Best-worst scaling (BWS), also known as maximum-difference scaling, is a multiattribute approach to measuring preferences. BWS aims at the analysis of preferences regarding a set of attributes, their levels or alternatives. It is a stated-preference method based on the assumption that respondents are capable of making judgments regarding the best and the worst (or the most and least important, ...

The lack of specific research on the sequence of events that determine plant growth from meristem until wood formation represents a gap in the knowledge of growth dynamics in woody species. In this work, we surveyed published studies concerning cambial activity of Brazilian native species aiming at allowing the comparison of applied methods and obtained results. The annual cambial seasonality w...

In this paper, I describe an experimental study on the efficacy of concept-based instruction in developing information retrieval skills in undergraduates. The subjects were 254 first-year undergraduates at the University of Canberra, Australia. The study followed the experimental design of a pre-test/post-test control group. The experimental group was taught information retrieval from electroni...

The problem of forecasting conditional probabilities of the next event given the past is considered in a general probabilistic setting. Given an arbitrary (large, uncountable) set C of predictors, we would like to construct a single predictor that performs asymptotically as well as the best predictor in C, on any data. Here we show that there are sets C for which such predictors exist, but none...

The use of Bayesian methods for data analysis is creating a revolution in fields ranging from genetics to marketing. Yet, results of our literature review, including more than 10,000 articles published in 15 journals from January 2001 and December 2010, indicate that Bayesian approaches are essentially absent from the organizational sciences. Our article introduces organizational science resear...

A common problem arising in new particle search experiments is to determine upper limits on a signal cross section, combining more than one channel (for example e and μ) and incorporating the effects of systematic errors, which may or may not be correlated across channels. This note describes a Bayesian procedure for performing such a calculation.

Perlite or pearl stone is a natural glass which has formed by rapid cooling of viscous lava or magma. Perlite is mainly composed of silica, aluminum, potassium and sodium. In this experiment, perlite was used as a low-cost source of Si and Al to synthesis of sodalite zeolite using the alkaline hydrothermal treatment. A statistical Taguchi design of experiments was employed to evaluate the effec...

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to investigate the controllable operating parameters influence, including pH, solid content, collector, co-collector, and depressant dose, and conditioning time, on apatite flotation kinetics. Four first order flotation kinetic models are tested on batch flotation time-recovery profiles. The results of batch flotation tests and the fitting of first-order ki...

Nanocrystalline ceria has been considered as support for carbon monoxide preferentially oxidation. In this study ceria was prepared by precipitation method and the effects of preparation conditions, such as pH of solution (8-10), aging time (1-12 hr), drying temperature (80-120 °C), calcination time (2-6 hr) and temperature (400-600 °C) were investigated on ceria synthesized powders properties....

Bayesian optimal experimental design is a sub-field of statistics focused on developing methods to make efficient use resources. Any potential evaluated in terms utility function, such as the (theoretically well-justified) expected information gain (EIG); unfortunately however, under most circumstances EIG intractable evaluate. In this work we build off successful variational approaches, which ...