Control charts for health care monitoring under intermittent out-of-control behavior

Health care monitoring typically concerns attribute data with very low failure rates. Efficient control charts then signal if the waiting time till r (e.g. r≤5) failures is too small. An interesting alternative is the MAX-chart, which signals if all the associated r waiting times for a single failure are sufficiently small. In comparing these choices, the usual change point set-up has been used, in which going Out-of-Control (OoC) means that the failure rate suddenly jumps up and then stays at this higher level. However, another situation of interest is intermittent OoC behavior. In industrial settings, an OoC process can be adjusted to return to In-Control (IC), but with health care monitoring this usually is no option and stretches of OoC and IC behavior may alternate. Comparison of such intermittent alternatives to the change point situation shows that the former can be characterized as tail alternatives, in the sense that the difference w.r.t. the IC-distribution becomes more concentrated in the lower tail. This suggests to generalize the MAX-chart as follows: now signal if all but 1 (or 2) out of r individual waiting times are too small. A numerical study shows that this approach indeed works well

Nonparametric control charts for bivariate high-quality processes

For attribute data with (very) low rates of defectives, attractive control charts can be based on the maximum of subsequent groups of r failure times, for some suitable r≥1, like r=5. Such charts combine good performance with often highly needed robustness, as they allow a nonparametric adaptation already for Phase I samples of ordinary size. In the present paper we address the problem of extending this approach to the situation where two characteristics have to be monitored simultaneously. Generalization to the multivariate case is straightforward

Improved binomial charts for monitoring high-quality processes

For processes concerning attribute data with (very) small failure rate p, often negative binomial control charts are used. The decision whether to stop or continue is made each time r failures have occurred, for some r≥1. Finding the optimal r for detecting a given increase of p first requires alignment of the charts in terms of in-control behavior. In the present paper binomial charts are subjected to this same requirement. Subsequent study reveals that the resulting charts are quite attractive in several aspects, such as detection power. For the case of unknown p, an estimated version of the chart is derived and studied

Misspecification in mixed-model based association analysis

Additive genetic variance in natural populations is commonly estimated using mixed models, in which the covariance of the genetic effects is modeled by a genetic similarity matrix derived from a dense set of markers. An important but usually implicit assumption is that the presence of any non-additive genetic effect only increases the residual variance, and does not affect estimates of additive genetic variance. Here we show that this is only true for panels of unrelated individuals. In case there is genetic relatedness, the combination of population structure and epistatic interactions can lead to inflated estimates of additive genetic variance

The Music of Borgesian Destiny in Saura\u27s El Sur

Carlos Saura’s El Sur was aired on Spanish television in 1993 as part of a series of six programmes based on selected short stories by Jorge Luis Borges. The entire set of these hour-long productions has recently been released on video by the Films for the Humanities, thereby granting easy availability to what thus far has been one of Saura’s most difficult to acquire, and consequently least known, films. Described in its opening credits as an ‘adaptación libre’, Saura’s El Sur differs considerably from Borges’ short story of the same name. This is not surprising given Saura’s long-standing refusal to serve as what he calls a mere ‘ilustrador’ of an already written text. A self-proclaimed auteur, Saura places his own personal stamp on all of his films, recasting original material to conform to his own vision of what it should be. Indeed, in a 1996 interview with Antonio Castro, Saura stated that his El Sur had been designed ‘para hacer un ensayo sobre Borges a través de un personaje interpuesto’, explaining that ‘a veces, he querido hacer una especie de ensayos cinematogra´ficos sobre un determinado personaje. Por ejemplo Lope de Aguirre, San Juan de la Cruz, Borges, Goya’. For each of his cinematic essays Saura extensively researches his subject’s life, but the resulting film does not take the form of a biography. Rather, as Saura goes on to say, ‘siempre es, más que un ensayo de toda su vida, un fragmento de su vida, que a mí me parece esencial, y que de algún modo explica su vida’. For El Dorado it is Lope de Aguirre’s expedition to Peru, for La noche oscura it is San Juan de la Cruz’s nine months of imprisonment in a convent in Toledo, for Goya en Burdeos it is the artist’s period of exile in France, and for Saura’s latest cinematic essay, Buñuel y la mesa del rey Salomón, it is the friendship forged between Buñuel, Dalí and Lorca as university students

Emilia Pardo Bazan, Cronicas en La Nacion de Buenos Aires

Over the twelve-year period immediately preceding her death, Pardo Bazan regularly contributed articles to the prestigious Argentine periodical La Nacion. Surprisingly, these pieces have not been reproduced in previous collections of her works, and few references have ever been made to their existence. Cyrus DeCoster rectifies this omission by bringing together fortysix of what he considers to be the most interesting of the articles. The vast majority of those selected deal with literature and the other arts. Some are eulogies to eminent figures either recently deceased or being honored by centennial celebrations (e.g., Marcelino Menendez y Pelayo, Aure-liano de Beruete, Teofilo Gautier, and Jose Zorrilla). Others are reviews of theatrical productions by such writers as Benavente, Echegaray, Galdos, and Oscar Wilde. Pardo Bazan also comments on the operas of Wagner and discusses the merits of El Greco, Velazquez, Murillo, Cervantes, and Shakespeare. A strong critique of Futurism is included among her observations concerning literary movements. Overall, Pardo Bazan\u27s greatest praise is reserved for literary and artistic works that capture the realism of life in all its complexity. This preference even extends to erotic literature when it is well written and portrays human sexual desire realistically

And so on: two theories of regress arguments in philosophy

This PhD dissertation is on infinite regress arguments in philosophy. Its main goals are to explain what such arguments from many distinct philosophical debates have in common, and to provide guidelines for using and evaluating them. Two theories are reviewed: the Paradox Theory and the Failure Theory. According to the Paradox Theory, infinite regress arguments can be used to refute an existentially or universally quantified statement (e.g. to refute the statement that at least one discussion is settled, or the statement that discussions are settled only if there is an agreed-upon criterion to settle them). According to the Failure Theory, infinite regress arguments can be used to demonstrate that a certain solution fails to solve an existentially or universally quantified problem (e.g. to demonstrate that a certain solution fails to settle all discussions, or that it fails to settle even one discussion). In the literature, the Paradox Theory is fairly well-developed, and this dissertation provides the Failure Theory with the same tools