Thesis Update

This week in my meeting with Dr Poon, we encountered a problem about the validity of the use of switching regression in the analysis of the impact of IT upon industry structure, as industries, based on cluster analysis, do not elect to move from cluster to cluster. It was therefore decided in the meeting that there were several options to pursue for this case, listed as below:

1) Continue with Switching Regression
2) Perform a Chou Test
3) Implement Random Coefficient Analysis

Furthermore, a new, raw data set has been compiled for a final fuzzy clustering analysis, the results of which will be posted in the next two days. Additionally, the switching regression problem, if implemented, will use modified equations from Berstchek's 2005 paper analysing organisational change using switching regression. By following this, it is hoped that the results of the switching regression will show that the use of IT leads to a higher productivity, and hence, a change in industry structure caused by IT, which would be found be analysis the outcomes of the switching regression equations, which uses a TRUE/FALSE vector to determine which strategy is the best for each data point.

Thesis Update

For the last two weeks, I have been attempting to perform a switching regression analysis upon the data provided by Dr Poon. To this end, I have read various papers by Bezdek and Hathaway, Chau, as well as examples of switching regression. On Wednesday, I located an online tutorial which explained how to perform this analysis in R, and as such, I will attempt to do so over the weekend, and post the results up.

Additionally, fuzzy clustering is now being performed by data engine. The final results of this analysis will be posted up later. However, preliminary indications match that of Dr Poon's findings now, as compared to the ambiguous results derived from R.

Thesis Update

Last Week I completed the partial draft, which consisted of introduction, literary review, methodology and results. However, these parts were not totally completed, and require editing.

Additionally, I performed the fuzzy clustering analysis over three cycles using R, as stated before, and discussed the results with Dr Poon in our weekly meeting. It was decided that the use of R and the determination of clusters in this manner was not suitable, and as such, we will be switching to Data Engine (a fuzzy clustering tool) for this part of the project.

I will also be taking a look at the use and development of switching regression, and will also implement this in R on Dr Poons given data for now. I will also need to develop a presentation for the overall progress for this wednesdays meeting with Dr Poon, which I am currently in the process of doing.

I will post results up as soon as they become available.