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Barack the Barbarian? Behind the Latest Obama Comic
If you pause for a moment and look at the life of Barack Obama and his ascension to the presidency of the United States, you bear witness to moments that were uplifting and unprecedented. With no shortage of colorful people in the form of allies, adversaries, and people on the sidelines, Obama's accomplishments have been transformative for his race, his nation, and himself. Taking it all in is hard, but when you try it seems almost… unreal.Just like a comic book about Obama existing in sword & sorcery times, something called, say, Barack The Barbarian: Quest for the Treasure of Stimuli, perhaps. But that comic is very real. Originating out of Obama's home city by way of publisher Devil's Due, the ongoing series is a political satire on the surface but as writer Larry Hama explains, it's more of a "character piece" in sword and sorcery times. Although details are scarce, advance solicitations for the first issue promise a story filled with familiar faces in a distant future where technology is out but politics remain. The series features Obama as well as Sorceress Hilaria, her "demi-god trickster husband" Biil, as well as others that those who lived through the last presidential election season might find familiar. For more, we talked with scribe Larry Hama and DDP publisher Joshua Blaylock. Newsarama: Larry, you're best known for serious military-style writing with work on G.I. Joe and Wolverine. What led you to get involved with DDP's Barack the Barbarian? Larry Hama: Josh Blaylock called me and asked if I was interested in writing Obama The Barbarian. I said, "First off, you should change it to Barack the Barbarian, and second, I'm not interested in writing a Mad Magazine style parody and that it would have to be more in line with the more polemical stuff of Swift, Twain and Voltaire (not that I can pull off anything like they could,) and third, that my own leanings are towards Barack and that would be reflected in what I write-- and Josh said 'fine.'" NRAMA: And how would you describe your leanings towards Barack Obama? LH: Well, I voted for him, and volunteered for the phone banks. I don't think he should let torturers slide, though. NRAMA: Joshua, people may not know this, but DDP is based in Obama's home city of Chicago, Illinois. Did that play at all into your decision to do this? Joshua Blaylock: Not directly, but I think being a Chicago local we've known about the President, and heard more about him, for a long time now. There are newspaper articles with him dating back to the 90s featuring him discussing the exact same kind of agendas he has now. It's nice to see that his goals are genuine and not something just made up for the campaign trail. And, any chance to put Chicago into a comic book we usually do so. Mercy Sparx lives in Chicago (for now at least), and in a bizarre twist of affection we've also obliterated the city more than once. It was decimated in G.I. Joe: America's Elite, terrorized in Kore, and I'm pretty sure we roughed it up in a couple of other books too. NRAMA: Have you followed much the various Barack Obama appearances in comics, and if so, what do you think of the trend leading into this? LH: I haven't read any of them. I don't really read comics. I just look at the pictures. NRAMA: Let's wade into the comic. Plot-wise, what's this story about? LH: Way in the future, after the Second Modern Ice Age, an old hunter is passing on the legends of the past to his grandchildren inside an igloo in Virginia. The facts about the distant murky past have coalesced into legends and historical eras have been compressed together and confused. Everything is infused with magic, heroic destiny, and the drama of epic adventure. In other words, the old man is making stuff up as he goes along to fill in the holes. NRAMA: So how would you describe this Barack the Barbarian character? LH: Cool, conscientious, charismatic, contemplative, and cynosural. NRAMA: Certainly. Who else will be in the book besides Barack the Barbarian? LH: The despot Boosh and his evil vizier in their Elephant Tower, the Old Warrior and his companion Red Sara, and various tricksters, rogues, brigands, demi-mondes, barbermongers, thaumaturges, rampallions, and demonic entities. NRAMA: This goes well beyond standard political satire. What are you thinking when you write this story? LH: I just think of it as sword and sorcery, only the characters look really familiar. It's NOT a lot of hoo-ha and jokes. Also, I'm not much of a plot person. I only care about the characters and making them stand up and walk around and be themselves. NRAMA: It seems this story has a bit of in-jokes such as the "Maddowian Chronicles", referencing MSNBC pundit Rachel Maddow. Will there be much of this? LH: That was the closest I could get to "Nemedian." Robert E. Howard, J.R.R. Tolkien and H.P. Lovecraft all created fictional "histories" to support their alternate universes. I can't string words together with the flair of the aforementioned, nor do I possess their attention to detail, but I do endeavor to prevent the deus ex machina drop from descending from the flies. NRAMA: I have to ask, where did the idea for this come from? JB: I wanted to do a book a looong time ago about the hypothetical first few months of the Obama administration (before it was known if he'd be our President or not). When IDW beat us to the punch with their biographies I figured it was over, plus I wasn't quite sure if there'd be enough demand for it. When I saw those books on CNN and everywhere else, I kicked myself in the nards really, really hard for about a week. We missed the boat. Then the cameos came. And again and again and again, they continued to show the demand. When the Spider-Man appearance was announced, knowing the President's affection for that character, I joked about his other favorite comic, and asked if they'd be doing a cameo as well. That led to having Tim Seeley draw what was to be a one-off gag poster with the Prez as a Frazetta like warrior with Dick Cheney in the background. Then the gears started turning and Sam Wells and I looked at each other and just said that this really needed to be a book. Haters can hate away, but I felt like there was a very unique chance here to do an actual political satire. It could be as crazy as we wanted it to be yet still say something. I think Tim threw out the idea for hiring Larry, or maybe just brought his name up in conversation and the light bulb went off. But that was the clincher. We knew that would bring an element the book needed to make it the real deal. NRAMA: And what kind of response have you received on the local front to doing Barack The Barbarian? JB: The press here has been huge. We not only had an article in The Chicago Tribune, but the third page of the Saturday paper. It was about half of the page. That's what really got the word going in the national and international press. We've been contacting the local retailers making sure they're aware of the PR we've gotten (like SnL), so they're not caught off guard with people walking in off of the street. I think we'll go drop off some copies to the 15 cop cars that are stationed right outside the Obama house at all hours of the day. [laughs]
Twitter activity Tweets by @Newsarama


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ES Collection & Addictcted lines, direct from Barcelona is one of the hottest trends in men's clothing.
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subset: commoncrawl


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If you're a fan of the game of golf -- and there's a good chance you are if you're reading this -- the playing of major championships is like having four, four-day Christmas celebrations per year. This week provides the second such celebration, as the U.S. Open tees off on Thursday at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md.
As is always the case with a major championship, we reached out to our Facebook fans to ask: Who do you think will win the U.S. Open?
With over 300 responses, here's a look at the players who you told us would be contenders. Let's just say I like the chances for any one of these players:
1. Luke Donald. The No. 1 player in the world and the most consistent player in the world for several months. Donald hasn't won a major yet. Is this the week? If he's mistake-free -- which he often is these days -- and the putter is hot, there's a good chance.
Facebook fan quotes:
"LUUUUUUUUUUKKKKEEEEE." -- Richard Wyllie
"Luke Donald... playing very consistent." -- Bob Mackley
"Luke is the leading candidate." -- Ken Bass
2. Dustin Johnson. If there's one thing we've learned about Dustin Johnson after two monumental major collapses in 2010, it's that he doesn't let it get to him. He bounces right back as if nothing happened. That makes him dangerous this week at Congressional.
Facebook fan quotes:
"Dustin Johnson for sure." -- Mitch Smith
"Dustin Johnson! He's out for redemption." -- Zain Nawab
"Would like to see Dustin Johnson win." -- Jamie Roberts
3. Steve Stricker. Stricks is the No. 1 U.S. player in the world rankings right now. Find me one person who wouldn't love to see Stricker put an exclamation point on his brilliant career with a major championship. He deserves at least one, doesn't he?
Facebook fan quote:
"The ever-threatening Stricker." -- David James Peterson
4. Rickie Fowler. Rickie is the only player on this list who has yet to even win a regular PGA Tour event. He's only played in five career major championships and has yet to crack the top 10 off that small sample size. Can he find the magic this week that he found over those last nine holes of the 2010 Ryder Cup? If so, I like his chances.
Facebook fan quotes:
"I say it every tourney -- Rickie Fowler!!!" -- Matt Burnett
"I want Fowler to get his first win; he needs it and so does Puma!" -- Shane Hogel
"I got Tiger... What!?!?!?! He isn't? *pauses* I guess I'd like to see Rickie Fowler win then." -- Josh Kirby
5. Rory McIlroy. How will Rors bounce back from that Masters meltdown? We finally get to see this week. He's already got four top-10 major finishes in his very brief professional career. Look out.
Facebook fan quotes:
"Rory -- it's his chance to win a major." -- Michael Main
"Rory! He's back for redemption! And he's awesome." -- Michelle Schoch
6. Phil Mickelson. Lefty was the overwhelming favorite in this week's poll. As someone pointed out, it's hard to believe Phil hasn't won a U.S. Open. Over the course of his illustrious career, he's posted eight top 10s, including FIVE runner-up or co-runner-up finishes. Is this finally the week?
Facebook fan quotes:
"Phil will phinally phinish phirst!" -- Sue Essig Null
"I'm pulling for Phil!!" -- Donald Webster
"I think it's to close to call at this point. I would love to see Phil take this home though!" -- Robert Julie Kimbell
"Phil for the win!" -- Billy Tha Rebel McCreary
"Phil and I say this because this course is designed for the golfer who can hit it high and shape the ball, and excel around the greens... That's what Phil does best. If he hits fairways then he is definitely in contention." -- Michael Cavanah
"Let's go Phil!" -- Mike Wilkinson
"Phil, can't believe he hasn't won this tournament." -- Rachael A. Wanamaker
7. Adam Scott. All told, Scott has five top-10 finishes at majors, highlighted by a tie for second at the Masters in April. Will his loaned caddie -- Steve Williams -- get him over the top this week?
Facebook fan quotes:
"Adam Scott the new guy on the bag will make the difference." -- Richard Spencer Churchill
"Having Stevie on the bag may help Adam Scott." -- Stephen MacLeod
"I'm gonna have to say Adam Scott. He has been pretty good in the past majors and with Steve Williams as a caddy he should be a threat to win." -- Austin Childress
8. Matt Kuchar. Supplanted by Steve Stricker as the No. 1 U.S. player in the world ranking just a couple of weeks ago, Kuchar has been outstanding for the last couple of years. He hasn't missed a cut in a major since 2009 and he tied for sixth and tied for 10th in the 2010 U.S. Open and PGA Championship, respectively.
Facebook fan quote:
"Kuchar is quietly been good. Keep an eye on him." -- Jay Dee
9. Bubba Watson. Bubba was the runner-up in a playoff at the PGA Championship last summer. His only other top-10 finish in a major was a tie for fifth at the 2007 U.S. Open. However, he's never had more confidence than he will this week thanks to two early-season wins already.
Facebook fan quotes:
"I would love to see Bubba Watson hoist the trophy... Rickie Fowler is my second pick." -- Christian Morlan
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Try Pocket Planes, the internet said. It's fun, they said. It's by the guys who made Tiny Tower, they said. Well, you know what, everyone who told me anything about this game over the weekend, fuck you.
An interesting refinement on the "click stuff every now and then, wait a bit longer then click some more" genre of iPhone games — otherwise known as the "pay us real money and we'll speed things up" genre — Pocket Planes puts you in charge of a small airline.
You pick up passengers, drop them off, open airports and get new planes. That's it. Problem lies in the "just one more landing" compulsion it breeds, probably down to the fact that, like Tiny Tower, it hooks you into a rubbish game by covering it with tiny little pixel humans.
And don't get me started on the "clan" structure built into the thing that lets you unlock stuff like spaceships.
It's out now on iPhone, and is coming very soon to Android.
Pocket Planes [App Store]


text: In order to help with updates of the phpMyAdmin package for ISPconfig 2 [ see http://www.howtoforge.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47423 ] I have created a Bash shell script which downloads the phpMyAdmin source code, includes the files as provided by jnsc, and creates the .pkg file. The script is available at http://wox.at/as/_/_media/bash:phpmyadmin-pkg-creator.sh It has not been tested much, however it should run on any Debian based system since this is what I use myself. It requires at least wget, tar, and zip. Use at your own risk! And I mean the script and the resulting .pkg files! The phpmyadmin-3.4.2.pkg I have just created with my script is temporarily available at http://share.wox.at/files/3e3fWv6/phpmyadmin-3.4.2.pkg (will be automatically removed in 2 weeks). HTH.


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text: Nobody is perfect. And the same applies to companies. But as customers become increasingly dependent upon the cloud for applications and access to their data, perfection is exactly what those customers demand. Here are a few examples where the wheels of perfection fell off the cart, often leaving users with little else to do but express their rage on the Internet.


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Washi-Tape has become my newest favorite craft supply. What is Washi-Tape? Washi-Tape comes from Japan. It is a paper tape that comes in a variety of colors, patterns and widths.
It is easily torn by hand and the feature I love the most is that it is removable.
It took me three visits to three different Target Stores to find these rolls. The price for a 4 roll package is $4.00. I was able to find three color schemes; blue/purple, pink/red and green/turquoise.
I decided to put my newly acquired crafty washi-tape to good use. My office's clipboard clearly needed a little brightening and Washi-Tape was the perfect media to bring my old clipboard to life.
My clipboard design's inspiration came from a cute gift bag I stumbled upon at Target. The Owl print on this bag was all I needed to start my creative thought process. Let's begin....
- Washi-Tape
- Clipboard
- Templates, Graphics
- Paint for Clipboard Clamp. I found a Martha Stewart Multi-Surface Satin Acrylic Paint in "Wild Blueberry" at Michaels.
- Small Paint Brush
- Clear Contact Paper
- Tracing Paper. I used Dritz Tracing Paper. A Red sheet works best to see image through.
- Mod Podge and Foam Brush
- Scissors
- Paint Clipboard Clamp. Give it 2 coats. Let Dry.
- Start adding Washi-Tape across the Clipboard in any direction you choose. I decided to used the same color scheme adding strips of solid and patterned pieces of tape.
- I photocopied the bag's image to make it easier to transfer it onto the contact paper.
- Cut a piece of Clear Contact paper to fit your template or graphic.
- Arrange tracing layers together. With the back side of the contact paper facing up, lay Tracing Paper on top. Finally lay the template or graphic as the final layer. Begin tracing your image.
- Turn traced contact paper over and tape it over a blank sheet of paper. This method will allow you to see the traced image through while applying the Washi-Tape.
- Start applying the Washi-Tape in any direction covering the entire image.
- Cut images following the traced outlines.
- Remove backing from Contact Paper images and apply onto clipboard. For additional embellishments, I made two butterflies following the same method used on the main image. Go HERE to find the cute Butterfly clip art I added to my design.
- My clipboard design has two layers of Washi-Tape. Therefore, I brushed a thin layer of Mod Podge over entire clipboard to protect the design.
Have a Hoot of a Day!!


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SBA Lenders Serving South Carolina
Looking for an SBA lender? Check out our office's comprehensive listing of the lending institutions - both in-state and out-of-state - that serve South Carolina. The listing also includes contact information, geographic areas and industries served, SBA certifications and even loan sizes for each lender.
The listing is available as a PDF document below. For more information, contact our district office. For lender information that is more specific to your area, we recommend contacting your local SCORE or Small Business Development Center office.
(Note to lenders: If your institution is missing from this list or your information needs to be updated, please contact Gail Newton at email@example.com and Anna Huntley at firstname.lastname@example.com.)


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High level shelving, 18'10" long
£169.00 each
This high level thermally modified slatted shelving provides extra growing space above the staging. The shelving is 10"wide (250mm) and manufactured to the same length as the internal walls to ensure a neat fit. The picture shows a painted high level shelf in a painted greenhouse.
Please use the scroll bar on the right to see all the information →


text:
LJUBLJANA (Reuters) - The Slovenian Olympic Committee said on Wednesday it had received a letter containing a terrorist threat ahead of the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.
"The committee has received a terrorist threat letter written in Russian. We've had it translated and have forwarded it to the police," spokesman Brane Dmitrovic told Reuters.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Hungarian Olympic Committee also said it had received a letter containing a terrorist threat and that it had heard of similar threats to other countries.
Reporting by Almir Demirovic; writing by Zoran Radosavljevic; Editing by Kevin Liffey


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TALLAHASSEE -- Florida's new legislative leaders handed out hefty raises and salaries to many of their top staff members and newly hired talent even as thousands of state workers went for a sixth year without a bump in pay.
Senate President Don Gaetz and House Speaker Will Weatherford, who were sworn in last month, immediately hired new chiefs of staff and paid them more than taxpayers pay state Cabinet officials.
They are paying 62 top policy advisors and staff directors more than $100,000 a year. And they gave salary increases totaling $252,000 to their 17 highest-paid employees.
Giving the most in raises was Gaetz, R-Niceville, who promoted 10 people who were already making more than $100,000 a year in state jobs. The biggest promotion went to his top aide, Chris Clark, whose salary jumped from $77,000 as an aide in Gaetz's legislative office to $150,000 as the Senate president's chief of staff.
Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, gave more-modest pay increases to his highest-earning staffers. Seven employees, who earned more than $100,000, got raises totaling $52,000.
State workers, by contrast, have not seen a pay raise in six years. Last year, the Legislature also tapped into their take-home pay by deducting 3percent to pay the annual contribution to the Florida Retirement System. The result is a 15 percent drop in earning power for most state workers, labor unions say.


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So how do you get away with things like that just sitting on the carpet? My wife would have a fit and just about kill me if I did anything that awful to her hardwood floors.
Ah, the key is to each have your own office. Your office, my office. What goes on in your office, stays in your office. Bob
He could be like we were when first married! Put all our money in buying the house then didn't have any furniture a couple of years! Our first living room stuff was a couch and chair set for $60 bucks (naugahyde) too!Clammer
How long do I have to think about it because of the hassle? Or how long to remember what all that crap does?
Kevin,Can scannercast be used to stream other feeds? I have a marine radio (vhf) that monitors channel 16 and would like to host it. I currently use oddcast to stream my weather radio. Thanks.....
Can someone explain how u do it on a laptop. I've read the instructions on weather underground but can't figure it out. I got the cable.
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XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a turn based video game where the player choses among actions (for example shooting an alien) that are labeled with a declared probability of success.
Image copyright Firaxis Games
A lot of gamers, after missing a 80% chance of success shot, start asking if the game's pseudo random number generator is fair. Is the game really rolling the dice as stated, or is it cheating? Of course the matching question is: are player memories at all fair; would they remember the other 4 out of 5 times they made such a shot?
This article is intended as an introduction to the methods you would use to test such a question (be it in a video game, in science, or in a business application such as measuring advertisement conversion). There are already some interesting articles on collecting and analyzing XCOM data and finding and characterizing the actual pseudo random generator code in the game, and discussing the importance of repeatable pseudo-random results. But we want to add a discussion pointed a bit more at analysis technique in general. We emphasize methods that are efficient in their use of data. This is a statistical term meaning that a maximal amount of learning is gained from the data. In particular we do not recommend data binning as a first choice for analysis as it cuts down on sample size and thus is not the most efficient estimation technique.


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The World Wide Web Celebrates its 30th Birthday
Clip: Season 46 | 2m 39s
The World Wide Web revolutionized the way we use the internet. Before it existed, the internet was mostly used by scientists and engineers to share information.
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BWI Holdings, Inc. Fundamental Company Report Including Financial, SWOT, Competitors and Industry Analysis
- The report contains detailed information about BWI Holdings, Inc. that gives an unrivalled in-depth knowledge about internal business-environment of the company: data about the owners, senior executives, locations, subsidiaries, markets, products, and company history.
- Another part of the report is a SWOT-analysis carried out for BWI Holdings, Inc.. It involves specifying the objective of the company's business and identifies the different factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieving that objective. SWOT-analysis helps to understand company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and possible threats against it.
- The BWI Holdings, Inc. financial analysis covers the income statement and ratio trend-charts with balance sheets and cash flows presented on an annual and quarterly basis. The report outlines the main financial ratios pertaining to profitability, margin analysis, asset turnover, credit ratios, and company's long-term solvency. This sort of company's information will assist and strengthen your company's decision-making processes.
- In the part that describes BWI Holdings, Inc. competitors and the industry in whole, the information about company's financial ratios is compared to those of its competitors and to the industry. The unique analysis of the market and company's competitors along with detailed information about the internal and external factors affecting the relevant industry will help to manage your business environment. Your company's business and sales activities will be boosted by gaining an insight into your competitors' businesses.
- Also the report provides relevant news, an analysis of PR-activity, and stock price movements. The latter are correlated with pertinent news and press releases, and annual and quarterly forecasts are given by a variety of experts and market research firms. Such information creates your awareness about principal trends of BWI Holdings, Inc. business.
About BWI Holdings, Inc.
BWI Holdings, Inc. provides non-hazardous waste collection, transfer, recycling, and disposal services. The company also provides support to the construction industry, such as fence rentals, sanitary facility rentals, bin rentals, hydrovac, and water hauling. It operates primarily in Alberta, Canada.
The company conducts various waste management operations in Calgary, Edmonton, Edson, Red Deer, and surrounding areas in the province of Alberta, Canada. It also operates in water reclamation and industrial fencing.
BWI Holdings, Inc. was founded in 2001.
The above Company Fundamental Report is a half-ready report and contents are subject to change.
It means that we have all necessary data in our database to prepare the report but need 2-3 days to complete it. During this time we are also updating the report with respect to the current moment. So, you can get all the most recent data available for the same price. Please note that preparation of additional types of analyses requires extra time.
1.1. Key facts
1.2. Financial Performance
1.3. Key Executives
1.4. Ownership and Major Holders
1.5. Company History
2.1. Business Description
2.2. Major Products and Services
2.3. Markets and Sales Activities
2.4. Locations, Subsidiaries, Operating Units
3.1. Overview
3.2. Strengths
3.3. Weaknesses
3.4. Opportunities
3.5. Threats
4.1. Financial Statements
4.1.1. Income Statement
4.1.2. Balance Sheet
4.1.3. Cash Flow
4.2. Financial Ratios
4.2.1. Profitability
4.2.2. Margin Analysis
4.2.3. Asset Turnover
4.2.4. Credit Ratios
4.2.5. Long-Term Solvency
4.2.6. Growth Over Prior Year
4.2.7. Financial Ratios Charts
4.3. Stock Market Snapshot
5.1. BWI Holdings, Inc. Direct Competitors
5.2. Comparison of BWI Holdings, Inc. and Direct Competitors Financial Ratios
5.3. Comparison of BWI Holdings, Inc. and Direct Competitors Stock Charts
5.4. BWI Holdings, Inc. Industry Analysis
5.4.1. Industry Industry Snapshot
5.4.2. BWI Holdings, Inc. Industry Position Analysis
6.1. News & PR Activity Analysis
6.2. IR Corporate News
6.3. Marketing News
6.4. Corporate Events
7.1. Experts Opinion
7.2. Experts Estimates
9.1. Political Factors
9.2. Economic Factors
9.3. Social Factors
9.4. Technological Factors
9.5. Environmental Factors
9.6. Legal Factors
10.1. Internal Factor Evaluation Matrix
10.2. External Factor Evaluation Matrix
10.3. Internal External Matrix
BWI Holdings, Inc. Annual Revenues in Comparison with Cost of Goods Sold and Gross Profit
Profit Margin Chart
Operating Margin Chart
Return on Equity (ROE) Chart
Return on Assets (ROA) Chart
Debt to Equity Chart
Current Ratio Chart
BWI Holdings, Inc. 1-year Stock Charts
BWI Holdings, Inc. 5-year Stock Charts
BWI Holdings, Inc. vs. Main Indexes 1-year Stock Chart
BWI Holdings, Inc. vs. Direct Competitors 1-year Stock Charts
BWI Holdings, Inc. Article Density Chart
1 – Data availability depends on company's security policy.
2 – These sections are available only when you purchase a report with appropriate additional types of analyses.
The complete financial data is available for publicly traded companies.
BWI Holdings, Inc. Key Facts
Management Effectiveness
Income Statement Key Figures
Balance Sheet Key Figures
Cash Flow Statement Key Figures
Financial Performance Abbreviation Guide
BWI Holdings, Inc. Key Executives
Key Executives Biographies1
Key Executives Compensations1
BWI Holdings, Inc. Major Shareholders
BWI Holdings, Inc. History
BWI Holdings, Inc. Products
Revenues by Segment
Revenues by Region
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SWOT Analysis
SWOT, which stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, is an analytical framework that identifies the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable for a company.
Enhanced SWOT Analysis
Enhanced SWOT is a 3×3 grid that arranges strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats into one scheme:
- How to use the strengths to take advantage of the opportunities?
- How to use the strengths to reduce likelihood and impact of the threats?
- How to overcome the weaknesses that obstruct taking advantage of the opportunities?
- How to overcome the weaknesses that can make the threats a reality?
Upon answering these questions a company can develop a project plan to improve its business performance.
PESTEL Analysis
PESTEL (also termed as PESTLE) is an ideal tool to strategically analyze what influence different outside factors – political, economic, sociocultural, technological, environmental and legal – exert on a business to later chart its long term targets.
Being part of the external analysis when carrying out a strategic assessment or performing a market study, PESTEL gives an overview of diverse macro-environmental factors that any company should thoughtfully consider. By perceiving these outside environments, businesses can maximally benefit from the opportunities while minimizing the threats to the organization.
Key Factors Examined by PESTEL Analysis:
- Political – What opportunities and pressures are brought by political bodies and what is the degree of public regulations' impact on the business?
- Economic – What economic policies, trends and structures are expected to affect the organization, what is this influence's degree?
- Sociological – What cultural and societal aspects will work upon the demand for the business's products and operations?
- Technological – What impact do the technological aspects, innovations, incentives and barriers have on the organization?
- Environmental – What environmental and ecological facets, both locally and farther afield, are likely to predetermine the business?
- Legal – What laws and legislation will exert influence on the style the business is carried out?
IFE, EFE, IE Matrices
The Internal Factor Evaluation matrix (IFE matrix) is a strategic management tool helping audit or evaluate major weaknesses and strengths in a business's functional areas. In addition, IFE matrix serves as a basis for identifying and assessing relationships amongst those areas. The IFE matrix is utilised in strategy formulation.
The External Factor Evaluation matrix (EFE matrix) is a tool of strategic management that is typically utilised to assess current market conditions. It is an ideal instrument for visualising and prioritising the threats and opportunities a firm is facing.
The essential difference between the above mentioned matrices lies in the type of factors incorporated in the model; whilst the latter is engaged in internal factors, the former deals exceptionally with external factors – those exposed to social, political, economic, legal, etc. external forces.
Being a continuation of the EFE matrix and IFE matrix models, the Internal External matrix (IE matrix) rests upon an investigation of external and internal business factors integrated into one suggestive model.
Porter Five Forces Analysis
The Porter's five forces analysis studies the industry of operation and helps the company find new sources of competitive advantage. The analysis surveys an industry through five major questions:
- What composes a threat of substitute products and services?
- Is there a threat of new competitors entering the market?
- What is the intensity of competitive rivalry?
- How big is the bargaining power of buyers?
- How significant is the bargaining power of suppliers?
VRIO Analysis
VRIO stands for Value, Rarity, Imitability, Organization. This analysis helps to evaluate all company's resources and capabilities and bring them together into one aggregate table that includes:
- Tangible resources
- Financial
- Physical
- Technological
- Organizational
- Intangible resources
- Human
- Innovation and Creativity
- Reputation
- Organizational capabilities
The result of the analysis gives a clear picture of company's competitive and economic implications, answering the questions if the resources mentioned above are:
- Valuable?
- Rare?
- Costly to imitate?
- Organized properly?


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Underlying normality and polychoric c...
Mplus Discussion
Categorical Data Modeling
Michael Bohlig
posted on Tuesday, March 28, 2000 - 6:26 am
Muthen (1993) indicates that LISCOMP could test the underlying normality in conjunction with polychoric correlations (p. 218). Is such a test available in Mplus? If so, how does one request such a test? Thanks for your assistance.
Muthen, B.O. (1993). Goodness of Fit with categorical and other nonnormal variables (pp. 205-234). In Bollen & Long (Eds.) Testing Structural Equation Models. Newbury Park: Sage
posted on Tuesday, March 28, 2000 - 7:52 am
No, this test is not included in Mplus. I have found that it is hard to draw conclusions from the multitude of such tests obtained with many variables.
Svend Kreiner
posted on Tuesday, May 16, 2000 - 5:44 am
Despite the well-known problems with summarizing information from multiple testing it would be nice to have some indication of whether or not the assumption of underlying normality seems to be adequate.
Is there any way that we can get Mplus to show us the tables from which the polychoric correlations have been calculated and the fitted tables corresponding to the estimated thressholds and correlation coefficients?
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Tuesday, May 16, 2000 - 7:33 am
This information is not currently printed in Mplus. I will add it to our list of suggestions for future improvements.
posted on Thursday, July 11, 2002 - 7:08 am
Is it fair to say that MPLUS uses Generalized Least Squares (GLS) methods to estimate factor loadings in the case of factor analysis with binary variables? As indicated in Muthen (1989) and Mislevy (1986).
posted on Monday, July 15, 2002 - 2:51 pm
Short answer, Yes. Long answer follows. The GLS estimator discussed in Muthen (1978, 1984, 1989) and Mislevy (1986) is called WLS in Mplus. A newer weighted least squares version is called WLSMV and is the default in Mplus. Technically speaking, WLSMV is not a GLS estimator since it is customary to use the "G" (generalized) to mean that the weight matrix is based on an estimate of the asymptotic covariance matrix of the sample quantities analyzed. WLSMV uses a diagonal weight matrix which is not the asymptotic matrix. For WLSMV the term weighted least squares estimator can be used.
Andreas Oranje
posted on Friday, July 26, 2002 - 9:18 am
Are the polychorics in Mplus computed the same way as in Prelis? I.e.: is Olsson's 1979 ML Estimation used? If so, are the thresholds computed from the marginals or are parameters estimated simultaneously?
posted on Friday, July 26, 2002 - 10:06 am
Yes, they are computed as in Olsson's article. The thresholds are computed from the univariate marginals, not from bivariate information.
Svend Kreiner
posted on Monday, September 09, 2002 - 5:50 am
The chi squared model test of fit for categorical y variables is not discussed in the user's guide? Could you give me a reference?
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Monday, September 09, 2002 - 8:39 am
Following is the reference for the chi-square test of fit when one or more dependent variables is categorical. You can request the paper from Bengt by emailing him at
Muthén, B., du Toit, S.H.C., & Spisic, D. (1997). Robust inference using weighted least squares and quadratic estimating equations in latent variable modeling with categorical and continuous outcomes. Accepted for publication in Psychometrika. (#75)
You can find reference to this paper on page 357 of the Mplus User's Guide.
Annarita Roscino
posted on Tuesday, December 03, 2002 - 11:33 am
hi. I read the paper 'Testing the assumption underlying tetrachoric correlation', by Muthén & Hofacker in Psychometrica(53). I would like to know the next developments. ie
testing the same assumption wheter latent are not normal, or for the polychoric, and so on. Thank you
posted on Tuesday, December 03, 2002 - 7:51 pm
For the polychoric correlation, you can test underlying normality from a 2-way table since you have an over-identified model. The triplet testing is only necessary for binary items.
I am not sure I understand your question about next developments. If you mean what to do when rejecting normality, you might want to take a look at the article:
Muthén, B. (1993). Goodness of fit with categorical and other non-normal variables. In K. A. Bollen, & J. S. Long (Eds.), Testing Structural Equation Models (pp. 205-243). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. (#45
posted on Monday, August 18, 2003 - 8:51 am
The discussion under this rubric gets into the question of whether polychoric and related techniques can be used only when the categorical outcomes are truly cut-off continuous ones, so that there are underlying continuous latent variable distributions. This question and surrounding misunderstandings come up about once a year on SEMNET. Now and then I try to clarify the misunderstandings but since they are repeated in the literature, new researchers are misled - so I'll offer an attempt at a clarification again. Clarification is also needed regarding the related SEMNET comments about "Satorra-Bentler corrections" and tests for multivariate normality that have come up in the discussion.
In short, the polychoric techniques for categorical data do not necessitate underlying continuous latent variables behind the outcomes, not even for "true dichotomies". Here is why. When analyzing categorical outcomes, SEMnetters are typically interested in a factor analysis model or an SEM, so consider for example a factor model with categorical outcomes (the same argument can be made using the example of a path analysis model with observed covariates replacing the factors). The confusion arises because there are two equivalent formulations of this model, the IRT (Item Response Theory) formulation and the underlying continuous latent variable formulation. In both cases, the factors are typically specified as normally distributed. The IRT model does not invoke the notion of a categorized underlying continuous latent variable, but merely describes the regression of each item on the factors using a regular probit or logit regression model. In contrast, the underlying continuous latent variable formulation adds to the factor specification the specification of a residual ("measurement error") that is normal or logistic. The sum of the factors and the residual is the underlying continuous latent variable for each outcome. The fact is that the IRT model amounts to the same as assuming underlying continuous latent variables behind the categorical outcomes. The two model formulations are statistically equivalent. The same item probability as in IRT is generated by the underlying continuous latent variable exceeding a threshold. Since the two model formulations are the same, this shows that no assumptions about "true" underlying continua are needed. This is true even when considering events like death - a truly non-equivocal state. If you believe that a factor such as disease severity influences the probability of death as in the IRT probit/logit regression, then this can equivalently be seen as the death item having an underlying continuous latent variable (propensity to die, or "frailty" as survival analysts would say).
This paragraph may be skipped for those less technically interested. One may raise the question of why in IRT there is typically no discussion of underlying normality and polychoric (or tetrachoric correlations). I think this is because IRT uses maximum-likelihood estimation in contrast to the limited-information (WLS) estimators connected with polychorics. The focus on the second-order moment estimation with polychorics as opposed to regular correlations ("phi coefficients") is what raises the question. Ironically, the two types of estimators give very similar results. It follows then that a more pointed question than the existence of underlying continuous latent variables is if the application warrants the specification of the factors being normally distributed (something that can be studied using e.g. finite mixture, i.e. latent class, modeling).
Satorra-Bentler corrections are good for giving better inference, i.e. better chi-square tests of overall model fit, but assume that linear models for continuous outcomes are relevant. When data are categorical and strongly non-normal (e.g. with strong floor/ceiling effects), the corrections are not sufficient because the parameter estimates themselves are wrong due to the linearity assumptions being off. Also, multivariate normality testing is not very useful when data are categorical because non-normality is a foregone conclusion.
More technical aspects of categorical outcomes modeling are discussed in Mplus Web Note #4 at www.statmodel.com. For an early article, see
Muthén, B., & Kaplan D. (1985). A comparison of some methodologies for the factor analysis of non-normal Likert variables. British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, 38, 171-189.
Bengt Muthen
posted on Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 7:54 am
How do you test the significance of tetrachoric/ biserial correlations in m-plus?
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 9:39 am
If you ask for TYPE=BASIC, you will get the estimates of the correlations and their standard errors. You can take the ratio of the estimate to the standard error to determine significance which is distributed approximately as a z-score.
posted on Saturday, October 25, 2003 - 11:53 am
Drawing from the B Muthen posting on August 18, 2003 and the recent publication on IRT & SEM by Glockner-Rist & Hoijtink in the SEM journal, the information shows how IRT & SEM are equivalent when analyzing categorical variables.
When using CVM, many books andarticles state that the assumption of underlying normality is needed to analyze categorical variables.
Can WLSMV & WLS can be used when no assumption of underlying normality is made (as with an IRT case)?
Is the requirement of underlying normality tied to CVM or the estimation technique?
posted on Saturday, October 25, 2003 - 12:34 pm
It follows from my August 18 posting above that if IRT is used with the standard assumption of normally distributed factor(s), then underlying normality (of the underlying latent response variable y*) essentially holds as well. This is because y* is a weighted sum of the factor(s) and the residual and the residual is either assumed normal or logistic (which is close to normal) in both CVM and IRT - so this weighted sum is (close to) normal. If the factor is not normal, underlying normality doesn't hold. The underlying normality assumption is tied to the estimation technique (limited-information weighted least squares), but it follows that the same can be said about maximum likelihood for IRT when you apply the standard assumption of factor normality. Note that Mplus allows the more relaxed assumption of conditional normality of the factor given covariates. Note also that the forthcoming Mplus Version 3 has maximum likelihood estimation just like IRT (except no guessing parameters yet).
posted on Sunday, April 04, 2004 - 4:13 am
Hello Drs Muthen,
Following up on the above thread about underlying normality of latent response variables, may I ask the following: (I hope it's not too long!)
In a recent paper in Educ + Psych Measurement by Greer, Dunlap and Beatty (Dec 2003, p931-950), they examine by monte carlo some situations using tetrachoric correlations where the underlying response variables are skewed, but are transformable to normal distributions (ie they are log normal in their simulations). They then show emprically that the tetrachoric correlations estimate the correlation between the *normal-transformed* underlying response variables. That is, tetrachorics do not estimate the correlation between the skewed underlying response variables themselves, but rather the correlations after transformation to normality of these variables.
Is the following logic concerning categorical response variables in SEM (eg CFA, EFA) correct?
1. There exist monotone transformations to normality of the latent underlying response variables, and it is these transformed variables that have structure defined by SEM involving latent factors and residual terms (which are assumed to be normally distributed).
2. Therefore the tetrachoric correlations based on the observed categorical response variables then estimate the correlations of the normally distributed transformed underlying response variables.
3. Therefore if the transformation(s) to normality of underlying response variables are monotonic, the probit relationship between observed categorical responses and underlying response variables (on their natural scale) would then also hold for the normal-transformed underlying response variables, ie Pr(Y>a) = Pr(g(Y)>g(a)), for a monotone function g() translating Y to normality, where Y is the "natural" scale of the underlying response variable, and a is the threshold on the "natural" scale.
4. We proceed as usual, and obtain estimates of factor structure on the normal-transformed scale.
Conclusion - the normality of the underlying response variables themselves is therefore NOT required for (eg) CFA/EFA. All that is needed is the assumption of monotone transformation to normality, which (I think) is OK for any unimodal distribution.
A problem may be interpretation of results of the latent structure on the transformed scale?
Also - would extensions to ordinal scales be fairly automatic? (as it would seem to me)
I hope these questions make sense, as there are sizable ramifications for robustness if the removal of the assumption of underlying response variable normality is valid!
posted on Sunday, April 04, 2004 - 5:36 am
Three points come to mind. First, I need to be convinced that any bivariate distribution can be transformed into a bivariate normal distribution. Note that a univariate transformation is not sufficient. Second, a substantively interpretable model with simple (say linear) relationships may exist for underlying correlations corresponding to non-normal distributions, not normal ones, in which case transformations would make those relationships nonlinear and perhaps difficult to interprete. Third, if there is substantive reason to want to investigate non-normal distributions, a non-parametric representation of latent variables can be made using maximum-likelihood mixture modeling (see ex7.26 in the User's Guide of Mplus Version 3).
posted on Wednesday, May 12, 2004 - 10:48 am
I recently used Mplus to test a model based on 29 observed variables. Because the data for the observed variables were responses to a 5-pt Likert scale, I was recommended to use Mplus and identify the variables as CATEGORICAL. Apparently this would allow for polychoric calculations? I emailed Mplus Help for an explanation of what "polychoric" is or does but was told to look at the website. But I still seem to be missing something. Although the term polychoric appears above, everyone seems to assume we all know what it means or what it does. I could really use a very basic explanation of what needs to occur if your data is categorical and why? THANKS!
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Wednesday, May 12, 2004 - 11:34 am
Polychoric correlations are a type of correlation between ordered categorical variables. Tetrachoric correlations are a type of correlation beteen binary variables. Pearson correlations are a type of correlation between continuous variables. If you go to the reference section of the website under categorical variables, you will find references which should discuss these correlations.
posted on Friday, August 20, 2004 - 5:44 am
I am new to MPLUS, having previously used LISREL and EQS heavily. I have a question concerning modeling categorical outcomes. Say I want to test a unidimensional CFA model using 10 variables measured using a 3-point scale. In LISREL, I would have to compute a polychoric correlation matrix and the asymptotic covariance matrix of this correlation in PRELIS and read it into LISREL. The model would then be estimated using these correlations in order to estimate a linear relationship between the factor and y* (the underlying continuous variable). After reading the MPLUS manual it seems that MPLUS calculates the relationship between y* and the factor directly using a probit model (factor loadings are probit regressions). Is this correct? Does MPLUS calculate polychoric (or tetrachoric) correlations in the process of CVM? I ask because there is all this talk of polychorics on the discussion board but when reading the manual it seems that they aren't necessary.
Would it be correct to say that a difference between MPLUS and the other two software programs when modeling categorical outcomes is that MPLUS calculates the parameters directly via a probit model, whereas the others calculate the parameters indirectly (by first computing the appropriate correlation matrix (e.g., polychorics) then using that matrix when estimating the parameters)?
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Friday, August 20, 2004 - 9:17 am
When there are no covariates in the model, Mplus estimates tetrachoric/polychoric correlations to use in model estimation. This is done in one step, not two steps with Prelis followed by LISREL. When there are covariates in the model, Mplus estimates probit thresholds, probit regression coefficients, and residual correlations to use in model estimation. In both cases, the a probit model is used. Note, however, that with a maximum likelihood, a logistic model is used. A discussion of the differences between Mplus and LISREL in their handling of categorical outcomes can be found in Web Note 4 which is posted on the Mplus website.
posted on Wednesday, September 15, 2004 - 8:11 am
In your paper published in the 1989 Sociological methods & research (vol 18, No. 1, 19-65), you mentioned a two-stage maximum likelihood procedure for estimating the "non-normal tetrachorics" (pp30) due to the non-normality of the underlying factor. Is this procedure embedded in Mplus? If so, how can I do it?
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 4:20 pm
No, it is not.
posted on Tuesday, October 12, 2004 - 5:15 pm
Hi, Dr. Muthen:
thanks for the reply.
Follow the last question. If Mplus doesnot include the two stage maximum likelihood procedure, do you know any software can do it, or can you recommend me a reference for the details of how to do it? Thanks again.
Bengt O. Muthen
posted on Tuesday, October 12, 2004 - 5:22 pm
I am not aware of any software that uses this estimator or any reference that describes it in enough detail that you could do it yourself. In my experience, the covariates often do not have enough explanatory power for this estimator to give results that are very different from the regular approach.
posted on Sunday, October 17, 2004 - 11:46 pm
I have two questions, one regarding estimation, and the second one regarding interpretation of a path model with categorical variables (I am not using any factors). Assuming a causal flow from left to right, my left hand side of the model has one ordered dependent variable with three categories, and six independent variables (five binary and one continuous). I declared the dependent variable as categorical and I use the WLSMV estimation method.
When I run just that portion of the model, the estimates I get are quite different from a similar model estimated using the Ordered Probit method.
Why the difference? If I understand this thread correctly, under MPlus, my regression coefficients should be Probit estimates. Am I am missing something? I see that polychoric and tetrachoric correlations were mentioned, so I wonder if this has something to do with those differences (if the latter, then my next question may make 'some' sense).
Can I assume an underlying continuum for the binary �independent� variables (I know the standard interpretation on how the likelihood of Y* increases for a change from 0 to 1). But I understand that under polychoric or tetrachoric correlations, one assumes an underlying continuum for all binary variables. An interesting application for me would be to be able to say that an increase in, lets say, .1 to .3 in the binary independent variables (rather than from 0 to 1) leads to an X percentage point increase in one of the categories of the dependent variable (right now, I can only estimate percentage point differences when I change the independent from 0 to 1 - holding other variables at a constant value).
The independent variable could be whether people are aware or not of Kerry�s Health Care program, and the dependent variable the likelihood to vote for him. I would like to say if the proportion aware increases from 20% to 30% (.1 to .3), the very likely category changes by X percentage points.
I understand that the coefficients for dummy variables measure the average difference in the dependent for two groups, but I wonder if with polychoric or tetrachoric correlations (using MPlus) we could make this kind of interpretation (or approximation). Please, any advice or comment would be welcome.
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Monday, October 18, 2004 - 10:52 am
I believe that you should get the same results. How are you estimating your model using the Ordered Probit method?
The binary indepdent variables are not part of the model estimation in Mplus unless you explicitly force them into the model. Then the model is not estimated conditioned on the x's. When you force them into the model as y variables (for example x ON
; would make it a y), the normality assumptions are stricter. But then you would have the underlying continuum interpretation that you want.
posted on Monday, October 18, 2004 - 1:55 pm
Hi Linda,
Looking back at my results I may have overstressed the differences. Most coefficients are pretty similar, except one.
For one binary independent variable, the probit coefficient under MPlus is .523 while the figure in Stata is .468. Other coefficients and threshold values are quite similar. Can this be explained? I am pretty confident about Stata's results but I wonder if this has to do with slightly different estimation methods.
Regarding the second part of your message, let me see if I understood it correctly. Are you suggesting I can transform each of the binary independent variables into a continuous by pretending they are 'latent variables'? For example, if X1 is a binary independent variable, I create first the latent factor X1* (X1* on
), and then regress Y* on X1*? Is that how you incorporate the binary independent into the model as a continuous (they are in the model already as dummy variables)?
If so, it would be what I need. My next question would be more technical. How can I simulate the predicted probabilities in Y* for a change in X1*. An example with a formula would be telling and very helpful. With observed variables I use Pr(yi = 1 / xi) = CDF(Tau1 - Alpha - Beta*xi), and so on. But MPlus does not give a constant (I do get the threshold values). It would help a lot to help translate these models to the lay person.
Thanks a bunch.
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Monday, October 18, 2004 - 4:45 pm
The results for the regression of one y on a set of x's should be identical in Mplus and Stata. There must be some difference that you are not seeing, for example, a different sample size. If you send the Mplus and Stata complete outputs to
, I can see if I can see the difference.
The answer to your second paragraph is yes. In thinking about this, I would instead create a factor behind each x instead of using an ON statement. So f1 BY x1; Then use f1 as a covariate.
Instead of beta*xi, you would use beta*fi where fi is the latent response variable behind your binary independent variable. The values for fi would be chosen according to the percentiles of a z distribution because the mean of f is zero and the variance of f is one. For example, if you are interested in the probability of y for individuals who are one standard deviation above the mean of fi, you choose the value of one for fi.
posted on Monday, October 18, 2004 - 5:34 pm
Thanks for your quick answer.
I will send copies of the output to the e-mail above (sample size are identical in both runs).
Thank you for the rest of your message. I've done this before, but it did not occur to me that the new factor would be an underlying continuum. So I have to assume that is a standardized variable. Is it possible to transform that back to the original scale (ranging from 0 to 1), so that I can talk about an increase in the proportion of people, lets say aware of Kerry's Health plan, going from .3 (30%) to .5 (50%) or so? For the average person, the impact of a one standard deviation change on the indep. variable on the dep does not mean much and my whole problem is how can I translate these models into something the lay person could understand outside an academic environment (even if is a rough approximation). I would just like to know if this is possible or just wishful thinking. Is there a way to I understand this may go beyond the scope of support you provide here.
Thanks again for all your help.
posted on Monday, October 18, 2004 - 5:37 pm
Sorry about the last sentence.
Where it says "Is there a way to I understand this .." should say "I understand this may go beyond the scope of support you provide here".
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - 9:27 am
Thanks for sending your output for Mplus and Stata. I see that you are including a weight variable in the Mplus analysis. I assume that you are doing the same in the Stata analysis. The differences you are seeing are most likely because of differences in how weights are handled in Mplus and Stata. See Web Note 7 on the Mplus website for a discussion of weights in Mplus.
Regarding a change in the proportion of the independent variable, it is hard to transform this variable to a zero/one range. Instead how about translating the proportion changes that you are interested in to values on the standardized factor so the audience is presented with proportion changes but you calculate them behind the scenes as standardized factor values. For example, changing a proportion from 50 percent to 75 percent implies a standardized factor value change from 0 to .675 (z scores for 50 percent and 75 percent).
posted on Monday, February 07, 2005 - 5:14 am
Dr Muthen
I was wondering if you would be so kind as to help me with a stats query regarding my dissertation.
I am attempting to factor dichotomous (present/absent) data and am in a quandry as to which correlational method to apply to my data set. I wondered if you could highlight the benefits and limitations of using binary methods such as the Jaccard, Hamman, Tetrachoric and phi four point, or if you could point me in the right direction for literature addressing these approaches.
Thank you for your time
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Monday, February 07, 2005 - 9:08 am
I don't think there is one single overview of this topic although I think that tetrachoric correlations are probably the most accepted method. You might look at the following papers:
1. Flora and Curran in the December 2004 Psych Methods.
2. Muthén, B. & Kaplan D. (1985). A comparison of some methodologies for the factor analysis of non-normal Likert variables. British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, 38, 171-189.
3. Muthén, B. & Kaplan D. (1992). A comparison of some methodologies for the factor analysis of non-normal Likert variables: A note on the size of the model. British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, 453, 19-30.
Muthén, B. (1993). Goodness of fit with categorical and other non-normal variables. In K. A. Bollen & J. S. Long (Eds.), Testing Structural Equation Models (pp. 205-243). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
You might also consider doing your own comparison the the methods as part of your dissertation.
posted on Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - 12:56 am
Dr Muthen,
Thankyou for your swift reply, and for the advice, it is much appreciated. I will consult the references.
Thanks again
posted on Sunday, January 22, 2006 - 1:28 pm
Concerning ordered categorical variables, what is the definition of a threshold? Do you have a reference? Thanks.
posted on Sunday, January 22, 2006 - 7:39 pm
For a normal latent response variable with a unit variance, thresholds are simply z scores. See definitions and references in Appendix 1 of the Technical Appendices for Mplus Version 2 on the Mplus web site. Or, read the Muthen (1993) "Goodness of fit..." chapter in the Bollen-Long book on the web site.
Gabriel Schlomer
posted on Tuesday, March 06, 2007 - 3:28 pm
In the model that I am analyzing I have endogenous and exogenous binary ordinal variables as well as endogenous and exogenous continuous variables. Relationships in the model include binary-->binary, continuous-->continuous, binary-->continuous, and continuous-->binary. Some of the binary variables can be assumed to have an underlying normal distribution while others cannot. Furthermore, all of my latent variabels are specified using single indicators, save one which is continuous and specifed from three.
After a lot of digging I am still unsure as to what is the most appropriate approach. I have experience using LISREL and have recently been turned on to Mplus because I'm told it can handle truly dichotomous variables. I understand (refering to the bmuthen Aug. 18 2003 post) that there is some debate about the robustness of the assumptions regarding polychoric (tetrachoric) corrleations, specifically the underlying normal distribution of binary ordinal variables. If it is tenable to use polychoric correlations even when indicators are not assumed to have an underlying normal distribution, what is the advantage of using Mplus to analyze these type of data in contrast to using the PRELIS/LISREL two step technique? What is the appropriate technique in Mplus when these assumptions cannot be met?
Any insight you could provide would be of great help and please let me know if I misinterpreted anything.
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Wednesday, March 07, 2007 - 10:12 am
Suppose you have the following model:
x -> u1 -> u2
where u1 and u2 are categorical.
For u2 it does not matter if the variable u2 or the variable u2*, underlying latent variable, is used. In both cases, the model is the same because u2 is a final variable in the chain. However, for the mediating variable u1, the model is not the same when using u1 versus u1*.
One difference between LISREL and Mplus for such a model is that in Mplus you can treat u1 as u1* by using weighted least squares estimation or you can treat it as u1 by using maximum likelihood estimation. In LISREL, you can treat it only as u* I believe.
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Wednesday, March 07, 2007 - 10:13 am
One other thing -- it is not necessary to put a latent variable behind a single indicator in Mplus. This is done automatically if it is necessary.
Gabriel Schlomer
posted on Wednesday, March 07, 2007 - 10:33 am
Hi Dr. Muthen,
Thank you for the info, I am curious to know what is going on computationally in these kind of analyses when using Mplus. Drawing on your example, what regression technique does Mplus use for each of the paths. Would it use logistic for all the paths or something different for each given the nature of the variables. Also, computationally, how does the model change when using u1 vs. u1*. The only reason I put my single indicators into latent space is because, you're right, LISREL doesn't allow Beta's to be specified among indicators. So what is Mplus doing in these different situations?
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Wednesday, March 07, 2007 - 10:50 am
WLS estimates a probit regression model when the dependent variable is categorical. ML can estimate either a probit or a logistic regression model when the dependent variable is categorical. Logistic is the default. For both estimators, if the dependent variable is continuous, simple linear regression coefficients are estimated.
The difference here is in how u1 is treated when it is a covariate in the regression of u2 on u1. With weighted least squares, the latent response variable u1* is used as the covariate. With maximum likelihood, the observed variable u1 is used. In both cases as in regular regression, the covariates is treated as a continuous variable.
Mplus puts a factor behind the variable automatically. I think this is safer because people often do this incorrectly. There will be no difference in the results. It is just a convenience feature.
Lois Downey
posted on Thursday, July 05, 2007 - 8:32 am
I have 4 questions related to bmuthen's posting of Monday, August 18, 2003 - 8:51 am. I read this posting to mean that if I build a probit regression model with an OBSERVED ordinal outcome, the appropriateness of that model is NOT contingent on an assumption that the observed outcome represents an underlying normally distributed variable.
QUESTION 1: Is my interpretation correct?
I have 26 measured outcomes, representing 26 priority scores. For each outcome, the value is 5 if the respondent rated the item as their top priority, down through 1 if it was their 5th most important priority. If the item was not in the respondent's top 5 priorities, it was coded 0. So by definition, most of the outcomes have an abundance of 0's, since each respondent gave a non-0 rating to only 5 of the 26. I would like to use multiple regression models to test whether any of the priority scores are contingent on demographic features such as gender, racial/ethnic minority status, age, etc. Distributionally, the outcomes suggest ZIP regressions, except the scores are not counts.
QUESTION 2: Is probit regression with the WLSMV estimator the optimal choice for this problem?
QUESTION 3: Would ordinal logistic regression be an acceptable alternative, and are there circumstances that would make it a better choice than probit?
QUESTION 4: Are ZIP regressions definitely inappropriate, given that the scores are not counts?
Thank you.
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Thursday, July 05, 2007 - 9:29 am
1. Your interpretation is correct for final dependent variables. This would not be the case if the variable is a mediating variable.
2.-3. Either a probit or logisitic regression would be appropriate.
4. Yes.
Jeannine Tamez
posted on Monday, July 09, 2007 - 9:18 am
I am validating a measure that uses dichotomous variables. The literature suggests to use a tetrachoric correlation matrix in the analysis. However, I keep getting the following error and am unsure how to tackle this. Please advise as I am new to this program and type of analysis. Thank you.
Error Message
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Monday, July 09, 2007 - 9:55 am
When a bivariate table has an empty cell, that implies a tetrachoric correlation of one. So only of the two variables should be used in the analysis.
The warning says that f5 either has a negative variance/residual variance which you can see in the results, a correlation greater or equal to one between it and another latent variable which you can see in TECH4, or a linear dependency with another latent variable. Any of these makes the model inadmissible.
Cecily Na
posted on Saturday, February 05, 2011 - 12:22 pm
I did polychoric correlation analysis using WLS and WLSMV respectively. How come I get the same polychoric correlations and standard errors for both estimators? Are they supposed to be the same? thanks!
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Sunday, February 06, 2011 - 10:44 am
The sample statistics for model estimation are the same for both estimators.
Cecily Na
posted on Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 8:06 am
Hello Linda,
I have a heavily skewed variable which I want to treat as categorical (ordered ordinal), but I don't think the variable has underlying normal distribution. Is this a problem? I think I read somewhere that categorical variables are normally distributed underlyingly; thus we can calculate, say, polychoric correlations.
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 10:06 am
How many categories does the variable have?
Cecily Na
posted on Saturday, July 14, 2012 - 1:39 pm
Some are dichotomous, some have three or five categories.
Cecily Na
posted on Saturday, July 14, 2012 - 1:44 pm
I'm sorry. Corrections. One latent variable has four to five dichotomous indicators; other latent variables either have three-level indicators or five-level indicators. They're not supposed to be normally distributed underlyingly.Can I treat these indicators as categorical? Thanks!
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Sunday, July 15, 2012 - 9:51 am
Categorical variables with floor or ceiling effects can have normal underlying latent response variables. See Slide 117 of the Topic 2 course handout on the website.
Categorical data methodology can deal with floor and ceiling effects.
Alden Gross
posted on Wednesday, September 12, 2012 - 1:10 pm
Dear Drs. Muthen,
I need to run CFA models in Mplus from a correlation matrix. My indicators are categorical. If I feed Mplus with a polychoric correlation matrix instead of columns of real data, may I say I have done a CFA using categorical indicators, without having to specify that indicators are categorical? Or is the "categorical = u1 u2 u3;" subcommand under Variables doing something more than calculating polychoric/tetrachoric correlations among my indicators?
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Thursday, September 13, 2012 - 10:48 am
It will be the same if you use the ULS estimator. With all other estimators it is not the same because you are not using a weight matrix.
Rolf Gjestad
posted on Wednesday, August 28, 2013 - 4:01 am
Dear Dr. Muthen
I installed the latest version of Mplus after using then version 5.21 for some time. Then I experienced that ordinal predictors that I had declared to be categorical in earlier analyses not any more were allowed for such declarations. In the earlier version, this gave estimation of thresholds. Now, a message was given that such declaration only is possible for outcome variables and not predictors. I have used LISREL for several years and I am now unsure if polychorical correlations between two ordinal variables, as it is estimated with prelis, is possible in Mplus? Or does Mplus assumes that a predictor variable is at interval level even if this acutally is a ordinal variable?
Thank you.
Bengt O. Muthen
posted on Wednesday, August 28, 2013 - 6:16 pm
Yes, Mplus can estimate correlations between polytomous, ordered variables.
But, no, you don't want to specify covariates (predictors) as categorical because that involves unnecessarily strong model assumptions. This is explained in the Muthen (1984) Psychometrika article, where with covariates you want to take the "Case B" approach.
Yes, I would treat an ordinal covariate as continuous unless I had very strong reasons not to.
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CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan - U.S. Marines will march out of Afghanistan by the thousands next year, winding down combat in the Taliban heartland and testing the U.S. view that Afghan forces are capable of leading the fight against a battered but not yet beaten insurgency in the country's southwestern reaches, senior U.S. military officers say.
At the same time, U.S. reinforcements will be sent to eastern Afghanistan in a bid to reverse recent gains by insurgents targeting Kabul, the capital.
Gen. James F. Amos, commandant of the Marine Corps, said in an Associated Press interview that the number of Marines in Helmand province will drop "markedly" in 2012, and the role of those who stay will shift from countering the insurgency to training and advising the Afghan security forces.
The change suggests an early exit from Afghanistan for the Marine Corps, even as the prospects for solidifying their recent successes are uncertain.
"Am I OK with that? The answer is 'yes,'" Amos said. "We can't stay in Afghanistan forever."
He added: "Will it work? I don't know."
At stake is President Barack Obama's pledge to win in Afghanistan - the war he touted during his 2008 presidential campaign as worth fighting, while pledging to get out of Iraq. Facing a stalemate in 2009, Obama ordered an extra 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan - including about 10,000 Marines to Helmand province - on the belief that if the Taliban were to retake the government al-Qaida would soon return to the land from which it plotted the 9/11 attacks.
Also at stake are the sacrifices of the nearly 300 Marines killed in Afghanistan over the past three years.
Weighing against prolonging the conflict is its unsustainable cost and what author and former Defense Department official Bing West has called its "grinding inconclusiveness."
In a series of pep talks to Marines in Helmand this past week, Amos said the Marine mission in Afghanistan would end in the next 12 to 18 months. That is as much as two years before the December 2014 deadline, announced a year ago, for all U.S. and other foreign troops to leave the country.
"Savor being out here together," Amos told Marines on Thanksgiving at an outpost along the Helmand River called Fiddler's Green, "because it's going to be over" soon.
He was referring only to the Marines' role, which is limited mainly to Helmand, although there also are Marine special operations forces in western Afghanistan. The U.S. military efforts in Kandahar province and throughout the volatile eastern region are led by the Army, along with allied forces.
Helmand and neighboring Kandahar for the past two years have been the main focus of the U.S.-led effort to turn the tide against a resilient Taliban insurgency. In that period, the Taliban and other insurgent networks have grown bolder and more violent in Afghanistan's eastern provinces where they have the advantage of sanctuary across the border in Pakistan and where U.S. and NATO forces are spread more thinly than in the south.
During two days of visiting Marine outposts throughout Helmand this week, Amos touted progress against the Taliban and was told by Marine commanders that plans are well under way to close U.S. bases, ship war equipment home and prepare for a major drawdown of Marines beginning next summer. Amos declined to discuss the number of Marines expected to leave in 2012, but indications are that 10,000 or more may depart.
There are now about 19,400 Marines in Helmand, and that is due to fall to about 18,500 by the end of this year.
Marine Gen. John Allen, the top overall commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, was ordered by Obama last summer to pull out 10,000 U.S. forces by the end of this year and another 23,000 by the end of September 2012. That has driven the move to accelerate a transition to Afghan control.
Allen said in an interview Thursday that winding down the Marine combat mission in Helmand makes sense because security "has gotten so much better now." He said the pullout of 23,000 U.S. forces in 2012, including an unspecified number of Marines, likely will begin in the summer, which historically is the height of the fighting season in Afghanistan. Allen said Afghan security forces, often criticized for weak battlefield performance, desertion and a lack of will, are closer to being ready to assume lead responsibility for their nation's defense than many people believe.
"The Afghan national security forces are better than they thought they were, and they're better than we thought they were," Allen said.
That is why he thinks it's safe to lessen the Marine's combat role in Helmand, reduce their numbers and put the Afghans in charge.
That approach also allows Allen to build up elsewhere. He said that in 2012 he will put more U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan, increase the number of U.S. special operations forces who are playing a key role in developing Afghan forces, and add intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance resources. He said he plans to add "several battalions" of U.S. forces in the east. He gave no specific troop number, but a battalion usually totals about 750.
"I'm going to put a lot more forces and capabilities into the east," he said. "The east is going to need some additional forces because our intent is to expand the security zone around Kabul."
The top Marine in Helmand, Maj. Gen. John Toolan, said he is not convinced that 2012 is the best time to shift the focus to eastern Afghanistan, where the Haqqani network has taken credit for a series of spectacular attacks recently, including suicide bombings inside Kabul, the heavily secured capital. He said he believes the Taliban movement in southern Afghanistan is still the biggest threat to the viability of the central government.
Toolan said the Marines continue to make important progress against a Taliban whose leaders are showing signs of frustration and division.
"They're starting to break up," Toolan said. "There's still a lot to be done to see that these insurgents stay on their backs."
Stephen Biddle, a defense analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations and who recently visited U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said there is a risk to putting the Afghans in the lead role in Helmand as early as 2012.
"If you throw them into the deep end and put them in the lead in really tough neighborhoods you run the risk that they get their noses bloodied early in ways that could make it hard for them to recover because they lose confidence," Biddle said in an interview in Washington. On the other hand, if the U.S. and its allies wait until 2013 or 2014 to hand off to the Afghans in the most challenging areas, there would be less chance to bail them out.
"It's a dilemma with no obvious solution to it," he said.


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American Mystical Poetry
A Poetry Reading and TalkBy Zoketsu Norman Fischer | Mar 01, 2008
Location: Red Cedar Dharma Hall
In topic: Writing / Art / Creativity
Norman reads T.S. Eliot and Philip Whalen, along with some of his own poetry, revealing how these poets influenced his poetic voice. A funny, out of the ordinary talk.
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AJAX and its simple use of the XMLHttpRequest object lets us emulate the event-driven based behavior of client-server applications in the Web browser, leading to the design and deployment of real-time, interactive clients that can be accessed via browsers. Suddenly the Web browser isn't so limited as a client platform.
But AJAX comes at a price. Traditional client-server applications were designed to run over LANs. The local network is fast and fat and our client/server applications had little or no effect on the network, and vice-versa. AJAX, on the other hand, is designed to run over the public Internet where network speeds and feeds are unknown, uncontrollable, varied, and can be negatively affected by our applications, and vice-versa.
While it's exciting to roll out that first AJAX-based application, it's important to understand what effect that application may have on the network. Why? So that you can troubleshoot issues that will invariably crop up -- or better still, prevent performance problems by preparing the network and application infrastructure for the rollout.
First Impressions
While AJAX applications can certainly be developed from scratch, most of us have gravitated toward the use of a toolkit --or library -- that provides us with a consistent, easy-to-use AJAX framework, such as prototype or the Dojo toolkit. These frameworks are invaluable for developers as they deal with seemingly inevitable cross-browser issues, and let us concentrate on application logic, rather than on the nitty-gritty details of submitting and receiving requests.
But these frameworks also come at a cost. The cost most obvious to users is the increased size of the base application page due to the inclusion of the framework libraries. It's most obvious because it can cause the initial load to take longer than anticipated, especially over lower-speed network connections. If the application in question is one heavily used by remote corporate users, say a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) application, the surge of users first thing in the morning could ostensibly flood the network because of the amount of data being requested and cause the application -- and all others -- to perform poorly, if at all.
Whether for customers or remote users, this initial load time is important because it's the first impression the user has of the application. When that first impression is not the best it can be, there is the potential to drive customers away or hinder user adoption of your application. Both can impact the corporate bottom line, not to mention the headaches you'll have trying to solve the problem.
You can, of course, reduce the size of the page by eliminating any unnecessary code in your application as well as in the libraries. This solution has its own issues, as sometimes there is no unnecessary code in your application and eliminating code in a third-party library can be tricky, if not dangerous, as well as time consuming.
Another option is to enable compression on the server to reduce the size of your application. This can significantly impact the transfer speed and improve initial load times -- but it can also have a negative impact on the server by increasing its duties. Compression is not free, and in some cases can actually increase processing time when used on small objects, especially those less than 10K in size, and over high-speed (LAN) connections.
A third option is to take advantage of intelligent compression capabilities offered by application acceleration solutions, such as an application delivery controller. These devices ensure that compression is used only when it will have a positive impact, and often do so with the assistance of hardware, making the entire process more efficient.
Also at issue is the security of these third-party libraries. Unless you know for a fact the library has been thoroughly tested for vulnerabilities -- because you did the testing yourself or the developer provides verification -- you're leaving yourself at risk for exploitation. To mitigate this potential risk, consider deploying an application firewall capable of preventing malicious attacks that might result from the use of third-party libraries.
When Less is More
It may be ironic but AJAX requests tend to be smaller than their traditional counterparts, especially those involved in real-time updates. While this might at first glance appear to be a very good thing -- after all, smaller requests mean less bandwidth, which should translate into faster responses -- in reality it places a huge burden on your network infrastructure, especially routers.
In the network world, it's well known that packet size has a direct effect on router performance. As packet sizes drop and the number of packets per second increases, routers have to work harder to keep up with the load. Interestingly enough, an increased number of smaller packets (requests) is exactly the traffic profile that's often seen with AJAX-based applications. And it's not just your AJAX requests that are small. Also tiny are the underlying TCP/IP packets acknowledging receipt of those requests. With an abundance of small application and network-layer packets flying back-and-forth between the browser and the server, a router can easily become overwhelmed and begin to process packets more slowly.
The impact on the performance of your application can be disastrous as a result, resulting in timeouts or slow responses and frustrating users. Users, of course, only know that your application is performing poorly, and don't care why -- they just want it fixed.
Unfortunately, aside from reducing the frequency of requests, there isn't much you can do from an application perspective. It is rare that you will have control over the TCP/IP stack of your operating system, chosen programming language, or application server -- so it's nearly impossible for you to do anything about this situation. Unfortunately there's little the network team can do to help in this situation either.
The best solution in this case is the deployment of an application delivery controller capable of optimizing the network-layer communications to decrease the number of small packets traveling between the browser and the server. There are a number of RFCs (Request for Comments) that address the inefficiencies of TCP and its impact on the network that are often implemented by application deilvery controllers. These RFCs improve the underlying network performance by optimizing TCP-based communications and relieving much of the burden that causes routers to perform poorly.