http://hdl.handle.net/10092/695 2013-04-16T18:40:54Z http://hdl.handle.net/10092/7102 Title: The "Last Mile" Problem in Personalized Medicine: a Dynamic Interactive Graphical Software Solution Authors: Fountain, J.; Gunby, P. Abstract: Clinicians and patients typically experience difficulty with the conditional probability reasoning (Bayes Theorem) required to make inferences about health states on the basis of diagnostic test results. This problem will grow in importance as we move into the era of personalized medicine where an increasing supply of imprecise diagnostic tests meets an increasing demand to use such tests on the part of intelligent but statistically innumerate clinicians and patients. We describe a user friendly, interactive, graphical software interface for calculating, visualizing, and communicating accurate inferences about uncertain health states when diagnostic information (test sensitivity and specificity, and health state prevalence) is relatively imprecise and ambiguous in its application to a specific patient. The software is free, open-source, and runs on all popular PC operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux) 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10092/6504 Title: Does Higher Social Diversity Affect People's Contributions to Local Schools? Evidence from New Zealand Authors: Armstrong, H.; Clark, J. Abstract: New Zealand is becoming more socially diverse, in common with other Western countries. Primarily U.S. based-evidence suggests that growing diversity may lower people’s participation in society, and their contributions towards public goods. We test whether there is evidence of a similar relationship in New Zealand, specifically between social diversity and voluntary contributions towards local schools. We use data from the New Zealand Ministry of Education and the Census for the years 2001 and 2006 to estimate whether social heterogeneity affects a school’s ability to raise funds locally. Individual school revenue data is matched with measures of the heterogeneity of the neighbourhood in which the school is located. We consider heterogeneity by language, ethnicity, religion and income. After running cross-section and fixed effects regressions which control for other factors, we find only limited evidence that diversity affects the financial support schools receive from their local communities. We do find that higher nominal household income inequality lowers the revenues schools collect from fundraising, but not the revenues they receive from parental contributions or donations. Description: RePEc Working Papers Series: 34/2011 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10092/6503 Title: Using Online Assessment to Replace Invigilated Assessment in Times of a Natural Disaster - Are Some Online Assessment Conditions Better than Others? Authors: Agnew, S.; Hickson, S.M. Abstract: As the result of the September 4th 2010 Canterbury earthquake and associated aftershocks on February 22nd 2011 and June 13th 2011, final examinations in the two 100 level economics papers at Canterbury University were cancelled at short notice in semester one 2011. The final examination weightings were spread over the remaining assessments to obtain a final grade for students. This paper attempts to establish how different online assessment conditions affect final grade distributions when online assessments are substituted for an invigilated final examination. Pearson correlation coefficients and Spearman rank order correlation coefficients are used to show that there is a greater correlation between online quizzes and invigilated assessments when those quizzes are only available for a restricted period of time, compared to the whole semester. We find that online quizzes are more closely correlated with invigilated assessments when the first attempt at a quiz is recorded, as opposed to the highest of two attempts. We also find that using the first attempt leads to less grade disruption when compared to a “normal” semester that includes a final examination. Finally, the actual impact on student grades when online quizzes are substituted for a final examination is discussed. 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10092/6502 Title: How Should Journal Quality be Ranked? An Application to Agricultural, Energy, Environmental and Resource Economics Authors: Chang, C-L.; McAleer, M. Abstract: The Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Science citations database (hereafter ISI) category of Economics has one of the largest numbers of journals, at 304, of any ISI discipline, and hence has wide coverage. The paper analyses the leading international journals in the Economics sub-disciplines of Energy, Environmental and Resource Economics using quantifiable Research Assessment Measures (RAMs), and highlights the similarities and differences in alternative RAMs. The RAMs are based on alternative transformations of citations taken from the ISI database. Alternative RAMs may be calculated annually or updated daily to answer the perennial questions as to When, Where and How (frequently) published papers are cited (see Chang et al. (2011a, b, c)). The RAMs include the most widely used RAM, namely the classic 2-year impact factor including journal self citations (2YIF), 2-year impact factor excluding journal self citations (2YIF*), 5-year impact factor including journal self citations (5YIF), Immediacy (or zero-year impact factor (0YIF)), Eigenfactor, Article Influence, C3PO (Citation Performance Per Paper Online), h-index, PI-BETA (Papers Ignored - By Even The Authors), 2-year Self-citation Threshold Approval Ratings (2Y-STAR), Historical Self-citation Threshold Approval Ratings (H-STAR), Impact Factor Inflation (IFI), and Cited Article Influence (CAI). As data are not available for 5YIF, Article Influence and CAI for one of the 20 journals considered, 13 RAMs are analysed for 19 highly-cited journals in Energy, Environmental and Resource Economics in the ISI category of Economics. Harmonic mean rankings of the 13 RAMs for the 19 highly-cited journals are also presented. It is shown that emphasizing the 2-year impact factor of a journal, which partly answers the question as to When published papers are cited, to the exclusion of other informative RAMs, which answer Where and How (frequently) published papers are cited, can lead to a distorted evaluation of journal impact and influence relative to the Harmonic Mean rankings. Description: RePEc Working Paper Series 43/2011 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z