Course grades, which often include non-achievement factors such as effort and behavior and are subject to individual teacher grading philosophies, suffer from issues of unreliability. Yet, course grades continue to be utilized as a primary tool for reporting academic achievement to students and parents and are used by most colleges and universities as an admissions measure. High-stakes assessment results are also used by schools to convey student achievement, and several states now require students to pass an exam to receive a diploma. What is less clear, however, is the relation between these two measures, GPA and high-stakes assessment results. One purpose of this study was to examine the predictive relation of mathematics GPA to student performance on high-stakes assessments. Multiple regression models were used to analyze the predictive relation between mathematics GPA and performance on the ACT and the Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (OAKS), two high-stakes assessments. In addition, the regression analyses were used to examine the influence of other student-level variables such as talented and gifted status and math courses taken prior to testing on the relation between mathematics GPA and performance on the two high-stakes assessments. In all, 299 high school students from a single grade-level enrolled in one Oregon suburban school district participated in the study. Results indicate that GPA is a significant variable in a high-stakes assessment outcome. Additionally, results of the multiple regression reveal significant student-level effects on assessment outcomes that reduce explained common variance in both the ACT and OAKS models. Implications for practice and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Research for the past decade has examined academic performance gaps among students from the perspective of sex, race and ethnicity groups, and low socio-economic status. Across those studies school attendance has been identified as a primary correlate with academic success. I used a descriptive non-experimental design to investigate the relationship of student academic outcomes (i.e., GPA, credits earned toward graduation) among student groups (i.e., sex, race, and special education status) on attendance type of unexcused or excused absences. This study included two cohorts of 9th grade high school students (n = 2,262) from the Eugene 4J School District during the 2013 to 2016 school year. I calculated Chi-square tests, Independent t-tests, and Pearson’s correlation coefficient to examine the relationship of attendance with student academic outcomes for GPA and credits earned toward graduation and to further compare attendance type (i.e., unexcused or excused absences) among student groups. Findings indicated statistically significant differences for unexcused and excused absences and for GPA and credits earned by specific demographic subgroups – males v. females, white v. minority, special education v. not special education. There were also statistically significant correlations for GPA and credits earned based on unexcused and excused absences among demographic subgroups. In addition, there were statistically significant differences by academic and attendance variables for students who remained in comparison to students who left Eugene 4J.

The purpose of this study is to collect and organize all data available to the investigator on the subject of calcium and phosphorus requirements for normal children. Since it is the business of nutrition to maintain health and prevent disorders, leaving the cure of disorders to the medical profession, this study deals with the calcium and phosphorus metabolism of normal children and avoids going into the pathological phases, taking up rickets and tetany only in so far as prevention is concerned. If this study has any value it lies in the fact that the findings of investigators seem to be scattered throughout a great many books and scientific journals, and it was thought that the collection and organization of these findings would serve as useful purpose in making this research more readily available to nutrition students. The bibliography for the study was made up from references given by such recognized authorities and sources as Sherman, McLester, Starling, Lusk, Van Slyke and Peters, Bogert, Rose, Child Development Abstracts, British Nutrition Abstracts, and Chemical Abstracts. From this bibliography were chosen those books and articles which seemed to the writer to be most promising as to reliability, amount of information, and variety of information. Part of the work has of necessity been adapted to children from experiments on adults. The importance of calcium and phosphorus in the diet of little children is emphasized by Sherman as follows: "The effect of an insufficient intake of calcium is natural more serious with growing than with full grown animals. The young need more calcium because during growth and development the body in increasing not only the amount but the percentage of calcium which it contains. *** growing children whose height, weight, and appearance are normal may have a calcium-poor condition of the body*** Since this is largely a matter of the deposition of calcium phosphate in the developing bones, the phosphorus content of the body tends to remain low when the calcium is low and to rise to normal with the calcium when the calcium content of the food is increased.

The European emission standard is an EU directive which describes what emission limits car manufactures are required to meet. In order to meet these requirements car manufacturers use different techniques and components. In a modern diesel automobile a Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) is used to gather soot from the exhausts. As soot accumulates in the DPF, the back pressure increases and the capability to hold more soot decreases. Therefore the DPF continuously needs to get rid of the stored soot. The soot is removed through a process called regeneration. In order to optimize when to perform regeneration, it is vital to know the amount of soot in the filter. A method for estimating the soot mass in a DPF using a radio frequency-based sensor has been developed. The sensor that has been studied is the Accusolve soot sensor from General Electric. A parameter study has been performed to evaluate the parameters that affects the sensor’s output. Parameters that have been studied include positioning of the sensor, temperature in the DPF, flow rate through the DPF and distribution of soot in the DPF. Different models for estimation of soot mass in the DPF has been developed and analyzed. An uncertainty caused by removing the coaxial cable connectors when weighing the DPF has been identified and methods for minimizing this uncertainty has been presented. Results show that the sensor output is sensitive to temperature, soot distribution and position, and also show some sensitivity to the flow rate. An ARX model, with only one state, is proposed to estimate the soot mass in the DPF, since it gives the best prediction of soot mass and showed good resistance to bias errors and noise in all the input signals.

If we fix an integer a not equal to -1 and which is not a perfect square, we are interested in estimating the quantity N_{a}(x) representing the number of prime integers p up to x such that a is a generator of the cyclic group (Z/pZ)*. We will first show how to obtain an aymptotic formula for N_{a}(x) under the assumption of the generalized Riemann hypothesis. We then investigate the average behaviour of N_{a}(x) and we provide an unconditional result. Finally, we discuss how to generalize the problem over (Z/mZ)*, where m > 0 is not necessarily a prime integer. We present an average result in this setting and prove the existence of oscillation.

If we fix an integer a not equal to -1 and which is not a perfect square, we are interested in estimating the quantity N_{a}(x) representing the number of prime integers p up to x such that a is a generator of the cyclic group (Z/pZ)*. We will first show how to obtain an aymptotic formula for N_{a}(x) under the assumption of the generalized Riemann hypothesis. We then investigate the average behaviour of N_{a}(x) and we provide an unconditional result. Finally, we discuss how to generalize the problem over (Z/mZ)*, where m > 0 is not necessarily a prime integer. We present an average result in this setting and prove the existence of oscillation.

Abstract The thesis is addressing the inventory valuation method called moving average and how this inventory method handles exchange rate differences. Intentions of the study is also to highlight differences and similarities between the two methods standard cost and moving average. This study fills an existing gap in science regarding pros and cons with the moving average method which made the topic very interesting.  It also has strong practical contribution regarding possible benefits and problems of relevance to companies that have intentions of implementing moving average on their inventory. The relationships between foreign exchange rate risks and inventory leads to the formulated research question for this thesis: What are the effects of currency movements in the cost of goods sold from an inventory valued at moving average method? Based on the technical problem statement was a constructive approach and interpretive standpoint considered best suited for the study. The gathering of data was conducted by using a qualitative research strategy. Three different topics are used in the theoretical frame; inventory valuation, exchange rates and hedging. The theoretical frame describes the accounting standards behind inventory valuation and exchange rates, as well as the theories addressed. Third and final topic hedging is about how to manage exchange rate exposures using different hedging techniques. The in-depth investigation was made for four business units with inventories valued according to the moving average method. Sampling was divided into two parts one for the companies and another choosing respondents. Selection of companies was a convenient sample within the non-probability samples used and the respondents were selected using a snowball sample. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine respondents. Both the empirical- and analysis chapter follows the same three topics as the theory structure and the empirical answers are divided into companies to facilitate the comparison. A short summary of the analysis is that moving average is most suitable for inventories with; high inventory turnovers, sales from shelf and stable costs. There is a need to identify input costs to manage exchange rate differences correctly. The final part about hedging showed that different exposures need different hedging techniques. Forward contracts were the most common financial instrument used for hedging transaction exposures. Input risks also identified as an economic risk is one of the hardest to manage. This study has showed that effects from exchange rate fluctuations affect the moving average inventory value different than other inventory models. The input currencies need to be identified and separated from the sales currencies otherwise there is a potential risk to make wrong decisions.

<p>In many spatio-temporal applications a vector of covariates is measured alongside a spatio-temporal response. In such cases, the purpose of the statistical model is to quantify the change, in expectation or otherwise, in the response due to a change in the predictors while adequately accounting for the spatio-temporal structure of the response, the predictors, or both. The most common approach for building such a model is to confine the relationship between the response and the predictors to a single spatio-temporal coordinate. For spatio-temporal problems, however, the relationship between the response and predictors may not be so confined. For example, spatial models are often used to quantify the effect of pollution exposure on mortality. Yet, an unknown lag exists between time of exposure to pollutants and mortality. Furthermore, due to mobility and atmospheric movement, a spatial lag between pollution concentration and mortality may also exist (e.g. subjects may live in the suburbs where pollution levels are low but work in the city where pollution levels are high).</p><p>The contribution of this thesis is to propose a hierarchical modeling framework which captures complex spatio-temporal relationships between responses and covariates. Specifically, the models proposed here use kernels to capture spatial and/or temporal lagged effects. Several forms of kernels are proposed with varying degrees of complexity. In each case, however, the kernels are assumed to be parametric with parameters that are easily interpretable and estimable from the data. Full distributional results are given for the Gaussian setting along with consequences of model misspecification. The methods are shown to be effective in understanding the complex relationship between responses and covariates through various simulated examples and analyses of physical data sets.</p> / Dissertation

In this paper, we propose a novel Unipolar CMOS device in which the transport carriers are electron only. And we achieve good inverter output waveform and logic circuit applications by simulation. Duo to all n-channel (NMOS) structures are used, we call this proposed CMOS as a Unipolar CMOS. A new basic theory of utilizing the punch through effect is demonstrated to enhance the tPLH in our proposed Unipolar CMOS. The average delay time compared with the classical CMOS circuit can be improved 23% for high-performance applications. For our proposed Unipolar CMOS, all n-channel MOS are used to eliminate the N- and P-well processes and ignore the difference between the carrier mobility. In addition, the common electrodes are also exploited, hence, the layout area can be reduced to about 75%, which leads to significantly increase the packing density of CMOS circuits in the same chip.

Shewhart X bar control charts with estimated control limits are widely used in practice. When the sample size is not fixed,we propose seven statistics to estimate the standard deviation sigma . These estimators are applied to estimate the control limits of Shewhart X bar control chart. The estimated results through simulated computation are given and discussed. Finally, we investigate the performance of the Shewhart X bar control charts based on the seven estimators of sigma via its simulated average run length (ARL).