Thresholds of moving average of stationary processes for given on target significant levels

A Markov chain is associated to a finite order one-sided moving average of a discrete time stationary Gaussian process. A method is developed to specify thresholds for given on target significant levels in the sense that in the long run the probability that the moving average process lies in [L _i , L _i+1), will be π _i , i = 0,. . . ,m. Special inputs, AR(1) and MA(1) are treated in details. This article extends the work of Soltani et al. in (Commun Stat Theory Methods 36(14):2595–2606) where the inputs were assumed to be i.i.d.; and a single threshold was considered. This research was supported by Kuwait University, Research Administration, Research Grant No.[SS08/06].     

Quantifying expert opinion for modelling fauna habitat distributions

Summary  The practical elicitation of expert beliefs about logistic regression models is considered. An experiment is reported in which ecologists quantified their prior beliefs about the relationship between various environmental attributes and the habitat distribution of certain rare and endangered fauna. Prior distributions were elicited from the ecologists and combined with sample data to form posterior distributions. The elicitation method was proposed by Garthwaite and Al-Awadhi (2004) and is implemented through an interactive graphical computer program. Classical stepwise logistic regression and alternative forms of prior distribution are compared using cross validation. Data on the environmental attributes have been mapped and stored in a GIS database and the posterior distributions can be used to predict the probability of a species' presence/absence at any site in the database.     

Gas-phase kinetics of elimination reactions of pentane-2,4-dione derivatives. Part ii [1]. Thermolysis of derivatives and analogues of 3-phenylhydrazonopentane-2,4-dione

Six analogues and derivatives (1–6) of 3-phenylhydrazonopentane-2,4-dione (7) were subjected to gas-phase thermolysis. The Arrhenius log A (s⁻¹) and Ea (kJ mol⁻¹) of the analogues (1–5) are, respectively: 10.42 and 140.8 for 1-cyano-1-phenyl-hydrazonopropanone (1) , 11.19 and 135.4 for 1-cyano-1-( -nitrophenylhydrazono)-propanone (2) , 10.68 and 144.9 for 1-cyano-1-( -methoxyphenylhydrazono)propanone (3) , 11.76 and 137.8 for 1-cyano-3-phenyl-1-phenylhydrazonopropanone (4) , and 11.29 and 145.9 for 1-cyano-1-phenylhydrazonobutanone (5) . The corresponding values for ethyl 3-oxo-2-phenylhydrazonobutanoate (6) are 11.90 s⁻¹ and 143.3 kJ mol⁻¹. The rates of reaction at 600 K are compared with those of the title diketone (7) and of pentane-2,4-dione (8) and rationalized in terms of a plausible elimination pathway involving a semiconcerted six-membered transition state. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Chem Kinet: 30: 457–462, 1998     

Commute times of random walks on trees

In this paper we provide exact formula for the commute times of random walks on spherically symmetric random trees. Using this formula we sharpen some of the results presented in Al-Awadhi et al. to the form of equalities rather than inequalities.