Applying Multivariate Multilevel Models to Explore Arable Land Quality in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Case Study in Kenya

Controversy exists on the magnitude and variability of farm nutrient balances and quality of arable land in sub-Saharan Africa with Kenya among those affected negatively. This study investigates quality of arable land by fitting multivariate multilevel model to farm nutrient balance data collected from five agro-climatic zones of Kenya (arable lands). Objectives of the study were to investigate the magnitude and variability of Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium (NPK) farm nutrient balances in arable lands of Kenya, study effects of agro-climatic zones on nutrient balances and to determine effects of household resource endowments on NPK nutrient balances. The study concludes that agro-climatic zones differ with respect to farm nutrient balances;that livestock resource endowments and hired labour have positive effects on the magnitude and direction of farm nutrient balances;and that household ownership of large capital resources do not guarantee a positive effect on farm nutrient balances. The study recommends integration of sound livestock practices and application of agro-climatic zone differentiated interventions in future strategies for addressing farm nutrient balances and arable land quality, and the use of large sample sizes and relevant factors/covariates in future analysis to shed additional insights on farm nutrient balances and on how arable land quality can be improved.

Investigating the Psychometric Impact of Negative Worded Items in Reading Comprehension Passages with a 3PL Cross-Classified Testlet Model

Negative worded(NW)items used in psychological instruments have been studied with the bifactor model to investigate whether the NW items form a secondary factor due to negative wording orthogonal to the measured latent construct,a validation procedure which checks whether NW items form a source of construct irrelevant variance(CIV)and hence constitute a validity threat.In the context of educational testing,however,no such validation attempts have been made.In this study,we studied the psychometric impact of NW items in an English proficiency reading comprehension test using a modeling approach similar to the bifactor model,namely the three-parameter logistic cross-classified testlet response theory(3PL CCTRT)model,to account for both guessing and possible local item dependence due to passage effect in the data set.The findings indicate that modeling the NW items with a separate factor leads to noticeable improvement in model fit,and the factor variance is marginal but nonzero.However,item and ability parameter estimates are highly similar between the 3PL CCTRT model and other models that do not model the NW items.It is concluded that the NW items introduce CIV into the data,but its magnitude is too small to change item and person ability parameter estimates to an extent of practical significance.

Human induced dryland degradation in Ordos Plateau,China,revealed by multilevel statistical modeling of normalized difference vegetation index and rainfall time-series

Land degradation causes serious environmental problems in many regions of the world, and although it can be effectively assessed and monitored using a time series of rainfall and a normalized difference vegetation index （NDVI） from remotely-sensed imagery, dividing human-induced land degradation from vegetation dynamics due to climate change is not a trivial task. This paper presented a multilevel statistical modeling of the NDVI-rainfall relationship to detect human-induced land degradation at local and landscape scales in the Ordos Plateau of Inner Mongolia, China, and recognized that anthropogenic activities result in either positive （land restoration and re-vegetation） or negative （degradation） trends. Linear regressions were used to assess the accuracy of the multi- level statistical model. The results show that： （1） land restoration was the dominant process in the Ordos Plateau between 1998 and 2012; （2） the effect of the statistical removal of precipitation revealed areas of human-induced land degradation and improvement, the latter reflecting successful restoration projects and changes in land man- agement in many parts of the Ordos; （3） compared to a simple linear regression, multilevel statistical modeling could be used to analyze the relationship between the NDVI and rainfall and improve the accuracy of detecting the effect of human activities. Additional factors should be included when analyzing the NDVI-rainfall relationship and detecting human-induced loss of vegetation cover in drylands to improve the accuracy of the approach and elimi- nate some observed non-significant residual trends.

Automatic Delineation of Lung Parenchyma Based on Multilevel Thresholding and Gaussian Mixture Modelling

Delineation of the lung parenchyma in the thoracic Computed Tomography(CT)is an important processing step for most of the pulmonary image analysis such as lung volume extraction,lung nodule detection and pulmonary vessel segmentation.An automatic method for accurate delineation of lung parenchyma in thoracic Computed Tomography images is presented in this paper.The proposed method involves a segmentation phase followed by a lung boundary correction technique.The tissues in the thoracic Computed Tomography can be represented by a number of Gaussians.We propose a histogram utilized Adaptive Multilevel Thresholding(AMT)for estimating the total number of Gaussians and their initial parameters.The parameters of Gaussian components are updated by Expectation Maximization(EM)algorithm.The segmented lung parenchyma from the Gaussian Mixture model(GMM)undergoes an Adaptive Morphological Filtering(AMF)to reduce the boundary errors.The proposed method has been tested on 70 diseased and 119 normal lung images from 28 cases obtained from Lung Image Database Consortium(LIDC).The performance of the proposed system has been validated.

Multilevel security model for ad hoc networks

Modern battlefield doctrine is based on mobility, flexibility, and rapid response to changing situations. As is well known, mobile ad hoc network systems are among the best utilities for battlefield activity. Although much research has been done on secure routing, security issues have largely been ignored in applying mobile ad hoc network theory to computer technology. An ad hoc network is usually assumed to be homogeneous, which is an irrational assumption for armies. It is clear that soldiers, commanders, and commanders-in-chief should have different security levels and computation powers as they have access to asymmetric resources. Imitating basic military rank levels in battlefield situations, how multilevel security can be introduced into ad hoc networks is indicated, thereby controlling restricted classified information flows among nodes that have different security levels.

A New Perspective to Evaluate Doppler Vascular Impedance in Hypertensive Disorders Complicating Pregnancy: Multilevel Modeling Established in a Case Control Study

Background: There have been researches on the evaluation of Doppler vascular impedance in hypertensive disorders complicating pregnancy (HDCP). With respect to the method of analysis used and the conclusions drawn in previous studies, different vessels were usually viewed separately and independently. This study was designed to evaluate Doppler vascular impedance changes in HDCP from a new perspective, with original thought and insight into an ordinary issue. Methods: 273 pregnant women (110 hypertensive pregnancies and 163 normotensive pregnancies) were randomly included in a grouping case-control study conducted from February 10, 2011 to April 30, 2013. All women in the study underwent Doppler measurements of six different vessels including the umbilical artery, the uterine arteries, the placental bed spiral artery, the fetal middle cerebral artery and the fetal renal artery. Doppler vascular impedance was presented as pulsatility index (PI), resistance index (RI), and systolic and diastolic ratio (S/D). Doppler changes in the hypertensive and normotensive groups were assessed by the multilevel modeling approach with univariate and multivariate-adjusted analyses. Results: According to multilevel modeling approach with multivariate-adjusted analysis, a relatively average evaluation on Doppler vascular impedance was provided. Hypertension was significantly associated with positive effects on PI, RI and S/D values (coefficients were 0.10, 0.03 and 0.08, respectively;95% CIs were 0.06 - 0.14, 0.02 - 0.04 and 0.04 - 0.11, respectively;P values were all less than 0.001) in comparison with normotensive group. Conclusion: According to an overall evaluation, Doppler vascular impedance in hypertensive disorders complicating pregnancy was higher than in normotensive pregnancy. The novel thought and approach applied in this research may bring about inspirations for better understanding and assessment of the disease.

Modeling and Control of the Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC) based Solid State Transformer (SST) with Magnetic Integration

Solid state transformer(SST)can provide more advanced functionalities compared with conventional transformer,and has great potential in smart grid application.Recently,the SST with medium frequency(MF)isolation link and magnetic integration feature has been proposed,which can reduce the system volume and thus increase the power density.However,the magnetic integration also introduces strong coupling between the line frequency(LF)and MF variables,which poses a great challenge on modeling and control issues.This paper proposes a modeling and control method for an SST with magnetic integration and mixed-frequency modulation.A mathematical model based on dual d-q references is deduced,and then a cascaded control system is designed according to the model.Parameters of the controller for the variables at one frequency are properly designed to avoid disturbance from the variables at the other frequency.The simulation and experimental results show good decoupling effect and satisfactory dynamics performance of the proposed control system.

Study of visualized simulation and analysis of nuclear fuel cycle system based on multilevel flow model

Complex energy and environment system, especially nuclear fuel cycle system recently raised socialconcerns about the issues of economic competitiveness, environmental effect and nuclear proliferation. Only underthe condition that those conflicting issues are gotten a consensus between stakeholders with different knowledgebackground, can nuclear power industry be continuingly developed. In this paper, a new analysis platform has beendeveloped to help stakeholders to recognize and analyze various socio-technical issues in the nuclear fuel cycle systembased on the functional modeling method named Multilevel Flow Models (MFM) according to the cognition theoryof human being. Its character is that MFM models define a set of mass, energy and information flow structures onmultiple levels of abstraction to describe the functional structure of a process system and its graphical symbol representationand the means-end and part-whole hierarchical flow structure to make the represented process easy to beunderstood. Based upon this methodology, a micro-process and a macro-process of nuclear fuel cycle system wereselected to be simulated and some analysis processes such as economics analysis, environmental analysis and energybalance analysis related to those flows were also integrated to help stakeholders to understand the process of decision-making with the introduction of some new functions for the improved Multilevel Flow Models Studio, and finallythe simple simulation such as spent fuel management process simulation and money flow of nuclear fuel cycleand its levelised cost analysis will be represented as feasible examples.

SPICE modeling of memristors with multilevel resistance states

With CMOS technologies approaching the scaling ceiling, novel memory technologies have thrived in recent years, among which the memristor is a rather promising candidate for future resistive memory （RRAM）. Memristor＇s potential to store multiple bits of information as different resistance levels allows its application in multilevel cell （MCL） tech- nology, which can significantly increase the memory capacity. However, most existing memristor models are built for binary or continuous memristance switching. In this paper, we propose the simulation program with integrated circuits emphasis （SPICE） modeling of charge-controlled and flux-controlled memristors with multilevel resistance states based on the memristance versus state map. In our model, the memristance switches abruptly between neighboring resistance states. The proposed model allows users to easily set the number of the resistance levels as parameters, and provides the predictability of resistance switching time if the input current/voltage waveform is given. The functionality of our models has been validated in HSPICE. The models can be used in multilevel RRAM modeling as well as in artificial neural network simulations.

Multiple-Attribute and Multilevel Synthetic Evaluation Model and Its Application

On the basis of analyzing the flaws of present multiple-attribute and multilevel evaluation methods, concerning the problem of characteristics of the multiple-attribute and multilevel system s appraisal and the particular emphasis on the respective attributes in the evaluation process, as well as its relevance to the environment, an optimal attribute system is proposed, and the multiplicative analytic hierarchy process (MAHP) is used to obtain subjective weight coefficients and the objective weight coefficient evaluating method is given. The deviation between the index value of each level and the values of the same index of other levels are formulated, and an optimal model is gained, thus establishing the weight coefficients of the whole optimal attribute system. Furthermore, the detailed implementation procedure of this method is introduced. Besides, favorable results have been gained by applying the model to the practical problems of economic evaluation.

Effect of socio-demographic status on dental caries in pupils by using a multilevel hurdle model

Introduction: Dental caries is the most prevalent chronic disease among schoolchildren. We aimed to investigate the association between dental caries index and socio-demographic status in schoolchildren by using a multilevel hurdle model. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional epidemiological study was carried out on 906 primary school pupils in Kerman, Iran in 2012. The subjects were selected through a stratified cluster random sampling. At first, the whole target area was stratified according to two geographic areas, the north and south area. Then each area was stratified according to gender. In the next step, several schools were considered as clusters, which were selected randomly in each geographic area and gender strata. All the schoolchildren in these schools were included in this study as samples. Twelve-year-old pupils were examined for dental caries. The dependent variable in this study was the dmft/DMFT index. Eight variables, including socio-demographic information, were collected. Multilevel negative binomial hurdle model was employed for data analysis. Results: The prevalence of caries-free pupils was 30.1% and the mean dmft/DMFT was 3.6 ± 2.2. Negative binomial part of the adjusted model showed that the dmft/DMFT adjusted rate for females was 1.36 (95% CI: 1.10-1.79) times higher than males. Also, the dmft/DMFT adjusted rate for overweight pupils was 0.86 (95% CI: 0.74-0.98) times lower than those with normal weight. Logistic part of the adjusted model showed that the posibility of caries-free state in overweight pupils was 1.95 (95% CI: 1.22-3.11) times higher than those with normal weight. In addition, pupils whose fathers and mothers were workers and housewives, respectively, and those with a high maternal age were at a greater risk for caries experience than others (p < 0.05). Conclusion: BMI, gender, parent’s job and mother’s age at delivery were factors effecting on dental caries in schoolchildren. These pupils need more attention to dental care.

Effects of Differential Item Discriminations between Individual-Level and Cluster-Level under the Multilevel Item Response Theory Model

This study attempted to interpret differential item discriminations between individual and cluster levels by focusing on patterns and magnitudes of item discriminations under 2PL multilevel IRT model through a set of variety simulation conditions. The consistency between the mean of individual-level ability estimates and cluster-level ability estimates was evaluated by the correlations between them. As a result, it was found that they were highly correlated if the patterns of item discriminations were the same for both individual and cluster levels. The magnitudes of item discriminations themselves did not affect much on correlations, as far as the patterns were the same at the two levels. However, it was found that the correlation became lower when the patterns of item discriminations were different between the individual and cluster levels. Also, it was revealed that the mean of the estimated individual-level abilities would not be necessarily a good representation of the cluster-level ability, if the patterns were different at the two levels.

Peer Pressure and Family Smoking Habits Influence Smoking Uptake in Teenage Boys Attending School: Multilevel Modeling of Survey Data

Introduction: Among young teens, about one in five smokes worldwide. Adolescents spend a considerable amount of their time in school, and the school environment is therefore important for child health practices and outcomes. Objectives: We aimed to investigate the impact on smoking behavior of the school environment and the personal characteristics of male teenage students attending schools in Pakistan, taking into account the survey sampling structure. Methods: A two-stage cluster sampling with stratification was employed, and we interviewed 772 male secondary school students. We adopted random effect and generalizing estimating equation models. Results: Peer pressure in particular had a strong influence on adolescents smoking;those whose friends smoked were up to 6 times more likely to smoke. Family smoking was also significantly associated with adolescents smoking, but those students whose mother was educated were 50% less likely to smoke. The fitted random effect model indicated that the between school variability was significant (p-value < 0.01), indicating differences in smoking habits between schools. A random coefficient model showed that variability among schools was not significantly different for public and private schools. Conclusion: Public health campaigns for smoking cessation should target not only the individual but also the families of adolescents attending schools.

Correlates of Parental Choice of Child Discipline Methods in Ghana: A Multilevel Modeling Approach

This study applied multilevel modeling to investigate the impact of observed predictors and different levels or groups that households belong, on parents’ choice of discipline methods using data from 8156 households derived from a nationwide survey by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) in 2011. The aim of the study is to provide in-depth information on why parents choose particular discipline methods as corrective measures to reduce unwanted child behaviour in the present and to increase desirable ones in the future. The results of the study show that, religion and age-group of household heads have significant effect on household’s likelihood to choose physical discipline methods whereas the wealth index of a household and ethnicity of the household head, have significant effect on households’ likelihood to choose non-physical and psychological aggression methods. The results further show significant contextual effect on the differences in choices of parents at the household and regional levels. The choice of physical discipline methods by parents was consistent across households and regional levels unlike non-physical and psychological aggression methods whose application varied across the regions. Households in the Northern, Eastern and Volta regions mostly chose to apply physical discipline methods whereas in the Upper West, Western and Northern regions the most chosen discipline methods were non-physical discipline methods. Psychological aggression discipline methods were predominantly applied in the Upper East, Central and Northern regions of the country.

A Regional Spectral Nested Multilevel Primitive Equation Model

By means of vertical normal modes a regional nested multilevel primitive equation model can be reduced to several sets of shallow water equations characterized by various equivalent depths. Therefore, time integration of the model in spectral form can be performed in the manner similar to those used in the spectral nested shallow water equation model case.

State Space Modeling and Implementation of a New Transformer Based Multilevel Inverter Topology with Reduced Switch Count

This paper presents a new transformer based multilevel inverter, with a novel pulse width modulation scheme to achieve seven-level inverter output voltage. The proposed inverter switching pattern consists of three fundamental frequency sinusoidal reference signals with an offset value, and one high frequency triangular carrier signal. This switching scheme has been implemented using an 8-bit Xilinx SPARTAN-3E field programmable gate array based controller. In addition, the state space model of the proposed inverter is developed. The significant features of the proposed topology are: reduction of the power switch count and the gate drive power supply unit, the provision of a galvanic isolation between load and sources by a centre tap transformer. An exhaustive comparison has been made of the existing multilevel inverter topologies and the proposed topology. The performances of the proposed topology with resistive, resistive-inductive loads are simulated in a MATLAB environment and validated experimentally on a laboratory prototype.

Support Operator’s Fault Diagnosis of Complex Plant Systemthrough Multilevel Flow Model and Ecological Interface Design

The paper describes a new human-interface system design method by combining the conception of Multilevel Flow Model and Ecological Interface Design to support operators’ fault diagnosis in the complex plant system. Modern man-made systems are always achieving many complex automatic and intelligent tasks so that they are becoming more and more complex and can be hardly understood by operators, who should be the primary role in system operating. This situation presents a big challenge to the operating support system that it should present the complex system in a direct and clear way to operators to and make operators understand the internal interaction of the system especially in the abnormal status to ensure the operating safety. The Multilevel Flow Model based on the idea of ”Abstraction Hierarchy”, aiming at decompressing a system by means-end and part-whole way, can be used to represent a complex system in a standard way and perform intelligent operating tasks such as fault diagnosis and process control. Ecological Interface Design, which based on the human cognitive properties, can present the internal interaction of the system in a direct way. This paper combines this two interface design conceptions to achieve two aspects, intelligent fault diagnosis and direct presentation of causal relationship of operating parameters, to support operators’ fault diagnosis in complex plant system. The design method is applied to a PWR power plant in this paper as an application example.

Harmonic State-Space Based AC-Side Impedance Model of MMC and High Frequency Oscillation Characteristics Analysis

Recently,high-frequency oscillation of themodularmultilevel converter(MMC)based high-voltage direct current(HVDC)projects has attracted great attentions.In order to analyze the small-signal stability,this paper uses the harmonic state-space(HSS)method to establish a detailed frequency domain impedance model of the AC-side of the HVDC transmission system,which considers the internal dynamic characteristics.In addition,the suggested model is also used to assess the system’s high-frequency oscillationmechanism,and the effects of the MMC current inner loop control,feedforward voltage links,and control delay on the high-frequency impedance characteristics and the effect of higher harmonic components.Finally,three oscillation suppression schemes are analyzed for the oscillation problems occurring in actual engineering,and a simplified impedance model considering only the highfrequency impedance characteristics is established to compare the suppression effect with the detailed impedance model to prove its reliability.

A Visual Integrated Analysis Platform for Nuclear Fuel Cycle System Based on Multilevel Flow Model

Complex Nuclear Fuel Cycle (NFC) system faces many socio-technical issues that need to obtain the consensus between stakeholders of different knowledge background. In this paper, a visualized analysis platform based on graphical functional modeling method, Multilevel Flow Model (MFM), is proposed to help those stakeholders to recognize and analyze various socio-technical issues in NFC system. Some new functions, such as “Reaction Function", “Switch Function" and “Conversion Function", are introduced to fulfill new simulation tasks for NFC system. Based upon this methodology, a micro-process and a macro-process of NFC system are simulated and meanwhile some key analysis variables, such as CO2 emission and cost flow, required by some analysis methods are deducted and displayed in the platform. And finally a sample simulation analysis is conducted based on MFM.

多层次领导力发展模型的构建及其有效性检验——基于扎根理论的探索性研究

领导力发展对企业人力资源开发和领导者培养至关重要,而关于领导力发展的具体内容和如何验证发展结果的有效性,一直存有争议。采用扎根理论的研究方法,对正在进行领导力发展计划的A企业进行深度访谈和现场研究,构建了一个多层次视角的领导力发展模型。该模型基于发展自我、发展团队、发展组织的多层次视角,提出了领导力的发展内容包括做人、做事、发展下属、凝聚团队、组织管理、业绩管理六个核心要素。进一步将该模型与“方向-协作-承诺”模型(DAC模型)做对比分析,研究结果表明“发展自我”激发承诺,“发展团队”产生方向、协作和承诺,“发展组织”促进方向和协作,从而验证了该领导力发展模型的有效性。