Missing data

[Anonymous]

Hi there,

I noticed that missing data is listed as one of xxM’s estimation features in the User’s Guide. However, after scanning the xxM User’s Guide and Reference Manual, I was unable to find any examples of how missing data can be handled.

I am currently using xxM to build a relatively simple two-level confirmatory factor analysis model. The amount of missing data I have is neglibible (1.2%), and these data are likely missing completely at random, so I am not concerned about using listwise deletion in this instance. However, for future reference, I was wondering if xxM has any built-in features for dealing with missing data (e.g., FIML).

Thanks for building a great open-source R package for multilevel SEM. I have been really enjoying myself while learning how to use it.

Thanks,
James

[Anonymous]

Details of a new programme that will see fresh polytechnic and Institute of Technical Education (ITE) graduates matched to employers to work and train towards industry-recognised certification were released today (Feb 25).

The SkillsFuture Earn and Learn Programme will be a 12- to 18 month-long programme, and funding will be provided to both the individuals and employers who participate.

Individuals will get a sign-on incentive of S$5,000 for Singaporeans and employers will get a grant of up to S$15,000 for each trainee they take in. The programme will be progressively implemented from this year in different sectors and will benefit up to one in three polytechnic and ITE graduates by 2025.

These details were revealed by the SkillsFuture Secretariat today, following the announcement by Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam in his Budget statement delivered on Monday.

The programme is aimed at providing graduates with more opportunities to build on the skills and knowledge they acquired in school, and to better support their transition into the workforce. It is also designed in collaboration with industry to ensure relevance to employers.

Other SkillsFuture initiatives include enhanced internships to strengthen students’ learning in the workplace, such as by better defining learning outcomes and having structured learning activities. The enhancements to the internship curriculum are expected to be extended to half of all ITE courses and two-thirds of all polytechnic courses over the harga kamera nikon d3100 next two years, and for all ITE and polytechnic courses by 2020.

Currently, almost all polytechnic courses and about six in ten ITE courses have an internship component that provides students with exposure to a real work environment. Many of these students undertake internships either in their second or third year and are usually attached to the host companies for an average of three months.

To create more international exposure opportunities for students, IE Singapore will extend the Young Talent Programme (YTP) Harga Kamera DSLR to all polytechnics and the ITE. It will be implemented in the third quarter of this year.

The YTP currently supports Singaporeans from participating local universities, including National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and Singapore Management University, to take on market immersion opportunities such as internships and work-study programmes.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by .

[Anonymous]

When three students from the tiny, one-school district of Kings River Union Elementary came together months ago to create a project for the county’s National History Day event, their idea of the project looked much different than it did Tuesday, on the day of the big presentation.

Jairo Aguilar, 14, Wendy Martinez, 12, and Matthew Dunn, 14, knew they were creating a performance on Cesar Chavez and other leaders who worked alongside him to bring better working conditions to farm workers, but the students didn’t know much about those other leaders — Dolores Huerta and Fred Ross.

Martinez had never before even heard of Fred Ross.

“I knew a little about Dolores and Chavez,” Martinez said after Tuesday’s event. “I didn’t know there was a Fred Ross. I was like, ‘Who’s he?’ ”

Ross was a civil rights advocate and labor leader who helped form the Community Service Organization, which helped form the United Farm Workers. He died in 1992.

Before an audience of more than 100 students, teachers and parents, the three on Tuesday shared their knowledge, through a theatrical performance, on how the three civil rights leaders were able to conjure up a voice and gain rights for farm workers. And the students each walked away with a $500 scholarship.

Patrick Delgado, a Kings River Union sixth-grade teacher and a coach to students at the school participating in the event, said he’s proud of how his students performed.

“Our student population is usually lower income and Hispanic, and to see these students grasp on to a person they’ve heard of in history and to do thorough research — and there is a connection in Mexican-American leadership that they can connect to in their personal lives, all being Mexican-American and all coming from probably an impoverished, very agricultural background — and now these kids can grasp that and do a performance on that,” Delgado said . “It’s a great growth for them.”

Students from 12 schools throughout Tulare County Tuesday presented 70 projects on a range of historical topics at TCOE’s National History Day which took place at Grace Community Church.

The students created documentaries on the life of gay, American politician Harvey Milk, and on South African leader Nelson Mandela. They gave performances and created websites and displays on the Armenian Genocide, Cesar Chavez, Steve Jobs, Helen Keller and more.

Gay Atmajian, a TCOE consultant and a co-coordinator of the event, said National History Day provides students with research skills and also teaches them how to be civically engaged individuals.

“Through history, through looking at any given year, looking at history in light of this, it helps students see where we have come, where we have been, that they have an active choice and they can see where we are going and that they have a role in shaping our world,” Atmajian said.

The National History Day event, nearing its 20th year in the county, provided participants with not just the platform to learn about a range of historical figures and events, but also provided numerous scholarships, provided by the Tulare County Historical Society, ranging from $250 to $500 to students.

At the end of the event, 20 finalists were also given the invitation to participate in the state history day competition happening in Rocklin in May.

Kevin Branco, a history teacher at Tulare’s harga asus zenfone 5 Palo Verde Union Elementary School, coached two students this year on their creation of a website on Steve Jobs, the former and late CEO of Apple.

This is Branco’s 10th year coaching students for the event.

He said it’s great to watch students grow in their knowledge as they work on their projects.

“It’s a great learning opportunity and harga samsung galaxy v neat to watch students grow throughout the year in what they learn as they work on their projects,” Branco said. “They start out knowing so little and by the end, they know so much.”

• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by .

[Anonymous]

If all goes as planned, work could begin by October or November to turn a five-acre vacant lot west of Highway 63 in northeast Visalia into a 36-unit apartment complex for low-income families.

A major step to move forward with the proposed “Visalia Village” development occurred on Monday, when the Visalia City Council tentatively approved awarding Self-Help Enterprises a $1.8 million loan using federal HOME Investment Partnership funding.

That money, provided by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, is distributed to communities to fund projects that include building, buying and rehabilitating affordable housing, along with rental assistance for low-income people.

Visalia normally gets about $300,000 a year in HOME funding, and the money that will be loaned to Self-Help will include unspent dollars along with additional money HUD is expected to award Visalia next year and payments the city will receive from other loans the city made for low-interest down payments for home buyers and mortgages using the federal money, said Rhonda Haynes, a housing specialist for Visalia’s Community Development division.

In December, the city requested proposals on making use of its HOME dollars, and Self-Help — a nonprofit that works to build and rehabilitate affordable homes in eight Valley counties — submitted the only one.

Self-Help, which has built similar, affordable rental units in Goshen, Dinuba and Cutler-Orosi, plans to build a series of four-plex apartments west of Highway 63 and north of Ferguson Avenue.

Of those units, 24 will have two bedrooms, while 12 will have three bedrooms. None will have garages, but they will have carports.

Instead of backyards, Visalia Village will have a central grass area and basketball court for children to play, along with a 3,190-square foot community center which will have computers for tenants to use and will serve as an after-school care site and classroom for adult education curriculum that may include financial management and English-language training.

Monthly rental rates would rang from $323 to $801, depending on the incomes of the families living there. Tenants would have to meet income criteria to live there. For a example, a family of two adults and two children would have to earn less than $21,648 a year, said Betsy McGovern-Garcia, program director over real estate development for Self-Help Enterprises.

“We acknowledge there is a need for affordable housing for working families there [in Visalia], and this site came to our attention, she said.

McGovern-Garcia said the site being just a short walk south of Fairview Elementary School and Fairview Village Park weighed heavily in the decision, as did its proximity of a Tulare County healthcare clinic, a bus stop, two grocery stores — Food 4 Less and Vallarta — and several restaurants and other businesses.

The entire project is expected to cost more than Harga satria fu $8.13 million, with the HOME funds that Visalia has tentatively agreed to loan Self-Help at a 3-percent interest rate covering less than a quarter of that.

Selp-Help plans to invest $532,000 into the Visalia Village project — which it eventually plans to get back from rental fees — while the bulk of the money will come from selling nearly $6t million worth of low-income housing tax credits to private investors who would get those credits taken off their tax bills.

The city’s commitment for the $1.8 million loan is contingent on Self-Help being authorized to sell the tax credits by the California State Treasurer’s Tax Credit Allocation Committee.

Both city and Self-Help officials seem confident that will happen in April or, if that doesn’t happen, in June after a second round of consideration.

Meanwhile, Haynes said that on Monday her department plans to publicly release a draft consolidated action plan on the types of projects Visalia should help fund with its federal HOME dollars.

She said the plan is based on recommendations harga kawasaki ninja collected by city staff during community meetings that included input from Visalia’s Citizens Advisory, North Visalia Advisory and Disability Advocacy committees, and a public hearing on the proposal has been scheduled for the Visalia City Council’s April 6 meeting.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by .

[Author]

Posts