Unconditional transfers goes to health? Evidence from Brazilian municipalities

This study assesses the impact of unconditional transfer resources on the health indicators of Brazilian municipalities. This transfer refers to the Participation Fund of Municipalities (FPM) where at least 15% of its value should be spent on public health. Based on a discontinuity of the rules of transfers, we explore Regression Discontinuous Design for the years 2002 to 2010, and find: (i) no significant effect of FPM on mortality reduction; (ii) a robust and significant reduction in morbidity, treated municipalities – on the right side of thresholds – on average have a per capita rate of morbidity 0.00821% lower than those on the left side of the cutoff points; (iii) the mechanisms through which a reduction on morbidity could be operated would be due to estimated increases in preventive measures such as consultations and medical and nurses visits, these were bigger for the treated group in, respectively, 0.32%, 0.038% and 0.039%.

Determinantes e eficácia da lealdade partidária no Brasil: uma análise das estratégias dos candidatos a prefeito e vereador

O sistema político brasileiro atual é marcado pelo número expressivo de partidos e também pelo forte trânsito interpartidário: hoje, mais de 30 partidos disputam eleições e, tanto em cargos do legislativo quanto do executivo, o número de políticos com filiação exclusiva a uma única legenda vem caindo consideravelmente. Nesse cenário, a investigação das características do processo de migração entre partidos torna-se fundamental para a melhor compreensão do sistema político-partidário brasileiro. Buscando aprofundar o conhecimento sobre esse tema, nos propusemos a responder duas questões: 1. Como o resultado das eleições municipais e estaduais afetam a decisão dos prefeitos e vereadores de permanecerem fiéis ou migrarem de partido? 2. Qual a eficácia das estratégias de migrar ou permanecer fiel? Para responder a essas questões, utilizamos dados das eleições municipais para prefeito e vereador de 2000 a 2012 e estimamos os efeitos descritos acima por meio do Desenho de Regressão Descontínua e também utilizando o método de Variáveis Instrumentais.

K-plane regression

In this paper, we present a novel algorithm for piecewise linear regression which can learn continuous as well as discontinuous piecewise linear functions. The main idea is to repeatedly partition the data and learn a linear model in each partition. The proposed algorithm is similar in spirit to k-means clustering algorithm. We show that our algorithm can also be viewed as a special case of an EM algorithm for maximum likelihood estimation under a reasonable probability model. We empirically demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by comparing its performance with that of the state of art algorithms on various datasets. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Elicitator : an expert elicitation tool for regression in ecology

Expert elicitation is the process of retrieving and quantifying expert knowledge in a particular domain. Such information is of particular value when the empirical data is expensive, limited, or unreliable. This paper describes a new software tool, called Elicitator, which assists in quantifying expert knowledge in a form suitable for use as a prior model in Bayesian regression. Potential environmental domains for applying this elicitation tool include habitat modeling, assessing detectability or eradication, ecological condition assessments, risk analysis, and quantifying inputs to complex models of ecological processes. The tool has been developed to be user-friendly, extensible, and facilitate consistent and repeatable elicitation of expert knowledge across these various domains. We demonstrate its application to elicitation for logistic regression in a geographically based ecological context. The underlying statistical methodology is also novel, utilizing an indirect elicitation approach to target expert knowledge on a case-by-case basis. For several elicitation sites (or cases), experts are asked simply to quantify their estimated ecological response (e.g. probability of presence), and its range of plausible values, after inspecting (habitat) covariates via GIS.

Comparison of three expert elicitation methods for logistic regression on predicting the presence of the threatened brush-tailed rock-wallaby petrogale penicillata

Numerous expert elicitation methods have been suggested for generalised linear models (GLMs). This paper compares three relatively new approaches to eliciting expert knowledge in a form suitable for Bayesian logistic regression. These methods were trialled on two experts in order to model the habitat suitability of the threatened Australian brush-tailed rock-wallaby (Petrogale penicillata). The first elicitation approach is a geographically assisted indirect predictive method with a geographic information system (GIS) interface. The second approach is a predictive indirect method which uses an interactive graphical tool. The third method uses a questionnaire to elicit expert knowledge directly about the impact of a habitat variable on the response. Two variables (slope and aspect) are used to examine prior and posterior distributions of the three methods. The results indicate that there are some similarities and dissimilarities between the expert informed priors of the two experts formulated from the different approaches. The choice of elicitation method depends on the statistical knowledge of the expert, their mapping skills, time constraints, accessibility to experts and funding available. This trial reveals that expert knowledge can be important when modelling rare event data, such as threatened species, because experts can provide additional information that may not be represented in the dataset. However care must be taken with the way in which this information is elicited and formulated.

Active power flow control in a distribution system using discontinuous voltage controller

stract This paper proposes a hybrid discontinuous control methodology for a voltage source converter (VSC), which is used in an uninterrupted power supply (UPS) application. The UPS controls the voltage at the point of common coupling (PCC). An LC filter is connected at the output of the VSC to bypass switching harmonics. With the help of both filter inductor current and filter capacitor voltage control, the voltage across the filter capacitor is controlled. Based on the voltage error, the control is switched between current and voltage control modes. In this scheme, an extra diode state is used that makes the VSC output current discontinuous. This diode state reduces the switching losses. The UPS controls the active power it supplies to a three-phase, four-wire distribution system. This gives a full flexibility to the grid to buy power from the UPS system depending on its cost and load requirement at any given time. The scheme is validated through simulation using PSCAD.