Thrips are major agricultural pests throughout much of the United States. More information is needed about sampling methods, management practices, and insecticide susceptibility to help better control this pest. A two year survey was conducted to determine the species present in southeast Virginia and the population characteristics of those species. Thrips were monitored using yellow sticky traps. Tobacco thrips, Frankliniella fusca, were the most abundant species. In general thrips populations began to build up beginning in April, peaked in August, and then started to decline. Differences in this trend were observed between species. A study was conducted in seedling soybean to evaluate the within-plant location of thrips, whether a plant subsample could be used for thrips monitoring, and to determine the thrips species complex present. Soybean thrips, Neohydatothrips variabilis, were the most prominent species present. The greatest density of thrips larvae was located in the terminal bud of the seedling and suggests that immature thrips aggregate. Neither of the proposed subsamples of plant material explained the variability in immature thrips numbers and at this time we recommend whole-plant sampling for obtaining the most accurate estimate of thrips populations in seedling soybean. Tobacco thrips, F. fusca, as well as a complex of other thrips species attack cotton and peanut seedlings and can cause significant yield loss to these crops in the mid-Atlantic U.S. Experiments were conducted in these two crops to assess the efficacy of a novel diamide insecticide cyantraniliprole applied as a liquid in-furrow at planting and post-plant emergence broadcast spray treatment to control thrips. In both cropping systems cyantraniliprole significantly reduced the number of immature thrips and reduced thrips feeding injury to the plants. In several instances cyantraniliprole treatments resulted in increased yield as compared to the non-insecticide treated control and yields which were statistically similar to those obtained with standard thrips control insecticides. Laboratory bioassays were conducted to evaluate the toxicity (LC50 values) of cyantraniliprole and two conventional insecticides against F. fusca adults. Results of these assays were inconclusive. At times F. fusca adults were susceptible to the insecticides, but the results could not be replicated consistently. / Master of Science

The purpose of this work is to discover an optimum sample size to be used for deciding between two methods (populations) to choose for future production. The procedure involves the formulation of a loss function, expressing the expected loss due to choosing the population with the small mean, as a function of the difference between the population means, the amount to be produced and the cost of sampling. A minimax procedure is applied to obtain the optimum sample size. Since the function does not lend itself conveniently to mathematical considerations, special cases involving the difference between the means are considered and an optimum sample size is found for these cases. In all cases, the optimum sample size is an explicit function of the amount to be produced, the cost of sampling and the standard deviation. / Master of Science

Since its issuance in June 1981, Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) No. 39, "Audit Sampling," has been the center of much controversy. Practitioners are voicing their concerns as they anticipate difficulties in designing, selecting, and evaluating a nonstatistical sampling procedure in accordance with SAS 39. This proposed exploratory study seeks to identify those factors that underlie the auditor's judgment with respect to nonstatistical sample size decisions in substantive tests. The research will utilize Egon Brunswik's Lens Model to provide mathematical representations of the auditor's judgment process. Correlational statistics will be used to assess judgment accuracy, agreement (consensus) , and auditor "self-insight" into his decision process. The study will provide empirical insight, into whether the auditor's determination of the appropriate extent of testing is consistent with his judgment as to the assurance level needed from his sampling application, or conversely, the degree of risk he is willing to accept. The ability of auditors to formulate their sample size decisions properly is crucial because of their impact on audit effectiveness and efficiency. In addition, this project should provide additional evidence bearing upon the arguments of both proponents and opponents of SAS 39. / Ph. D.

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No description available.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 28-31, 1996 / Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / The traditional use of active RC-type filters as anti-aliasing filters in Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) systems is being replaced by the use of Digital Signal Processing (DSP) filters, especially when performance requirements are tight and when operation over a wide environmental temperature range is required. In order to keep systems more flexible, it is often desired to let the DSP filters run asynchronous to the PCM sample clock. This results in the PCM output signal being a sampling of the output of the DSP, which is itself a sampling of the input signal. In the analysis of the PCM data, the signal will have a periodic repeat of a previous sample, or a missing sample, depending on the relative sampling rates of the DSP and the PCM. This paper analyzes what effects can be expected in the analysis of the PCM data when these anomalies are present. Results are presented which allow the telemetry engineer to make an effective value judgment based on the type of filtering technology to be employed and on the desired system performance.

Sanden international, an automobile air conditioning compressor manufacturer, was facing a problem in its incoming material inspection procedures. Although the company had designed and was using its own sampling plan, some managers and supervisors where not confident of its reliability. Sanden recently established a goal for its total number of defects per supplier as one part per million. Achievement of this target required reviews of the existing sampling plan. The purpose of this project was to help Sandra identify the best alternatives for its incoming material inspection procedures. To do that considerations were made about the usefulness of sampling inspections, theoretical aspects of inspection sampling plans were examined, current sampling plans were analyzed and recommendations were made.

Syfte: Syftet blir att granska vilka vägar det finns för barn och ungdomar att gå för att få möjligheten att representera herr- respektive damlandslaget. Och därefter titta på hur vägen för 41 st lanslagspelare både på herr- och damsidan har sett ut.   Metod: Metoden till denna undersökning har delats upp i två. Den större delen består av en dokumentanalys, där dokument har samlats in och analyserats för att få fram ett resultat. Den andra delen består av en kvalitativ ansats som är två expertintervjuer.   Resultat: Undersökningens resultat visade att det fanns olika vägar att gå för att kunna få möjligheten att representera herr- respektive damlandslaget, de två vanligaste var sampling och tidig specialisering. Variationen var stor bland de manliga fotbollsspelarnas väg till A-landslaget, medan vägarna till A-landslaget för de kvinnliga fotbollsspelarna såg för det mesta likadant ut.   Diskussion: Hur vägarna ser ut till att nå topp eliten och spel i A-landslaget för herr och damer kan bero på olika saker. Fotbollsfostran kan vara en avgörande faktor kring hur din väg kan komma att se ut, beroende på en föreningsfostran eller en tävlingsfostran. / Purpose: The purpose is to review which ways there are for children and young adults to get the opportunity to represent the men's and women's team. And then look at how the ways of 41 national team players have looked like, both men and women.   Method: The method of this survey has been divided into two. The bulk consists of a document analysis, where documents have been collected and analyzed to produce a result. The second part consists of a qualitative approach that is two expert interviews.   Results: The survey results showed that there were different ways to go in order to be able to represent the male and female national teams, the two most common were sampling and early specialization. The variation was great among the male soccer players' path to the A national team, while the roads to the A national team for the female football players looked mostly the same.   Discussion: How the roads seem to reach the top elite and play in the A-national team for men and women can depend on different things. Football education can be a crucial factor in how your route may look, depending on a club education or a contest education.

Em testes nos quais uma quantidade considerável de indivíduos não dispõe de tempo suciente para responder todos os itens temos o que é chamado de efeito de Speededness. O uso do modelo unidimensional da Teoria da Resposta ao Item (TRI) em testes com speededness pode nos levar a uma série de interpretações errôneas uma vez que nesse modelo é suposto que os respondentes possuem tempo suciente para responder todos os itens. Nesse trabalho, desenvolvemos uma análise Bayesiana do modelo tri-dimensional da TRI proposto por Wollack e Cohen (2005) considerando uma estrutura de dependência entre as distribuições a priori dos traços latentes a qual modelamos com o uso de cópulas. Apresentamos um processo de estimação para o modelo proposto e fazemos um estudo de simulação comparativo com a análise realizada por Bazan et al. (2010) na qual foi utilizada distribuições a priori independentes para os traços latentes. Finalmente, fazemos uma análise de sensibilidade do modelo em estudo e apresentamos uma aplicação levando em conta um conjunto de dados reais proveniente de um subteste do EGRA, chamado de Nonsense Words, realizado no Peru em 2007. Nesse subteste os alunos são avaliados por via oral efetuando a leitura, sequencialmente, de 50 palavras sem sentidos em 60 segundos o que caracteriza a presença do efeito speededness. / In tests where a reasonable amount of individuals does not have enough time to answer all items we observe what is called eect of Speededness. The use of a unidimensional model from Item Response Theory (IRT) in tests with speededness can lead us to erroneous interpretations, since this model assumes that the respondents have enough time to answer all items. In this work, we propose a Bayesian analysis of the three-dimensional item response models (IRT) proposed by Wollack and Cohen et al (2005) considering a dependency structure between the prior distributions of the latent traits which is modeled using Copulas. We propose and develop a MCMC algorithm for the estimation of the model. A simulation study comparing with the analysis in Bazan et al (2010), wherein an independent prior distribution assumption was presented. Finally, we apply our model in a set of real data from EGRA, called Nonsense Words, held in Peru in 2007, where students are evaluated for their performance in reading.

This study sought to determine the effect upon Tukey's Honestly Significant Difference (HSD) statistic of concurrently violating the assumptions of homogeneity of variance and equal sample sizes. Two forms for the unequal sample size problem were investigated. Kramer's form and the harmonic mean approach were the two unequal sample size procedures studied. The study employed a Monte Carlo simulation procedure which varied sample sizes with a heterogeneity of variance condition. Four thousand experiments were generated. Findings of this study were based upon the empirically obtained significance levels. Five conclusions were reached in this study. The first conclusion was that for the conditions of this study the Kramer form of the HSD statistic is not robust at the .05 or .01 nominal level of significance. A second conclusion was that the harmonic mean form of the HSD statistic is not robust at the .05 and .01 nominal level of significance. A general conclusion reached from all the findings formed the third conclusion. It was that the Kramer form of the HSD test is the preferred procedure under combined assumption violations of variance heterogeneity and unequal sample sizes. Two additional conclusions are based on related findings. The fourth conclusion was that for the combined assumption violations in this study, the actual significance levels (probability levels) were less-than the nominal significance levels when the magnitude of the unequal variances were positively related to the magnitude of the unequal sample sizes. The fifth and last conclusion was that for the concurrent assumption violation of variance heterogeneity and unequal sample sizes, the actual significance levels significantly exceed the nominal significance levels when the magnitude of the unequal variances are negatively related to the magnitude of the unequal sample sizes.