Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Evaluating Change In Representation And Coordination In Collaborative Governance Over Time: A Study Of Environmental Justice Councils, Saba Siddiki, Graham Ambrose, Davor Mondom

Center for Policy Design and Governance

The brief provides a summary of "Evaluating Change in Representation and Coordination in Collaborative Governance Over Time: A Study of

Environmental Justice Councils," co-authored by Saba Siddiki and Graham Ambrose and published in the journal Environmental Management.

The Daily Patterns Of Emergency Medical Events, Mary E. Helander, Margaret K. Formica, Dessa K. Bergen-Cico

Social Science - All Scholarship

This study examines population level daily patterns of time-stamped emergency medical service (EMS) dispatches to establish their situational predictability. Using visualization, sinusoidal regression, and statistical tests to compare empirical cumulative distributions, we analyzed 311,848,450 emergency medical call records from the U.S. National Emergency Medical Services Information System (NEMSIS) for years 2010 through 2022. The analysis revealed a robust daily pattern in the hourly distribution of distress calls across 33 major categories of medical emergency dispatch types. Sinusoidal regression coefficients for all types were statistically significant, mostly at the p < 0.0001 level. The coefficient of determination ($R^2$) ranged from 0.84 and 0.99 for all models, with most falling in the 0.94 to 0.99 range. The common sinusoidal pattern, peaking in mid-afternoon, demonstrates that all major categories of medical emergency dispatch types appear to be influenced by an underlying daily rhythm that is aligned with daylight hours and common sleep/wake cycles. A comparison of results with previous landmark studies revealed new and contrasting EMS patterns for several long-established peak occurrence hours--specifically for chest pain, heart problems, stroke, convulsions and seizures, and sudden cardiac arrest/death. Upon closer examination, we also found that heart attacks, diagnosed by paramedics in the field via 12-lead cardiac monitoring, followed the identified common daily pattern of a mid-afternoon peak, departing from prior generally accepted morning tendencies. Extended analysis revealed that the normative pattern prevailed across the NEMSIS data when re-organized to consider monthly, seasonal, daylight-savings vs civil time, and pre-/post- COVID-19 periods. The predictable daily EMS patterns provide impetus for more research that links daily variation with causal risk and protective factors. Our methods are straightforward and presented with detail to provide accessible and replicable implementation for researchers and practitioners.

A Gis Suitability Model Evaluating Habitat Characteristics Influencing Beaver (Castor Canadensis) Lodge Site Selection And Lodge Occupancy In Central Adirondacks, New York, Amanda K. Jacobs

Theses - ALL

The North American beaver (Castor canadensis) represents a quintessential example of an "ecosystem engineer." Yet the species' landscape-scale impacts on hydrology, geomorphology, and ecosystem ecology are not uniformly distributed through landscapes or time. Understanding beaver lodge site selection and lodge fidelity through time can help to predict where the greatest effects of beaver activity may occur. In this research project, I seek to understand the relationships between beaver habitat suitability, the habitat variables that currently define suitable areas, and lodge occupancy over time. Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to model habitat suitability, I use hydrologic, vegetative, and physiographic variables to …

Three Essays On Climate Change Adaptation In Rural African Communities, Hannah Patnaik

Dissertations - ALL

Climate change is one of the defining challenges of the present era, bringing new risks and exacerbating existing vulnerabilities across the world. While there is a broad recognition that solutions around climate change will require coordination and support across borders and governments, a large body of scholarship has focused on the local-level realities of climate change and the disproportionate impacts on the most vulnerable populations. The climate vulnerable poor do not have the privilege of waiting for global policy and commitment to emission reduction targets. They need planned and proactive adaptation support to build resilience to the changing climate and …

Assessing Topical Homogeneity With Word Embedding And Distance Matrices, Jeffrey M. Stanton, Yisi Sang

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

Researchers from many fields have used statistical tools to make sense of large bodies of text. Many tools support quantitative analysis of documents within a corpus, but relatively few studies have examined statistical characteristics of whole corpora. Statistical summaries of whole corpora and comparisons between corpora have potential application in the analysis of topically organized applications such social media platforms. In this study, we created matrix representations of several corpora and examined several statistical tests to make comparisons between pairs of corpora with respect to the topical homogeneity of documents within each corpus. Results of three experiments suggested that a …

The Influence Of Surface Types Towards Run-Off Water In Urban Park, Febby Andini

English Language Institute

Pavements in Alun Kapuas Park constribute 63 of run off water over the capacity of the soil to infiltrate. This water will potentially causes the flooding and puddling issues.

Benefits Of Bioenergy For The Sustainable Development Of Sudan, Arwa Ibrahim

English Language Institute

This poster discusses bioenergy and its potential benefits for Sudan’s Sustainable Development.

Iot-Enabled Eldercare Technology, Watchanan Chantapakul

English Language Institute

The world’s population is changing as people are growing older. Leveraging technology for eldercare is important in this century. It can enable many eldercare applications effectively.

Virtual Reality: A Tool Used To Engage Youth In The Voting Process In Newly Democratic Tunisia, Raed Ghanja

English Language Institute

Tunisia is facing a hard time with its transition to democracy partly due to the reluctance on the part of young people to participate in elections. This poster discusses why the Tunisian government must engage youth and encourage their participation in the election process by using fun simulations of this process in Virtual Reality.

Digital Mapping Of Togo’S Soil Fertility: Savannah Region, Aminou Saibou

English Language Institute

A soil assessment was carried out in the savannah region of Togo in 2018, aiming at drawing the digital map of Togo’s soil fertility and making fertilizer recommendations. Soil samples were taken from geo-referenced GPS points and were analyzed for parameters such as water pH, Organic matter, available phosphorus and exchangeable potassium. Thematic maps have been drawn using an ArcGIS package. The results showed that the soils of the Savannah region in Togo are mainly (84%) not very acidic (pH = 5.5 to 6.5), overall poor to very poor (84%) in organic matter (<2% OM), essentially poor to very poor (86%) in available phosphorus (<15 mg/kg of soil) and mostly very poor (87%) in exchangeable potassium (<90 mg / kg of soil). These results allowed the agricultural research institute of Togo to make fertilizer use recommendations and to develop, in partnership with Morocco, a digital platform (fertitogo.tg ) for decision making in crop fertilization.

Working Children On Java Island 2017, Yuniarti

English Language Institute

Children's wellbeing has currently become a global concern as many of them are engaged in the labor force. A small area estimation (SAE) technique, EBLUP under Fey Herriot model, is employed to reveal their number in regencies of Java Island. Statistics have been disaggregated by geographical location (urban/rural) and gender. These statistics are required by the government as the basis for policy making.

Finding Datasets In Publications: The Syracuse University Approach, Tong Zeng, Daniel E. Acuna

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

Datasets are critical for scientific research, playing a role in replication, reproducibility, and efficiency. Researchers have recently shown that datasets are becoming more important for science to function properly, even serving as artifacts of study themselves. However, citing datasets is not a common or standard practice in spite of recent efforts by data repositories and funding agencies. This greatly affects our ability to track their usage and importance. A potential solution to this problem is to automatically extract dataset mentions from scientific articles. In this work, we propose to achieve such extraction by using a neural network based on a …

How We Done It Good: Research Through Design As A Legitimate Methodology For Librarianship, Rachel Ivy Clarke

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

“How we done it good” publications—a genre concerning project-based approaches that describe how (and sometimes why) something was done—are often rebuked in the library research community for lacking traditional scientific validity, reliability, and generalizability. While scientific methodologies may be a common approach to research and inquiry, they are not the only methodological paradigms. This research posits that the “how we done it good” paradigm in librarianship reflects a valid and legitimate approach to research. By drawing on the concept of research through design, this study shows how these “how we done it good” projects reflect design methodologies which draw …

Stationary Points For Parametric Stochastic Frontier Models, William C. Horrace, Ian A. Wright

Center for Policy Research

The results of Waldman (1982) on the Normal-Half Normal stochastic frontier model are generalized using the theory of the Dirac delta (Dirac, 1930), and distribution-free conditions are established to ensure a stationary point in the likelihood as the variance of the inefficiency distribution goes to zero. Stability of the stationary point and "wrong skew" results are derived or simulated for common parametric assumptions on the model. Identification is discussed.

A Conceptual Model For Video Games And Interactive Media, Rachel I. Clarke, Jacob Jett, Simone Sacchi, Jin Ha Lee

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

In this paper, we describe a conceptual model for video games and interactive media. Existing conceptual models such as the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) are not adequate to represent the unique descriptive attributes, levels of variance, and relationships among video games. Previous video game-specific models tend to focus on the development of video games and their technical aspects. Our model instead attempts to reflect how users such as game players, collectors, and scholars understand video games and the relationships among them. We specifically consider use cases of gamers, with future intentions of using this conceptual model as a …

Averaged Instrumental Variables Estimators, Yoonseok Lee, Yu Zhou

Center for Policy Research

We develop averaged instrumental variables estimators as a way to deal with many weak instruments. We propose a weighted average of the preliminary k-class estimators, where each estimator is obtained using different subsets of the available instrumental variables. The averaged estimators are shown to be consistent and to satisfy asymptotic normality. Furthermore, its approximate mean squared error reveals that using a small number of instruments for each preliminary k-class estimator reduces the finite sample bias, while averaging prevents the variance from inflating. Monte Carlo simulations find that the averaged estimators compare favorably with alternative instrumental-variable-selection approaches when the strength levels …

Mathematics In Forensic Firearm Examination, Erin N. Zalewski

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Forensic Science encompasses many disciplines that employ the scientific method to examine, analyze, and interpret physical evidence in the courtroom. The discipline of Forensic Firearm Examination involves the examination and comparison of ballistic evidence components to determine if they came from the same source. In other words, firearm examiners are tasked with determining whether spent cartridge cases or bullets were fired through the same gun. Examination of ballistic evidence can involve the employment of automated matching systems, comparison microscopy, and mathematical analysis. The comparison microscope is the tool of the firearm examiner and allows for the simultaneous view of ballistic …

Estimation Of Heterogeneous Panels With Structural Breaks, Badi Baltagi

Center for Policy Research

This paper extends Pesaran's (2006) work on common correlated effects (CCE) estimators for large heterogeneous panels with a general multifactor error structure by allowing for unknown common structural breaks. Structural breaks due to new policy implementation or major technological shocks, are more likely to occur over a longer time span. Consequently, ignoring structural breaks may lead to inconsistent estimation and invalid inference. We propose a general framework that includes heterogeneous panel data models and structural break models as special cases. The least squares method proposed by Bai (1997a, 2010) is applied to estimate the common change points, and the consistency …

Estimation And Identification Of Change Points In Panel Models With Nonstationary Or Stationary Regressors And Error Term, Badi H. Baltagi, Chihwa Kao, Long Liu

Center for Policy Research

This paper studies the estimation of change point in panel models. We extend Bai (2010) and Feng, Kao and Lazarová (2009) to the case of stationary or nonstationary regressors and error term, and whether the change point is present or not. We prove consistency and derive the asymptotic distributions of the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and First Difference (FD) estimators. We find that the FD estimator is robust for all cases considered.

Firm-Level Productivity Spillovers In China’S Chemical Industry: A Spatial Hausman-Taylor Approach, Peter H. Egger, Badi H. Baltagi, Michaela Kesina

Center for Policy Research

This paper assesses the role of intra-sectoral spillovers in total factor productivity across Chinese producers in the chemical industry. We use a rich panel data-set of 12,552 firms observed over the period 2004-2006 and model output by the firm as a function of skilled and unskilled labor, capital, materials, and total factor productivity, which is broadly defined. The latter is a composite of observable factors such as export market participation, foreign as well as public ownership, the extent of accumulated intangible assets, and unobservable total factor productivity. Despite the richness of our data-set, it suffers from the lack of time …

Test Of Hypotheses In A Time Trend Panel Data Model With Serially Correlated Error Component Disturbances, Chihwa Kao, Badi H. Baltagi, Long Liu

Center for Policy Research

This paper studies test of hypotheses for the slope parameter in a linear time trend panel data model with serially correlated error component disturbances. We propose a test statistic that uses a bias corrected estimator of the serial correlation parameter. The proposed test statistic which is based on the corresponding fixed effects feasible generalized least squares (FE-FGLS) estimator of the slope parameter has the standard normal limiting distribution which is valid whether the remainder error is I(0) or I(1). This performs well in Monte Carlo experiments and is recommended.

Addressing Trans-Boundary Challenges Through Collaboration: How Organizations "Harmonize" Actions And Decisions Across Problem Landscapes, Rachel Fleishman

Dissertations - ALL

Collaborative governance- or collaboration- has become increasingly important for the design and implementation of public policy in the United States. This dissertation explores concrete and unique policy-related benefits emerging from collaboration, and the processes by which they emerge.

Collaboration is defined broadly as "any interaction between two or more organizations undertaken with the intention to cooperate." This definition is applied in the context of water quality management, where the physical nature of watersheds and the lack of regulatory authority available to policy-makers leads to a variety of collaborative arrangements.

A survey of literatures addressing collaboration from different theoretical angles revealed …

For Logs, For Traditional Purposes And For Food: Identification Of Multiple-Use Plant Species Of Northern Amazonia And An Assessment Of Factors Associated With Their Distribution, Anthony Ravindra Cummings

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation examines the multiplicity of uses associated with tree and palm species of the Rupununi, Southern Guyana and the factors associated with their distribution. As tropical forests continue to decline the most significant response has been to understand the implications for the carbon cycle, with the impacts on forest dwelling peoples and wildlife, inadequately addressed. Multiple-use plants, individual species which at their most critical level provide food for wildlife, non-timber forest products and are commercially logged, provide a suitable lens for appreciating additional ecosystem services that may be compromised as tropical forests decline. I completed a plant inventory in …

Can The World Industrialization Project Be Sustained?, Isidor Wallimann

Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration

No abstract provided.