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Matching Techniques (matching + techniques)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences33%

Selected Abstracts

English,Thai Structure,Based Machine Translation

COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, Issue 3 2002
Booncharoen Sirinaovakul
We propose an alternative method of machine,aided translation: Structure,Based Machine Translation (SBMT). SBMT uses language structure matching techniques to reduce complicated grammar rules and provide efficient and feasible translation results. SBMT comprises the following four features: (1) source language input sentence analysis; (2) source language sentence transformation into target language structure; (3) dictionary lookup; and (4) semantic disambiguation or word sense disambiguation (WSD) for correct output selection. SBMT has been designed and a prototype system has been implemented that generates satisfactory translations. [source]

Impact evaluation of India's ,Yeshasvini' community-based health insurance programme

HEALTH ECONOMICS, Issue S1 2010
Aradhna Aggarwal
Abstract Using propensity score matching techniques, the study evaluates the impact of India's Yeshasvini community-based health insurance programme on health-care utilisation, financial protection, treatment outcomes and economic well-being. The programme offers free out-patient diagnosis and lab tests at discounted rates when ill, but, more importantly, it covers highly catastrophic and less discretionary in-patient surgical procedures. For its impact evaluation, 4109 randomly selected households in villages in rural Karnataka, an Indian state, were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. A comprehensive set of indicators was developed and the quality of matching was tested. Generally, the programme is found to have increased utilisation of health-care services, reduced out-of-pocket spending, and ensured better health and economic outcomes. More specifically, however, these effects vary across socio-economic groups and medical episodes. The programme operates by bringing the direct price of health-care down but the extent to which this effectively occurs across medical episodes is an empirical issue. Further, the effects are more pronounced for the better-off households. The article demonstrates that community insurance presents a workable model for providing high-end services in resource-poor settings through an emphasis on accountability and local management. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

High-throughput powder diffraction.

JOURNAL OF APPLIED CRYSTALLOGRAPHY, Issue 4 2004

Powder pattern matching techniques, using all the experimentally measured data points, coupled with cluster analysis, fuzzy clustering and multivariate statistical methods are used, with appropriate visualization tools, to analyse a set of 27 powder diffraction patterns of alumina collected at seven different laboratories on different instruments as part of an International Center for Diffraction Data Grant-in-Aid program. In their original form, the data factor into six distinct clusters. However, when a non-linear shift of the form (where a0 and a1 are refinable constants) is applied to optimize the correlations between patterns, clustering produces a large 25-pattern set with two outliers. The first outlier is a synchrotron data set at a different wavelength from the other data, and the second is distinguished by the absence of K,2 lines, i.e. it uses Ge-monochromated incident X-rays. Fuzzy clustering, in which samples may belong to more than one cluster, is introduced as a complementary method of pinpointing problematic diffraction patterns. In contrast to the usual methodology associated with the analysis of round-robin data, this process is carried out in a routine way, with minimal user interaction or supervision, using the PolySNAP software. [source]

Parents' Union Dissolution and Adolescents' School Performance: Comparing Methodological Approaches

JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY, Issue 3 2007
Michelle L. Frisco
We use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and the Adolescent Health and Academic Achievement Study to estimate how parents' union dissolution influences changes in adolescents' mathematics course work gains, overall grade point average, and course failure rates during a window of approximately 1 year (N =2,629). A primary purpose of this study is demonstrating the utility of propensity score matching techniques for studying topics such as ours that pose methodological challenges such as dealing with endogeneity and selection bias. We compare propensity score matching techniques to ordinary least squares (OLS) regression methods to show and discuss comparability of results obtained using these different procedures. Findings suggest that associations between parents' union dissolution and achievement may be causal, regardless of method used. [source]

Exploiting a Rare Communication Shift to Document the Persuasive Power of the News Media

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 2 2009
Jonathan McDonald Ladd
Using panel data and matching techniques, we exploit a rare change in communication flows,the endorsement switch to the Labour Party by several prominent British newspapers before the 1997 United Kingdom general election,to study the persuasive power of the news media. These unusual endorsement switches provide an opportunity to test for news media persuasion while avoiding methodological pitfalls that have plagued previous studies. By comparing readers of newspapers that switched endorsements to similar individuals who did not read these newspapers, we estimate that these papers persuaded a considerable share of their readers to vote for Labour. Depending on the statistical approach, the point estimates vary from about 10% to as high as 25% of readers. These findings provide rare evidence that the news media exert a powerful influence on mass political behavior. [source]

Hedonic Price Indexes and the Matched Models Approach

THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL, Issue 1 2004
Mick Silver
We consider three approaches to estimating quality-adjusted price changes: (i) the dummy variable approach from a hedonic regression, (ii) a superlative or exact hedonic index and (iii) a matching technique,a technique akin to that used by statistical offices. The dummy variable approach is prevalent in the literature and has been used for independent estimates of quality changes when commenting on sources of error in consumer price indexes. However, the availability of scanner data provides an opportunity to utilize data on the prices (unit values), volumes and quality characteristics of a much wider range of transactions and to consider methods less restrictive than the dummy variable approach. The practical use of superlative or exact hedonic index and matching techniques using scanner data is explored, and the results from all three methods are compared. A feature of the paper is the breadth of the empirical work. It not only encompasses three different approaches, but extends across four different types of consumer durables. The manner in which the three approaches relate to each other is explored and the implications for quality-adjusted price changes is discussed. [source]