Digital Commons Network^™

27-10-15 Wigan Ieee Smart Cities Guadalajara Education Workshop Presentatation, Marcus R. Wigan

Marcus R Wigan

Measuring Community Flood Awareness And Preparedness In The Maitland Area And Lower Hunter Valley, Nsw, Neil Dufty, Amanda Hyde, David Webber, Ingrid Berthold, Elise Armstrong

Neil Dufty

The Hunter River of NSW has a long history of flooding. February 2015 was the sixtieth anniversary of the 1955 Hunter Region flood, the largest flood in the region’s recorded history. In conjunction with the commemoration, the NSW State Emergency Service (NSW SES) and the Hunter Local Land Services commissioned consultants Molino Stewart to extend previous social research in Maitland by surveying participants about the status of their own flood awareness and preparedness. The 2015 study and previous social research found that in Maitland flood-prone communities there appears to be a relatively low perception of personal flood risk. On the …

Why Getting People To Write An Emergency Plan May Not Be The Best Approach, Neil Dufty

Neil Dufty

Many government agencies and not-for-profit emergency organisations throughout the world encourage those community members and businesses at risk to write disaster survival or emergency plans. In Australia, community flood education and engagement programs such as FloodSafe promote the preparation of home and business emergency plans. In some cases, agencies use the writing of these plans as an indicator of community preparedness. There has been little research conducted into the efficacy of personal or business emergency plans, although there is evidence to show that business damages could be reduced by having an emergency plan. On the other hand, some social research …

Do Zoos And Aquariums Promote Attitude Change In Visitors? A Critical Evaluation Of The American Zoo And Aquarium Study, Lori Marino, Scott O. Lilienfeld, Randy Malamud, Nathan Nobis, Ron Broglio

Lori Marino, PhD

Modern-day zoos and aquariums market themselves as places of education and conservation. A recent study conducted by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) (Falk et al., 2007) is being widely heralded as the first direct evidence that visits to zoos and aquariums produce long-term positive effects on people’s attitudes toward other animals. In this paper, we address whether this conclusion is warranted by analyzing the study’s methodological soundness. We conclude that Falk et al. (2007) contains at least six major threats to methodological validity that undermine the authors’ conclusions. There remains no compelling evidence for the claim that zoos …

Marathi Article On Socioeconomic Status Of Muslims In Maharashtra, Professor Vibhuti Patel

Professor Vibhuti Patel

Socioeconomic Statusof Muslims in Maharashtra

Do Zoos And Aquariums Promote Attitude Change In Visitors? A Critical Evaluation Of The American Zoo And Aquarium Study, Lori Marino, Scott O. Lilienfeld, Randy Malamud, Nathan Nobis, Ron Broglio

Nathan M. Nobis, PhD

Modern-day zoos and aquariums market themselves as places of education and conservation. A recent study conducted by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) (Falk et al., 2007) is being widely heralded as the first direct evidence that visits to zoos and aquariums produce long-term positive effects on people’s attitudes toward other animals. In this paper, we address whether this conclusion is warranted by analyzing the study’s methodological soundness. We conclude that Falk et al. (2007) contains at least six major threats to methodological validity that undermine the authors’ conclusions. There remains no compelling evidence for the claim that zoos …

What Determines Public Education Expenditures In A Transition Economy?, Inna Verbina, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

Recent studies suggest that the allocation of expenditures in education matters for growth. Public education spending in many transition economies, however, is often inefficient and inequitable with education outlays misallocated across sectors. This highlights the need for an assessment of the nature of education expenditures in these countries. This paper attempts to fill the gap in the literature by estimating the determinants of education expenditures in the Russian Federation. Results from panel data analysis show that revenue and the student-population ratio have a positive impact on education expenditures while the effect of population density is negative. Three regional variables also …

Development Of A Regional Economic Dashboard, Randall W. Eberts, George A. Erickcek, Jack Kleinhenz

George A. Erickcek

No abstract provided.

Contribution Of Education And Innovation To Productivity Among Mexican Regions: A Dynamic Panel Data Analysis, Vicente German-Soto, Luis Gutiérrez Flores

Vicente German-Soto

The Revitalization Of Older Industrial Cities: A Review Essay Of Retooling For Growth, Timothy J. Bartik

Timothy J. Bartik

This review essay debates the policy issues raised by the book Retooling for Growth: Building a 21st Century Economy in America's Older Industrial Areas, edited by Richard M. McGahey and Jennifer S. Vey (Brookings Institution Press, 2008). I argue that the main rationale for adopting policies to revitalize older industrial cities is to improve the per capita earnings of urban residents. Therefore, urban economic development policy should be seen as urban labor market policy. Increasing city residents' earnings requires progress on two fronts: increasing metropolitan labor demand; increasing the quantity and quality of the effective labor supply of city residents …

Worker Signals Among New College Graduates: The Role Of Selectivity And Gpa, Brad J. Hershbein

Brad J. Hershbein

Recent studies have found a large earnings premium to attending a more selective college, but the mechanisms underlying this premium have received little attention and remain unclear. In order to shed light on this question, I develop a multidimensional signaling model relying on college grades and selectivity that rationalizes students’ choices of effort and firms’ wage-setting behavior. The model is then used to produce predictions of how the interaction of the signals should be related to wages, namely that the return on college GPA should fall the more selective the institution attended. Using five data sets that span the early …

Development Of A Regional Economic Dashboard, Randall W. Eberts, George A. Erickcek, Jack Kleinhenz

Randall W. Eberts

No abstract provided.

Intra-Household Allocation Of Family Resources And Birth Order: Evidence From France Using Siblings Data, Stéphane Mechoulan, Charles-François Wolff

Stéphane Mechoulan

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Web 2.0 In Education And Its Potential For Language Learning And Teaching, Kerwin A. Livingstone

Kerwin A. Livingstone

The arrival of technology has transited the path for an increased use of the Web, allowing for access to diverse kinds of information and materials. With this advent of technology, a significant number of distinct technologies have been introduced to assist in human communication and interaction. Since the genesis of Web 2.0 technologies, people all over the world now have the Internet at their finger tips, and can execute communicative acts with little or no difficulty. In educational contexts, Web 2.0 is making great in-roads even though its full effectiveness still needs to be further researched in the said environments. …

The Use Of Social Media In Countrywide Disaster Risk Reduction Public Awareness Strategies, Neil Dufty

Neil Dufty

Social media has been used extensively in recent disasters by emergency managers particularly to warn people and help in the co-ordination of response and recovery. However, its use in disaster prevention and preparedness is less understood. This article examines the use of social media in disaster risk reduction (DRR) awareness strategies around the world through a literature review and expert opinion. It concludes that it is generally underutilised in major DRR awareness strategies, although there are robust programs operating in some countries with high social media use.