explicitly, we use the approximate maximum likelihood estimates (AMLEs) suggested by Balakrishnan and Cohen (1990 Balakrishnan, N., Cohen, A. C. (1990). Order Statistics and Inference: Estimation Methods. Boston: Academic Press. [Google Scholar]), which are simple explicit estimators. Power comparisons of the considered tests are carried out via simulations. Finally, two illustrative examples are presented and analyzed.     

FDR control under block dependence

In practical settings such as microarray data analysis, multiple hypotheses with dependence within but not between equal-sized blocks often need to be tested. We consider an adaptive BH procedure to test the hypotheses. Under the condition of positive regression dependence on a subset of the true null hypotheses, the proposed adaptive procedure is shown to control the false discovery rate. The proposed approach is compared to the existing methods in simulation under block dependence and totally uniform pairwise dependence. It is observed that the proposed method performs better than the existing methods in several situations.     

A new test for two-sample location problem based on empirical distribution function

We propose a new test for testing the equality of location parameter of two populations based on empirical distribution function (ECDF). The test statistics is obtained as a power divergence between two ECDFs. The test is shown to be distribution free, and its null distribution is obtained. We conducted empirical power comparison of the proposed test with several other available tests in the literature. We found that the proposed test performs better than its competitors considered here under several population structures. We also used two real datasets to illustrate the procedure.     

In (partial) defence of offensive art: Whitehouse as Freirean codification

Arguments over the value of ‘extreme music’ (metal, power electronics, noise, etc.) and the use of highly controversial imagery within these genres have existed since its inception. Detractors claim that using extreme imagery such as fascist symbols, pornography and racially charged photographs inherently promotes the corrosive ideologies behind these images. Some purveyors of extreme music disagree, arguing that musicians use these images to explore humanity’s darker elements which, in turn, allow audiences to better understand these problematic aspects of modern society. When played out within underground music communities, these arguments often devolve into name calling and accusations of censorship. However, by addressing extreme music on its own terms and critiquing the effectiveness of these genres, a more nuanced understanding of the issues intrinsically embedded within extreme music emerges. In this article, I employ this approach by exploring the music and imagery of power electronics band Whitehouse and argue that the ambiguous nature of their work partially mirrors the intention behind Paulo Freire’s concept of codifications. While this notion provides some defence for extreme music more broadly, the lack of venues that promote communal explorations of these images hinders the genre’s ability to achieve its own goals.     

塞尔社会实在理论的批判性研究

塞尔的社会实在理论是从本体论角度探讨人类如何建构社会实在的理论。为了证明其社会实在理论,塞尔提出三要素即功能归属或赋予、集体意向性、构成性规则的论证,并在此基础上,发展出一条更好的基本原则即地位功能宣告的论证。但是,由于悬置了人类实践,塞尔的论证是不合理的。从马克思主义的立场看,塞尔的社会实在理论揭示了语言在人类建构社会实在中的重要作用,从而丰富了实践与社会实在之间的中介理论;但它通过悬置支撑语言制度的实践行为,过高地夸大了语言制度在社会实在建构中的作用。     

Coordinated Replenishments from a Common Supplier

Coordinated replenishment strategies may be implemented by jointly ordering multiple items from a common supplier. A major benefit of coordinated replenishment is that it increases the size of shipments, permitting the buyer to enjoy transportation economies without a major increase in average inventory levels. The coordinated replenishment problem is complex because side constraints govern the attainment of transportation rate breaks. The problem is further complicated by the presence of purchase quantity discount opportunities. Thus, the buyer must decide which items to order independently, which items to include in a group order, and the order quantities of each item, governed by the frequency of independent or group orders. We present a mathematical model and a heuristic solution procedure that provide analytical support to the buyer seeking to minimize total costs of replenishing multiple items from a common supplier. The relevant costs are purchase prices, ordering costs, holding costs, and transportation costs. Coordinated replenishment provides nearly a 30 percent reduction in controllable costs relative to independent control. Experimentation with the heuristic has yielded optimal solutions over 88 percent of the time. When optimality was not obtained, the mean penalty was much less than one percent. The average heuristic search was more than two orders of magnitude faster than branch and bound, even for small problems, and possessed a much tighter distribution around the mean search time.