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JAQM Volume 11, Issue 3 - September 30, 2016
Contents
Big Data: Issues and an Overview in Some Strategic Sectors
Massimiliano GIACALONE, Sergio SCIPPACERCOLA
Big Data is a new technology with a model that works with a large amount of various type data (structured, semi-structured and unstructured) differently from static data being stored in warehouse. The data are generated from a variety of instruments, sensors and mainly by computer transactions. They are constantly updated with a high frequency and become more and more accurate and precise with the passage of time. Main purpose of this paper is to bring into light the new technologies, process and statistical analysis to extract values and results from Big Data. This work, in the first part, introduces the main characteristics of Big Data and its basic management. Important suggestions are developed for a quality control before to extract significant samples for subsequent analysis. Follows, in the second part, the comparison with other traditional techniques. In the last part, the paper highlights the growing role of Big Data end the key benefits in some strategic sectors (Education, Health Care, and Banking Industry). Common to our interest fields, the principles of ethics and privacy, to be observed, are also mentioned.
Robust Control Charts based on Modified Trimmed Standard Deviation and Gini’s Mean Difference
M.R. SINDHUMOL, M.R. SRINIVASAN, Michele GALLO
Control Charts are process control techniques widely used to observe and control deviations and to enhance the quality of the product. Traditional control charts are based on the assumption that process data are independent in nature. Shewhart control charts are well known and are based on the basic assumption of normality. If process parameters are used to construct control limits based on preliminary samples, stability of the limits needs to be established as presence of outliers may affect the setting of control limits. In this paper an attempt has been made to first develop robust control charts based on trimmed mean and modified trimmed standard deviation. Secondly, an estimate of process standard deviation using Gini’s Mean Difference (G) is also considered to modify the mean chart. Lastly, a comparative study is carried out to evaluate the performance of these two proposed robust charts with existing robust -MAD chart and two classical control charts namely -s chart and its modified -sv chart, based on simulated data. Simulation study is also considered for performance evaluation of the proposed charts with other charts based on Average Run Length (ARL) and Operation Characteristic (OC) curves. In addition to the simulation, real data set is also used for setting up of robust control limits.
The Performance of the SRMR, RMSEA, CFI, and TLI: An Examination of Sample Size, Path Size, and Degrees of Freedom
Gita TAASOOBSHIRAZI, Shanshan WANG
The SRMR, RMSEA, CFI, and TLI are commonly used fit indexes reported when describing the fit of structural equation models (SEM) used in math and science education. A large number of the models tested in math and science education tend to be path models that study the interaction between various motivational, affective, contextual, and cognitive variables or latent growth curve models that examine change in students over time. The majority of these models tend to have small degrees of freedom and small sample sizes. Given the common use of these fit indexes, it is important to understand their performance when reported for relatively simple models.
Heuristic Decision Making Utilizing Complete Tournaments
Johan KOK, R. JAYASREE
The paper presents the newly developed Abarnica heuristic ranking method applied to fuzzy-bias decision making with the central technique derived from complete tournaments or derivatives thereof. An useful recursive proposition called, Akhil's proposition together with a challenging conjecture is presented. The challenge to derive an efficient algorithm to apply the Abarnica heuristic method which appears to be very efficient with manual applications remains open. The authors advocate that the main advantage of the Abarnica heuristic ranking method is that strong bias are analytically mitigated in fuzzy-bias decision making applications which require ranking.
On Finding the Most Compatible Batting Average
Prodip Kumar GOUR, Dibyojyoti BHATTACHARJEE
Batting average is the most commonly used measure of batting performance in cricket. It is defined as the total number of runs scored by the batsman divided by the number of innings in which the batsman was dismissed. Generally, the innings of a batsman comes to an end due to his dismissal, yet there are some cases in which the batsman may not get dismissed due to sudden termination of the batting innings of the team. The sudden termination may take place due to bad weather or victory or injury of the batsman or for running short of partners etc. In case, there are several not out innings in the career of a batsman, the batting average may get overestimated. To overcome this problem of over estimation, several authors proposed different modifications to the existing formula of batting average or defined new measures. Though each method expressed its advantages over the existing batting average, yet none of them are universally accepted as the most efficient replacement of the existing formula. This paper makes an attempt to study the existing solutions to the problem and then to evaluate the best or at least the most compatible alternative. For the purpose of quantification, data from the ICC Cricket World Cup played in Australia and New Zealand in 2015 is considered.
Brain Drain - Brain Gain, Evidence from the European Union
Mihaela GRECU, Emilia TITAN
The migration is one of the most important and complex socio-economic phenomena. The mobility between the EU countries gains more and more attention in the specialty literature. The migration process has strong economic implications – people are attracted by the better living and working conditions from the destination countries. Besides the economic, social and political implications this phenomenon presents ethical and moral implications too. The direction of the migration for the high skilled persons, and not only, is from the developing countries to the developed countries. The migration process can imply a loss and a gain at the same time. The countries of origin will suffer a loss (the highly skilled/ educated people), while the receiving countries will gain without making any investment.
The Completeness and Accuracy of Information about Coeliac Disease on the Romanian Websites
Valentin NADASAN, Olesea MOLDOVAN
The internet has become an important source of health related information and a number of studies have shown that the quality thereof is, at best, problematic. Nevertheless, there are very few studies investigating the Romanian medical cyberspace. The goal of this study was to assess the completeness and accuracy of information about the coeliac disease on the Romanian websites directed to the general population. We evaluated a sample of 100 websites selected from the Google's first search results pages. The coverage of the topic was extremely deficient (the mean completeness score was 3.8 on a scale of 10), especially on sensitive issues such as the causes, treatment, and complications of the coeliac disease. On the other hand, the accuracy of the information was relatively good (mean accuracy score 7.2 on a scale of 10). With one exception, we found no statistically significant differences between the quality scores of the websites by their general characteristics.
Weighting Method for Developing Composite Indices. Application for Measuring Sectoral Specialization
Ana-Maria SAVA
When building a composite index, one might desire attributing different weights to factors whose influence it aggregates. Deciding on what weight to allocate to each factor may prove to be a difficult task if there is no possibility of finding an independent variable for the construct one tries to quantify. The present paper proposes a twist in using Principal Component Analysis as means for determining the weights of multiple factors based on which an index may be created. One example where finding an independent variable is not an option might be: developing an index for measuring sectoral specialization. Although over the years several instruments for measuring this construct have been developed, there is still no unanimous and universally accepted way of quantifying sectoral specialization and this paper designs a new index for measuring it by applying the weighting method advanced herein.