intercede - definition and synonyms

verb [intransitive] formal

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present tense
present participleinterceding
past tenseinterceded
past participleinterceded
  1. to try to persuade someone in authority to help someone else or to change their opinion or decision about them, especially someone who is going to be punished
    intercede with someone (on someone’s behalf):

    Local groups asked the politician to intercede with the government on their behalf.


Review from ROAPE Volume 8 Number 22
Violence (Iyayi)

Violence by Festus Iyayi
Vol.8 No.22 (Winter 1981), pp108-115
Violence, a novel by Festus Iyayi is being hailed as the first Nigerian proletarian novel. This description of the novel should be examined before it becomes established in our literary critical vocabulary and taxonomy. To discuss whether Violence is the first Nigerian proletarian novel, we may first ask what we mean by ‘proletarian’ . The term is used to refer to the working class; and ‘working class’ does not mean everybody who goes out to work, as the term is often used in Nigerian newspapers! In Marxist political economy, ‘proletarian’ means workers of a specific nature, although this nature is often subjected and still subject to discussion and closer definitions. Of the workers in a society, Marxist analysis stresses the distinction between productive and non-productive workers. The former are exclusively wage-earners, sometimes termed direct producers, whose labour produces value and, especially, the additional or surplus value appropriated by the capatilist and constituting the return on capital (Jake, 1977). It should be noted that only the production of commodities, that is, material goods with an exchange value, can give rise to new surplus value. Thus, productive workers are those who produce such material goods and collectively constitute the working class. Jake argues that non-productive workers who contribute to the accumulation of capital belong with productive workers who struggle against capitalism and that together with the industrial working class they constitute what Marx defined as the proletariat, that is, all the workers who labour ‘increases capital’ .


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Data Center

Google Chrome OS: Too secure to need security?

Confident anti-virus-less chocolateers may be repeating Apple's mistakes

I'm not telling you my mantra...

"How often did the mantra that MacOS was immune to malware need to be repeated until the vast majority of users believed it and continue to do so, even after Apple went as far as incorporating rudimentary AV software into MacOS," Ferguson writes.

"Criminal activity extends far beyond file-based threats, encompassing social engineering, phishing, social networks and email borne threats. The palette is continually expanding and the techniques are continually evolving. To assure your customers that they will not have to deal with online cybercrime simply by switching OS is foolish to say the least," he concludes.

We put Ferguson's arguments to Google, which pointed us towards documents arguing that the security of Chrome networks doesn't rely on any one component (such as sandboxing), but rather "defence in depth", which it claims is better than existing models.

Chromebooks use the first operating system designed with this ongoing threat in mind. It uses the principle of "defense in depth" to provide multiple layers of protection, so if any one layer is bypassed, others are still in effect. So while it's still important to take precautions to protect your data, Chromebooks let you breathe just a little bit easier.

Google let the dig that it was adopting the "security arrogance" of Apple slide, perhaps wisely. While Google's re-imaging of security architectures is welcome, it is unlikely that security problems will change, much less disappear, with wider adoption of the operating system. Google has earned plaudits from the security community for the superior stability and security of its Chrome browser as compared to Firefox. However, the recent rash of Trojans infecting Android devices has drawn criticism. Eugene Kaspersky, for example, has even gone so far as to describe Android as the new Windows.

Whether Chrome OS more closely represents its browser namesake or Android in terms of security will do much to determine the overall security landscape over coming years.

A security overview of Chrome OS can be found here. Ferguson's analysis is here. ®

Sponsored: IBM FlashSystem V9000 product guide


Neutron and protons, bff's?

Classical Mechanics Level 4

The bond between protons and neutrons inside the atomic nucleus is formed by the strong interaction. In classical terms, we can think of it as protons and neutrons exchanging a "meson," a kind of fundamental particle between them. Let's estimate the range of the interaction that's caused by exchange of the \(\pi\) meson which has mass of approximately \(2.5 \times 10^{-28}~\mbox{kg}\) and decays. To do this, note that from the uncertainty principle one can estimate the lifetime \(t\) of a particle of mass \(m\) by \(t=\frac{\hbar}{2mc^2}\), where \(\hbar=1.05 \times 10^{-34} ~\mbox{J~s}\) is known as the (reduced) Planck's constant and \(c=3 \times 10^8 ~\mbox{m/s}\) is the speed of light.

Express your answer in femtometers \(1~\mbox{fm}=10^{-15}~\mbox{m}\).

Details and assumptions

  • Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.

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Yaron Koral

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—Pattern matching algorithms lie at the core of all contemporary Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), making it intrinsic to reduce their speed and memory requirements. This paper focuses on the most popular class of pattern-matching algorithms, the Aho-Corasick–like algorithms, which are based on constructing and traversing a Deterministic Finite Automaton(More)
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Early programming languages for software-defined networking (SDN) were built on top of the simple match-action paradigm offered by OpenFlow 1.0. However, emerging hardware and software switches offer much more sophisticated support for persistent state in the data plane, without involving a central controller. Nevertheless, managing stateful, distributed(More)
Current security tools, using "signature-based" detection, do not handle compressed traffic, whose market-share is constantly increasing. This paper focuses on compressed HTTP traffic. HTTP uses GZIP compression and requires some kind of decompression phase before performing a string matching. We present a novel algorithm, Aho-Corasick-based algorithm for(More)
Compressing web traffic using standard GZIP is becoming both popular and challenging due to the huge increase in wireless web devices, where bandwidth is limited. Security and other content based networking devices are required to decompress the traffic of tens of thousands concurrent connections in order to inspect the content for different signatures. The(More)
— Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) is the most time and resource consuming procedure in contemporary security tools such as Network Intrusion Detection/Prevention System (NIDS/IPS), Web Application Firewall (WAF), or Content Filtering Proxy. DPI consists of inspecting both the packet header and payload and alerting when signatures of malicious software appear(More)
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Soon, mobiles that can charge in seconds and work for weeks

Researchers have invented a novel supercapacitor design which raised the possibilities of developing solar cells that produce electricity 24 by 7, not just when the sun is shining and mobile phones with built-in power cells that recharge in seconds and work for weeks between charges.

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Disclaimer: I don't own anything no matter how many times i do. It is all owned by the wonderful Stephenie Meyer who made Edward.

Summary: What if Bella saw numbers which we could not see. She does not just any kind of numbers but the ones that have the day of your death written in it and was the goddess of death.

I wished that I had a normal life but I know that's not possible because I was made this way. I never saw myself as a special person don't understand why me.

I just wanted to have a normal and happy life but what I got was this curse.

Now to say that this is a curse not enough. I, Isabella Marie Swan, am the goddess of death. I control when a person dies by reading the numbers above their heads and can alter the numbers so that I can decide when they die.

I only moved for my mother's happiness and did not expect anything out of the ordinary (expect me of course) in the small town of Forks, Washington but what I found was a group beautiful people with immortality.

AN: ookkk, so I just wanted to write a fanfic so I thought I would try this out so this is my first. If u want me to continue just review because without at least 5 reviews I will not. And i know many people have used this plot before but i promise this will be different.


8/7/13: Using Bacteria to Clean Frack Water

Two MSI PIs, Professor Larry Wackett (BMBB, BioTechnology Institute) and Professor Michael Sadowsky (Soil, Water, and Climate, BioTechnology Institute), are part of a team developing a silica sponge stuffed with bacteria that can eat the contaminants in water that are a result of the hydrofracturing process. This process, also called fracking, uses millions of gallons of water.

The new technology involves bacteria embedded in porous silica fibers. Because the many of the contaminants in frack water are organic, they are potential food for bacteria. The team looks for bacteria that will eat the specific contaminants. The team has filed for a patent for this technology. An article about the project appeared recently on the UMNews website.

Professor Wackett uses MSI’s genomics resources in coordination with experiments to help identify novel metabolism and biocatalytic reactions in organisms. Professor Sadowsky uses MSI’s resources for the Minnesota Mississippi Metagenome Project, which aims to provide a greater understanding of human activity’s impact on the water of the Mississippi River. Professors Wackett and Sadowsky are working with Professor Alptekin Aksan in the Department of Mechanical Engineering on this project.


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Stat Med. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2011 March 15.
Published in final edited form as:
PMCID: PMC2830369

A U-statistics based Approach for Modeling Cronbach Coefficient Alpha within a Longitudinal Data Setting

Cronbach Coefficient Alpha (CCA) is a classic measure of item internal consistency of an instrument and is used in a wide range of behavioral, biomedical, psychosocial, and health-care related research. Methods are available for making inference about one CCA or multiple CCAs from correlated outcomes. However, none of the existing approaches effectively address missing data. As longitudinal study designs become increasingly popular and complex in modern-day clinical studies, missing data has become a serious issue, and the lack of methods to systematically address this problem has hampered the progress of research in the aforementioned fields. In this paper, we develop a novel approach to tackle the complexities involved in addressing missing data (at the instrument level due to subject dropout) within a longitudinal data setting. The approach is illustrated with both clinical and simulated data.

Keywords: Cronbach Coefficient Alpha, Inverse probability weighting, Missing data, Monotone missing data pattern, U-statistics

1 Introduction

Measurement error models play a particularly important role in psychosocial research, as many quantities of interest are latent constructs and not directly observable. Outcomes for measuring such constructs are often derived based on instruments (questionnaires) that delve into multifaceted dimensions of an individual’s mental and physical health. For most instruments, items are scored on a Likert scale such as 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and then totaled either across all items or a subset of items from a subscale to provide an assessment of the latent construct or a sub-domain of interest. An elegant measure to ensure that the different items in an instrument or a sub-scale capture a large amount of variability of either a uni-dimensioinal construct or multi-dimensional constructs sharing a common source is the Cronbach Coefficient Alpha (CCA). CCA ranges between 0 and 1, with larger values indicating higher degrees of consistency across the different items in terms of capturing a common source of variation [1, 2].

Methods are available for making inference about a single CCA and multiple dependent CCAs, with the latter based on data from the same subjects [3]–[10]. However, as these methods are derived based on joint multivariate normal distributions of item scores, they are sensitive to departures from such parametric distributional assumptions. Since item scores from most instruments in psychosocial research are based on Likert-type scales, they are intrinsically discrete and modeling them using parametric distributions for continuous outcomes such as the multivariate normal is theoretically flawed, especially when modeling subscales of an instrument with a very limited numerical range. Further, as these methods for comparing multiple CCAs from either several instruments when applied to a common group of subjects or subscales of an instrument are developed based on statistics for omnibus tests of overall homogeneity involving all the CCAs, they do not provide explicit asymptotic joint distributions of estimates of individual CCAs. As a result, they cannot be applied to test the equality of some combination of the CCAs, which is particularly common in longitudinal studies. For example, we may want to know whether the CCA for an instrument has dropped by 30% from baseline to some follow-up visit in a longitudinal study. None of these methods can be applied to address such a hypothesis.

As longitudinal study designs become increasingly popular and complex in modern-day studies, missing data are inevitable due to loss to follow up, making inference more challenging for analysis of longitudinal CCAs. Although a variety of methods are available for addressing missing data, none applies directly to the current setting involving inference for comparing multiple CCAs within a longitudinal data setting.

In this paper, we develop a novel approach to tackle the complexities involved in addressing missing data within a longitudinal and clustered data setting. The approach is illustrated with both clinical and simulated data.

2 Modeling CCA for Longitudinal Data

2.1 Complete Data

Consider an instrument consisting of K items, which is administered to n subjects in a longitudinal study with T assessments. Let yitk denote the item score to the kth item from the ith subject at time t and let

equation M1

Also, let

equation M2

where 1 denotes a K × 1 column vector of 1’s. The Cronbach Coefficient Alpha α can be expressed as:

equation M3

equation M4

Then, it is readily checked that

equation M5

is a one-sample, vector-valued U-statistic and E ([theta w/ hat]) = θ [11, chap. 3]. By applying the theory of multivariate U-statistics [12, chap. 5], and the Delta method, [alpha] = f ([theta w/ hat]) b is a consistent and asymptotically normal estimate of α. We summarize the asymptotic properties of [alpha] in a theorem below.

Theorem 1

Let Σθ = 4V ar (E (hij | yi)). Then, under mild regularity conditions, we have:

  1. [alpha] is consistent and asymptotically normal:
    equation M6
    where →p and →d denote convergence in probability and distribution, respectively.
  2. A consistent estimate of the asymptotic variance is obtained by substituting consistent estimates of the respective components of Σα; if [Sigma]θ is a consistent estimate of Σθ, a consistent estimate of Σα is given by: equation M7.

The proof of Theorem 1 is not provided since these conclusions follow as a special case from the more general results concerning the missing data case to be discussed in Section 2.2.

To find a consistent estimate of Σθ, first note that:

equation M8

Thus, a consistent estimate of Σθ is given by:

equation M9

where Ê (hij | yi) denotes E (hij | yi) given in (4) with estimated [theta w/ hat] and equation M10 substituting in place of θ and μ.

We can use Theorem 1 to test linear contrasts of the form:

equation M11

where K is some p × T full rank matrix of known constants. For inference, we can use the Wald statistic, equation M12, which has an asymptotic central equation M13 distribution with p degrees of freedom under the null H0.

2.2 Missing Data

In the presence of missing data, one approach is to apply the complete-data approach above to the subsample consisting of those subjects with complete data. However, in most longitudinal studies, missing data do not occur completely at random, as they often result from subjects’s deteriorated/improved health and other related conditions in response to the treatment. In such cases, missing data are predicted by observed responses and as a result, the missing completely at random (MCAR) assumption does not apply [13]. Thus, such a complete-data approach not only reduces power, but also likely yields biased estimates. A better alternative is to include all available data and to address the inherent missing data problem.

To this end, we assume that missing data only occurs at the instrument level and define a vector of binary variables for indicating missing (or rather observed) instrument-level response as follows:

equation M14

equation M15

Define a new estimate of α with the form as before [alpha] = f ([theta w/ hat]), but with equation M16 redefined by:

equation M17

Note that although hijt in (7) is not defined if one of the yit and yjt is missing, [theta w/ hat]t is still well-defined since hijt can be assigned any value in such cases without affecting [theta w/ hat]t. The estimate [theta w/ hat]t in (7) may be viewed as a generalization to a U-statistics setting of the classic inverse probability weighted (IPW) estimate for distribution-free inference about standard statistical models such as the weighted generalized estimating equations (WGEE) [14].

First, assume that Δi is known. Then, it can be shown that [theta w/ hat] is both consistent and asymptotically normal. Thus, by the Delta method, [alpha] = f ([theta w/ hat]) is a consistent and asymptotically normal estimate of α. We summarize these results in a theorem below, with a proof sketched in Appendix A1.

Theorem 2

equation M18

  1. [alpha] is consistent and asymptotically normal,
    equation M19
  2. The asymptotic variance Σα can be estimated by the Delta method with a consistent estimate [Sigma]θ given by:
equation M20

This case with known Δi may arise if data are missing by designs, as in some multi-stage trials in which we may want to over-sample those subjects with larger outcomes at a prior stage to participate in the current stage. For example, in a two-stage study with n subjects at stage one, we can model the selection probability Δi2 for stage two using the following logistic regression:

equation M21

where ri2 denotes the selection indicator (1 for selected) and yi1 the outcome from the ith subject in the first stage. In the above model, β0 and β1 (≥ 0) determines the selection probability for subjects with outcomes yi1 to participate in the second stage.

In most applications, Δi is unknown and must be estimated. Under MCAR, ri is independent of yi. Consequently, Δi is functionally independent of yi and is readily estimated by the respective sample moments: equation M22. When Δi becomes dependent on yi, it is necessary to model Δi as a function of yi. However, it is difficult to model such a relationship without imposing some additional assumptions on the relationship between the occurrence of missing data and outcome [13]. As in the literature, we focus on the missing at random (MAR) assumption, in which case the occurrence of missing data only depends on the observed response.

Let equation M23 denote the observed responses for the ith subject. Then, under MAR,

equation M24

As equation M25 is the sub-vector of yi containing the non-missing responses, Δit above is essentially a function of the missing data patterns across the subjects. Since there are potentially a total of 2T different patterns, it is generally not feasible to model and estimate Δit in most real studies unless there is a certain structure in the patterns. Fortunately, in most longitudinal trials, missing data often occur as the result of subject dropout due to deteriorated/improved health and other related conditions, exhibiting the so-called monotone missing data pattern (MMDP). The structured MMDP reduces the number of missing data patterns to T, making it possible to model such a dependence with limited data in most studies.

We assume no missing data at baseline t = 1 so that ri1 = 1. Under MMDP, if yit is observed at t, yis is then observed at all earlier times s < t. Let equation M26 denote the sub-vector of yi containing responses up to and including time t − 1 (2 ≤ tT ). Then, under MAR, it follows from (12) that

equation M27

To estimate Δit, we first model the one-step transition probability of the occurrence of missing data using logistic regression:

equation M28

In many applications, the limited data may prevent us from reliably estimating β, especially with a large K. In such cases, we may simplify the above model by substituting the mean item score equation M29 in place of yis, yielding:

equation M30

Now by invoking MMDP and the assumption of no missing data at t = 1, we obtain:

equation M31

Note that by setting βt1 = 0 in (14) or (15), we can use (16) to estimate Δit under the MCAR assumption, which is equivalent to estimating Δit using the sample moments, equation M32, as discussed earlier.

When Δi is estimated by the logistic regression model in (14), Δi ([beta]) becomes subject to the sampling variability of [beta]. Since Theorem 2 treats Δi as a known constant, we must account for this extra variability for correct inference about α.

Suppose that β in the logistic model in (14) is estimated by maximum likelihood. Then, [beta] is the solution to the following score equations:

equation M33

When using the estimated [beta], the estimate defined in (7) becomes

equation M34

Thus, we must also include the variability of [beta] in the asymptotic variance of [theta w/ hat]([beta]). By utilizing the properties of score equations and the projection-based U-statistics asymptotic expansion, we can derive the asymptotic variance to take into account this extra variability. We summarize the results below with a justification given in Appendix A2.

Theorem 3

equation M35

Then, under the assumptions of Theorem 2,

  1. [alpha] is consistent and asymptotically normal, with the asymptotic variance,
    equation M36
    where Σθ is given in (8).
  2. A consistent estimate of ΣαΦ is equation M37, where [Sigma]θ is given in (10) and [Phi w/ hat] is obtained by substituting moment estimates in place of H, C, and equation M38.

It is seen from (20) that when the weight function is estimated, the asymptotic variance of [alpha] has an additional component Φ, which reflects the sampling variability in [beta].

Although derived from a longitudinal data setting, the results in the theorems can also be applied to cross-sectional study data. For example, most of the available methods have been developed to compare whether several CCAs either from different instruments or from multiple domains, or subscales of an instrument are identical [3]–[10]. By identifying T as the number of instruments or domains of an instrument, yitk then represents the score from the ith subject in response to the kth item within the tth domain. We can use Theorem 1 for inference about such an omnibus hypothesis if there is no missing data. If missing data do occur at the domain level, we can still model the missing data using the above approaches. Although MCAR presents no additional problem, applications under MAR to the current context are generally more difficult, since it may not be possible to identify a simple structure to model the missing data indicators in (6) such as the MMDP for longitudinal data.

3 Application

We illustrate the approach with both clinical and simulated data. We first present a clinical application and then follow up with investigations of the performance of the approach under small to moderate samples by simulation. In all of the examples, we set the statistical significance at α = 0.05. All analyses are carried out using a package we have developed for implementing the proposed approach using the R software platform (R Development Core Team (2009). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. ISBN 3-900051-07-0, URL

3.1 Clinical Study

A study on the benefits of total knee arthroplasty (TKA) was recently conducted in the Hospital for Special Surgery in 2008 (“Early clinical and radiographic results of the standard posterior stabilized and high flex polyethylene inserts in the genesis II total knee replacement system: A pilot study” was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Hospital for Special Surgery). A modified version of the Knee Society rating System (KSS) [15] was used to report results for patients who underwent TKA at three visits including pre-operation, 6 weeks, and 4 months post-operation. For illustration purposes, we focused on a total of 117 patients who had observed data at the pre-op in the domain of the patient reported portion of the KSS that consists of 5 items measuring knee functions in walking (a 6-level ordinal scale), going up stairs (a 4-level ordinal scale), going down stairs (a 4-level ordinal scale), getting out of chair (a 4-level ordinal scale), and necessity of support for walking (a 3-level ordinal scale), respectively.

In this sample, 20 of the 117 patients were lost to follow-up, yielding a monotone missing data pattern. Let yit = (yit1, yit2,…, yit5)[top top] denote the 5 item scores at time t with t = 1 denoting pre-op, and t = 2, 3 corresponding to the two post-op assessments at 6 weeks, and 4 months, respectively. The missingness at time t was modeled using the logistic regression model in (15), with the predictor, it = yi(t−1), the mean score of yi(t−1), and baseline covariates including age, sex, and body mass index (BMI):

equation M39

Shown in Table 1 are the estimates of parameters from the above model, their standard errors, and corresponding p-values. Missingness at 4 months post-op was dependent on the observed KSS at 6 weeks post-op (p-value=0.043). There was no evidence indicating the dependence of missingness at 6 weeks on the observed KSS at pre-op. The occurrence of missing data was not highly associated with any of the baseline covariates. Given these results, we proceeded with all subsequent analyses under MAR with inference based on Theorem 3.

Table 1
Estimates of logistic regression model for missingness under MMDP for the Total Knee Arthroplasty Study.

Shown in Table 2 are the estimated αt’s and their standard errors over time, and the Wald test statistic and associated p-value under H0 of equal CCAs over all assessments computed under MAR. The estimates seem to show a drop in CCA at the first 6 weeks postoperative visit, but the Wald test indicates that this drop is not statistically significant (p-value=0.54). The early postoperative course of patients who underwent a TKA is generally different across patients, with considerable variations in symptoms, range of motion, and functions. These clinical differences are likely responsible for the drop of CCA at the first postoperative visit. As most patients are fully recovered 4 months after the surgery, the variability in such outcomes will reduce substantially, making the CCA bounce back to the level at the pre-operative visit. Thus, despite the large variation in patients’clinical outcomes over the course of surgery, the KSS questionnaire seems to remain internally consistent so that the total score can be used to provide a reliable measure to assist objective evaluation of postoperative total knee arthroplasty.

Table 2
Estimates of CCA over time, test statistics and p-values for testing the null of equal CCA over time under MAR for the Total Knee Arthroplasty Study.

3.2 Simulation Study

3.2.1 Simulation Method

A limited simulation study was conducted to examine the empirical type I error rate for testing the null of equal CCAs over time based on a 5-item, Likert-scale questionnaire under a longitudinal study design with three assessments for four sample sizes–30, 50, 75, and 100–under complete, and missing data with MCAR and MAR. For each sample size, we generated observers’ratings over time yit = (yit1, yit2,…,yit5)[top top] under the null, H0: αt = α, with αt denoting the CCA at time t (1 ≤ t ≤ 3). We tested the null using the Wald statistic equation M40 and estimated the type I error rate based on the empirical distribution of the test statistic obtained from 1,000 Monte Carlo (MC) replications.

We created the data yit over three assessments in two steps. First, we generated continuous outcomes over time, zit = (zit1, zit2,…,zit5)[top top], by simulating a 15 × 1 vector, equation M41, from a 15-variate normal distribution with mean 0 and variance matrix Σ = Σ2 [multiply sign in circle] Σ1, where [multiply sign in circle] denotes the Kronecker product and Σk are defined by:

equation M42

In the above, Σ1 denotes the within-visit, between-item correlation matrix, ARm (1, ρbi) represents a m × m first-order autoregressive correlation structure with auto-correlation ρbi, Σ2 is the within-subject correlation matrix, and Cm (ρbt) denotes a m × m compound symmetry correlation matrix with correlation ρbt. For the simulation study, we set ρbi = 0.6 and ρbt = 0.5, yielding the true CCAs over time, αt = α = 0.742 (1 ≤ t ≤ 3). Next, we transformed each of the continuous observer score zitk into a 5-level categorical response by:

equation M43

where Φ−1 denotes the inverse of the CDF of the standard normal.

For a given sample size n, let equation M44 be the Wald statistic from the jth MC replication and G0.95 the 95th percentile of the equation M45 distribution with 2 degrees of freedom. The empirical size is calculated as equation M46.

For the missing data case, we assumed no missing data at baseline t = 1 and simulated the missing response according to a MCAR and MAR model. For MAR, we considered the MMDP model, and simulated the missing data indicators at each time t, rit, from a Bernoulli distribution with the probability of success equal to pit (t = 2, 3). We specified the one-step transition probabilities pit at time t according to the logistic model in (15) under the Markov assumption, which in this case had the following form:

equation M47

where yi(t−1) denotes the mean of yit. We fixed βt1 = 0.3 (t = 1, 2) and solved the following equations for β20 and β30 to generate missing response rates of approximately 10% and 15% for times 2 and 3, respectively:

equation M48

To ensure that the missing data indicators rit followed the MMDP, we further imposed the following restrictions, ri3 = ri3 × ri2 (1 ≤ in). For MCAR, the same approach above was used except for setting βt1 = 0 in (22) (t = 1, 2).

In addition to examining type I error rates, power analysis for testing the null of equal CCAs over time was conducted in a second simulation study within the same longitudinal data setting under complete data, MCAR, and MAR. The true alpha was set at α1 = 0.7, α2 = 0.803, and α3 = 0.898 for times 1, 2, and 3, respectively. The power was estimated by equation M49.

3.2.2 Simulation Result

We computed the estimate [alpha] of α = (α1, α2, α3)[top top] and estimated its asymptotic variance [Sigma]αΦ using Theorems 3. Shown in Table 3 are the averaged [alpha] over 1,000 Monte Carlo (MC) replications, along with the empirical variance V ar ([alpha]). The type I error rates were obtained from equation M50. Under complete data, MCAR, and MAR, the averaged [alpha] seemed to have some downward bias, especially for small samples n = 30, 50 under missing data. The asymptotic standard errors based on [Sigma]αΦ were almost identical to their empirical counterparts, V ar ([alpha]), across samples under both complete and missing data. Although the empirical type I error rates [delta with circumflex] were slightly higher than the nominal value 0.05 at n = 30, the upward bias seemed to have rapidly disappeared as the sample size increased.

Table 3
Averaged [alpha] and [Sigma]αΦ over 1,000 MC replications along with estimated empirical variance of [alpha] and empirical type I error rate [delta with circumflex] under complete data, MCAR, and MAR with the ...

Shown in Table 4 are the averaged [alpha] over 1,000 Monte Carlo (MC) replications, the empirical variance V ar ([alpha]), the model based asymptotic variance [Sigma]αΦ, and estimated power [Lambda with circumflex]. Similar patterns in power were found across complete data, MCAR, and MAR. Although the estimated power was low at n = 30, it increased rapidly as the sample size increased.

Table 4
Averaged [alpha] and [Sigma]αΦ over 1,000 MC replications along with estimated empirical variance of [alpha] and power [Lambda with circumflex] under complete data, MCAR, and MAR with the true α1 = 0.7, ...

We repeated the simulation for a larger number of items, k = 10. Compared to the results for k = 5 items, type I error rates are closer to the nominal 0.05 even for the small sample size n = 30. Power analysis was also improved significantly by achieving 60% power for sample size n = 30, which jumped up to 85% for complete, and MCAR, and 83% for MAR at n = 50.

4 Discussion

We developed a U-statistics based approach to concurrently address missing data and stringent distribution assumptions when modeling the Cronbach Coefficient Alpha (CCA) within a longitudinal data setting. Unlike available methods, this approach requires no parametric distribution assumption on the item score and thus provides robust inference regardless of the data distribution. As longitudinal studies have become increasing popular in today’s research, the proposed approach fills a critical gap on the extant literature to address this timely data-analytic issue.

To demonstrate the robustness feature, we also conducted a simulation study to compare the U-statistic based approach with a popular method developed by Feldt et al [6] in a cross-sectional setting by considering the hypothesis H0: α = α0 vs. H0: αα0 under various sample sizes (n =30, 50, 100, and 200). Feldt et al [6] showed that the transformed alpha equation M51 follows a F distribution under the assumed ANOVA model where items by subjects interaction effects and the residual errors are independent and normally distributed with homogeneous variance. To examine its performance under likert-type item scores, we generated skewed likert-type item scores with true alpha α0 = 0.693 and k = 5 items. Shown in Table 5 are the estimates of CCA and type I error rates for the proposed U-statistic based approach and their F-distribution based counterpart. Although the estimates of alpha, [alpha]U (U-statistics based) and [alpha]F (F-distribution based), are identical and close to the true alpha, the type I error rates are quite different between the two approaches. The type I error rate for the U-statistic based approach had some upward bias when the sample size was small, but rapidly decreased to the nominal level 0.05 as the sample size increased. In contrast, the type I error rate for the F-distribution based method remained upwardly biased despite the increase of the sample size. In fact, the type I error will remain upwardly biased even if the sample size approaches infinity, since the F-distribution is not the asymptotic distribution of the estimate. The observed difference in the behavior of type I error rates reflects the fact that the U-statistic based approach is a distribution-free procedure, yielding not only consistent estimates of CCA but also valid inference regardless of the distribution of the item score, while the inference of the F-distribution based method is based on the normal distribution and is not robust against departures from this underlying assumption.

Table 5
Estimates of type I error rate and CCA for the U-statistic based and F-distribution based approaches.

Modeling CCA presents a major challenge under the popular mean response based regression paradigm as typified by the weighted generalized estimating equations (WGEE) due to the complexity in the analytic expression of this coefficient involving second-order moments. Although GEE II may be used to model the required second-order moments [12, 16, 17], it leads to more cumbersome algebra. Further, as it requires modeling more parameters, GEE II is generally not as efficient as the proposed U-statistics based approach.

The proposed IPW-based estimate may not be fully efficient since information from the subjects with missing data is only used to estimate the weight function. In many situations, reliable models may also exist for directly modeling the relationship between (missing) response and observed covariates or other auxiliary information. In such cases, we may combine the proposed IPW with this extra model to develop a double robust estimate, which not only ensures consistency if only one of the models–the model for missing data or the one for the auxiliary information–is correct, but also improves efficiency [14, 18].

In addition to CCA, the proposed approach is similarly applied to modeling other measures of agreement for continuous outcome such as the closely related intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) [19]–[22]. In addition, missing data may also occur at the item level which can become complicated depending on the nature of the question and on the design of the study. For example, person-to-person interviews often result in more missing data and/or unreliable responses compared to questionnaires as interviewees may feel uncomfortable and refuse to answer certain types of questions in a face to face meeting. As missing responses arising from such sensitive questions likely follow the non-ignorable missing data rather than the missing at random (MAR) mechanism as in longitudinal studies, they are best addressed up front by study designs, since the former missingness mechanism is more difficult to model as compared to the MAR mechanism. Work is currently underway to generalize the proposed approach to address these limitations as well as to develop double robust estimates within a longitudinal setting.

This research is supported in part by NIH grant U54 RR023480. Dr. Ma was partially supported by the following grants: Center for Education and Research in Therapeutics (CERTs) (AHRQ RFA-HS-05-14) and Clinical Translational Science Center (CTSC) (UL1-RR024996). We sincerely thank Ms. Cheryl Bliss-Clark at the University of Rochester, an Editor and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments to improve the presentation of the manuscript.

A1. Proof of Theorem 2

We first establish a lemma.

equation M53

where vijt are defined in (8). Then, E (Un) = 0 and

equation M54

Proof of Lemma

It is readily checked by the iterated conditional expectation that [12, chap. 1]

equation M55

It follows that E (Un) = 0. Since vkjt = vjkt (jk), we have

equation M56

Let equation M57. It then follows that

equation M58

Thus, the projection of Ut,n is given by [12, chap. 5]

equation M59

Since Ũt,n is a sum of independently and identically distributed random variables, it follows from the central limit theorem (CLT) that

equation M60

By the theory of U-statistics (e.g. [12, chap. 5], Ũt,n and Ut,n have the same asymptotic distribution and thus

equation M61

The lemma follows by applying a similar argument to the vector Un.

Proof of Theorem 2

Let equation M62. By an argument similar to (24), we have, E (gijt) = θt. It then follows from the theory of U-statistics that

equation M63

Thus, by Slutsky’s theorem, [alpha]t = f ([theta w/ hat]t) is consistent. Further, by applying the Lemma and Slutsky’s theorem, we obtain the asymptotic distribution of [alpha]t:

equation M64

Similarly, by considering the vector [theta w/ hat], we obtain

equation M65

Theorem 2/(a) follows by applying the Delta method to [rho with circumflex] = f ([theta w/ hat]).

To show (10), first note that

equation M66

Further, we have

equation M67

Thus, Theorem 2/(b) follows by taking the covariance between vit and vit with μt substituted by its consistent estimate in (10).

A2. Proof of Theorem 3

As noted in Section 2.2, [beta] is the solution to the score equations in (17). From the properties of score equations, we have:

equation M68

where H is given in (19) and op (1) denotes the stochastic o (1) [12, chap. 1]. It follows from (25), (26), and the projection-based U-statistics asymptotic expansion that [12, chap. 5]

equation M69

where C is given in (19). Theorem 3/(a) follows from (27), while (b) is obtained by an application of Slutsky’s theorem.

1. Cronbach LJ, Gleser GC, Nanda H, Rajaratnam N. The Dependability of Behavioral Measurements. Wiley; New York: 1972.
2. Nunnally JC, Bernstein IH. Psychometric Theory. McGraw Hill; New York: 1994.
3. Duhachek A, Iacobucci D. Alpha’s Standard Error (ASE): An accurate and precise confidence interval estimate. Journal of Applied Psychology. 2004;89:792–808. [PubMed]
4. Feldt LS. The approximate sampling distribution of the Kuder-Richardson reliability coefficient twenty. Psychometrika. 1965;34:363–373. [PubMed]
5. Feldt LS. A test of the hypothesis that Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient is the same for two tests administered to the same sample. Psychometrika. 1980;45:99–105.
6. Feldt LS, Woodruff DJ, Salih FA. Statistical inference for coefficient alpha. Applied Psychological Measurement. 1987;11:93–103.
7. Feldt LS, Kim S. Testing the difference between two alpha coefficients with small samples of subjects and raters. Educational and Psychological Measurement. 2006;66:589–600.
8. Woodruff DJ, Feldt LS. Tests for equality of several alpha coefficients when their sample estimates are dependent. Psychometrika. 1986;51:393–413.
9. Alsawalmeh YM, Feldt LS. Testing the equality of independent alpha coefficients adjusted for test length. Educational and Psychological Measurement. 1999;59:373–383.
10. van Zyl JM, Neudecker H, Nel DG. On the distribution of the maximum likelihood estimator of Cronbach’s Alpha. Psychometrika. 2000;65:271–280.
11. Randels RH, Wolfe DA. Introduction to the Theory of Nonparametric Statistics. Wiley; New York: 1979.
12. Kowalski J, Tu XM. Modern Applied U Statistics. Wiley; New York: 2007.
13. Little RJA, Rubin DB. Statistical Analysis with Missing Data. Wiley; New York: 1987.
14. Robins JM, Rotnitzky A, Zhao LP. Analysis of semiparametric regression models for repeated outcomes in the presence of missing data. JASA. 1995;90:106–121.
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Post5's modern 'Hamlet' combines pathos and humor with a strong cast (review)

Jeff Gorham as Claudius, Ty Boice as Hamlet and Hadley Boyd as Gertrude in "Hamlet" (Russell J. Young)
on March 29, 2014 at 11:27 AM, updated March 29, 2014 at 2:24 PM

Whether Shakespeare is something new to you, or you're a long-time fan, you'll have a whopping good time at Post5 Theater's abridged "Hamlet." And even if you don't agree with every decision director Paul Angelo has made (or even if you're a purist regarding the Bard's best-known play), you'll find yourself absorbed and often delighted for two-and-a-half hours in the company's intimate Black-Box Theater.

The folks at Post5 make a mission of creating fresh, courageous accessible classical theater (here in modern dress with various 21st century props, and a multimedia vision), and this inventive , funny, and thought-provoking "Hamlet," starring company artistic director Ty Boice, does just that, with extra energy thrown in. Boice brings humor and pathos to the lead role. His Hamlet is riveting, clownish one minute, raging the next, tormented (and surprisingly funny) during his soliloquies, cleverly handled with lighting changes to put him in a separate space from the other actors.

Some stage business really works, and some doesn't. What works seamlessly is the scary ghost scene in the opening act, where the spirit of Hamlet's dad pops out of the mist and four actors move about the entire stage in pursuit and retreat of an apparition that we never see. It's the actors that create the mood here. What doesn't work for some of us, alas, is the play within the play, where the traveling thespians do a goofy mime of the story of the death of Hamlet's father. It's a sketch that needed sobriety. Also, Horatio here is a female (the capable Cassandra Boice), but the gender change doesn't quite fit because it detracts from Ophelia (Jessica Tidd). One felt Hamlet cared more for his gal pal than his girlfriend.

Boice may be a strong presence, but he's surrounded by a powerful cast. Jeff Gorham has some amazing moments as Claudius, a luminous portrait of a villain who would be king but trips on his own sins. Gorham's voice can suddenly go quiet and give you the chills. Tobias Andersen does some of his best work to date as a dapper, cheerful Polonius, and Hadley Boyd as Gertrude gives a stellar, no-frills performance, proving that less is more. Keith Cable, with his calm demeanor, intrigues us in several smaller roles.

The fight scenes, particularly the final Hamlet/Laertes tussle, are expertly, excitingly choreographed by Kristen Mun, no small accomplishment on the small but serviceable stage. This could be the best $15 spent on an evening of live theater anywhere in town, especially if you're looking for freshness and, well, fun.

--Holly Johnson

Where: Post5 Theatre, 850 N.E. 81st Ave.

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays through May 4

Tickets: $15 Thursdays through Saturdays, pay what you will Sundays


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Panspermia and the Origin of Life on Earth

panspermia theory lithopanspermia origin of life Earth exogenesis directed panspermia meteorite asteroid cometPanspermia is a Greek word that translates literally as "seeds everywhere". The panspermia hypothesis states that the "seeds" of life exist all over the Universe and can be propagated through space from one location to another. Some believe that life on Earth may have originated through these "seeds".

Mechanisms for panspermia include the deflection of interstellar dust by solar radiation pressure and extremophile microorganisms traveling through space within an asteroid, meteorite or comet.

Three popular variations of the panspermia hypothesis are:

  • Lithopanspermia (interstellar panspermia) - impact-expelled rocks from a planet's surface serve as transfer vehicles for spreading biological material from one solar system to another.
  • Ballistic panspermia (interplanetary panspermia) - impact-expelled rocks from a planet's surface serve as transfer vehicles for spreading biological material from one planet to another within the same solar system
  • Directed panspermia - the intentional spreading of the seeds of life to other planets by an advanced extraterrestrial civilization, or the intentional spreading of the seeds of life from Earth to other planets by humans

Panspermia does not provide an explanation for evolution or attempt pinpoint the origin of life in the Universe, but it does attempt to solve the mysteries of the origin of life on Earth and the transfer of life throughout the Universe.

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History of Panspermia

The first known mention of the concept of panspermia was in the writings of the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras (500 BC – 428 BC), although his concept differs from the modern theory:

All things have existed from the beginning. But originally they existed in infinitesimally small fragments of themselves, endless in number and inextricably combined. All things existed in this mass, but in a confused and indistinguishable form. There were the seeds (spermata) or miniatures of wheat and flesh and gold in the primitive mixture; but these parts, of like nature with their wholes, had to be eliminated from the complex mass before they could receive a definite name and character.

In 1743 the theory of panspermia appeared in the writings of French nobleman, diplomat and natural historian Benoît de Maillet, who believed that that life on Earth was "seeded" by germs from space falling into the oceans, rather than life arising through abiogenesis.

In 1973 the late Nobel prize winning British molecular biologist, physicist and neuroscientist Professor Francis Crick, along with British chemist Leslie Orgel, proposed the theory of directed panspermia.

Recent Support for Panspermia

panspermia microbes Mars meteorite ALH84001 Antarctica lithopanspermia directed panspermiaA meteorite blasted off from the surface Mars about 15 million years ago was found in Antarctica in 1984 by a team of scientists on an annual United States government mission to search for meteors. The meteor was named Allan Hills 84001 (ALH84001). In 1996 ALH84001 was shown to contain structures that may be the remains of terrestrial nanobacteria. The announcement, published in the journal Science by David McKay of NASA, made headlines worldwide and prompted United States President Bill Clinton to make a formal televised announcement marking the event and expressing his committment to the aggressive plan in place at the time for robotic exploration of Mars. Several tests for organic material have been performed on ALH84001 and amino acids and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) have been found. However, most experts now agree that these are not a definite indication of life, but may have instead been formed abiotically from organic molecules or are due to contamination from contact with Antarctic ice. The debate is still ongoing, but recent advances in nanobe research has made the find interesting again.

The announcement of the discovery of evidence of life on ALH84001 sparked a surge in support for the theory of panspermia. People began to speculate about the possibility that life originated on Mars and was transported to Earth on debris ejected after major impacts (see ballistic panspermia).

On April 29, 2001, at the 46th annual meeting of the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) in San Diego, California, Indian and British researchers headed by Chandra Wickramasinghe presented evidence that the Indian Space Research Organisation had gathered air samples from the stratosphere that contained clumps of living cells. Wickramasinghe called this "unambiguous evidence for the presence of clumps of living cells in air samples from as high as 41 kilometers, well above the local tropopause, above which no air from lower down would normally be transported". A reaction report from NASA Ames doubted that living cells could be found at such high altitudes, but noted that some microbes can remain dormant for millions of years, possibly long enough for an interplanetary voyage within a solar system.

On May 11, 2001, Geologist Bruno D'Argenio and molecular biologist Giuseppe Geraci from the University of Naples announced the finding of extraterrestrial bacteria inside a meteorite estimated to be over 4.5 billion years old. The researchers claimed that the bacteria, wedged inside the crystal structure of minerals, had been resurrected in a culture medium. They asserted that the bacteria had DNA unlike any on Earth and had survived when the meteorite sample was sterilized at high temperature and washed with alcohol. The bacteria were determined to be related to modern day Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus pumilus bacteria, but appear to be a different strain.

On April 21, 2008, renowned British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking spoke about panspermia during his "Why We Should Go Into Space" lecture for NASA's 50th Anniversary lecture series at George Washington University.

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A transcriptome-enabled study of nutrient and CO2 responses for three harmful algae

Sonya Dyhrman, Biology

Project summary

Coastal nutrient inputs drive phytoplankton growth, which is largely beneficial, but in some cases nutrients, metals, and even vitamins in the water can induce the growth of harmful species over beneficial species resulting in a harmful algal bloom (HAB).  Dinoflagellate and raphidophyte phytoplankton cause harmful algal blooms (HAB) in coastal U.S. waters with serious detriment to ecosystem services, aquaculture, and public health. Many of these blooms are related to nutrient availability, particularly in coastal and estuarine settings. Recent work also indicates that members of these phytoplankton groups will grow faster with the increased CO2, and temperatures predicted in many coastal environments. This may further exacerbate bloom formation and their impacts in the future ocean. Despite decades of study, the ability to predict how nutrients and CO2 influence the growth of different coastal HAB forming phytoplankton species is still limited because we often lack even a basic understanding of the molecular pathways these species use to acquire these resources. Recent advances in DNA/RNA sequencing now make it possible to study the cellular physiology and response of HAB species to nutrient availability with unprecedented resolution – providing a unique window into the capacity of these organisms to acquire nutrients, and the physiological costs and tradeoffs associated with different strategies under conditions of variable nutrient and CO2 supply. Here I propose a transcriptome-enabled study of the nutrient and CO2 responses for three HAB species that form dense, nearly monospecific, blooms in coastal and brackish systems with highly variable environments; the dinoflagellates, Prorocentrum minimum and Alexandrium monilatum, and the raphidophyte, Heterosigma akashiwo. The purpose of comparing these three organisms is to determine whether they share common strategies in their nutritional physiology that contribute to their success at bloom formation.

This is an exciting time in marine microbiology and the field is poised for rapid advances with changes in RNA sequencing that allow uniquely comprehensive resolution of the activities of harmful algae and their nutrient acquisition pathways. It is the ordered expression of genes, into RNA (RNA = the transcriptome), which controls the cellular functioning of these organisms.
As such, the transcriptome profile of an organism, and how it changes in different conditions, can provide a comprehensive view of how HAB organisms respond to changes in nutrients such as N and P, and elevated CO2 predicted in a future ocean. Growing the three test species under low N, low P, nutrient replete, and high CO2, we will sequence the RNA present in each condition. From these experimental treatments we will 1) identify the genes that are expressed, or “turned on”, 2) quantify the number of each expressed gene across the different treatments, and 3) assay a variety of physiological parameters to track potential physiological costs associated with changes in N, P, and CO2 supply. These proposed objectives relate directly to COI priority research themes; 1) natural and anthropogenic threats to the coastal environment including harmful algal blooms, and 2) coastal carbon cycling/acidification. Although I have extensive experience with studies of HAB nutritional physiology and sequenced-based transcriptome profiling, I do not have much experience working with carbon metabolism or ocean acidification related research.  As such, the proposed work would provide valuable proof of concept for a new set of federal research proposals in this area.

Last updated: April 7, 2014


Cal  Thomas

DUBLIN - The Irish have never needed a reason to party, but the expanded European Union (EU) on May 1 (including eight formerly communist countries) has given them a respectable one. And their pride is enhanced because their prime minister, Bertie Ahern, is the president of the European Council of the EU. Ahern presided at ceremonies last Saturday during which he welcomed the 10 new member states.

Europeans - or at least the member nations of the EU (more but not necessarily all to come) - have been warring with each other over land, politics, grievances and especially religion since before the Christ most no longer worship. Since the foundation of Rome in 753 B.C. there have been wars and rumors of war on the continent and with Britain.

What makes Europeans believe that this time they've got it right? The source for their optimism is recent events. Fifteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the liberation of Eastern Europe, the European states believe their moment has arrived. Optimism has always driven people and states, even when the failure to deal adequately with humanity's lower nature brought pessimism. After much haggling, the EU has yet to produce a constitution. And Britain  remains on the sidelines, so far refusing to join the club.

Fifty-eight years ago, Winston Churchill spoke of an Iron Curtain having descended "from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic." That curtain has now been raised. Would it be churlish to note that Europeans were largely unable, or unwilling, to free themselves from the twin menaces of fascism and communism in the last century and had to be liberated from these evils and from themselves by the United States? While some wonder if Iraq can stand on its own, we can also ask, can Europe?

The Times of London, while editorially celebrating a "Glad Bright Morning," is right to describe the EU as "an experiment in political organization." Yes, it is convenient to travel from country to country without changing currency (though not as fun). Yes, Europeans will be able to travel more freely within the EU and get jobs in other countries from which they were barred in the past. Yes, EU members enjoy quicker passage through airport immigration than the mere Americans who have made their present lot possible. But will union mean unity? That is yet to be demonstrated.

Cal Thomas


To Cull Or Not To Cull…

Deer culling is a notorious debate that seemingly pits moral and ethical impetus against practical and convenient reasoning.  It’s simply a question of which side of the deer fence you’re on.  However despite the polemic dispute, Penticton City Council has approved a deer cull as part of an urban deer management program.  Public education, ongoing monitoring, consultation and a ban on public feeding of deer are to follow in suit accordingly.  Although the date of the cull has yet to be set, the issue lingers in the gray matter of the debate itself.  Quantification is clearly lacking, and the want of accurate numerical data not only directly affects budget costs, but also the accuracy of population control by numbers.  And while it is true some Penticton residents will feel relief by way of their private gardens and undamaged cedar hedges, the culling will nevertheless fall short of our ethical and moral accountability.

Deer culling is a drastic step, argued by many to be cruel and barbaric.  Trapped in a cage by night, often struggling and kicking, deer frequently fracture limbs and sustain other injuries before they are shot in the head with a bolt gun.  Captive bolt guns however, were designed for use on restrained domestic animals, typically in slaughterhouses, and were not, under any circumstances, intended for use on wild animals.  While the bolt cannot effect a clean kill when the animal is not placed in a single-fire lane, restrained, with it’s head immobilized, a misplaced bolt can therefore painfully injure, necessitating the need for multiple attempts.   If “swift” and “certain” define in part, what it means to bring about a humane end to wildlife via population control, then the humaneness of the trap and bolt technique is seriously questionable.  And yet, for most of us, to cull or not to cull is simply a question of out of sight out of mind.

The deer cull, which was primarily initiated following 42 reports of urban deer sightings by residents to the City Hall, (the majority of which bordered on agricultural areas), fails to act on proportional representation, and does not seem to factor in the consideration of human overpopulation, urban sprawl and destruction of wildlife habitats.  Likewise, the culling unintentionally localizes responsibility among specific property owners, potentially creating personal animosity among members within the community.  On the other hand, the growing number of wayward wandering urban deer does in fact contribute to a rising increase in altercations between individuals and deer, pet animals and deer, attracts a range of other wildlife including coyotes, cougars and ticks, and makes driving more hazardous.  Therefore, despite the city’s inability to generate substantial numbers in order to understand the scale of such implications and their impact, the shortlist is enough to sustain a call to action.  Yet emphasis on ethical and moral integrity should not be displaced when considering such policies for human, animal and environmental protection.  Hence the question becomes more distinguishable: why not seriously explore a cohesive ongoing program and non-lethal alternatives and interventions to address human/deer conflicts?

First and foremost, a one-time cull may not solve the problem.  While the net-and-bolt tactic would most likely not reduce the size of the herd down to the desirable number, complaints to the city would therefore continue.  Consequently an annual cull might be required, in which yearly controversy on the issue would be hard pressing upon City Council, and residents may not have the stomachs for the unremitting slaughter.  Contrariwise, a non-lethal approach would help to integrate ethical and moral responsibility into the decision-making process, potentially reducing the polemical aspect of the debate itself, while providing Council with a program to help address complaints. Some of the components of an ongoing preventable program include: moving deer from the area, excluding deer from conflict areas and from specific plants and bushes through fencing, (which provides a longer term solution to the impact of deer on landscaping and backyard gardens) the use of repellents to make plants less palatable and less desirable to deer, the use of deterrents such as sound and visual scare devices, as well as planting less palatable landscape plants.  Lastly, one of the most ostensibly formidable non-lethal options available would be immunocontraception.  This alternative approach would require a select number of deer to be hit with a dart every two years, containing a vaccine rendering the deer sterile.  According to procedures of the new method of wildlife population control, animal marking would be synchronized with vaccine penetration, allowing experts to track and recognize which deer have been hit.  Furthermore at $30 per dart, the cost of immunocontraception would be significantly less than any form at lethal control, which for the city of Penticton would require $150 per deer culled.  Immunocontraception thus appears to be the more “humane” and cost-effective method of wildlife control.

So when reviewing the hot topic of debate this week: to cull or not to cull, the interrogation, it seems, claws at the heart of two imposing philosophies. While one apparently supports a more tactile, less costly and humane approach, the other seemingly provides a tangible short-term eradication.  Therefore as a collective community we should then ask ourselves: what are we truly looking for?  Delayed gratification, or instant satisfaction with the tailing potential for prolonged problems?  Penticton is a favorite destination for all sorts of people from all walks of life from all around the world.  Situated in the heart of BC’s wild southern interior, Penticton is not only a picturesque place to live, but remains a refuge for a wide range of Canada’s most extraordinary wildlife without which we would be indistinguishable, empty and forlorn.  As residents and inhabitants of this spectacular landscape, we are entrusted by its nature, to preserve, protect and respect the beauty and sanctity of its wisdom and love, in which it has always given back absolutely.  Deer culling is like a gateway drug to bigger and more grotesque reckonings.  What’s next, soylent green?  Let’s replace the “out of sight out of mind” with “in your right mind” and approach this problem with steadfast moral and ethical sensibilities, long-term solutions and peaceful, harmonious resolve.

-Elizabeth Cucnik

A Worldwide Sensation, The Musical “Evita” Makes Its Penticton Debut!

For those of you who’ve been hiding under a rock the past two decades, you might not be familiar with the phenomenon, Evita.   In fact, one would be hard-pressed to find a person who could not chorus, “Don’t Cry for me Argentina,” the haunting hallmark of popular music that never seems to elude even the least musically attuned.   Singularly one of the most prevalent critically acclaimed musicals of a generation, Evita’s authenticity, power and humanity transcends to capture the heart in a sweeping dream of human experience.   With more accolades to boot than a hall of fame rock n’ roller, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Evita, is its own kind of “superstar.”  Following the real life story of political leader Eva Peron, Evita was originally conceived as a rock opera album, however overwhelming critical reception later lead to sold out shows in London’s West End and Broadway, followed by a string of professional tours, worldwide productions, various cast albums, as well as a major motion picture adaptation starring Madonna and Antonio Banderas.  The musical employs an eclectic range of styles, from classical to instrumental, while rhythmic Latin American flairs can be heard in “Buenos Aires”, and “On This Night of a Thousand Stars”, ballads include “High Flying, Adored” and “Another Suitcase in Another Hall”, and rock music adorns in “Oh What a Circus” and “Peron’s Latest Flame.”

So come out and experience what the world has been talking about for over twenty years, as Soundstage Production’s presents, Evita in its long sought-after Penticton Debut at the Lakeside Resort.  Opening January 18th and playing through to the 21rst, with an afternoon matinee show on the Saturday, Evita is a musical spectacular, to be experienced by all ages.  First conceived in 1990 by humble beginnings, Soundstage Productions has grown into one of the most acclaimed theatre companies in the Okanagan.  The Penticton Lakeside Resort is now home to Soundstage, showcasing professional full-scale musical productions in an intimate theatre setting where one can truly experience the magnitude of world-class performance.  Soundstage Productions never fails to enthrall, enrapture and unravel the senses, with its stunning commitment to artistic depth, performance and musical insight, it continues to inspire and create.

An evening of musical entertainment of the finest quality and professionalism is yours to experience and not to be missed!  Tickets for Evita can be purchased at the front desk of the Lakeside Resort Hotel or by calling 250-493-8221.

Evita is not just a sensational endeavor; it is a revolution of musical and lyrical genius.

-Elizabeth Cucnik

January’s Calendar is No Less Full Than a Post-Christmas Belly

-Elizabeth Cucnik


McCain vs. Obama: "a platitude"

The central portion of that speech:

Hope, my friends, is a powerful thing. I can attest to that better than many, for I have seen men's hopes tested in hard and cruel ways that few will ever experience. And I stood astonished at the resilience of their hope in the darkest of hours because it did not reside in an exaggerated belief in their individual strength, but in the support of their comrades, and their faith in their country. My hope for our country resides in my faith in the American character, the character which proudly defends the right to think and do for ourselves, but perceives self-interest in accord with a kinship of ideals, which, when called upon, Americans will defend with their very lives.

ALSO: "They will promise to break with the failed politics of the past, but will campaign in ways that seek to minimize their exposure to questions from the press and challenges from voters who ask more from their candidates than an empty promise of 'trust me, I know better.'"

Does a campaign against McCain mean one has to talk to the press more? I'm for that.


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Not Forced To Perform Societal Duties

According to Schaefer and Lamm (1998), "Conflict perspective is a sociological meaning which believes that social behavior is best recognized in terms of conflict or tension between different groups."Â  Based upon the work of Karl Marx and others, they see society as being in a constant state of conflict among institutions and classes.Â  It is also viewed as a struggle of power and income as a continuous process, which causes most categories of people to be as opponents - classes, races, nationalities and sexes, which leads to inequality among groups.Â  However, on the other hand functionalist studies society on a large scale and individuals are viewed as people that are socially grounded, and not forced to perform societal duties.Â  They also sees the world as stable, and social changes as being predictable and positive to society, subsequently, everything and everyone in society no matter how ambiguous it seems, serves a purpose.Â  In a nutshell conflict perspective sees crime as a negative impact on society whilst functionalist sees crime as a positive impact on society because of the many employment it creates.

According to theories of Karl Marx conflict perspective examines the relations in society as a whole and recognises the power interest of different groups and how these affect inter-group relations. It is also more effective at explaining conflict and change in society and society is comprised of different sub-groups and each shares different norm, values and beliefs. Groups in society are in fierce competition for limited resources whereas the functionalist believes that all parts of society and its members work together to perpetuate existing social relations and to keep it running smoothly. Individual are linked to society through norm and values and society is presented as an external force regulating social behaviour. It explains how institutions work in relation to each other and the part they play in the context of a wider social system and how society can gradually change and adapt over time, in the form of a moving equilibrium through value consensus. The perspective also allows for many applications to our daily lives for example in sociology of religion, the family, education and system of inequality.

Based on Durkheim Functionalists fails to satisfactorily explain the important issues of conflict and change and the focus of functionalist is on harmony, stability and social order. Disharmony and conflict are seen as disturbances or malfunction to be set right. It is too complex a theory attempting to explain everything regards individual as largely passive in their social life. They are manipulated by the system and structures in their path and their action can be predicted. It emphasizes social integration and ignores divisions based on power, conflict, social class, race, ethnicity or gender. It does not account for how diversity can generate conflict whilst conflict perspectives highlights power struggles as the dominant trait of societies, giving little attention to social unity based on functional interdependence and shared values. It views society in terms of broad abstractions, removing the will of individual in determining social relations, and individual and small group interaction play little part in explanation provided by conflict theorists.

In conclusion Conflict Perspective and functionalist are similar in that they see the way society is structured as an important part in determining the way people have relationships and behave between themselves. This is known as structural perspective, both functionalist and Marxists believe that people are portrayed as creature within the social system. Both Durkheim and Marx were concerned with the characteristics of groups and structures rather than with individuals.Â Emile Durkheim is known as functionalist states that everything serves a function in society and his main concern to discover what that function was. On the other hand Karl Marx, a conflict theorist, stresses that society is a complex system characterized by inequality and conflict that generate social change. Functionalist perspective states that everyone having their place or purpose in society examples: the church has a function; the family has a function, and so on. They believe that society depends on these functions to serve its people. The functionalist and conflict perspective are both a macroscopic view of sociology.

Bibliography/Reference n.d. (Accessed September 17, 2010) (Accessed September 23, 2010) n.d. (Accessed September 24, 2010) (Schaefer, R. T., & Lamm, R. P. (1998).)

Denise Gaspard-Richards, Vashti Dochan, Bennie Burkly. Introduction to Sociology SOCI1002[SY14G]. Bridgetown, Barbados, 2005. Karl Marx and Durkheim

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This illustraton shows a portion of Oracle Enterprise Manager. The top of the main page shows the title "WC_Collaboration" which is the name of the Managed Server selected in the navigation pane on the left. Immediately beneath the title, there is a drop-down menu labeled "WebLogic Server" which is selected, and in the drop-down menu "Control" is selected, and then "Start Up" is selected.


Ban stubble burning

Wagga Wagga has had the worst pollution in NSW at this time in previous years because it's when many farmers burn the remaining stubble before planting a new crop.

Often it seems like the farmers send smoke signals to one another because, once one farmer burns, you'll see a heap of them burning and creating hazy sunsets over the weeks in the lead-up to the autumnal rains - although they aren't what they used to be.

I understand their reason to burn is to do with reducing the likelihood of disease but the outcome is an increased chance of respiratory diseases for all people living in the area.

After seeing the columns of smoke in the distance for many years I was lucky enough to see the process up close the other day. It was interesting to see heaps of birds hunting as the mice fled the fire. It was also interesting to see the farmers driving laps around the flames, like some sort of bizarre ritual to mark the sowing of the paddocks.


Girl group Pussycat Dolls have ended Madonna's hold over the UK singles chart with STICKWITU jumping straight in at number one.

Oasis are another new entry at number two with LET THERE BE LOVE, while Madonna drops two places to number three with her smash hit HUNG UP, which had been the nation's top-selling single for three weeks.

Boyband Westlife fall two places to number four with YOU RAISE ME UP, while Black Eyed Peas are this week's number five with MY HUMPS.

Madonna has also been knocked off the top of the UK albums chart - by new Eminem compilation CURTAIN CALL - THE HITS. The MATERIAL GIRL's latest disc CONFESSIONS ON A DANCE FLOOR is at number three.

ROBBIE WILLIAMS' INTENSIVE CARE climbs two positions to number two, while his former band Take That's NEVER FORGET - THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION falls a place to number four.

WESTLIFE stay at number five with Face To Face.


Oddball supernova bright and baffling

CALTECH (US) — Bright blue supernovae that are among the most luminous in the cosmos and are unlike any seen before, may help explain star formation, distant galaxies, and what the early universe might have been like.

In addition to these four newly discovered explosions, researchers discovered two known supernovae that had previously puzzled astronomers, also belonged to the new class.

“We’re learning about a whole new class of supernovae that wasn’t known before,” says Robert Quimby, postdoctoral scholar at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the lead author of a paper published in the journal Nature.

“We have a whole new class of objects that can’t be explained by any of the models we’ve seen before,” says Robert Quimby. (Credit: Caltech/Robert Quimby/Nature)

Dubbed 2005ap, it was a little odd. Its spectrum—the chemical fingerprint that tells astronomers what the supernova is made of, how far away it is, and what happened when it blew up—was unlike any seen before and it also showed no signs of hydrogen, which is commonly found in most supernovae.

At around the same time, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope discovered a mysterious supernova called SCP 06F6 that also had an odd spectrum, though there was nothing that indicated this cosmic blast was similar to 2005ap.

Shri Kulkarni, professor of astronomy and planetary science and coauthor on the paper, recruited Quimby to become a founding member of the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF).

The PTF scans the skies for flashes of light that weren’t there before—flashes that signal objects called transients, many of which are supernovae. As part of the PTF, Quimby used the 1.2-meter Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory to discover four new supernovae.

Quimby then realized that if you slightly shifted the spectrum of 2005ap—the supernova he had found a couple of years earlier—it looked a lot like these four new objects. The team then plotted all the spectra together. “Boom—it was a perfect match,” he recalls.

The astronomers soon determined that shifting the spectrum of SCP 06F6 similarly aligned it with the others. In the end, it turned out that all six supernovae are siblings, and that they all have spectra that are very blue—with the brightest wavelengths shining in the ultraviolet.

The four new discoveries, which had features similar to 2005ap and SCP 06F6, were at an intermediate distance, providing the missing link that connected the two previously unexplained supernovae. “That’s what was most striking about this—that this was all one unified class,” says Caltech graduate student Mansi Kasliwal, another coauthor.

Even though astronomers now know these supernovae are related, no one knows much else. “We have a whole new class of objects that can’t be explained by any of the models we’ve seen before,” Quimby says.

What is known about them is that they are bright and hot—10,000 to 20,000 degrees Kelvin; that they are expanding rapidly at 10,000 kilometers per second; that they lack hydrogen; and that they take about 50 days to fade away—much longer than most supernovae, whose luminosity is often powered by radioactive decay. So there must be some other mechanism that’s making them so bright.

The supernovae, which are almost a hundred times brighter than their host galaxies, illuminate their environments like distant street lamps lighting up dark roads. They work as a kind of backlight, enabling astronomers to measure the spectrum of the interstellar gas that fills the dwarf galaxies in which the supernovae reside, and revealing each galaxy’s composition. Once an observed supernova fades a couple of months later, astronomers can directly study the dwarf galaxy—which would have remained undetected if it weren’t for the supernova.

“It is really amazing how rich the night sky continues to be.”

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Aptitude - Compound Interest

@ : Home > Aptitude > Compound Interest > General Questions

"I do not seek. I find."
- Pablo Picasso

A. Rs. 120B. Rs. 121
C. Rs. 122D. Rs. 123

The difference between simple and compound interests compounded annually on a certain sum of money for 2 years at 4% per annum is Re. 1. The sum (in Rs.) is:

A. 625B. 630
C. 640D. 650

There is 60% increase in an amount in 6 years at simple interest. What will be the compound interest of Rs. 12,000 after 3 years at the same rate?

A. Rs. 2160B. Rs. 3120
C. Rs. 3972D. Rs. 6240
E. None of these

What is the difference between the compound interests on Rs. 5000 for 1 years at 4% per annum compounded yearly and half-yearly?

A. Rs. 2.04B. Rs. 3.06
C. Rs. 4.80D. Rs. 8.30

The compound interest on Rs. 30,000 at 7% per annum is Rs. 4347. The period (in years) is:

A. 2B.
2 1
C. 3D. 4

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Swamp eels are freshwater fish, but they are not closely related to other living eels or snake-like marine and freshwater fishes.
> The Asian swamp eel has characteristics that make it very adaptable to a new environment. It has the potential to become widespread in the US and impact a variety of native aquatic and wetland species, and eventually entire ecosystems.
• Asian swamp eels breathe air and can achieve up to 25% of respiration through the skin.• They can survive weeks without food.
At present the impacts of the eel are largely unknown. Because they are generalized predators, this species is a potential threat to native fishes, frogs, and aquatic invertebrates.
The USGS focus is to document the eel’s geographic distribution and to learn as much as possible about its behavior and biology.
Swamp eels belong to the family Synbranchidae. The swamp eel introduced to the United States belongs to the genus Monopterus, and there may be more than one species here.
In addition to the name swamp eel, other English names used for members of this group of fish include rice eel, rice-paddy eel, and belut.
In the United States, Asian swamp eels can grow to nearly 1 meter (about 3 feet) long and about 0.5 kilos (about 1 pound).
Monopterus albus is native to tropical and temperate parts of eastern and southern Asia. As well as Central and South America, Africa, and northeastern Australia, and from India to eastern Asia, including much of China.
Swamp eels were first introduced to the United States in Hawaii around 1900. They were first identified as in the continental United States in 1994 based on specimens collected in ponds at the Chattahoochee Nature Center north of Atlanta, Georgia.