Small area estimation has received a lot of attention in recent years due to growing demand for reliable small area statistics. Traditional area-specific estimators may not provide adequate precision because sample sizes in small areas are seldom large enough. This makes it necessary to employ indirect estimators based on linking models. Basic area level and unit level models have been extensiv...

Spontaneous actions are preceded by brain signals that may sometimes be detected hundreds of milliseconds in advance of a subject's conscious intention to act. These signals have been claimed to reflect prior unconscious decisions, raising doubts about the causal role of conscious will. Murakami et al. (2014. Nat Neurosci 17: 1574-1582) have recently argued for a different interpretation. Durin...

Based on electrophysiological and anatomical studies, a prevalent conception is that the visual system recovers features of the world from retinal images to generate perceptions and guide behavior. This paradigm, however, is unable to explain why visual perceptions differ from physical measurements, or how behavior could routinely succeed on this basis. An alternative is that vision does not re...

English language practitioners have long relied on intuition-based scales for rating EFL/ESL writing. As these scales lack an empirical basis, the scores they generate tend to be unreliable, which results in invalid interpretations. Given the significance of the genre of description and the fact that the relevant literature does not introduce any data-based analytic scales for rating EFL descri...

Duopoly game theory is applied to the wood industrial markets (sawnwood and pulpwood markets) in the North of Iran. The Nash equilibrium and the dynamic properties of the system based on marginal adjustments are determined. The probability that the Nash equilibrium will be reached is almost zero. The dynamical properties of sawnwood and pulpwood prices derived via the duopoly game model are fou...