Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Multi-Year Optimization Of Malaria Intervention: A Mathematical Model, Harry J. Dudley, Abhishek Goenka '15, Cesar J. Orellana '17, Susan E. Martonosi

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Malaria is a mosquito-borne, lethal disease that affects millions and kills hundreds of thousands of people each year, mostly children. There is an increasing need for models of malaria control. In this paper, a model is developed for allocating malaria interventions across geographic regions and time, subject to budget constraints, with the aim of minimizing the number of person-days of malaria infection.

Gis And Introductory Environmental Engineering: A Way To Fold Gis Into An Already-Existing Course, Mary P. Cardenas, David Wayne Kelley, Warren Roberts

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The use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) was implemented in the upper-division undergraduate technical elective Introduction to Environmental Engineering at Harvey Mudd College. Students integrated technical engineering skills, newly-learned geographical information system (GIS) skills, and the engineering design process, all in the context of the design of a debris flow barrier for a wilderness land parcel acquired by a local conservancy group.

Junior and senior general engineering students, the majority of whom had no experience with GIS, were taught ArcGIS (a GIS mapping program) in the context of an Introductory Environmental Engineering course. Students learned how to map locations, find …

Institutional Resilience Amid Political Change: The Case Of Biodiversity Conservation, Paul F. Steinberg

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There is a substantial literature documenting the spatial mismatch between the geographic location of biological resources and the spatial jurisdiction of the institutions responsible for their management. But little attention has been paid to the disjuncture in temporal scales between the long-term requirements of biodiversity conservation and the short time horizons governing public and private decisions affecting the survival of species and ecosystems. How can we create socially agreed-upon rules governing the long-term use and conservation of biodiversity when ongoing change is one of the defining characteristics of modern society? This article describes a new approach to biodiversity conservation—conservation systems—that …

Mathematics Of Voting, Darryl H. Yong

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Voting theory is a fascinating area of research involving mathematics, political scientists, and economists. The American Mathematical Society, the American Statistical Association, the Mathematical Association of America, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics chose mathematics and voting as the theme for Mathematics Awareness Month 2008. There is more information on mathematics and voting at www.mathaware.org/mam/08/. It is a mathematical topic that is rich yet accessible to students, pertinent to their lives, especially during this election year, and has the potential to draw students who may not have a strong affinity for mathematics to become interested in mathematics.

Cost Estimating Certifications Offered By Professional Societies In The United States And Abroad, Donald S. Remer, Karen Ahle, Kevin Alley, John Silny, Karen Hsin, Elijah Kwitman, Allison Hutchings

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Many projects in industry and government go over budget and schedule. In most engineering economics courses, the emphasis is on how to compare alternatives and learn about time value of money and interest and inflation rates. The students are usually given the costs and asked to compare the alternatives. However, this is the easy part of the analysis. The hard part of real project evaluations is developing the cost and investment numbers to do the engineering economics analysis. In most engineering economic textbooks, there is at most one chapter on cost estimation. More and more companies and government organizations are …

Understanding Policy Change In Developing Countries: The Spheres Of Influence Framework, Paul F. Steinberg

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National policy reform is a prerequisite for improved stewardship of the global environment and figures prominently among the goals of international environmental diplomacy and transnational advocacy campaigns. Yet research on global environmental politics has proceeded absent models of policy change in developing countries, where most of the planet's people, land, and biological diversity are found. In this article I present a theoretical framework to explain the domestic responses of developing countries to global environmental concerns. Drawing on research in Costa Rica and Bolivia, I situate the impact of global environmentalism in the context of complex, decades-long domestic struggles to create …

Review: Insatiable Appetite: The Unided States And The Ecological Degradation Of The Tropical World, Paul F. Steinberg

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Historical analysis is an indispensable tool in the study of politics. When building theories, it allows us to evaluate the explanatory power of our carefully-delineated models in light of the broader (ceteris non paribus) social context. From a methodological standpoint, historical analysis is receiving renewed attention in efforts to devise rigorous qualitative methods for establishing cause and effect. For these reasons the emerging field of environmental history merits close study and emulation by researchers in international environmental politics and policy (IEP). In addition to offering worthy examples of how to conduct historical research, environmental history directly engages many …

Cost Scale-Up Factors For Airport Construction, Donald S. Remer, Christopher Wong '96

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Engineers must often make a quick "ballpark" cost estimate of a new plant, facility, or piece of equipment before the detailed design phase. One easy way to obtain such an estimate is to base the cost on a known cost for a similar plant, facility, or piece of equipment by using the ratio of the capacities or sizes of the known and proposed item raised to an exponent R. This predesign cost-estimating approach is especially useful for doing sensitivity analyses and feasibility studies for which a high degree of accuracy is not required. This cost-capacity or power-factor model was …

The Cost Of Doing A Cost Estimate, Donald S. Remer, Harry R. Buchanan

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There are many reasons for cost overruns, but one of the key factors it the lack of resources (time, money, and staffing) spent to do proper up-front cost estimates. Another major reason is that the implements were not involved in the estimating. The purpose of this article is to address the issue of the cost to do a cost estimate [8]. We will report on how others handle this issue and make suggestions on how the Deep Space Network (DSN) should estimate the amount to spend on a cost estimate and its impact on reducing the probability of a cost …

Determining Maintenance Cost Ratios, Donald S. Remer, Josef S. Sherif, Harry R. Buchanan

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Maintenance is a necessary (and usually burdensome) function for practically all natural and man-made elements. Simply defined, maintenance is the effort to keep a device or system working. The amount of funding allocated for maintenance by an organization is necessarily a compromise, possibly viewed as too much by management and too little by the operators/maintainers. The objective of our study was to report on the wide range of costs involved in maintaining equipment. We discuss some methods that different industries use to measure and report their maintenance costs; we summarize the results of a literature search on the range of …

Long-Range Planning Cost Model For Support Of Future Space Missions By The Deep Space Network, J. S. Sherif, Donald S. Remer, H. R. Buchanan

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A simple model is suggested to do long-range planning cost estimates for Deep Space Network (DSP) support of future space missions. The model estimates total DSN preparation costs and the annual distribution of these costs for long-range budgetary planning. The cost model is based on actual DSN preparation costs from four space missions: Galileo, Voyager (Uranus), Voyager (Neptune), and Magellan. The model was tested against the four projects and gave cost estimates that range from 18 percent above the actual total preparation costs of the projects to 25 percent below. The model was also compared to two other independent projects: …

Design And Development Of A Photodegradable Bottle Cap, Kenneth S. Chon '87, Javier H. Idrovo '89, Donald S. Remer, Kenneth Pawlek '90, Kusha Janati '90

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The first photodegradable plastic cap for a glass beer bottle was developed and tested. The cap's design is the same as the current plastic, screw-on cap for soda bottles. A photodegradable resin was added to the soda cap plastic to make it photodegradable. Caps with 0%, 10%, and 25% photodegradable additive were made. Tests show that the photodegradable cap meets most of the physical properties required for a beer or a soda cap. A photodegradable cap with 10% degradable additive will cost about three times more than current metal crowns, but only about 10% more than current plastic soda caps. …

Aquatic Photovoltaic Facility, Donald S. Remer, Hwee Tong Lim '82, Brian C. Kelly '82

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A feasibility design and cost estimate was completed for a 1 megawatt photovoltaic (PV) facility which would float on an island reservoir at Catalina Island off the coast the coast of Southern California. If built, this project would be one of the largest PV operating facilities to date and also the first floating PV system. The modular facility consists of 250 floating platforms each supporting 430 square feet of flat panel PV cells. This facility would provide 25% of Catalina's yearly peak energy demand and reduce the amount of diesel fuel used.

An Approximation Method Of Calculating The Present Worth Of Nonintegrable Cash Flow Patterns, Brian Almond, Donald S. Remer

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An approximation method is provided for calculating the present worth of nonintegrable continuous cash flows that have common industrial economic applications. Two limiting cases of particular use in engineering screening analyses are given for each model. Practical examples are presented to illustrate the application of the cash flow models to manpower reductions due to computerized process control and to cash flows for a pollution-abatement facility.

Flat Plate Solar Collector Materials (And Designs With An Economic Methodology For Optimizing Collector Design), Michael L. Day '79, Donald S. Remer, Daniel Hyatt '82

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The desirability of specific materials and designs for conventional flat-plate solar collector components is considered. Then a methodology for choosing the most economic component is presented, consisting of a computer simulation and a rate-of-return analysis. The effect of rising conventional fuel costs is examined. Examples of using the methodology are given, based on Southern California climatic and user-demand conditions. Selective absorber-plate coatings and film inner glazing are shown to be economic, yielding a rate-of-return of 23 percent and 29 percent, respectively.

New Perspectives On The Materials Interface With The Three E'S -- Energy, Environment And Economics, Donald S. Remer

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New perspectives are presented on the material interface with the three E's -- Energy, Environment, and Economics. The past, present, and future energy picture is described from 1850 through the year 2030. The major energy sources such as oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, and several new emerging energy options are compared and contrasted. The lead time, capital, and materials required for bringing on-stream new energy sources is described. Previous U.S. energy forecasts are reviewed and are found to be too optimistic. The U.S. materials situation is outlined with an emphasis on per capita materials use and the critical role that …