Testing extreme value copulas to estimate the quantile

Testing weather or not data belongs could been generated by a family of extreme value copulas is difficult. We generalize a test and we prove that it can be applied whatever the alternative hypothesis. We also study the effect of using different extreme value copulas in the context of risk estimation. To measure the risk we use a quantile. Our results have motivated by a bivariate sample of losses from a real database of auto insurance claims. Methods are implemented in R.

Integration or individuation : are the salvation goods promised by first-century Christian preaching still attractive ?

(Résumé de l'ouvrage) The idea that religion has to succeed in a «market», selling «salvation goods», has proved to be extremely attractive to scholars in sociology and the study of religion. Max Weber used the term «salvation good» to compare different religious traditions. Pierre Bourdieu employed the term in order to analyze «religious economy». And recently, an American group of researchers advocating «rational choice of religion» put the theme at the forefront of current debates. This book - the fruit of an International Congress in Lausanne in April 2005 - brings together leading specialists in the fields of sociology and the study of religion who discuss the terms «salvation goods» (or religious goods) and «religious market». The authors test the applicability of these concepts by using specific examples and they either deliberately advocate or criticize Weberian, Bourdieusian or rational-choice perspectives.

Testing the competitive exclusion principle using various niche parameters in a native (Natrix maura) and an introduced (N. tessellata) colubrid

Despite the increase of animal and plant introductions worldwide and the strong augmentation of the reptile trade, few invasive snake populations have been studied. Dice snakes (Natrix tessellata) were introduced to the shores of Lake Geneva (Switzerland) in the early 1920s, and are now well established. This region of introduction was previously inhabited by Viperine snakes (N. maura). Ever since these two species have been under monitoring (which began in 1996) the Viperine snake population has shown drastic decline. We examine here the possibility of trophic competition by analysing diet composition, prey size and trophic niche overlap. Spatial distribution is also assessed in order to address the question of spatial competitive exclusion. We found very similar diets, and thus a high trophic niche overlap, indicating no partitioning of the trophic resource. No arguments in favour of spatial competitive exclusion were found. Our study suggests that trophic competition may occur between the two natricines and that it may give an explanation for the drastic decline of the Viperine snake in this area. Other pathways potentially playing a role in the exclusion of the Viperine snake are discussed.

A statistical procedure for testing social reciprocity at group, dyadic and individual levels

This paper examines statistical analysis of social reciprocity, that is, the balance between addressing and receiving behaviour in social interactions. Specifically, it focuses on the measurement of social reciprocity by means of directionality and skew-symmetry statistics at different levels. Two statistics have been used as overall measures of social reciprocity at group level: the directional consistency and the skew-symmetry statistics. Furthermore, the skew-symmetry statistic allows social researchers to obtain complementary information at dyadic and individual levels. However, having computed these measures, social researchers may be interested in testing statistical hypotheses regarding social reciprocity. For this reason, it has been developed a statistical procedure, based on Monte Carlo sampling, in order to allow social researchers to describe groups and make statistical decisions.

Testing a large-scale forestry scenario model by means of successive inventories on a forest property

Abstract

Isothermal microcalorimetry for antifungal susceptibility testing of Mucorales, Fusarium spp., and Scedosporium spp.

We evaluated isothermal microcalorimetry for real-time susceptibility testing of non-Aspergillus molds. MIC and minimal effective concentration (MEC) values of Mucorales (n = 4), Fusarium spp. (n = 4), and Scedosporium spp. (n = 4) were determined by microbroth dilution according to the Clinical Laboratory Standard Institute M38-A2 guidelines. Heat production of molds was measured at 37 °C in Sabouraud dextrose broth inoculated with 2.5 × 10(4) spores/mL in the presence of amphotericin B, voriconazole, posaconazole, caspofungin, and anidulafungin. As determined by microcalorimetry, amphotericin B was the most active agent against Mucorales (MHIC 0.06-0.125 μg/mL) and Fusarium spp. (MHIC 1-4 μg/mL), whereas voriconazole was the most active agent against Scedosporium spp. (MHIC 0.25 to 8 μg/mL). The percentage of agreement (within one 2-fold dilution) between the MHIC and MIC (or MEC) was 67%, 92%, 75%, and 83% for amphotericin B, voriconazole, posaconazole, and caspofungin, respectively. Microcalorimetry provides additional information on timing of antifungal activity, enabling further investigation of drug-mold and drug-drug interaction, and optimization of antifungal treatment.

Quantitative integration of high-resolution hydrogeophysical data through Monte-Carlo-type conditional simulations

Geophysical techniques can help to bridge the inherent gap with regard to spatial resolution and the range of coverage that plagues classical hydrological methods. This has lead to the emergence of the new and rapidly growing field of hydrogeophysics. Given the differing sensitivities of various geophysical techniques to hydrologically relevant parameters and their inherent trade-off between resolution and range the fundamental usefulness of multi-method hydrogeophysical surveys for reducing uncertainties in data analysis and interpretation is widely accepted. A major challenge arising from such endeavors is the quantitative integration of the resulting vast and diverse database in order to obtain a unified model of the probed subsurface region that is internally consistent with all available data. To address this problem, we have developed a strategy towards hydrogeophysical data integration based on Monte-Carlo-type conditional stochastic simulation that we consider to be particularly suitable for local-scale studies characterized by high-resolution and high-quality datasets. Monte-Carlo-based optimization techniques are flexible and versatile, allow for accounting for a wide variety of data and constraints of differing resolution and hardness and thus have the potential of providing, in a geostatistical sense, highly detailed and realistic models of the pertinent target parameter distributions. Compared to more conventional approaches of this kind, our approach provides significant advancements in the way that the larger-scale deterministic information resolved by the hydrogeophysical data can be accounted for, which represents an inherently problematic, and as of yet unresolved, aspect of Monte-Carlo-type conditional simulation techniques. We present the results of applying our algorithm to the integration of porosity log and tomographic crosshole georadar data to generate stochastic realizations of the local-scale porosity structure. Our procedure is first tested on pertinent synthetic data and then applied to corresponding field data collected at the Boise Hydrogeophysical Research Site near Boise, Idaho, USA.

An efficient algorithm to perform multiple testing in epistasis screening

Background: Research in epistasis or gene-gene interaction detection for human complex traits has grown over the last few years. It has been marked by promising methodological developments, improved translation efforts of statistical epistasis to biological epistasis and attempts to integrate different omics information sources into the epistasis screening to enhance power. The quest for gene-gene interactions poses severe multiple-testing problems. In this context, the maxT algorithm is one technique to control the false-positive rate. However, the memory needed by this algorithm rises linearly with the amount of hypothesis tests. Gene-gene interaction studies will require a memory proportional to the squared number of SNPs. A genome-wide epistasis search would therefore require terabytes of memory. Hence, cache problems are likely to occur, increasing the computation time. In this work we present a new version of maxT, requiring an amount of memory independent from the number of genetic effects to be investigated. This algorithm was implemented in C++ in our epistasis screening software MBMDR-3.0.3. We evaluate the new implementation in terms of memory efficiency and speed using simulated data. The software is illustrated on real-life data for Crohn’s disease. Results: In the case of a binary (affected/unaffected) trait, the parallel workflow of MBMDR-3.0.3 analyzes all gene-gene interactions with a dataset of 100,000 SNPs typed on 1000 individuals within 4 days and 9 hours, using 999 permutations of the trait to assess statistical significance, on a cluster composed of 10 blades, containing each four Quad-Core AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 2352 2.1 GHz. In the case of a continuous trait, a similar run takes 9 days. Our program found 14 SNP-SNP interactions with a multiple-testing corrected p-value of less than 0.05 on real-life Crohn’s disease (CD) data. Conclusions: Our software is the first implementation of the MB-MDR methodology able to solve large-scale SNP-SNP interactions problems within a few days, without using much memory, while adequately controlling the type I error rates. A new implementation to reach genome-wide epistasis screening is under construction. In the context of Crohn’s disease, MBMDR-3.0.3 could identify epistasis involving regions that are well known in the field and could be explained from a biological point of view. This demonstrates the power of our software to find relevant phenotype-genotype higher-order associations.

Assessment of Nondestructive Testing Technologies for Quality Control/Quality Assurance of Asphalt Mixtures, TR-653, 2015

Asphalt pavements suffer various failures due to insufficient quality within their design lives. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) has been proposed to improve pavement quality through quantitative performance prediction. Evaluation of the actual performance (quality) of pavements requires in situ nondestructive testing (NDT) techniques that can accurately measure the most critical, objective, and sensitive properties of pavement systems. The purpose of this study is to assess existing as well as promising new NDT technologies for quality control/quality assurance (QC/QA) of asphalt mixtures. Specifically, this study examined field measurements of density via the PaveTracker electromagnetic gage, shear-wave velocity via surface-wave testing methods, and dynamic stiffness via the Humboldt GeoGauge for five representative paving projects covering a range of mixes and traffic loads. The in situ tests were compared against laboratory measurements of core density and dynamic modulus. The in situ PaveTracker density had a low correlation with laboratory density and was not sensitive to variations in temperature or asphalt mix type. The in situ shear-wave velocity measured by surface-wave methods was most sensitive to variations in temperature and asphalt mix type. The in situ density and in situ shear-wave velocity were combined to calculate an in situ dynamic modulus, which is a performance-based quality measurement. The in situ GeoGauge stiffness measured on hot asphalt mixtures several hours after paving had a high correlation with the in situ dynamic modulus and the laboratory density, whereas the stiffness measurement of asphalt mixtures cooled with dry ice or at ambient temperature one or more days after paving had a very low correlation with the other measurements. To transform the in situ moduli from surface-wave testing into quantitative quality measurements, a QC/QA procedure was developed to first correct the in situ moduli measured at different field temperatures to the moduli at a common reference temperature based on master curves from laboratory dynamic modulus tests. The corrected in situ moduli can then be compared against the design moduli for an assessment of the actual pavement performance. A preliminary study of microelectromechanical systems- (MEMS)-based sensors for QC/QA and health monitoring of asphalt pavements was also performed.

Issue review : Iowa State Patrol and the Office of Motor Vehicle Enforcement potential integration.

This issue review analyzes the duties and responsibilities of troopers in the Iowa State Patrol, or ISP, and Motor Vehicle Enforcement, MVE, officers in the Department of Transportation, or DOT, as well as the differences such as funding, pay and pension. In addition, this issue review discusses the proposal for a potential integration of the offices under one system.

How Millennials are changing the way of learning: the state of the art of ICT integration in education

Millennials generation is changing the way of learning, prompting educational institutions to attempt to better adapt to young needs by incorporating technologies into education. Based on this premise, we have reviewed the prominent reports of the integration of ICT into education with the aim of evidencing how education is changing, and will change, to meet the needs ofMillennials with ICT support. We conclude that most of the investments have simply resulted in an increase of computers and access to the Internet, with teachers reproducing traditional approaches to education and e-learning being seen as complementary to face-to-face education. While it would seem that the use of ICT is not revolutionizing learning, it is facilitating the personalization, collaboration and ubiquity of learning.

Testing the effects of genetic crossing distance on embryo survival within a metapopulation of brown trout (Salmo trutta)

Predicting progeny performance from parental genetic divergence can potentially enhance the efficiency of supportive breeding programmes and facilitate risk assessment. Yet, experimental testing of the effects of breeding distance on offspring performance remains rare, especially in wild populations of vertebrates. Recent studies have demonstrated that embryos of salmonid fish are sensitive indicators of additive genetic variance for viability traits. We therefore used gametes of wild brown trout (Salmo trutta) from five genetically distinct populations of a river catchment in Switzerland, and used a full factorial design to produce over 2,000 embryos in 100 different crosses with varying genetic distances (FST range 0.005-0.035). Customized egg capsules allowed recording the survival of individual embryos until hatching under natural field conditions. Our breeding design enabled us to evaluate the role of the environment, of genetic and nongenetic parental contributions, and of interactions between these factors, on embryo viability. We found that embryo survival was strongly affected by maternal environmental (i.e. non-genetic) effects and by the microenvironment, i.e. by the location within the gravel. However, embryo survival was not predicted by population divergence, parental allelic dissimilarity, or heterozygosity, neither in the field nor under laboratory conditions. Our findings suggest that the genetic effects of inter-population hybridization within a genetically differentiated meta-population can be minor in comparison to environmental effects.