What is the difference between |-3| and -3

Micheal is 4 times as old as brandon and is also 27 years older than brandon. how old is micheal

The ratio of the height of two similar cylinders is 4 to 3 what is the ratio of their volumes

Consider the linear model for a two-stage nested design with b nested in a as given below. yijk=\small \mu + \small \taui + \small \betaj(i) + \small \varepsilon(ij)k , for i=1,; j= ; k=1, assumption: \small \varepsilon(ij)k ~ iid n (0, \small \sigma2) ; \small \taui ~ iid n(0, \small \sigmat2 ); \tiny \sum_{j=1}^{b} \small \betaj(i) =0; \small \varepsilon(ij)k and \small \taui are independent. using only the given information, derive the least square estimator of \small \betaj(i) using the appropriate constraints (sum to zero constraints) and derive e(msb(a) ).