Richard D. Payne, David B. Dahl, and Brian M. Hartman Introduction When pricing an insurance product, many factors a ect market returns. Policyholder behavior (lapses, mortality, morbidity, etc.), policy riders (guarantees, look-backs, ratchets, etc.), industry and government forces (competition and regulation), among others can all depend on the asset returns and a ect the total […]
Biological Pathways in Determining Personalized Treatments
Ariana Hedges and Dr. W. Evan Johnson, Statistics At the current state of diagnostic capability, two patients with the same cancer diagnosis may respond very differently to the same treatment. Unfortunately, failure to respond to a particular treatment wastes valuable time and may result in disease progression that may be detrimental for the patient. Therefore, […]
Smoking and Tuberculosis in Ukraine
Noel Ellison and Dr. Bruce Collings, Statistics Tuberculosis (TB) is a contagious bacterial infection caused by mycobacterium Tuberculosis. While some people consider TB to be a “dead” disease that was eradicated years ago, it is, in fact, very much alive in the world today. It is estimated that more than two billion people are infected […]
Statistical Analysis Of The Comet Assay Using A Mixture Of Gamma Distributions
Bryan E. Shepherd and Dr. G. Bruce Schaalje, Statistics The comet (single cell gel electrophoresis) assay is a highly sensitive method of detecting cellular DNA damage that is often used in cancer research. The “tail moment” is the most widely used measurement of DNA damage in the comet assay. A higher tail moment indicates more […]
A Comparison of Statistical Software Packages in the Analysis of Survey Sample Data
Landon Sego and Drs. Howard B. Christensen, Statistics; Stephen J. Bahr, Sociology Objective To investigate and quantitatively document the differences between analyzing survey sample data with traditional statistical software (SAS) and with statistical software designed for the analysis of survey samples (SUDAAN). Background Most standard statistical software packages perform calculations based on the ideal assumption […]
Sample Survey of Utah Educators
Ben Saville and Dr. Lara Wolfson, Statistics In assessing the performance of schools in Utah (or any other state), a critical component of valid assessment of school performance is hard data. In areas such as student performance, that information is readily available from test scores; but in understanding the job burden of teachers in the […]
A Statistical Analysis of Rater Consensus In the BYU Premedical Committee
Alane Izu and Dr. David G Whiting, Statistics Introduction The premedical committee at Brigham Young University exists to assist students in successfully applying to medical school. The committee consists of professors from various departments across campus as well as senior premedical students. Two different committee members interview each eligible student in March and April of […]
Significance of Introduced Bias in the Utah Colleges Exit Poll
Sherstin Merx and Dr. Scott Grimshaw, Statistics Since 1982, Brigham Young University Departments of Statistics and Political Science have sponsored the Utah Colleges Exit Poll (UCEP) as both a research tool and as an experience in applied statistics. However, in designing the poll, UCEP routinely deals with administrative and geographic issues that make the task […]
Destructive Testing Versus Nondestructive Evaluation: A Statistical Comparison
Geraldine Hansen and Dr. C. Shane Reese, Statistics Researchers and developers in manufacturing and industry are often confronted with the problem of testing component functionality. Two important testing methods used on equipment are destructive testing (DT) or nondestructive evaluation (NDE). DT implies that the part is destroyed by disassembly, or it is destroyed by utilizing […]
Statistical Process Control Methods for Multiple Stream Processes: A Comparative Study
Jared Caleb Christensen and Dr. Scott D. Grimshaw, Statistics The Shewhart control chart is the most common statistical process control (SPC) tool used to determine stability. One fundamental assumption of the Shewhart chart is that the output comes from a single, continuous stream. This implies the monitoring of a single source of variation. Filling machines […]