OBJECTIVE To examine the test-retest reliability, convergent validity, and predictive validity of the comprehensive activities of daily living (CADL) measure in patients with stroke. DESIGN A repeated-assessments design, 10-14 days apart, was used to examine test-retest reliability in 70 patients. In the validity study, a further 168 patients were assessed at 6 months and 1 year after stroke....

This paper explores how consumption smoothing (via borrowing and lending) works when a person cannot commit to payback a loan. We study an environment where individuals are of two types, with one type having a higher propensity to default on debt obligations. Financial intermediaries cannot directly observe a person’s type but make probabilistic assessments of it based on the person’s credit hi...

Cluster validation is a major issue in cluster analysis. Many existing validity indices do not perform well when clusters overlap or there is significant variation in their covariance structure. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we propose a new validity index for fuzzy clustering. Second, we present a new approach for the objective evaluation of validity indices and clustering ...

Clustering algorithm and cluster validity are two highly correlated parts in cluster analysis. In this paper, a novel idea for cluster validity and a clustering algorithm based on the validity index are introduced. A Centroid Ratio is firstly introduced to compare two clustering results. This centroid ratio is then used in prototype-based clustering by introducing a Pair wise Random Swap cluste...

The 15D is a generic, 15-dimensional, standardised, self-administered measure of health-related quality of life (HRQOL), that can be used as a profile and single index score measure. This paper introduces alternative valuation models based on the multi-attribute utility theory for generating the single index scores, and examines their feasibility, reliability and validity by using several data ...

in this paper an application of gustafson-kessel clustering algorithm is presented to create a fault detection map (fdm). five post-stack seismic attributes are extracted from a desired seismic time slice related to 3d seismic data of a gas field located in southwest of iran. to find the optimal cluster numbers, two frequently used clustering validity measures, i.e. sc and xb, are used and then...

The k-means method has been shown to be effective in producing good clustering results for many practical applications. However, a direct algorithm of k-means method requires time proportional to the product of number of patterns and number of clusters per iteration. This is computationally very expensive especially for large datasets. The main disadvantage of the k-means algorithm is that the ...

the credit portfolio management and the optimal credit portfolio selection are identified as one of the most effective factors in banks’ credit risk. two main strategies in this regard include diversification versus concentration. in this study, at first, the status of diversification of iran’s banking sector is analyzed, then the relationship between diversification of the credit portfolio and...