The first division is Selection Bias Essay Example for Free

The first division is Selection Bias Essay Bias is technically the deviation of the probable value of a chance variable from the resultant correct or consigned value (US NRC, 2007). It is the differentiation involving the experimental average of measurements held at repeated case and a reference value, or referred to as accuracy. Bias is calculated and articulated at a solitary position within the working array of the measurement system (Measurement Media, 2008) and is evident in the gathering of Retrospective accounts. Retrospective data are acquired through interviews and questionnaires. Conversely, prospective data are attained through the use of existing records taken from previous studies (ABC, 2008). There are three main divisions of bias. The first division is Selection Bias. Basically, selection bias takes place when the topics studied do not give proper body or representation of the target population about which end results are to be taken from (Coggon, Rose, Barker, 1997). In selection bias, when the involvement of exposure and alcoholism is dissimilar for those who finish a study evaluated with those who match the characteristics of the target population, the general population is selected; they are for which the measure of effect is being considered (Ibrahim, Alexander, Shy Farr, 1999). In a case study involving alcoholics, selection bias is characterized where those who volunteer to answer questionnaires may possess unlike character than the proposed individual in the target population. In the main, individuals who do not react to requests to be evaluated have different characteristics than responders. Bias will be established if the association between exposure and alcoholism differs between the results for the study volunteers and non-responders. The second division of bias is the Information Bias. This major type of bias comes to pass from errors in measuring exposure or alcoholism. In a study to calculate approximately the relative risk of alcohol intake and road accidents, associated with exposure to wines, beers and spirits, alcoholics were solicited for information about their contact and exposure with such substances before driving, and their responses were compared with those from control alcoholics. With this devise, there is a hazard that case, or variable, mothers, who are extremely goaded to find out what they drank the most in the expanse of the drinking session, might recollect memories of past contact more completely than the alcoholics from the control group. If that would be the case, a bias would product with a propensity to overstate risk estimates (Coggon, Rose, Barker, 1997). Recall Bias is included in this type of bias. Recall bias happens when a respondent is asked to relate to a particular topic, and they either exaggerate what information or rule out information they think isn’t appropriate for inclusion. Data could be inconsistent or flawed when epidemiological study results are deduced via retrospective data gathering (ABC, 2008). In the case of the alcoholics, recall bias might prove to be a threat. If an accident happens, and excessive alcohol consumption is taken as the culprit, the respondent might give out information on his account rendering a holier than thou rendition of what really happened before. Some might not say that they had been drinking before driving, while others might say that they had alcohol intake more than what was required. What I see in this is that these people are trying to protect their dignity as a person, and their revelations might be put up against their wills. Seeing as this is a threat, there might be a risk of imbalanced information and results gathered for this particular epidemiological study. In the planning of case studies, the evaluators must see to it that they include the recall bias of their respondents toward a particular topic, especially if they are employing a primary type of data gathering; using questionnaires, surveys and interviews. References 74. 4 Definitions. (2007). Online, United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Retrieved on July 10, 2008 from http://www. nrc. gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part074/part074-0004. html Bias. (2008). Online, Measurement Databases for Industry and Science. Retrieved on July 10, 2008 from http://measurementdb. com/index. php? name=Sectionsreq=viewarticleartid=17page=1 Coggon, D. , Rose, G. Barker, DJP (1997). Epidemiology for the Uninitiated. Online, BMJ Publishing. Retrieved on July 10, 2008 from http://www. bmj. com/epidem/epid. 4. html Hassan, E. (2006). Recall bias can be a threat to retrospective and prospective research designs. Internet Journal of Epidemiology, 2(3), 4-4. Ibrahim, M. Alexander, L. Shy, C. Farr, S. (1999). Selection Bias. PDF File, ERIC Notebook. Retrieved on July 10, 2008 from http://www. durham. hsrd. research. va. gov/eric/notebook/ERICIssue08. pdf What is Recall Bias? (2008). Online, Abortion Breast Cancer (ABC). Retrieved on July 10, 2008 from http://www. abortionbreastcancer. com/bias/index. htm

The Great Potato Famine :: Essays Papers

The Great Potato Famine The Great Potato Famine was a huge disaster that would change Ireland forever. The people in Ireland were extremely dependent on potatoes and when the blight came the economy went down. When the fungus attacked the potato crops slowly crop by crop throughout Ireland, people began to lose their main source of food. With the people in Ireland’s huge dependency on the potato, people began to starve or get sick from the potatoes. No one had any food to eat. The potatoes were black inside with molds through out it that came from the fungus from something in nature. The weather that brought the blight also was one of the causes because they could not control how the weather was bringing the fungus. Ireland was under the British government and did not help Ireland when they needed Britain. The aftermath of the Great Famine was not only a huge drop in population, but emigration, and much more. The potato famine killed many people. â€Å"The famine brought starvation and disease which claimed 1 million lives† (Jackson 69). The death toll from the Great Famine took a good portion of the Irish population and left a landmark as being one of the most costly disasters of modern times. â€Å"Additionally, over 50,000 people died of diseases: typhus, scurvy, dysentery [†¦] Within a decade, the population of Ireland plummeted from over eight million to less than six million† (Irish Potato). Either the people that died during the famine were forgotten about from the surviving relatives, or there were no remaining survivors in a household there for, no was there to report it (Mokyr and O Grada 343). Sadly, death was one only of the effects of the Great Potato Famine. Another thing that was an effect of the Great Famine was emigration. Many people moved to different countries, mostly America, to find new land and get away from the horrible famine. Soon the government passed the Poor Law Extension Act of 1847, which was approved to refuse any farmer help with over a quarter acre of land. This Act influenced emigration, increased land clearance, and the structure of rural society slowly decreased.

The Productivity of Canada

Canada†s productivity is not in really good shape now. Among its G-7 partners (Britain, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and the U. S. ) , it has the lowest rate of growth in economic productivity over the past 25 years while it ranked second in productivity only to the U. S. two decades ago. What was the problem? Why was the situation getting worse and worse? While the problem seems to be getting more serious as the new millennium approaches, Jean Chretien, the Prime Minister, and Paul Martin, the Finance Minster, have played down the productivity issue, saying there is no clear-cut evidence that it is a significant problem. In fact, the high income tax rate compared to the U. S. causes lower salary for those highly skilled workers, which leads to their departure for better pay and more opportunities in the U. S. Also, the Canadian federal government spends too much money on themselves such as building political empires and providing services that duplicate those delivered by other provincial or municipal governments. Besides, Canada has a poor performance particularly in areas related to technology and communication industries. We certainly need a lot more to be done to improve productivity from various sources. Before we can come up with effective solutions for this controversial issue, we need to know how does productivity affect our economy and the standard of living in our country. Productivity measures the capacity of the economy to increase its output while costs are controlled. As economic efficiency increases, the overall wealth produced by the economy also goes up. It also determines the purchasing power that Canadians have. The greater productivity, the greater the potential for economic growth. With the decrease in productivity, our standard of living may go down as well. Canadians† living standard grew by an average of 3. 1 percent a year from 1961 to 1980. Since then, growth has averaged only 1. 1 percent annually. The major reason for this shutdown can be criticized on slower productivity growth. Lower labour productivity has explained 96% on average of the Canada-U. S. standard of living gap over the last decade. The atrophy of Canada†s productivity causes damages to the country†s living standard. Stronger productivity growth is essential for higher living standards in a country. One possible solution is tax cut, particularly on income tax. High tax rates hurt Canada in many different ways. Most of the Canadian companies cannot afford to hire an American executive to come north because the U. S. wage rates are significantly higher and the tax rate is different. If they do so, they should expect to pay an American executive the double salary compare to the outgoing Canadian executive earned. In that case, it would be too expensive. Although larger companies can probably afford it, while some smaller companies can†t afford to bring in talent that they need to expand their business. Moreover, the growing tax gap makes the situation even worse. This is also one of the reasons why Canada†s poor economy performance during recent years. Also, the Canadian dollar is weaker than the U. S. dollar, therefore income tax rate turns out to be around 50% for top earners compared to Canada with about 35% in the U. S. The other problem with over taxation is, when governments have too much of our money by collecting tax, which is in the case of Canada, the federal government spend too much on themselves, on building political empires and providing services that duplicate those delivered by other provincial or municipal governments. If taxpayers have this money left over to spend, they will probably either spend it or invest which will have a positive impact on our economy. But one exceptional case is high-tech industries in Montreal. Tax credits those companies, which allure them to invest more money. Eventually, the government provides up to $15,000 for new jobs in tax credits for each employee†s annual salary in future ten years. Those subsidies convinced Illinois-based Motorola to locate a new software center in Montreal. However, the critics argued that the government is buying jobs by using other taxpayer†s money and causing higher taxes for others. But in general, higher tax rate in Canada is a non-questionable fact. Another improvement that should be made is to put more money on education and provide a stable and attractive working environment for highly trained graduates. The loss of these highly trained graduates, estimated in the thousands annually to the U. S. The more opportunities, higher salaries and lower taxes are the main reason to draw their attention. Besides, there are not enough well trained and highly educated people to teach at universities and specialized schools, skilled Canadians who leave because of better pay and more job opportunities elsewhere. Besides, numbers of Canadians are willing to study in the U. S every year. In 1997, 23,000 of them enrolled in American colleges and universities. But there were only 18,000 Canadians enrolled in U. S. universities about 10 years ago. This number has been increased over the past decade and it certainly is going to increase if we don†t do anything about it. Another thing is, the American companies spend large amounts of money on re-training and development on executives. The average company spent about $10 million on both internal and external executive development in 1998. Especially when technology is becoming more and more involving business, the ability to get up to date information and knowledge is the key to success. In a recent survey that is done by Business Week, the best in management education, ranked according to this survey. U. S. has 17 universities in the top 20 for non-degree study. Although this was not an official ranking, it still shows that the U. S has most of the top business schools in the world, such as Harvard, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. That†s also why many students around the world, not just Canadians, like to go to those universities, because they can have a better education and a brighter future. Technology is crucial for productivity too, since Canada has done a poor job in technology and to support those technological talents. Just like Anand Bahl and Kim Cameron, they decided to be part of high-tech talent to the U. S and they sold their privately owned software company, Zoomit Corp. of Toronto, to Microsoft. Anand Bahl and Kim Cameron actually didn†t look for a buyer; somewhat Microsoft approached them as they found their company has potential in market. Anand Bahl and Kim Cameron created a software program, which from the e-mail system called the â€Å"meta-directory† which allows companies to integrate and manage a variety of related computer files, images and applications from different suppliers. They couldn†t get any finance help in Canada and not many people could understand the technology and expected their company to get beaten by a bigger player and wiped out. In fact, their product works and even Microsoft hire them along with 11 of 30 Zoomit†s employees to work on integrating meta-directory software into Windows 2000. They were very happy to be accepted from the world†s largest and most powerful firm because they had such a struggle to try to prove their product. They criticized the attitude that they encountered in Canada which Canadian companies assumed the product wasn†t good enough and they forced to focus on the U. S. which right now about 90% of their sales revenue come from large American companies. The comment that they gave was Canada has world class programming talent, but they have to have a chance and somehow recognize by others, and talent is one of the few things Canada will have left if we let this situation gets worse. In the case of Ford Canada, they have increased the wages for the workers because they are doing great business. But some economists worry that the raise of wages will lead to an increase in the unit price of cars and trucks, which is unlikely the case. In fact, the increase in Ford†s hourly labour cost will certainly lag behind the ongoing growth of productivity. Productivity in auto assembly grew 80% between 1991 and the first quarter of 1999, almost 10 times as fast as the total economy. In general, productivity in car industry has been increased 20% since 1991 . The amazing thing is that auto assembly average productivity even exceeds the level in the U. S. According to the bible of automotive productivity studies, it takes about 25 hours of labour to assemble a vehicle in Canada, which is 10% less than in the U. S. Moreover, this superb productivity performance produced 34,000 new jobs in the industry since 1992. The key for their success is they put huge investment in fixed capital that have been made by the auto assemblers and their parts suppliers. They are investing more than $4 billion on new equipment every year. As a result so far, new equipment with new technology makes greater productivity and better quality. From what has been mentioned above, the fact that Canada†s productivity needs to be improved, and the government should put more effort on it. Canada must solve the productivity problem through massive tax cuts and increase budgets on both education and technology development or continue to lose talents to the U. S. while we†ll have poorer productivity and competition in the market.

The Bible That The Concept Of Choice - 1196 Words

We see throughout the Bible that the concept of choice. Ever since the beginning of time God has given humans choices to either obey or disobey him. We see this in the Garden of Eden where God gave Adam and Eve the choice to eat from the tree or obey him. God desires for us to have a choice. One of the best illustrations of this that we see in the Bible is the story of Hosea and Gomer. Hosea was a prophet of God and very obedient man. Hosea was a young and upcoming prodigy in Israel when he met a woman named Gomer. Gomer was an unfaithful woman and a prostitute. God spoke to Hosea and told him to marry her, and so Hosea did and they got married, had kids and Hosea loved her unconditionally. After a while Gomer left Hosea and went to be a prostitute once more. God spoke to Hosea and told him about Gomer, he told her to go buy her back. Hosea did that and said to Gomer that whatever she would do, even if she gives her body to other men and is unfaithful, that he would love her no less. Time after time Gomer was unfaithful to Hosea, and eventually Hosea could not handle it anymore. He fell down to his knees and begged to God. Hosea’s heart was broken. God responded to Hosea’s cries and said that the nation of Israel is like Gomer. Israel had been unfaithful to God. They had gone and disobeyed God time after time. God did this to show who he is. He did this to show that God still loves us, no matter how often or how badly we sin against him. This is the problem with ChristianShow MoreRelatedFree Will v. Determinism Essay850 Words   |  4 Pages Do we really have Freewill? nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The topic of freewill vs. determinism has always been something that has interested me. I follow the Christian faith very strongly but my views on the subject vary almost daily. The concept of freewill and determinism is something that, as a Christian, I often struggle with. By no means do I think that I have all the answers or that I am right. 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Essay746 Words   |  3 Pagescontroversial articles are to objectively present different view or perspectives of abortion. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Kerby Anderson’s â€Å"A Biblical View of Abortion,† shows the aspect of abortion from the point of view of the Holy Bible. Anderson says that no where in the Bible does it actually say that abortion is wrong, just only that it was the unthinkable. It was said that children were viewed as a gift or heritage from the Lord. 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