Digital Commons Network^™

Platform Gratifications: Tinder Vs. Match.Com, Cassandra Lang

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This thesis examined user's experiences using dating applications by applying a uses and gratifications lens to investigate the gratifications of two different dating platforms. Specifically, this study drew upon past computer-mediated research to compare the gratifications obtained from a Tinder-like platform and a Match.com-like platform. The experiment found no significant differences between the gratifications levels of the two platforms types. However, female participants reported significantly lower levels of the "relaxation" gratification levels then males. The study also found identical ordinal gratification levels for the two platforms explored. The findings expand the study of mobile dating applications.

Flooding And Reequilibration Of A Series Of Pittsburgh Bed Underground Coal Mines, 1980 To 2015, David D. M. Light

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This study examines the water-level elevation history of selected flooding and flooded underground mines in the Pittsburgh coal basin of SW Pennsylvania from the time of closure until post-flooding pool-level reequilibration. Mines within this mining district developed pools with nearly steady-state groundwater flow within 10 to 50 years after closure. Equilibrated pool levels within each of the mines were controlled by various combinations of spillage to the surface or other mines, pumpage, and barrier leakage. In a study of flooding in the Clarksville, PA area, field water-level observations, mine geometry, barrier hydraulic conductivity, recharge rates, and late-stage storage gains were …

Comprehensive Analysis Of The Atlantic Coast Natural Gas Transmission Line, William David Young

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

New energy sources are needed to sustain our constant need for energy as well as the development of the next generation. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is over 600 miles in length and will provide consistent, clean energy to the energy consumers in Virginia and North Carolina from natural gas production in the states of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. A detailed analysis was performed looking at modern pipeline construction as well as multiple studies to determine the economic, social, and environmental impacts of this transmission line. A theoretical study was also performed comparing how this transmission line would impact the …

Noise Monitoring Assessment Of A Northewest Fabrication Company., Amelia Rae Thurdekoos

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This report documents the findings, observations, and recommendations of the investigator's noise assessment survey, performed at a northwest company fabrication building located in Washington State. The assessment was performed at the request of the company's safety management staff and the fabrication building's industrial hygienist between June 6 and July 22, 2014. The goal of the noise assessment was to determine the risk of employees developing noise-induced hearing loss from their work at the company; to update the company's hearing conservation program; and to provide noise reduction recommendations. During the assessment, noise monitoring data was collected through the use of personal …

Shale Lithofacies Modeling Of The Bakken Formation In The Williston Basin, North Dakota, Shuvajit Bhattacharya

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The Bakken petroleum system (Devonian-Mississippian) in the Williston basin of North Dakota and Montana in the United States, and Saskatchewan and Manitoba in Canada is one of the largest unconventional oil plays in North America. The Bakken Formation consists of three members: upper, middle, and lower. Both upper and lower members are shale (source rocks), whereas the middle member (reservoir rock) is composed of mixed lithologies, including sandstone, dolostone, and limestone. Underlying the lower Bakken shale member, the Three Forks Formation is another target for hydrocarbon exploration.;Although the middle Bakken member along with the Three Forks Formation have been the …

Spatial Redistribution Of Organic Phosphorus In Hay And Grass Pastures Of Eastern West Virginia Following Longterm Animal Manure Applications, Michael B. Harman

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This study was conceived to investigate the fate of organic P (Po) in typical hay and grass pasture of eastern West Virginia. It is not uncommon in this region of West Virginia for hay and grass pastures to receive annual applications of animal manure, often on a nitrogen basis. As P management has evolved, many farms in the region have begun to use management tools such as a P index to continue use of animal manure as N fertilizer. However, many hay and grass pastures in the region already have a high degree of P saturation. There are reasonable expectations …

Investigation Of Particulate Matter Size, Concentration And Mass Emissions From Small Handheld 2-Stroke Spark Ignition Engines, Yashwanth Chowdary Maddineni

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Quality of air, change in the climate and exposure of humans to pollutants have become major concerns globally over the past decade. Particulate matter has been linked to many adverse health effects. Internal combustion engines are major source of PM emissions. Knowing the adverse health effects of particulate matter, the regulatory agencies are in the process of introducing strict regulations to limit the quantity of PM emitted by off-road small handheld gasoline engines. Two-stroke small engines typically emit more smoke as they burn oil-gasoline mixture compared to four-stroke engines running on gasoline only. Current regulations in the United States for …

Do Psychological Traits Explain Differences In Free Riding? Experimental Evidence, Gregory Deangelo, Hannes Lang, Bryan C. Mccannon

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We explore the relationship between common psychological traits, such as Theory of the Mind, Rational‐Experiential Inventory, and Big Five Personality styles, and willingness to contribute to public goods. Then, motivated by research that has indicated a relationship between past social interactions and cooperativeness, we consider the interaction between past game outcomes and psychological traits on free riding. We show that psychological traits of individuals have both a direct effect on free riding behavior, as well as an indirect effect as it enhances the correlation between past strategic behavior and public goods giving. Thus, the measurement tools of social psychology and …

Conflicts Originalism: The "Original Content" Of The Full Faith And Credit Clause And The Compulsory Choice Of Marriage Law, J. Sephen Clark

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Special-Education Litigation: An Empirical Analysis Of North Carolina's First Tier, Lisa Lukasik

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Theory Of Mind Predicts Cooperative Behavior, Gregory Deangelo, Bryan C. Mccannon

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Explanations for cooperation in Prisoner’s Dilemma games (PD) have generated significant interest. While institutional explanations, such as the role of repeated interactions and communication, have offered considerable explanatory ability, a psychological measure of Theory of the Mind (ToM) – Reading the Mind in the Eyes – of an individual’s ability to process social and emotional cognition offers new insights. Using this measure, we examine how ToM explains (un)cooperative behavior in a standard PD game. We find that subjects who have higher ToM are less cooperative in PD games and extract higher payoffs.

Lca Methodologies An Annotated Bibliography, Xueting Zhao

Regional Research Institute Resource Documents

No abstract provided.

Spatial Interaction Of Renewable Portfolio Standards And Their Effect On Renewable Generation Within Nerc Regions, Eric Dowden, Donald J. Lacombe

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

While several studies have examined the effectiveness of renewable portfolio standard laws on renewable generation in states, previous literature has not assessed the potential for spatial dependence in these policies. Spatial dependence in the electric grid is likely, considering the connectivity of the electric grid across NERC regions. Using recent spatial panel methods, this paper estimates a number of econometric models to examine the impact of RPS policies when spatial autocorrelation is taken into account. Consistent with previous literature, we find that RPS laws do not have a significant impact on renewable generation within a state. However, we find evidence …

Estimation Of A Partially Linear Regression In Triangular Systems, Xin Geng, Carlos Martins-Filho, Feng Yao

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We propose a kernel-based estimator for a partially linear regression in a triangular system where endogenous regressors appear both in the nonparametric and linear components of the regression. Compared with alternative estimators currently available in the literature (Ai and Chen 2003; Otsu 2011), our estimator has an explicit functional form, is easier to implement, and exhibits better experimental finite sample performance. The estimator is inspired by the control function approach of Newey et al. (1999) and was initially proposed by Martins-Filho and Yao (2012). It explores conditional moment restrictions that make it suitable for additive regression estimation as in Kim …

Invalidated Patents And Associated Patent Examiners, Shine Tu

Law Faculty Scholarship

This study attempts to determine whether there are common

characteristics between examiners who issue invalidated patents. This

study uses two new patent databases that code for nearly 1.7 million

patents and approximately one thousand patents that were litigated to

a 'final" judgment between 2010 and 2011. This study finds that

approximately one-third of patents that are litigated to final judgment

are found invalid. Most invalidated patents are found in technology

centers 1600, 2600, and 2700, which correspond to biotechnology and

organic chemistry, communications, and computer science, respectively.

Most patents are invalidated on prior art-type novelty and obviousness

grounds. This study …

Foundations Of The Wvu Econometric Input-Output Model, Randall Jackson, Juan Tomas Sayago Gomez

Regional Research Institute Resource Documents

No abstract provided.

Institutional Convergence: Exit Or Voice?, Joshua C. Hall

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

There is a small but growing literature on the determinants of economic freedom. In this paper I contribute to this literature in two ways. First, I empirically show that beta-convergence in economic freedom occurred from 1980 to 2010. Countries with low levels of economic freedom in 1980 "catch up" at a rate of 0.7 percent a year on average, ceteris paribus. Second, I document the structural characteristics that contribute to this institutional convergence. My conditional convergence estimates suggest democratic institutions do not contribute to conditional convergence. Exitability, a variable that captures how easy it is for citizens to \vote …

Changing The Rules Of The Game: Beyond Disclosure Framework For Securities Regulation, Jena Martin

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Behavioral Public Choice And The Law, Gary M. Lucas Jr., Slavisa Tasic

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Statutory Pooling And Unitization In West Virginia: The Case For Protecting Private Landowners, James E. Mcdaniel

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Contract Remedies In Action: Specific Performance, Yonathan A. Arbel

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Object-Oriented Interindustry Systems: Proof Of Concept, Péter Járosi, Randall Jackson

Regional Research Institute Technical Documents

This document provides a proof-of-concept demonstration of an object-oriented approach to modeling an inter-industry system. The example framework uses a small CGE model based on a three-sector social accounting matrix (SAM). The economy is shocked by changing total factor of productivity in the production function, the new equilibrium is determined in classical CGE fashion, and the original SAM is updated to conform to the new equilibrium solution. In this way, the efficiency of the Object-oriented modeling (OOM) approach can be emphasized in the context of the computational simulations of interindustry systems by a simplified CGE example written in Python. Since …

Textual Analysis In Real Estate, Adam D. Nowak, Patrick Smith

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

This paper incorporates text data from MLS listings from Atlanta, GA into a hedonic pricing model. Text is found to decrease pricing error by more than 25%. Information from text is incorporated into a linear model using a tokenization approach. By doing so, the implicit prices for various words and phrases are estimated. The estimation focuses on simultaneous variable selection and estimation for linear models in the presence of a large number of variables. The LASSO procedure and variants are shown to outperform least-squares in out-of-sample testing.

Economic Freedom And Economic Growth Across U.S. States: A Spatial Panel Data Analysis, Joshua C. Hall, Donald J. Lacombe, Timothy M. Shaughnessy

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

There is a substantial literature estimating the effect of economic freedom on economic growth. Most studies examine the relationship between freedom and growth for countries, while a few examine the relationship for U.S. states. Absent in the state{level literature is consideration of the presence of spatial spillovers affecting the freedom{growth relationship. Neglecting to account for spatial autocorrelation can bias estimation results and therefore inferences drawn. We find evidence of a spatial pattern in real per-capita GSP that affects non-spatial estimates of the freedom{growth relationship. Taking into account the direct and indirect effects of economic freedom on GSP, we find a …

Do New Sports Facilities Attract New Businesses?, Kaitlyn Harger, Brad R. Humphreys, Amanda Ross

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We examine the impact of new sports facilities on new businesses, an unexplored topic in the literature. We use data from the Dunn and Bradstreet MarketPlace files to examine how new sports facilities affect nearby business activity in terms of the number of new businesses and workers. We find no evidence of increased new businesses openings after the opening of new sports facilities in 13 US cities in the 2000s; employment at new businesses near new facilities is larger than at new businesses elsewhere in the MSA; this increase cannot be linked to businesses in any specific industry.

Small Business Borrowing And Peer-To-Peer Lending: Evidence From Lending Club, Adam Nowak, Amanda Ross, Christopher Yencha

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

This study is interested in the ability of borrowers and lenders to signal to each other in the peer-to-peer lending market. We focus on small business loans and investigate the relationship between the loan description that a borrower provides and the impact of this description on the potential funding of the loan by investors. We find that the loan descriptions in the data can be used to predict the probability that the entire loan will be funded. In addition, we also find that an index created from a textual analysis of the loan description can be used to forecast the …

Quasi-Experimental Methods An Annotated Bibliography, Mulugeta Kahsai, Randall Jackson

Regional Research Institute Resource Documents

No abstract provided.

Economic Freedom And Participation In Physical Activity, Joshua C. Hall, Brad R. Humphreys, Jane E. Ruseski

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Physical activity is an important part of a healthy lifestyle and influences a variety of health outcomes. A recent paper has found economic freedom to be positively associated with greater participation in physical activity in a sample of 34 European countries. We empirically investigate the relationship between economic freedom and physical activity across U.S. states. Contrary to the cross-country results, we find that states with higher levels of economic freedom have lower rates of participation in physical activity.

The Logic Of Collective Action And Beyond, Roger D. Congleton

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

This article provides an overview of Mancur Olson’s Logic of Collective Action and its impact on Olson’s subsequent work. It also suggests that the implications of his simple, elegant, theory have not yet been fully worked out. To illustrate this point, the second half of the essay demonstrates that the number of privileged and latent groups and their costs in a given society are not entirely determined by economic factors or group size alone. Politics, technology, and culture also matter.

Professional Sports Facilities, Teams And Property Values: Evidence From Seattle’S Key Arena, Brad R. Humphreys, Adam D. Nowak

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Professional sports teams and facilities can generate negative or positive amenities to be capitalized into nearby property prices. We investigate the effect of the departure of a National Basketball Association team, the Seattle SuperSonics, from Key Arena in Seattle in 2008 on nearby residential property values. The arena continued to operate after the team left, so this departure represents a natural experiment to identify the net effects of a sports team from the effect of a facility and other events that take place in the facility. Results from a repeat sale regression model indicate that the departure of the SuperSonics …