Physical Activity as a Helpful Adjunct to Substance Abuse Treatment

ABSTRACT

While limited research exists on the topic of physical activity as an adjunct to substance abuse treatment, a review of relevant multidisciplinary literature indicates a logical rationale for its potential benefits to recovery from addiction. This article provides an overview of common variables that contribute to addictive disease and summarizes the relationship of regular physical activity to improvements on many of these variables. The stages of change from the Transtheoretical Model (TTM, Prochaska & DiClemente, 1982; Prochaska & Velicer, 1997) are described in the context of effectively matching clients in substance abuse therapy to interventions that may include physical activity. Finally, important practical suggestions for implementing physical activity as a useful adjunct to substance abuse treatment are provided.     

The mean of linear signed rank statistics under alternatives

An expression is presented for the mean of a linear signed rank statistic for the one sample location model. Several examples are given to illustrate its application.     

Bayesian variable selection with spherically symmetric priors

We propose that Bayesian variable selection for linear parametrizations with Gaussian iid likelihoods should be based on the spherical symmetry of the diagonalized parameter space. Our r-prior results in closed forms for the evidence for four examples, including the hyper-g prior and the Zellner–Siow prior, which are shown to be special cases. Scenarios of a single-variable dispersion parameter and of fixed dispersion are studied, and asymptotic forms comparable to the traditional information criteria are derived. A simulation exercise shows that model comparison based on our r-prior gives good results comparable to or better than current model comparison schemes.     

Estimation of Causal Odds of Concordance using the Aalen Additive Model

A simple summary of a treatment effect is attractive, which is part of the explanation of the success of the Cox model when analysing time‐to‐event data since the relative risk measure is such a convenient summary measure. In practice, however, the Cox model may fail to give a reasonable fit, very often because of time‐changing treatment effect. The Aalen additive hazards model may be a good alternative as time‐changing effects are easily modelled within this model, but results are then evidently more complicated to communicate. In such situations, the odds of concordance measure (OC) is a convenient way of communicating results, and recently Martinussen & Pipper (2012) showed how a variant of the OC measure may be estimated based on the Aalen additive hazards model. In this study, we propose an estimator that should be preferred in observational studies as it always estimates the causal effect on the chosen scale, only assuming that there are no un‐measured confounders. The resulting estimator is shown to be consistent and asymptotically normal, and an estimator of its limiting variance is provided. Two real applications are provided.     

A segmented regime-switching model with its application to stock market indices

This paper evaluates the ability of a Markov regime-switching log-normal (RSLN) model to capture the time-varying features of stock return and volatility. The model displays a better ability to depict a fat tail distribution as compared with using a log-normal model, which means that the RSLN model can describe observed market behavior better. Our major objective is to explore the capability of the model to capture stock market behavior over time. By analyzing the behavior of calibrated regime-switching parameters over different lengths of time intervals, the change-point concept is introduced and an algorithm is proposed for identifying the change-points in the series corresponding to the times when there are changes in parameter estimates. This algorithm for identifying change-points is tested on the Standard and Poor's 500 monthly index data from 1971 to 2008, and the Nikkei 225 monthly index data from 1984 to 2008. It is evident that the change-points we identify match the big events observed in the US stock market and the Japan stock market (e.g., the October 1987 stock market crash), and that the segmentations of stock index series, which are defined as the periods between change-points, match the observed bear–bull market phases.     

Use of prior information for estimating the variance components

The MINQUE and its modifications are considered for estimating the variances of the balanced one-way random effects model. The effects of the a priori values on the estimators of the variances are examined in detail. The Mean Square Errors of the estimators are compared for variations in the prior values of the unknown variances.     

On shrinkage m-estimators of location parameters

For a general class of continuous ( and marginally symmetric ) inultivariate distributions, based on suitable M-statistics ( involving bounded but possibly discontinuous score generating functions), shrinkage estimators of location are considered. These estimators are based on the James-Stein type rule and incorporates the idea of preliminary test estimation too. The main emphasis is laid on the study of asymptotic tdistributional ) risk properties of these est-innators, and asymptotic tin-) adraissibility results are also studied under fairly general regularity conditions.     

Accurate detection of excess over a standard based on a random sample

A known number N of packages each contain, in differing unknown amounts, both substances of no particular import and some substance of interest, the total weight of the latter substance for all N of the packages being an unknown quantity T. Based on the amounts of the substance of interest found in each of n (n ≦= N) randomly sampled packages one is to decide, with a very small probability of the error of wrongly deciding that T exceeds L, whether or not the quantity T exceeds a given amount L. An optimal way of doing this is presented in which the probability of the error of wrongly deciding that T exceeds L can be precisely bounded above as desired.     

功能性能分离的可信服务构件模型

为了向分布式实时嵌入式系统(DRES)的运行过程提供可信保障服务,方便上层应用程序的开发,提出了一种针对DRES的可信构件服务模型QUOCCM。该模型将系统功能实现与性能确保分离开,把应用程序的性能确保模块抽象成通用的服务确保构件,为运行于动态环境下的应用程序提供自适应的可信保障服务。该文以一个模拟实现的飞行控制系统验证了QUOCCM模型的可行性和灵活性。     

固气相变蒸发热的计算

用固体的Einstein模型与Debye模型分别导出相应模型的固气相变的蒸发热和蒸发压公式，并对其做数值计算。结果表明，蒸发热与温度之间近似呈线性关系,之与工程上经验近似是一致的。