Understanding environmental as well as anthropogenic factors that influence large herbivore ecological patterns and processes should underpin their conservation and management. We assessed the influence of intrinsic, extrinsic environmental and extrinsic anthropogenic factors on movement behaviour of eight African large herbivore species. A cumulative odds ordinal logistic regression was used t...

Postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) is a form of refractory chronic neuralgia that, despite the importance of prevention, currently lacks any effective prophylaxis. The efficacy of live zoster vaccine in preventing PHN was recently reported [1]. However, this vaccine appeared to be of limited use in prophylaxis[2]. PHN has a variety of symptoms and significantly affects patient quality of life [3-12]....

In this paper we present an algorithm for maximum likelihood estimation in the proportional odds model. The algorithm is an example of optimization transfer, also known as the method of iterative majorization. We discuss optimization transfer, present the proportional odds algorithm, and give a means for accelerating the convergence of the algorithm. The algorithm is stable and guaranteed to co...

Background Ordinal outcomes are common; however, selecting an appropriate analysis is often problematic. Acute stroke trials routinely measure dependency using an ordinal scale as the primary outcome. Historically trials have dichotomised ordinal scales to compare the proportion dependent across groups, which limits statistical power to detect an effect. The OAST Collaboration (2007) showed ord...

Understanding mood changes of individuals with depressive disorders is crucial in order to guide personalized therapeutic interventions. Based on diary data, in which clients of an online depression treatment report their activities as free text, we categorize these activities and predict the mood level of clients. We apply a bag-of-words text-mining approach for activity categorization and exp...

There are two types of community-based farms (CBFs): one has been established to maintain farmland in rural areas suffering from the shortage agricultural workers and other response policy. Although purpose or activity differs by CBFs, central government is encouraging incorporation CBF. In this study, author focuses on typological differences CBFs empirically clarifies factors influencing esta...

The use of mobile wireless technologies brings associated paradoxes already identified in the literature. Thus, this research uses quantitative analysis to determine the perception of presence and intensity level of fourteen technological paradoxes related to the use of smartphone by professionals in Brazil. Besides, this study identifies the variables that impact the perception of each paradox...

This study analyzes consumer purchasing behavior of organic fresh fruits and vegetables using the 2006 Nielsen Homescan panel. An ordered logit model was estimated to quantify the impacts of economic and socio-demographic factors on the probability of a household belonging to a specific organic user group—devoted, casual, or nonuser. Results suggest that price and income, to some extent, affect...

The paper empirically investigates whether people’s attitude towards the progress in political transformation in Eastern Europe are influenced by economic factors. Thereby it addresses the question of independence between economic and political system. Using a large panel data set, containing about 68000 observations on individuals from 19 countries over 6 years, this question is analysed in th...

i ABSTRACT JENNIFER C. JARRELL Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Policy in the United States (Under the direction of RUSS TOAL, FACULTY MEMBER) HPV vaccine school entry mandates and vaccine funding by state was examined using the Diffusion of Innovations (DOI) theory. The DOI was applied to HPV immunization policy to evaluate the rate of vaccine adoption and to determine whether associations existed...