Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Statistical account of Scotland'

Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is one of the most complex, persistent and controversial problems facing the British cattle industry. It is also potentially zoonotic and so has public health implications. The incidence of the disease has been increasing in Great Britain for more than 20 years and is now endemic in southwest regions of the country and occurs sporadically elsewhere. Scotland records very few incidences of bTB and was declared as an Officially bTB free (OTF) region in 2009 for the purposes of cattle trading. However, in order to retain its OTF status Scotland must continue to demonstrate the ability to report low level of disease prevalence whilst maintaining its vigilance to potential new outbreaks. This thesis uses a variety of epidemiological and statistical models to evaluate the ongoing control strategies for bTB in Scottish cattle herds and highlight potential limitations to the current surveillance programmes. In the absence of an established wildlife reservoir, livestock movements are considered the primary mechanism for introduction of bTB into cattle herds. I use movement and bTB data to estimate the within-herd incidence rate for each infected farm in Scotland. The results suggest that this rate varies across farms, and is dependent on the herd size and length of disease exposure. These incidence rates are then used to parameterise a multi-herd dynamic model using stochastic simulations that incorporate multiple disease transmission pathways. With this approach I evaluate the impact of different routine test protocols on the overall simulated epidemics. Based on the model outcome, abattoir surveillance alone is not sufficient to maintain infection at a low constant level. Whilst adapting to more frequent routine testing regime can reduce disease incidence, the sensitivity of the surveillance methods can also have a big impact on the long term stability of the disease prevalence and can act as the main barrier to eradicating the disease from low incidence regions. The single intra-dermal comparative cervical tuberculin (SICCT) test used in the current routine herd surveillance relies on stimulating an immune response and observing delayed hypersensitivity reactions in infected animals. The test suffers highly variable, and often poor, sensitivity with current estimates ranging from 50% to 80%. The lower sensitivities may be associated with early stages of infection, concurrent illness, and farm management conditions as well as the presence of sub-clinically infected carriers that can potentially escape detection. In addition, there was evidence that physiological stress can have a marked effect on the immune responses in animals affected with bTB. I conducted two different types of case-control analyses to investigate the potential effect of stress related events on the outcome of the SICCT test. In the first analysis, a matched design is implemented to examine the effect of recent calving on reactivity to the SICCT. SICCT test positive cattle (cases) were matched with test negative (control) animals within the same farm. By selecting herd-mates (i.e. animals within the same herd at the same time), the study aims to control for space and time. Furthermore, animal age and breed were used as additional selection criteria to control for previous exposure period and potential genetic variation to the reaction of SICCT test outcome. Results from a conditional logistic regression model indicated that animals calved within 60 days prior to test were less likely to respond to the SICCT test in comparison to non-recently calved animals, and that this effect was strongest in the first 2 weeks of the post-partum period. In the second analysis, animals identified with gross pathology at post-mortem (TB-like lesion and/or bacteria culture) and that were SICCT test negative within 60 days prior to slaughter (representing false negative) were compared with confirmed test positives (true positives). Results from multivariable logistic regression model suggested that the probability of missed infection by SICCT test increases with age and male cattle have higher odds of being a false negative compared to females. Repeated skin tests within 60 and 120 days, as well as recent movement and parturition, were all statistically associated with false negative test outcome. Under future surveillance systems, these results could be used to adjust the timings of testing relative to calving, movements and previous test occasions in order to minimise the risks of false negative test results. Alternatively, increasing the threshold for reactor definition in animals under these categories could be considered to complement the poor test sensitivity.

The capercaillie is the largest member of the grouse family extant in Scotland. This species is reported to have become extinct during the 1700s. It is also reported to have been reintroduced to Scotland from Sweden during the 1800s. There have been many assertions made about the underlying causes of the decline of the species; however the specific causal factors remain unknown. The reintroduction of the capercaillie to Scotland in the 1800s is the only successful reintroduction of a grouse species ever to have occurred in the world. The specific factors behind the success of the reintroduction also remain unknown. This thesis examines the extent to which a selection of historical documentary evidence can help to establish both the causes of the 18th century decline of the capercaillie in Scotland and the successes of the 19th century reintroduction. The methodology of this thesis incorporates facets from the fields of both environmental science and history. The methodology includes three steps. The first step involves the selection of a series of potential critical factors that may have been responsible for the decline of the species in the 1700s; these critical factors were selected from the present day understanding of the ecology and the behaviour of the capercaillie. The second step of the methodology includes the surveying of a series of historical documentary sources. From these surveys historical observations of the species were gathered. The historical documentary sources selected for examination in this thesis include what are referred to here as ‘primary historical source material’ and ‘secondary historical source material’. The majority of the primary historical source material was gathered from the hand written manuscripts of the Breadalbane estate, held at the National Archives of Scotland (NAS) and the Atholl estate held at the Blair Castle Charter Room in Blair Atholl. Other select primary historical source material consulted to a lesser extent, due to time constraints, includes the Forfeited Estates (1745) Inventory and the Baron Court Records for Strathspey and Urquhart (1617–1683) from the Grant estate muniments; both held at the NAS. The secondary historical source material was gathered from published and edited literary collections that include historical accounts of the species. The third and final step of the methodology involves the synthesis of both the historical and environmental information in order to establish to what extent the causes of both the decline of the species in the 1700s and success of its reintroduction in the 1800s can be realised. The findings from this thesis assert that the capercaillie was resident in Scotland from, at least, the end of the Medieval. Moving forward from the Middle Ages this thesis presents observations of the capercaillie throughout the historical period. These observations of the capercaillie appear in many different historical accounts. In some instances these observations are fleeting and do not form the main subject of the particular document in question. In other instances accounts of the species are much more detailed and include references to the ecology and behaviour of the bird. The level of detail included in an observation aside, the frequency with which the species is referred to in the sample of historical documents suggests that sections of the Scottish human population were familiar with the species, in various locations and at various times throughout history. By the 17th century the capercaillie is reported as beginning to become rare in some locations while still remaining comparatively abundant in others. The number of instances where the species is referred to as becoming rare in the historical documents increases between the 17th and the 19th centuries. Despite the reported scarceness of the species in Scotland from around the 17th century onwards, the capercaillie is recorded as persisting in Scotland until around the end of the 1700s. By the early 1800s the number of observations of the species in the secondary historical source material increases. All of the observations in the secondary sources from the early 1800s record the absence of the species from localities and regions of Scotland. No new evidence was found in either the primary or secondary historical source material to challenge the supposition that the capercaillie did become extinct in Scotland after 1785. No detailed quantitative data was available for analysis of the decline of the species. Thus, to investigate the extent to which the historical accounts can help explain the specific causal factors of the reported decline, a synthesis of the environmental and historical data was necessary. The findings of this synthesis suggest that the naturally occurring Scottish population of capercaillie probably persisted in the form of a metapopulation. The two hundred years between the 17th and 19th century most likely saw the extinction of capercaillie sub-populations, before the loss of the overall population of capercaillie around 1785. The sample historical documentary evidence alludes to this pattern of local and/or regional extinction of sub-populations. The cause or causes of the extinction of these sub-populations has focussed on five limiting or critical factors known to affect the species today. These five factors are climate change, particularly weather effects associated with the Little Ice Age, habitat loss and deterioration, disturbance, human hunting and predation by species other than humans also contributed to the species’ extinction. The extent to which these critical factors affected each sub-population would have varied between regions of Scotland occupied by the capercaillie in history. This thesis proposes that there was no single or combination of specific critical factors that were ultimately responsible for the decline of the capercaillie in Scotland during the 1700s. In some areas the capercaillie sub-populations would have most likely died out as a result of habitat loss and deterioration and climate change. Whereas in others predation and inbreeding may have been the critical factors responsible for the species’ demise. More detailed information referring to the capercaillie was found in the historical documentary source material for the period post-extinction (i.e. 1800 onwards). Contrary to popular understanding numerous attempts to reintroduce the capercaillie to Scotland were carried out before the Marquis of Breadalbane’s successful programme in 1837. The historical documentary evidence reports early attempts to reintroduce the species to locations such as the Isle of Arran in 1807, on the Duke of Atholl’s estate in 1822 and on the Earl of Mar’s estate in 1824. None of these reintroduction programmes are reported to have been successful in establishing a ‘wild’ population. However, in some instances the captive rearing programmes initiated did bear some fruit and captive reared birds were sent from Dunkeld by the Duke of Atholl to Kenmore and were used in Breadalbane’s successful reintroduction in 1837. The historical documents report two causes for the failure of these early reintroduction attempts. The first is the sudden death of captive birds, most likely as a result of choking due to stress as observed in recent rearing programmes (i.e. Moss 1986). The reintroduced Arran population is reported to have become extinct in this fashion. The second reported cause of failure is predation by species other than man. For example the entire population of birds brought to Scotland by the Earl of Mar were predated when released on his estate. This thesis offers two critical factors as explanations for the remarkable success of the capercaillie’s reintroduction to Scotland in the 19th century. The first is the method by which the reintroduction was carried out; specifically, the re-establishment of a series of capercaillie sub-populations in different regions of Scotland.

Les études d'association à grande échelle sont devenus un outil très performant pour détecter les variants génétiques associés aux maladies. Ce manuscrit de doctorat s'intéresse à plusieurs des aspects clés des nouvelles problématiques informatiques et statistiques qui ont émergé grâce à de telles recherches. Les résultats des études d'association à grande échelle sont critiqués, en partie, à cause du biais induit par la stratification des populations. Nous proposons une étude de comparaison des stratégies qui existent pour prendre en compte ce problème. Leurs avantages et limites sont discutés en s'appuyant sur divers scénarios de structure des populations dans le but de proposer des conseils et indications pratiques. Nous nous intéressons ensuite à l'interférence de la structure des populations dans la recherche génétique. Nous avons développé au cours de cette thèse un nouvel algorithme appelé SHIPS (Spectral Hierarchical clustering for the Inference of Population Structure). Cet algorithme a été appliqué à un ensemble de jeux de données simulés et réels, ainsi que de nombreux autres algorithmes utilisés en pratique à titre de comparaison. Enfin, la question du test multiple dans ces études d'association est abordée à plusieurs niveaux. Nous proposons une présentation générale des méthodes de tests multiples et discutons leur validité pour différents designs d'études. Nous nous concertons ensuite sur l'obtention de résultats interprétables aux niveaux de gènes, ce qui correspond à une problématique de tests multiples avec des tests dépendants. Nous discutons et analysons les différentes approches dédiées à cette fin
Genome-Wide association studies have become powerful tools to detect genetic variants associated with diseases. This PhD thesis focuses on several key aspects of the new computational and methodological problematics that have arisen with such research. The results of Genome-Wide association studies have been questioned, in part because of the bias induced by population stratification. Many stratégies are available to account for population stratification scenarios are highlighted in order to propose pratical guidelines to account for population stratification. We then focus on the inference of population structure that has many applications for genetic research. We have developed and present in this manuscript a new clustering algoritm called Spectral Hierarchical clustering for the Inference of Population Structure (SHIPS). This algorithm in the field to propose a comparison of their performances. Finally, the issue of multiple-testing in Genome-Wide association studies is discussed on several levels. We propose a review of the multiple-testing corrections and discuss their validity for different study settings. We then focus on deriving gene-wise interpretation of the findings that corresponds to multiple-stategy to obtain valid gene-disease association measures

This thesis is an examination of a population genetic database as both a social and scientific entity. Science and social science usually operate in a dichotomy this is a synergy of the two. The thesis examines practices and processes, and reveals how the formation of the Generation Scotland assemblage is the producer of multiple disconnections and connections layered in the science, technology, objects, people and places. The story is based on a multi‐sited ethnography that moves from the medical setting of blood sample and data collection, through the practices and processes of the laboratory, to end up in the much more diffuse settings of computer analysis. The blood sample is transformed into digital genetic data, and then connected to diverse other data for research. It traces the transformation and aggregation of heterogeneous elements which will become fixed in the population genetic database through scientific ordering and relationships which will be rendered immutable by the technology. In the processes described here, people’s bodies, and information about them, are explicitly rendered as research ‘resources’. The thesis contributes to the growing knowledge of population genetic databases, and it is a response to calls from social science to understand better the science and technology that are currently changing the shape of the social world. Disconnections and connections are creating a framework of new referents between health and illness, identity and relationships in a way that rearticulates the body and the population.

Depression is the most common psychiatric disorder and the leading cause of disability worldwide. Despite evidence for a genetic component, the genetic aetiology of this disorder remains elusive. To date, only one association study has identified and replicated risk loci for depression. This thesis focuses on aiding genetic discovery by revisiting the depressed phenotype and developing a quantitative trait, using data from Generation Scotland: The Scottish Family Health Study. These analyses aim to test whether this derived quantitative trait has improved statistical power to identify genetic risk variants for depression, relative to the binary classification of case/control. Measures of genetic covariation were used to evaluate and rank ten measures of mood, personality and cognitive ability as endophenotypes for depression. The highest ranking traits were subjected to principal component analysis, and the first principal component used as a quantitative measure of depression. This composite trait was compared to the binary classification of depression in terms of ability to identify risk loci in a genome-wide association study, and phenotypic variance explained by polygenic profile scores for psychiatric disorders. I also compared the composite trait to the univariate traits in terms of their ability to fulfill the endophenotype criteria as described by Gottesman and Gould, namely: being heritable, genetically and phenotypically correlated with depression, state independent, co-segregating with illness in families, and observed at a higher rate in unaffected relatives than in unrelated controls. Four out of ten traits fulfilled most endophenotype criteria, however, only two traits - neuroticism and the general health questionnaire (a measure of current psychological distress) - consistently ranked highest across all analyses. As such, three composite traits were derived incorporating two, three, or four traits. Association analyses of binary depression, univariate traits and composite traits yielded no genome-wide significant results, with most traits performing equivalently. However, composite traits were more heritable and more highly correlated with depression than their constituent traits, suggesting that analyzing these traits in combination was capturing more of the heritable component of depression. Polygenic scores for psychiatric disorders explained more trait variance for the composite traits than the univariate traits, and depression itself. Overall, whilst the composite traits generally obtained more significant results, they did not identify any further insight into the genetic aetiology of depression. This work therefore provides support for the urgent need to redefine the depressed phenotype based on objective and quantitative measures. This is essential for risk stratification, better diagnoses, novel target identification and improved treatment.

The goal of genetic-based cancer research is often to identify which genes behave differently in cancerous and healthy tissue. This difference in behavior, referred to as differential expression, may lead researchers to more targeted preventative care and treatment. One way to measure the expression of genes is though a process called RNA-Seq, that takes physical tissue samples and maps gene products and fragments in the sample back to the gene that created it, resulting in a large read-count matrix with genes in the rows and a column for each sample. The read-counts for tumor and normal samples are then compared in a process called differential expression analysis. However, normalization of these read-counts is a necessary pre-processing step, in order to account for differences in the read-count values due to non-expression related variables. It is common in recent RNA-Seq normalization methods to also account for gene-level covariates, namely gene length in base pairs and GC-content, the proportion of bases in the gene that are Guanine and Cytosine. Here a colorectal cancer RNA-Seq read-count data set comprised of 30,220 genes and 378 samples is examined. Two of the normalization methods that account for gene length and GC-content, CQN and EDASeq, are extended to account for protein coding status as a third gene-level covariate. The binary nature of protein coding status results in unique computation issues. The results of using the normalized read counts from CQN, EDASeq, and four new normalization methods are used for differential expression analysis via the nonparametric Wilcoxon Rank-Sum Test as well as the lme4 pipeline that produces per-gene models based on a negative binomial distribution. The resulting differential expression results are compared for two genes of interest in colorectal cancer, APC and CTNNB1, both of the WNT signaling pathway.

This thesis examines the construction of forensic medical evidence in penetrative sexual assault cases and the procedures that Forensic Medical Examiners (FMEs) employ in order to ensure the authority of that evidence. Drawing upon interviews and on the texts and artefacts that FMEs use in their work, the thesis employs the concept of “meaning finitism” to analyse how FMEs perform forensic examinations for evidential purposes. The thesis starts with an exploration of how medical practitioners are taught to identify and classify injuries of medico-legal significance, culminating in their being judged “safe” to provide expert testimony by other members of the clinical forensic medical community. The thesis next addresses the construction of what I call the “morphological account”: a set of judgements about the nature of a case based upon a combination of the observed injuries, the FME’s training and their previous experience of cases. While there is considerable agreement amongst practitioners about how to interpret injuries (a result of their training), because the morphological account involves personal judgement, there is also scope for differences of opinion. The thesis therefore explores the methods that FMEs employ to limit the risk of being seen to disagree with one another during trials. The thesis also examines the role that guidelines play in the forensic medical examination. The thesis argues that standardised medical kits and associated guidance documents were originally introduced in the early 1980s in response to sustained criticism of FMEs’ practices, and further developed in the late 1990s and early 2000s with the rise of Evidence-Based Medicine. Kits and guidance documents provide a means for FMEs to legitimate and explain their work to others, particularly during trials: they codify collective practice and provide FMEs with an aide memoire of the requisite procedures, without overly determining or constraining practice. Finally, I will argue that FMEs’ concern to ensure the authority of their evidence may sometimes limit the value of that evidence. Caution over drawing inferences that might be challenged in court, and a concern not to be seen as “prosecution-minded”, commonly leads FME to compose so-called “Neutral Reports” which neither confirm nor deny the complainer’s allegations. As Scottish Procedural Law makes provision for non-contentious evidence to be removed from trial, such neutral reports are likely to be dismissed from consideration.

Experimental psychology is said to be having a reproducibility crisis, marked by a low rate of successful replication. Researchers attempting to respond to the problem lack a framework for consistently interpreting the results of statistical tests, as well as standards for judging the outcomes of replication studies. In this paper I introduce an error-statistical framework for addressing these issues. I demonstrate how the severity requirement (and the associated severity construal of test results) can be used to avoid fallacious inferences that are complicit in the perpetuation of unreliable results. Researchers, I argue, must probe for error beyond the statistical level if they want to support substantive hypotheses. I then suggest how severity reasoning can be used to address standing questions about the interpretation of replication results.
Master of Arts

An exhaustive survey of chromosome numbers presently known in the genus Stachys is reviewed. Their potential usefulness for an infrageneric classification is discussed. Variation in local populations of Stachys. Morphological analysis of a wide range of plants of S. x ambigua from Orkney, Shetland, and the mainland of northern Scotland was undertaken from material grown experimentally at Aberdeen. The analysis revealed 2 biotypes of S. x ambigua in the Northern Isles. a) A widespread biotype present throughout 14 islands of Orkney, the mainland of Orkney and Bettyhill. b) A locally raised restricted biotype at the Bay of Carness on mainland Orkney. A locally raised biotype (c) was found at Loch Meiklie, on mainland Scotland. Shetland S. x ambigua is very close to the widespread biotype and cannot be distinguished from it morphologically. These plants may belong to the same biotype (a). Specimens from the collections made by Borrer and Hooker from Glen Elg and Loch Carron and described in English Botany (1810) overlap in morphology and differ from the 3 biotypes described above. The material used for the original drawing came from Orkney but has not been located, and is presumed to be destroyed. Studies on Stachys of Iraq: Studies of herbarium specimens showed that 20 species of Stachys occur in the mountainous Kurdistan area and Jabal Sinjar of Iraq. One species is new. Two species S. iraqensis Bhattacharjee and S. nephrophylla Rech. f. are reduced to subspecies and varietal rank respectively.

Healthcare professionals such as speech and language therapists are expected to change their practice throughout their career. However, from a practice perspective, there is a lack of knowledge around what practice change is, what it really takes, and why there are different trajectories. Consequently, therapists, managers and commissioners lack empirical evidence on which to base decisions about enabling practice change. In addition, intervention researchers lack basic sociological research around implementation that could inform their research designs, reporting and impact. This case-based sociological inquiry, underpinned by critical realist assumptions, was designed to address this knowledge gap. It includes a two-stage qualitative synthesis of 53 (then 16) studies where speech and language therapists explained the work of their practice in depth, and a primary qualitative study focused on one professional jurisdiction, children with speech sound difficulties (SSD). Forty two speech and language therapists from three NHS areas and independent practice in Scotland participated in individual interviews or self-organised pairs or focus groups to discuss in depth how and why they had changed their practice with these children. A variety of comparative methods were used to detail, understand and explain this particular aspect of the social world. The resulting theory of SSD practice change comprises six configured cases of practice change (Transforming; Redistributing; Venturing; Personalising; Delegating; Refining) emerging from an evolving and modifiable practice context. The work that had happened across four key aspects of this context (Intervention; Candidacy; Caseload; Service) explained what made each case possible, and how practice had come to be one way rather than another. Among its practical applications, the theory could help services plan more realistic practice change. In addition, the inductively developed layered model of SSD intervention change has the potential to contribute to speech and language therapy education as well as methodological discussions around complex interventions.

A complex trait is a trait or disease that is controlled by both genetic and environmental factors, along with their interactions. Trait architecture encompasses the genetic variants and environmental causes of variation in the trait or disease, their effects on the trait or disease and the mechanism by which these factors interact at molecular and organism levels. It is important to understand trait architecture both from a biological viewpoint and a health perspective. In this thesis, I laid emphasis on exploring the influence of familial environmental factors on complex trait architecture alongside the genetic components. I performed a variety of studies to explore the architecture of anthropometric and cardio-metabolic traits, such as height, body mass index, high density lipoprotein content of blood and blood pressure, using a cohort of 20,000 individuals of recent Scottish descent and their phenotype measurements, Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) data and genealogical information. I extended a method of variance component analysis that could simultaneously estimate SNP-associated heritability and total heritability whilst considering familial environmental effects shared among siblings, couples and nuclear family members. I found that most missing heritability could be explained by including closely related individuals in the analysis and accounting for these close relationships; and that, on top of genetics, couple and sibling environmental effects are additional significant contributors to the complex trait variation investigated. Subsequently, I accounted for couple and sibling environmental effects in Genome- Wide Association Study (GWAS) and prediction models. Results demonstrated that by adding additional couple and sibling information, both GWAS performance and prediction accuracy were boosted for most traits investigated, especially for traits related to obesity. Since couple environmental effects as modelled in my study might, in fact, reflect the combined effect of assortative mating and shared couple environment, I explored further the dissection of couple effects according to their origin. I extended assortative mating theory by deriving the expected resemblance between an individual and in-laws of his first-degree relatives. Using the expected resemblance derived, I developed a novel pedigree study which could jointly estimate the heritability and the degree of assortative mating. I have shown in this thesis that, for anthropometric and cardio-metabolic traits, environmental factors shared by siblings and couples seem to have important effects on trait variation and that appropriate modelling of such effects may improve the outcome of genetic analyses and our understanding of the causes of trait variation. My thesis also points out that future studies on exploring trait architecture should not be limited to genetics because environment, as well as mate choice, might be a major contributor to trait variation, although trait architecture varies from trait to trait.

Integrated data analyses are becoming increasingly popular in studies of wild animal populations where two or more separate sources of data contain information about common parameters. Here we develop an integrated population model using abundance and demographic data from a study of common guillemots (Uria aalge) on the Isle of May, southeast Scotland. A state-space model for the count data is supplemented by three demographic time series (productivity and two mark-recapture-recovery (MRR)), enabling the estimation of prebreeder emigration rate - a parameter for which there is no direct observational data, and which is unidentifiable in the separate analysis of MRR data. A Bayesian approach using MCMC provides a flexible and powerful analysis framework. This model is extended to provide predictions of future population trajectories. Adopting random effects models for the survival and productivity parameters, we implement the MCMC algorithm to obtain a posterior sample of the underlying process means and variances (and population sizes) within the study period. Given this sample, we predict future demographic parameters, which in turn allows us to predict future population sizes and obtain the corresponding posterior distribution. Under the assumption that recent, unfavourable conditions persist in the future, we obtain a posterior probability of 70% that there is a population decline of >25% over a 10-year period. Lastly, using MRR data we test for spatial, temporal and age-related correlations in guillemot survival among three widely separated Scottish colonies that have varying overlap in nonbreeding distribution. We show that survival is highly correlated over time for colonies/age classes sharing wintering areas, and essentially uncorrelated for those with separate wintering areas. These results strongly suggest that one or more aspects of winter environment are responsible for spatiotemporal variation in survival of British guillemots, and provide insight into the factors driving multi-population dynamics of the species.

The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of enclosures on total factor productivity in the northeast of Scotland at the end of the eighteenth century. Rent, wage and price data for 49 parishes has been gathered from John Sinclair's twenty volume Statistical Account(1791-1798). Each of the parishes is characterised by the state of enclosure, land classification, market access, and whether or not lime, marl and turnip husbandry were in use. Economic analysis and statistical methods are used to assess the relationship between these variables, rent differentials and total factor productivity. The main findings of this study indicate that there were efficiency gains from enclosure and that those gains accrued to both landlords and to farm workers. These results have important distributional implications, and point to the different experience of rural workers in England and Scotland at this time.

L’Écosse du XVIIIe siècle connaît de grands changements qui seront à l’aune des transformations socio-économiques sous-tendant sa Révolution industrielle. L’historiographie sur le sujet est divisée entre deux visions du développement – nommées pour le bienfait de cette étude traditionnelle et révisionniste – à savoir si ces transformations valident la notion d’une « révolution agraire ». Cette étude propose une recension de ces deux courants et propose d’appliquer leur analyse sur une région circonscrite, l’Aberdeenshire. À l’aide de l’Old Statistical Account, source majeure pour l’étude de l’histoire moderne écossaise, nous tenterons de démontrer que le caractère particulier du développement des régions ne correspond pas à l’application des conclusions nationales. Nous accorderons une attention spéciale à la propriété foncière, à l’impact des enclosures et à la temporalité des changements. De par ses spécificités, et son retard de modernisation agraire et agricole, nous croyons que la région suit le schéma dressé par les historiens révisionnistes, c.-à-d. des changements structurels s’étendant sur un temps long et ne s’inscrivant pas directement dans la période 1755-1815, traditionnellement désignée comme « révolution agraire ». Il s’agirait plutôt d’une adaptation partielle et originale des nouvelles idées mises de l’avant par les protagonistes de la modernisation.
During the eighteenth century, Scotland underwent numerous structural changes that ultimately led to its entry into the Industrial Revolution. Concerning its historiography, there is an ongoing debate between two factions – named for the purpose of this study traditionalists and revisionists – in order to determine the validity of the “Agricultural revolution” notion of development. This study aims to explore both visions and to apply their conclusions to a particular region, in this case Aberdeenshire. Using the Old Statistical Account, one of the major documentary resources concerning Scottish modern history, we will try to demonstrate that the regional experience of development differs from the general assertions applied to Scotland. We will focus on land property, the impact of enclosures and the timeframe of the changes. Owing to its specific characteristics, we believe that the entry of Aberdeenshire into agricultural modernity followed the path of long-term structural changes, as favoured by the writers of the revisionist persuasion. In other words, this region did not experience but more or less adapted the new ideas and techniques to its own particular characteristics.

碩士
國立臺灣大學
電機工程學研究所
101
Privacy of personal information on social networking websites has become an important issue, because when a social networking website account is used by a person other than the owner, all personal data stored on the website can be retrieved, no matter how the owner sets the privacy options. Therefore, this paper proposes a statistical approach with the use of Support Vector Machine (SVM) to detect whether the Facebook account user is the actual owner. By analyzing online browsing behavior features, it is found that the normal user tends to be more active and that the stealthy user prefers to read personal messages.

Prediction intervals are needed in many industrial applications. Frequently in mass production, small subgroups of unknown size with a lifetime behavior differing from the remainder of the population exist. A risk assessment for such a subgroup consists of two steps: i) the estimation of the subgroup size, and ii) the estimation of the lifetime behavior of this subgroup. This thesis covers both steps. An efficient practical method to estimate the size of a subgroup is presented and benchmarked against other methods. A prediction interval procedure which includes prior information in form of a Beta distribution is provided. This scheme is applied to the prediction of binomial and negative binomial counts. The effect of the population size on the prediction of the future number of failures is considered for a Weibull lifetime distribution, whose parameters are estimated from censored field data. Methods to obtain a prediction interval for the future number of failures with unknown sample size are presented. In many applications, failures are reported with a delay. The effects of such a reporting delay on the coverage properties of prediction intervals for the future number of failures are studied. The total failure probability of the two steps can be decomposed as a product probability. One-sided confidence intervals for such a product probability are presented
Vorhersageintervalle werden in vielen industriellen Anwendungen benötigt. In Massenproduktionen entstehen regelmäßig kleine Untergruppen von unbekannter Größer, welche ein anderes Lebensdauerverhalten als die übrige Population besitzen. Eine Risikoeinschätzung für eine solche Untergruppe besteht aus zwei Schritten: i) der Schätzung der Größe dieser Untergruppe und ii) der Schätzung des Lebensdauerverhaltens dieser Untergruppe. Diese Arbeit behandelt diese beiden Schritte. Eine effiziente Methode zur Schätzung der Größe der Untergruppe wird vorgestellt und mit anderen Methoden verglichen. Vorhersageintervalle unter Vorinformation in Form einer Betaverteilung werden dargelegt. Das Schema wird für die Vorhersage binomialer und negativ binomialer Zufallsvariablen angewandt. Der Effekt der Populationsgröße auf die Vorhersage der Anzahl von zukünftigen Ausfällen wird für eine Weibull Verteilung betrachtet, deren Parameter auf Basis von zensierten Felddaten geschätzt werden. Methoden um Vorhersageintervalle bei unbekannter Populationsgröße zu bestimmen werden dargelegt. In vielen Anwendungen werden Ausfälle mit einem Verzug gemeldet. Die Effekte eines solchen Meldeverzugs auf die Überdeckungseigenschaften von Vorhersageintervallen für die Anzahl an zukünftigen Ausfällen werden untersucht. Die Gesamtausfallwahrscheinlichkeit aus den zwei Schritten kann in eine Produktwahrscheinlichkeit zerlegt werden. Einseitige Konfidenzintervalle für eine solche Produktwahrscheinlichkeit werden dargelegt