Digital Commons Network^™

Review Of Conservation: Linking, Ecology, Economics, And Culture By Monique Borgerhoff Mulder And Peter Coppolillo, David Himmelfarb

Ecological and Environmental Anthropology (University of Georgia)

Guided by their extensive field experience in conservation research and practice, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder and Peter Coppolillo offer an encompassing introduction to some of the most pervasive and incendiary social and biological science debates concerning biodiversity conservation. As environmental conservation initiatives have expanded throughout the globe in recent decades, scholars primarily from the social sciences have begun to critically examine the often fraught social dynamics of such conservation. This body of work has ignited a series of fierce debates among those with a concern for local peoples who have found themselves marginalized by conservation, those with a concern for rapidly …

The Importance Of Integrative Anthropology: A Preliminary Investigation Employing Primatological And Cultural Anthropological Data Collectionmethods In Assessing Human-Monkey Co-Existence In Bali, Indonesia, James E. Loudon, Michaela E. Howells, Agustin Fuentes

Ecological and Environmental Anthropology (University of Georgia)

This study investigates the interplay between humans (Homo sapiens) and long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) living in sympatric associations at 11 Hindu temple sites on the island of Bali, Indonesia. Primatological methods were utilized to examine demography, habitat type, and record long-tailed macaque feeding, and ranging behavior. Additionally, interviews and questionnaires were conducted to ascertain Balinese individuals’ perspectives regarding the macaques, local folklores surrounding the macaques, the perceived level of human-macaque overlap, and the degree of crop raiding by the macaques. Ethnographic methods revealed that attitudes toward long-tailed macaques vary, suggesting that human perceptions are determined by religious/local folklores and potential …

A Note On The Instability Of The Unprojected Individual Level Premium Cost Method, Pierre Devolder, Valerie Goffin

Journal of Actuarial Practice (1993–2006)

We compare the unit credit and the unprojected individual level premium cost methods in a continuous time environment and show that the latter may produce unstable contribution rates in a dynamic environment. Specifically, assuming there are no unfunded liabilities, we prove that the unprojected individual premium cost method may produce non-bounded contributions if benefits change too close to the normal retirement age.

Solvency Of Life Insurance Companies: Methodological Issues, Rosa Cocozza, Emilia Di Lorenzo

Journal of Actuarial Practice (1993–2006)

The paper deals with solvency assessment for life insurance business; some methodological issues concerning the solvency of life insurance companies, particularly connected to the investment risk, are suggested. Considerations about the technical equilibrium of an insurance portfolio and the financial regulation lead to a dynamic system involving risk measure and solvency assessment. The formal model is applied to a life annuity cohort in a stochastic context in order to exemplify the potential of the model, especially referred to the need to frame solvency assessment in a dynamic perspective.

Cognitive Biases And Heuristics In Tort Litigation: A Proposal To Limit Their Effects Without Changing The World, John E. Montgomery

Nebraska Law Review

Behavioral studies indicate that individuals do not always make objective decisions about risk. Various cognitive biases and heuristics-- mental shortcuts everyone uses consciously or subconsciously to make decisions under conditions of uncertainty--introduce error and subjectivity. At one level, these studies merely confirm the obvious: individuals make decisions based on both reason and emotions. At another level, they may introduce serious complications into some types of legal analysis, which are based on the assumption that individuals are rational actors. The potential effects of erroneous decisions about risk are of particular concern in the area of tort law. Laboratory studies establish that …

Creating Engaged Departments: A Program For Organizational And Faculty Development, Kevin J. Kecskes, Sherril B. Gelmon, Amy Spring

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Portland State University encourages faculty participation in service-learning by providing faculty with individual incentives to support and reward them. Now, in recognition of this central role of the department in higher education, administrators interested in creating sustained civic engagement initiatives on campus are looking to the department as a strategic leverage point for change. This chapter investigates a yearlong engaged department initiative and finds that a collective approach can (re)connect individual faculty to their initial motivations for engaging in the profession, to a community of scholars, to their students, and also to their surrounding community.

Helping Faculty Learn To Teach Better And “Smarter” Through Sequenced Activities, Barbara J. Millis

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Faculty developers can help faculty learn to intentionally sequence assignments and activities to promote greater learning when they understand the convergent research—with its practical implications for teaching—on how people learn, on deep learning, and on cooperative learning. Such a sequence includes a motivating out-of-class assignment (homework), in-class “processing” that includes active learning and student interactions, and feedback and assessment, often given in multiple ways. This approach is modeled through two examples using graphic organizers.

Expeditionary Learning: A Low–Risk, Low–Cost, High–Impact Professional Development Model, Chris Carlson-Dakes, Alice Pawley

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

We describe a low-risk, low-cost, high-impact professional development program to help faculty, instructional staff, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students create space in their lives to explore the diversity of their campus community and reflect on beliefs about teaching and learning in higher education. Along with small group discussions, participants have “expeditions” onto campus to explore learning situations and academic life in ways that they have never before experienced. We describe our theoretical model, programmatic and evaluation structure, and some participants’ insights into why they participated and what they learned from our first implementation.

Learning Communities For First–Year Faculty: Transition, Acculturation, And Transformation, Harriet Fayne, Alice Ortquist-Ahrens

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

To enhance new faculty members’ chances for teaching and career success, Otterbein College piloted a yearlong learning community program and encouraged first-year faculty to participate. Four new faculty members took part in opportunities designed to enhance their teaching, to orient them more fully to a new institution and student body, to foster collegial community, to encourage reflective practice, and to introduce them to the scholarship of teaching and learning. This qualitative case study tracks their developmental trajectory, which led them from an initial concern with self and survival to an eventual focus on student learning.

Bayesian Analysis Of A Health Insurance Model, Helio S. Migon, Edison M.O. Penna

Journal of Actuarial Practice (1993–2006)

We consider the problem of determining health insurance premiums based on past information on size of loss, number of losses, and size of population at risk. The size of loss and the number of losses are treated as mutually independent random variables. The number of losses is assumed to follow a Poisson process, and the loss sizes are independent and identically distributed non-negative random variables, and the population at risk is assumed to follow a non-linear growth model. An expression for the premium is obtained through maximization of the insurer's expected utility under a Bayesian model. The parameter estimation process …

Pricing Insurance Policies With A Distribution-Free Financial Pricing Model, Min-Ming Wen

Journal of Actuarial Practice (1993–2006)

The highly skewed and heavy tailed distributions used to model insurance losses (claims) raise a concern about the validity of the applications of the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) to insurance pricing when market risks are essential. This paper provides an alternative pricing model, called the Rubinstein-Leland model, which can be used to price insurance contracts. The Rubinstein-Leland model has a distribution-free feature that can fully capture the asymmetry embedded in insurance losses. Thus, this model is better able to derive fair prices for insurance policies than is the CAPM.

Bivariate Archimedean Copula Models For Censored Data In Non-Life Insurance, Michel Denuit, Oana Purcaru, Ingrid Van Keilegom

Journal of Actuarial Practice (1993–2006)

We describe a methodology based on Archimedean copulas for analyzing nonlife insurance data with censoring present. Specifically, we propose a graphical selection procedure for the nonparametric estimation of the generator. An actual loss-ALAE data set is used for the numerical illustrations and for comparisons of our approach to a few others.

Consistent Assumptions For Modeling Credit Loss Correlations, Jan Dhaene, Marc J. Goovaerts, Robert Koch, Ruben Olieslagers, Olivier Romijn, Steven Vanduffel

Journal of Actuarial Practice (1993–2006)

We consider a single period portfolio of n dependent credit risks that are subject to default during the period. We show that using stochastic loss given default random variables in conjunction with default correlations can give rise to an inconsistent set of assumptions for estimating the variance of the portfolio loss. Two sets of consistent assumptions are provided, which it turns out, also provide bounds on the variance of the portfolio's loss. An example of an inconsistent set of assumptions is given.

Focus Emu, November 28, 2006, Office Of Public Information

Focus EMU

No abstract provided.

Focus Emu, March 7, 2006, Office Of Public Information

Focus EMU

No abstract provided.

Focus Emu, April 4, 2006, Office Of Public Information

Focus EMU

No abstract provided.

Integrating Reading Strategies Into The Science Curriculum, Sarah Gilson

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Synthesis Of An Aza-Cope Rearrangement - Mannich Cyclization Precursor From L-Proline, Patricia T. Sinawe

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Lipid Metabolism In A549 And 9hte Cells Quantitation Of Lipid Peroxidation, Elizabeth Quintus

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Meaningful Labeling Of Integrated Query Interfaces, Eduard Dragut, Clement Yu, Weiyi Meng

Cyber Center Publications

The contents of Web databases are accessed through queries formulated on complex user interfaces. In many domains of interest (e.g. Auto) users are interested in obtaining information from alternative sources. Thus, they have to access many individual Web databases via query interfaces. We aim to construct automatically a well-designed query interface that integrates a set of interfaces in the same domain. This will permit users to access information uniformly from multiple sources. Earlier research in this area includes matching attributes across multiple query interfaces in the same domain and grouping related attributes. In this paper, we investigate the naming of …

National Assessment Of Shoreline Change Part 3: Historical Shoreline Change And Associated Coastal Land Loss Along Sandy Shorelines Of The California Coast, Cheryl Hapke, David Reid, Bruce M. Richmond, Peter Ruggiero, Jeff List

Marine Science Faculty Publications

Beach erosion is a chronic problem along many openocean shores of the United States. As coastal populations continue to grow and community infrastructures are threatened by erosion, there is increased demand for accurate information regarding past and present trends and rates of shoreline movement. There is also a need for a comprehensive analysis of shoreline movement that is consistent from one coastal region to another. To meet these national needs, the U.S. Geological Survey is conducting an analysis of historical shoreline changes along open-ocean sandy shores of the conterminous United States and parts of Hawaii and Alaska. One purpose of …

Context Is King: A Perception-Based Test For Evaluating Government Displays Of The Ten Commandments, Nathan P. Heller

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Bridgewater Magazine, Volume 16, Number 2, Winter 2006, Bridgewater State College

Bridgewater Magazine

Feature story covers BSC’s expansion and renovation projects; also Alumni Profiles, College Stories, Career Services Update, and Class Notes.

Bridgewater Magazine, Volume 17, Number 1, Fall 2006, Bridgewater State College

Bridgewater Magazine

Feature story: “Senior Faculty Reflect on 30+ Years of Professional Contributions and Service”; also Alumni Profiles, College Stories, Faculty Profiles, and Class Notes.

The Linking Probability Of Deep Spider-Web Networks, Nicholas Pippenger

All HMC Faculty Publications and Research

We consider crossbar switching networks with base b (that is, constructed from b x b crossbar switches), scale k (that is, with b^k inputs, b^k outputs, and b^k links between each consecutive pair of stages), and depth l (that is, with l stages). We assume that the crossbars are interconnected according to the spider-web pattern, whereby two diverging paths reconverge only after at least k stages. We assume that each vertex is independently idle with probability q, the vacancy probability. We assume that b ≥ 2 and the vacancy probability q are fixed, and that k …

Communicating Applied Mathematics: Four Examples, Daniel E. Finkel, Christopher Kuster, Matthew Lasater, Rachel Levy, Jill P. Reese, Ilse C. F. Ipsen

All HMC Faculty Publications and Research

Communicating Applied Mathematics is a writing- and speaking-intensive graduate course at North Carolina State University. The purpose of this article is to provide a brief description of the course objectives and the assignments. Parts A–D of of this article represent the class projects and illustrate the outcome of the course:

• The Evolution of an Optimization Test Problem: From Motivation to Implementation, by Daniel E. Finkel and Jill P. Reese

• Finding the Volume of a Powder from a Single Surface Height Measurement, by Christopher Kuster

• Finding Oscillations in Resonant Tunneling Diodes, by Matthew Lasater

• …

Residue Class Rings Of Real-Analytic And Entire Functions, Marek Golasiński, Melvin Henriksen

All HMC Faculty Publications and Research

Let A(ℝ) and E(ℝ) denote respectively the ring of analytic and real entire functions in one variable. It is shown that if m is a maximal ideal of A(ℝ), then A(ℝ)/m is isomorphic either to the reals or a real closed field that is an η1-set, while if m is a maximal ideal of E(ℝ), then E(ℝ)/m is isomorphic to one of the latter two fields or to the field of complex numbers. Moreover, we study the residue class rings of prime ideals of these rings and their Krull dimensions. Use is made of a classical characterization of algebraically closed …

Reflections Acting Efficiently On A Building, Michael E. Orrison

All HMC Faculty Publications and Research

We show how Radon transforms may be used to apply efficiently the class sum of reflections in the finite general linear group GLn(Fq) to vectorsin permutation modules arising from the action of GLn(Fq) on the building oftype An−1(Fq).

Optimal Therapy Regimens For Treatment-Resistant Mutations Of Hiv, Weiqing Gu, Helen Moore

All HMC Faculty Publications and Research

In this paper, we use control theory to determine optimal treatment regimens for HIV patients, taking into account treatment-resistant mutations of the virus. We perform optimal control analysis on a model developed previously for the dynamics of HIV with strains of various resistance to treatment (Moore and Gu, 2005). This model incorporates three types of resistance to treatments: strains that are not responsive to protease inhibitors, strains not responsive to reverse transcriptase inhibitors, and strains not responsive to either of these treatments. We solve for the optimal treatment regimens analytically and numerically. We find parameter regimes for which optimal dosing …

Tunneling Through Weak Interactions:  Comparison Of Through-Space-, H-Bond-, And Through-Bond-Mediated Tunneling, Westin Kurlancheek '03, Robert J. Cave

All HMC Faculty Publications and Research

Results from ab initio electronic structure theory calculations on model systems allow for the detailed comparison of tunneling through covalently bonded contacts, hydrogen bonds, and van der Waals contacts. Considerable geometrical sensitivity as well as an exponential distance dependence of the tunneling is observed for tunneling through various nonbonded contacts. However, the fundamental result from the present study is that at most a modest difference is observed between tunneling mediated by H-bonds and tunneling mediated by van der Waals contacts at typical distances for each type of interaction. These results are considered in relation to the pathways model of Beratan …