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2017

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Bridging The Gap Between Technology Usage In The Construction Industry And In The Classroom, Marco Maffioli Dec 2017

Bridging The Gap Between Technology Usage In The Construction Industry And In The Classroom, Marco Maffioli

Construction Management

As construction begins to advance more and more every day, technology is one of the most volatile aspects due to its ever changing nature. Technology, and all the software’s that encompass it, is the future of this industry and if we want to keep improving and growing as an industry we need to better align our future new hires with the most prevalent technology and that starts in the classroom. Specifically, the Construction Management Department at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, one of the most advanced in Nation, still struggles to align with the expectations and reality of the CM …

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Case Study: Diesel Excavators Compared To Hybrid Excavators, Corey Mcgrillen Dec 2017

Case Study: Diesel Excavators Compared To Hybrid Excavators, Corey Mcgrillen

Construction Management

The construction industry is constantly evolving and developing equipment that is more efficient, materials that promote sustainability and practices that emphasize lean construction principles to enhance productivity on projects. Modern day construction projects have become highly reliant on these ideals due to the highly competitive nature of the industry. In regards to heavy civil construction, specifically the underground utilities market, equipment costs count for a large percentage of overall project costs. Reducing these costs allows a contractor to be more competitive. As the focus on infrastructure construction continues to grow and expand, many heavy civil contractors are turning to alternative …

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Case Study On Student Competence In Construction Surveying And Layout, Dejah Hilliard Dec 2017

Case Study On Student Competence In Construction Surveying And Layout, Dejah Hilliard

Construction Management

The Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Construction Management (CM) curriculum requires its students to enroll in BRAE 239, a course that educates students on field surveying using equipment such as a total station and an automatic optical level (builder’s level). The class focuses on how to use the specified equipment to calculate distances, heights, and angles over fixed benchmarks to create labeled contour maps and land plot diagrams. The information and methods of calculation are taught in a classroom, and the physical surveying with the provided equipment is done in the agricultural field on campus. The course does touch on …

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Introduction Of Industry-Based Technical Electives Within Cal Poly Slo's Cm Curriculum, Michael Hicks Dec 2017

Introduction Of Industry-Based Technical Electives Within Cal Poly Slo's Cm Curriculum, Michael Hicks

Construction Management

The California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo requires that all Construction Management majors complete 8 units of technical elective credit as part of the degree requirement. Tech electives are various courses that offer additional information on particular constructionrelated subjects. This paper will explore the option of adding additional tech elective courses that focus on the various industry sectors within the construction line of work, particularly: residential, commercial, and specialty trades such as MEP. With these areas of construction being the primary job market targets for recent graduates, there is an interest to gain a higher understanding of these industries. …

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Earned Value Analysis Lesson Plan And Activity, Nick A. Halle Dec 2017

Earned Value Analysis Lesson Plan And Activity, Nick A. Halle

Construction Management

At California Polytechnic State University, in the Construction Management Department there is a need for a lesson plan which teaches students the concepts of earned value analysis as it applies to construction projects. As many construction management students from Cal Poly go into industry and take part in complex projects, it will be beneficial to understand project management tools such as earned value. Earned value analysis focuses on two critical components, time and money and how they relate to each other and compare to the original estimate throughout the duration of a project. Comparing the estimated values to actual values …

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Integrating Radiant Flooring With Insulation, Zachary J. Faber Dec 2017

Integrating Radiant Flooring With Insulation, Zachary J. Faber

Construction Management

Radiant flooring has gained traction in recent years becoming very common in residential construction, especially in custom homes. There are different types of radiant flooring that has been deployed into the construction of residential homes, but not all of them have been effective. Currently, radiant flooring must be installed either during construction of a new home, or requires the removal of existing flooring in order to place radiant components below and then reinstall the flooring. Not only does it require the removal of flooring, it is also quite expensive to purchase and install. This paper looks into whether or not …

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Case Study: Mitigating Schedule Impacts From Oshpd Regulations On Medical Equipment, Peter K. Lee Dec 2017

Case Study: Mitigating Schedule Impacts From Oshpd Regulations On Medical Equipment, Peter K. Lee

Construction Management

The vast majority of healthcare construction projects in the state of California work with OSHPD—Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development—to meet California’s Hospital Seismic Safety Law. While meeting the state’s Hospital Seismic Safety Law is important and even critical, working with OSHPD’s stringent regulations does imply additional concerns to be addressed by the project team. One concern regards the approval of bigger medical equipment and its impact on the overall construction schedule. This paper examines the factors that contribute to delays in the construction schedule, responsible parties for the delay, and responsibilities of each involved party. Based on an …

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Lean Construction Teaching Module: Push/Pull Planning, James M. Iroz Dec 2017

Lean Construction Teaching Module: Push/Pull Planning, James M. Iroz

Construction Management

The Construction Management Department at California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo has taken interests into the topics of Lean Construction to be a part of its curriculum. Lean Construction is a methodology in the built environment that tries to establish a leaner and more efficient work place in the industry. Within this broad spectrum of methodology, scheduling and more specifically, “push pull scheduling” is one of its many trademark applications. As the demand for more efficient projects rise, it is increasingly important for the next generation of construction students to be aware and educated with efficient skills. This experimental …

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Forney Residence Accessory Dwelling Unit, Nicholas J. Zygutis Dec 2017

Forney Residence Accessory Dwelling Unit, Nicholas J. Zygutis

Construction Management

This project involves the project management of a proposed 1,000 square foot accessory dwelling unit that is to be constructed in Alamo, California. The objective is to provide the necessary and efficient means of construction in order to properly establish this unit from conception to permitting. This has been done by obtaining all necessary paperwork, forms, and stamp approvals needed to allow for groundbreaking. The design of the project includes the basic pre-construction activities required to obtain an issued building permit such as collecting bids from architects, working with the client, obtaining plans, developing an adequate schedule and cost estimate, …

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Evaluating The California Contractors Licensing Exam And Its Relevance To The Construction Industry, Austin O'Mara Dec 2017

Evaluating The California Contractors Licensing Exam And Its Relevance To The Construction Industry, Austin O'Mara

Construction Management

The California contractors licensing exam tests aspiring contractors on their knowledge of the construction industry on other legal and trade topics. This paper is a case study that evaluates the contractors licensing exam and its ability to evaluate contractors. It concludes that the test itself is not responsible for increasing quality due to it being a simple process of memorization, but that California’s strict licensing requirements correlate to lower percentages of negative reviews. Various contractors from California were interviewed to understand their opinions of the licensing exam and how the knowledge from the exam related to their time in the …

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Devcon's In-House Design Department Benefiting Their Construction Process: A Case Study, Neeka M. Nazhand Dec 2017

Devcon's In-House Design Department Benefiting Their Construction Process: A Case Study, Neeka M. Nazhand

Construction Management

Devcon Construction Inc. is a general contracting company that implements a design department in-house to aid them with their design-build projects. Since their doors opened in 1976, Devcon has imbedded an in-house design department that now delegates about twenty-five percent of their design-build projects, and acts as a resource center for their other construction projects. Having this unique design department benefits both the design and construction side of projects, because working for the same company motivates the teams to work together and solve problems faster. The design department is not for direct profit and only works with Devcon’s contractors, mainly …

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Preconstruction Services For The Simpson Strong-Tie Lab Crane, Peter James Schoemann Dec 2017

Preconstruction Services For The Simpson Strong-Tie Lab Crane, Peter James Schoemann

Construction Management

For several years the Construction Management Department faculty have discussed implementing a better system of lifting heavy items in the Simpson Strong-Tie Lab. Currently, student assistants and faculty use a forklift to perform heavy lifting, there are definitely more safe and efficient alternatives available. An under running single girder crane system is in the process of being built in the Simpson Strong Tie lab. A full structural analysis has been calculated assuring the crane can lift up to two tons. This crane will help students and faculty use the lab to build the tiny house as well as other projects …

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Shaping Health Policy For Low-Income Populations: An Assessment Of Public Comments In A New Medicaid Waiver Process, Marian Jarlenski, Philip Rocco, Renuka Tipimeni, Amy Jo Kennedy, Nivedita Gunturi, Julie Donohue Dec 2017

Shaping Health Policy For Low-Income Populations: An Assessment Of Public Comments In A New Medicaid Waiver Process, Marian Jarlenski, Philip Rocco, Renuka Tipimeni, Amy Jo Kennedy, Nivedita Gunturi, Julie Donohue

Political Science Faculty Research and Publications

Since the Supreme Court decided that the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) Medicaid expansion is optional for the states, several have obtained federal approval to use Section 1115 waivers to expand Medicaid while changing its coverage and benefits design. There has long been concern that policy making for Medicaid populations may lack meaningful engagement with low-income constituents, and therefore the ACA established a new process under which the public can submit comments on pending Medicaid waiver applications. We analyzed 291 comment letters submitted to federal regulators pertaining to Medicaid Section 1115 waiver applications in the first five states to seek such …

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A Comparison Of Two Innovation Tools: Application On Smart Kitchen Design, Burcu Taşkın Dec 2017

A Comparison Of Two Innovation Tools: Application On Smart Kitchen Design, Burcu Taşkın

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The process is one of the significant issues of companies in innovative product design. The designers and the management deal with producing high quality products with the creativity in a short-term period. The researchers developed techniques to solve that problem as TRIZ. The TRIZ-based techniques aim to recover the gaps of the creative innovation to solve specific problems of technical products and technologies. However, the traditional innovation techniques are still preferred for the design process. This study conducted a comparative research on outcomes regarding the process of two design groups. The assignment is given to ten design students to identify …

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Whole Grain Processing And Effects On Carbohydrate Digestion And Fermentation, Sandrayee Brahma Dec 2017

Whole Grain Processing And Effects On Carbohydrate Digestion And Fermentation, Sandrayee Brahma

Department of Food Science and Technology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Whole grains are a major source of dietary fibers in the human diet that provide specific nutrients to the gut microbiota and thereby plays a major role in modulating microbiota composition and increasing diversity of the gut ecosystem. A common approach of consuming whole grains is in the form of ready-to-eat extruded breakfast cereals. Studies reported herein established that extrusion conditions not only affected the physicochemical properties but also in vitro starch digestibility, β-glucan extractability and in vitro fermentation characteristics of whole grain oats. Moderate screw speed (300 rpm) led to higher slowly digestible starch (SDS) with an accompanying decrease …

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Radiofrequency Processing For Inactivation Of Salmonella Spp. And Enterococcus Faecium Nrrl B-2354 In Whole Black Peppercorn And Ground Black Pepper, Xinyao Wei Dec 2017

Radiofrequency Processing For Inactivation Of Salmonella Spp. And Enterococcus Faecium Nrrl B-2354 In Whole Black Peppercorn And Ground Black Pepper, Xinyao Wei

Department of Food Science and Technology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Black pepper has been implicated in several foodborne illness outbreaks and food product recalls due to Salmonella contamination. Conventional decontamination methods for black pepper are challenged by harmful residues or quality deterioration. Radiofrequency (RF) heating reduces the come-up time which allows to design a high-temperature short-time processing to inactivate Salmonella with minimal deterioration in product quality. The objectives of this study were to investigate RF heating for inactivation of Salmonella in whole black peppercorn and ground black pepper samples, evaluate Enterococcus faecium NRRL B-2354 as a surrogate for Salmonella, and assess quality deterioration during RF heating of whole black peppercorn …

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Increasing Cis-Lycopene Content Of The Oleoresin From Tomato Processing Byproducts Using Supercritical Carbon Dioxide And Assessment Of Its Bioaccessibility, Lisbeth Vallecilla Yepez Dec 2017

Increasing Cis-Lycopene Content Of The Oleoresin From Tomato Processing Byproducts Using Supercritical Carbon Dioxide And Assessment Of Its Bioaccessibility, Lisbeth Vallecilla Yepez

Department of Food Science and Technology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In recent years, health- and wellness-promoting foods have been one of the major focus of consumers; therefore, the food industry is increasing its efforts in developing these food products. Tomatoes, tomato-food products and their byproducts have gained special attention in virtue of the carotenoids-rich source that they represent, especially lycopene (~90%). The role of lycopene in human diet has been highlighted as a result of its direct relationship with the decrease of chronic diseases. Nevertheless, lycopene is water-insoluble making its extraction simple with organic-toxic solvents; in addition, lycopene degrades easily with light, time, and storage. Lycopene exist in nature mostly …

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Splitting It Up: The Spduration Split-Population Duration Regression Package For Time-Varying Covariates, Andreas Beger, Daniel W. Hill Jr, Nils W. Metternich, Shahryar Minhas, Michael D. Ward Dec 2017

Splitting It Up: The Spduration Split-Population Duration Regression Package For Time-Varying Covariates, Andreas Beger, Daniel W. Hill Jr, Nils W. Metternich, Shahryar Minhas, Michael D. Ward

The R Journal

We present an implementation of split-population duration regression in the spduration (Beger et al., 2017) package for R that allows for time-varying covariates. The statistical model accounts for units that are immune to a certain outcome and are not part of the duration process the researcher is primarily interested in. We provide insights for when immune units exist, that can significantly increase the predictive performance compared to standard duration models. The package includes estimation and several post-estimation methods for split-population Weibull and log-logistic models. Weprovide an empirical application to data on military coups.

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Partial Rank Data With The Hyper2 Package: Likelihood Functions For Generalized Bradley-Terry Models, Robin K. S Hankin Dec 2017

Partial Rank Data With The Hyper2 Package: Likelihood Functions For Generalized Bradley-Terry Models, Robin K. S Hankin

The R Journal

Here I present the hyper2 package for generalized Bradley-Terry models and give examples from two competitive situations: single scull rowing, and the competitive cooking game show Master Chef Australia. A number of natural statistical hypotheses may be tested straightforwardly using the software.

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Riskregression: Predicting The Risk Of An Event Using Cox Regression Models, Brice Ozenne, Anne Lyngholm Sørensen, Thomas Scheike, Christian Torp-Pedersen, Thomas Alexander Gerds Dec 2017

Riskregression: Predicting The Risk Of An Event Using Cox Regression Models, Brice Ozenne, Anne Lyngholm Sørensen, Thomas Scheike, Christian Torp-Pedersen, Thomas Alexander Gerds

The R Journal

In the presence of competing risks a prediction of the time-dynamic absolute risk of an event can be based on cause-specific Cox regression models for the event and the competing risks (Benichou and Gail, 1990). We present computationally fast and memory optimized C++functions with an R inter face for predicting the covariate specific absolute risks, their confidence intervals, and their confidence bands based on right censored time to event data. We provide explicit formulas for our implementation of the estimator of the (stratified) baseline hazard function in the presence of tied event times. As a by-product we obtain fast access …

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Anomalydetection: Implementation Of Augmented Network Log Anomaly Detection Procedures, Robert J. Gutierrez, Bradley C. Boehmke, Air Force Institute Of Technology, Cade M. Saie, Trevor J. Bihl Dec 2017

Anomalydetection: Implementation Of Augmented Network Log Anomaly Detection Procedures, Robert J. Gutierrez, Bradley C. Boehmke, Air Force Institute Of Technology, Cade M. Saie, Trevor J. Bihl

The R Journal

As the number of cyber-attacks continues to grow on a daily basis, so does the delay in threat detection. For instance, in 2015, the Office of Personnel Management discovered that approximately 21.5 million individual records of Federal employees and contractors had been stolen. On average, the time between an attack and its discovery is more than 200 days. In the case of the OPM breach, the attack had been going on for almost a year. Currently, cyber analysts inspect numerous potential incidents on a daily basis, but have neither the time nor the resources available to perform such a task. …

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Liureg: A Comprehensive R Package For The Liu Estimation Of Linear Regression Model With Collinear Regressors, Muhammad Imdadullah, Muhammad Aslam, Saima Altaf Dec 2017

Liureg: A Comprehensive R Package For The Liu Estimation Of Linear Regression Model With Collinear Regressors, Muhammad Imdadullah, Muhammad Aslam, Saima Altaf

The R Journal

The Liu regression estimator is now a commonly used alternative to the conventional ordinary least squares estimator that avoids the adverse effects in the situations when there exists a considerable degree of multicollinearity among the regressors. There are only a few software packages available for estimation of the Liu regression coefficients, though with limited methods to estimate the Liu biasing parameter without addressing testing procedures. Our liureg package can be used to estimate the Liu regression coefficients utilizing a range of different existing biasing parameters, to test these coefficients with more than 15 Liu related statistics, and to present different …

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Ider: Intrinsic Dimension Estimation With R, Hideitsu Hino Dec 2017

Ider: Intrinsic Dimension Estimation With R, Hideitsu Hino

The R Journal

In many data analyses, the dimensionality of the observed data is high while its intrinsic dimension remains quite low. Estimating the intrinsic dimension of an observed dataset is an essential preliminary step for dimensionality reduction, manifold learning, and visualization. This paper introduces an R package, named ider, that implements eight intrinsic dimension estimation methods, including a recently proposed method based on a second-order expansion of a probability mass function and a generalized linear model. The usage of each function in the package is explained with datasets generated using a function that is also included in the package

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Furniture For Quantitative Scientists, Tyson S. Barrett, Emily Brignone Dec 2017

Furniture For Quantitative Scientists, Tyson S. Barrett, Emily Brignone

The R Journal

A basic understanding of the distributions of study variables and the relationships among them is essential to inform statistical modeling. This understanding is achieved through the computation of summary statistics and exploratory data analysis. Unfortunately, this step tends to be under-emphasized in the research process, in part because of the often tedious nature of thorough exploratory data analysis. The table1() function in the furniture package streamlines much of the exploratory data analysis process, making the computation and communication of summary statistics simple and beautiful while offering significant time-savings to the researcher

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Crtgeedr: An R Package For Doubly Robust Generalized Estimating Equations Estimations In Cluster Randomized Trials With Missing Data, Melanie Prague, Rui Wang, Victor De Gruttola Dec 2017

Crtgeedr: An R Package For Doubly Robust Generalized Estimating Equations Estimations In Cluster Randomized Trials With Missing Data, Melanie Prague, Rui Wang, Victor De Gruttola

The R Journal

Semi-parametric approaches based on generalized estimating equations (GEE) are widely used to analyze correlated outcomes in longitudinal settings. In this paper, we present a package CRTgeeDR developed for cluster randomized trials with missing data (CRTs). For use of inverse probability weighting to adjust for missing data in cluster randomized trials, we show that other software lead to biased estimation for non-independence working correlation structure. CRTgeeDR solves this problem. We also extend the ability of existing packages to allow augmented Doubly Robust GEEestimation (DR). Simulation studies demonstrate the consistency of estimators implemented in CRTgeeDR compared to packages such as geepack and …

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Queueing: A Package For Analysis Of Queueing Networks And Models In R, Pedro Cañadilla Jiménez, Yolanda Román Montoya Dec 2017

Queueing: A Package For Analysis Of Queueing Networks And Models In R, Pedro Cañadilla Jiménez, Yolanda Román Montoya

The R Journal

queueing is a package that solves and provides the main performance measures for both basic Markovian queueing models and single and multiclass product-form queueing networks. It can be used both in education and for professional purposes. It provides an intuitive, straightforward wayto build queueing models using S3 methods. The package solves Markovian models of the form M/M/c/K/M/FCFS, open and closed single class Jackson networks, open and closed multiclass networks and mixed networks. Markovian models are used when both the customer inter-arrival time and the server processing time are exponentially distributed. Queueing network solvers are useful for modelling situations in which …

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Allele Imputation And Haplotype Determination From Databases Composed Of Nuclear Families, Nathan Medina-Rodríguez, Ángelo Santana Dec 2017

Allele Imputation And Haplotype Determination From Databases Composed Of Nuclear Families, Nathan Medina-Rodríguez, Ángelo Santana

The R Journal

The alleHap package is designed for imputing genetic missing data and reconstruct non recombinant haplotypes from pedigree databases in a deterministic way. When genotypes of related individuals are available in a number of linked genetic markers, the program starts by identifying haplotypes compatible with the observed genotypes in those markers without missing values. If haplotypes are identified in parents or offspring, missing alleles can be imputed in subjects containing missing values. Several scenarios are analyzed: family completely genotyped, children partially genotyped and parents completely genotyped, children fully genotyped and parents containing entirely or partially missing genotypes, and founders and their …

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Fourierin: An R Package To Compute Fourier Integrals, Guillermo Basulto-Elias, Alicia Carriquiry, Kris De Brabanter, Daniel J. Nordman Dec 2017

Fourierin: An R Package To Compute Fourier Integrals, Guillermo Basulto-Elias, Alicia Carriquiry, Kris De Brabanter, Daniel J. Nordman

The R Journal

We present the R package fourierin (Basulto-Elias, 2017) for evaluating functions defined as Fourier-type integrals over a collection of argument values. The integrals are finitely supported with integrands involving continuous functions of one or two variables. As an important application, such Fourier integrals arise in so-called “inversion formulas”, where one seeks to evaluate a probability density at a series of points from a given characteristic function (or vice versa) through Fourier transforms. This paper intends to fill a gap in current R software, where tools for repeated evaluation of functions as Fourier integrals are not directly available. We implement two …

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Anchoreddistr: A Package For The Bayesian Inversion Of Geostatistical Parameters With Multi-Type And Multi-Scale Data, Heather Savoy, Falk Heße, Yoram Rubin Dec 2017

Anchoreddistr: A Package For The Bayesian Inversion Of Geostatistical Parameters With Multi-Type And Multi-Scale Data, Heather Savoy, Falk Heße, Yoram Rubin

The R Journal

The Method of Anchored Distributions (MAD) is a method for Bayesian inversion designed for inferring both local (e.g. point values) and global properties (e.g. mean and variogram parameters) of spatially heterogenous fields using multi-type and multi-scale data. Software implementations of MAD exist in C++ and C# to import data, execute an ensemble of forward model simulations, and perform basic post-processing of calculating likelihood and posterior distributions for a given application. This article describes the R package anchoredDistr that has been built to provide an R based environment for this method. In particular, anchoredDistr provides a range of post-processing capabilities for …

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Editorial, Roger Bivand Dec 2017

Editorial, Roger Bivand

The R Journal

In my editorial for the 2017–1 issue, I concentrated on tabulating the status of this journal with respect to its authors and reviewers (updated tables below). This time, I was prompted by an interesting blog posting by Jan Wijffels of BNOSAC, describing the use of the udpipe package to apply natural language processing (NLP) to the CRAN package database available from tools::CRAN_package_db() since the release of R 3.4. The interactive NLP searcher is a dashboard permitting exploration of annotated CRAN package title and description NLP data.

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