A Robust Measure of Core Inflation in Saudi Arabia: Empirically Investigating the Trimmed Mean and the Median CPI

The headline inflation in Saudi Arabia is subject to dramatic changes caused by new policies as the economy is undergoing structural changes since 2016. These changes could mislead policymakers as the underlying inflation may differ from the headline one. Since the announcement of Saudi Vision 2030 in April 2016, the Saudi economy entered a new era where the government has started to reform the economy to reduce its dependence on oil. As a result, many initiatives have been implemented with different impacts on the headline inflation such as imposing new taxes and expat levies and reforming energy prices. This research aims to calculate the core inflation in Saudi Arabia using two different methods: Trimmed Mean, and Median CPI. These two different methods were assessed based on their ability to track trends in the headline inflation over time as measured by the root mean square error and it ability to predict the future headline inflation.

Influence Function and Bootstrap Methods of Estimating the Standard Errors of the Estimators of Mixture Exponential Distribution Parameter

This work estimated the standard error of the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) and the robust estimators of the exponential mixture parameter (θ) using the influence function and the bootstrap approaches. Mixture exponential random samples of sizes 10, 15, 20, 25, 50, and 100 were generated using 3 mixture exponential models at 2%, 5% and 10% contamination levels. The selected estimators namely: mean, median, alpha-trimmed mean, Huber M-estimate and their standard errors (Tn ) were estimated using the two approaches at the indicated sample sizes and contamination levels. The results were compared using the coefficient of variation, confidence interval and the asymptotic relative efficiency of Tn in order to find out which approach yields the more reliable, precise and efficient estimate of Tn. The results of the analysis show that the two approaches do not equally perform at all conditions. From the results, the bootstrap method was found to be more reliable and efficient method of estimating the standard error of the arithmetic mean at all sample sizes and contamination levels. In estimating the standard error of the median, the influence function method was found to be more effective especially when the sample size is small and yet contamination is high. The influence function based approach yielded more reliable, precise and efficient estimates of the standard errors of the alpha-trimmed mean and the Huber M-estimate for all sample sizes and levels of contamination although the reliability of the bootstrap method improved better as sample size increased to 50 and above. All simulations and analysis were carried out in R programming language.

Penerapan Metode Alfha Trimmed Mean Filter Dalam Pengolahan Citra Berbasis Android

Citra adalah suatu representasi (gambaran), kemiripan, atau imitasi dari suatu objek. Tujuan dari penelitian ini menggunakan metode Alfha Trimmed Mean Filter berfungsi untuk membuat aplikasi android yang dapat memperbaiki mutu sebuah citra digital dari noise khususnya salt and pepper sehingga dapat meningkatkan mutu citra digital. Aplikasi android yang dibangun menggunakan software eclipse versi juno untuk variasi handphone versi jelly beans API 11 sampai lolipop API 19. jenis citra yang dapat dimanipulasi oleh sistem yang akan dibangun adalah citra biner, citra grayscale, citra warna 8 bit, citra warna 16 bit, dan citra warna 24 bit (full color). dan setiap hasil citra yang telah dimanipulasi akan disimpan dengan citra format Bitmap (*.bmp) ataupun JPEG (*.jpeg) dengan jenis citra 24 bit. Citra dengan format Bitmap (*.bmp) tersebut sengaja dipilih karena merupakan jenis format citra yang mampu menunjukan kehalusan gradasi bayangan dan warna dari sebuah citra.

27 Oral Supplementation for Burn Patients: Would YOU Eat That?

Introduction The metabolic demands of burn injury often require that patients consume a high-calorie diet. For patients taking nutrition solely by the oral route, this can be challenging, and supplementation is necessary. The burn team is sometimes frustrated at patients’ inability or perceived unwillingness to consume the daily prescribed supplementation. The purpose of this study was to expose the burn team to the various nutritional supplements offered to patients, and to gain a better understanding of the palatability those supplements. Methods Nine volunteers from the burn team participated in this blinded study: an attending surgeon; surgical residents (2); students (1); therapists (2); and nurses (3). Samples of 9 different nutritional supplements were placed in numbered cups, with the contents known only to the dietitians. The supplements consisted of: “milkshake” consistency drinks (#1,4,6,7, 9); gelatin (#2); frozen custard (#3); clear thin liquid (#5); and pudding (#8). Each participant received one cup of each supplement and was asked to rate the contents on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being tastiest. Mean, trimmed mean, and median taste scores were noted. Data were analyzed by t-test and by regression to assess for differences based on protein content. Results The highest mean and trimmed mean scores (7.3 and 7.4) were given to product #8. Product #1 had slightly lower scores (6.4 and 6.1). Product #9 received the lowest mean score (2.2); the trimmed mean was even lower (1.7). Median scores for the products upheld these results, and most of the remainder of the products received median scores of 4 or 5. T-test analysis showed significant differences in preference for products 1 and 8 versus the rest of the products (with means of 2.2 to 5.3). Regression analysis suggests that taste scores tend to be higher for products with a lower percentage of calories from protein, while the higher protein products fare less well in taste (a decline of roughly 0.47 in mean taste score for every 10-percentage point increase in percentage of calories from protein). Conclusions A blinded taste test of commonly offered supplements revealed that most products are, at best, moderately acceptable (median score 4–5). This suggests two potential changes in the approach to oral supplementation. First, the burn team should be sympathetic to the challenges that patients face with oral supplements, particularly the high-protein versions. Second, the burn team may need to be innovative. Chilling the drinks, offering different flavors, mixing flavors, or mixing with other liquids may help patients to take oral supplements more enthusiastically. Sampling these oral supplements has helped our team to understand better what we ask our patients to do to achieve their nutritional goals.

Can Wavelet Denoising Improve Motor Unit Potential Template Estimation?

Background: Electromyographic (EMG) signals obtained from a contracted muscle contain valuable information on its activity and health status. Much of this information lies in motor unit potentials (MUPs) of its motor units (MUs), collected during the muscle contraction. Hence, accurate estimation of a MUP template for each MU is crucial. Objective: To investigate the possibility of improving MUP template estimation using the wavelet denoising technique. Material and Methods: In this analytical study, several MUP template estimators were developed by combining conventional estimation methods and wavelet denoising techniques. A MUP template was initially estimated using conventional methods such as mean, median, median-trimmed mean, or mode. Thereafter, it was post-processed using the wavelet denoising technique. Results: Evaluation results of the studied estimators using 40 simulated EMG signals with a true template for each constituent MUP train showed that augmented wavelet- based template estimation methods are more reliable than conventional methods. However, on average, wavelet denoising was not much effective. Around 40 MUPs of a MU is sufficient to estimate its MUP template. Conclusion: Although wavelet techniques are effective in EMG signal analysis, here wavelet denoising did not practically improve MUP template estimation. Considering computational simplicity and estimation error, the two methods median and median-trimmed mean are practical estimators that can provide a good estimation of a MUP template for a MU when approximately 40 MUPs are available. Nevertheless, the baseline noise level in the MUP templates estimated using the median-trimmed mean method is slightly lower than that in the templates estimated using the median method.

Behavior of a New Median PCE Measure: A Tale of Tails

We introduce two new measures of trend inflation, a median PCE inflation rate and a median PCE excluding OER inflation rate, and investigate their performance. Our analysis indicates that both perform comparably to other simple trend inflation estimators such as the trimmed-mean PCE. Furthermore, we find that the performance of the median PCE is related to skewness in the distribution of cross-sectional growth rates across categories in the PCE, and our results suggest that the Bowley skewness statistic may be useful in forecasting.