Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Macroconstants Of Development: A New Benchmark For The Strategic Development Of Advanced Countries And Firms, Andrey Bystrov, Vyacheslav Yusim, Tamilla Curtis

Dr. Tamilla Curtis

This research proposed a new indicator of countries’ development called “macroconstants of development”. The literature review indicates that the concept of "macroconstants of development" is not used at the moment in neither the theory nor the practice of industrial policy. Research of longitudinal data of total GDP, GDP per capita and their derivatives for most countries of the world was conducted. An analysis of statistical information has been done by employing econometric analyses.

Based on the analysis of the statistical data, which characterizes the development of large, technologically advanced countries in ordinary conditions, it was identified that the average acceleration …

Predicting Financial Distress: A Comparison Of Survival Analysis And Decision Tree Techniques, Adrian Gepp, Kuldeep Kumar

Adrian Gepp

Financial distress and then the consequent failure of a business is usually an extremely costly and disruptive event. Statistical financial distress prediction models attempt to predict whether a business will experience financial distress in the future. Discriminant analysis and logistic regression have been the most popular approaches, but there is also a large number of alternative cutting - edge data mining techniques that can be used. In this paper, a semi-parametric Cox survival analysis model and non-parametric CART decision trees have been applied to financial distress prediction and compared with each other as well as the most popular approaches. This …

Holocene Climatic Change And Past Irish Societal Response, David Brown, M. Baillie, J. Palmer, Christian Turney

David C. Brown

No abstract provided.

Trends Analysis Of Coastal Training Programs In The National Estuarine Research Reserve System: Executive Summary, Claudette Robey, Kevin O'Brien, Kirstin Toth, Dan Baracksay, Michael Mcgoun, Wendy Kellogg, Michael Tevesz

Michael J. Tevesz

No abstract provided.

The Gambler's Fallacy: A Test Of Football-Betting Market Efficiency, Ladd Kochman, Ravija Badarinathi

Ladd Kochman

Imaginary wagers placed on college football teams during the 2006-2010 seasons that were expected to beat the point spread following two games in which they lost both on the field and against the spread produced a wins-to-bets ratio that was statistically nonrandom but not profitable. However, when that rule was limited to the major conference schools, a significantly profitable W/B ratio emerged that challenges the efficiency of a competitive market.

Dogs No Longer Man's Best Friend: A Test Of Football Market Efficiency, Ladd Kochman

Ladd Kochman

The outcomes of wagers on underdogs in the National Football League for the 2003-2007 seasons indicated that what had been anomalous behavior no longer existed. The failure of underdogs to beat the spread in profitable or nonrandom fashion supports the argument that competitive markets are efficient and undermines the proposition that behavioral finance can illuminate exploitable betting patterns.

Revisiting The Streaking Teams Phenomenom: A Note, Ladd Kochman, Randy Goodwin

Ladd Kochman

In an effort to learn if systematic misperceptions by market participants can undermine efficient prices and create regular profit opportunities, Camerer (1989) and Brown and Sauer (1993) investigated whether participants in the basketball-betting market overbet streaking (or "hot") teams. The purpose of this note is determine whether streaking teams - both hot and cold-in college football alter point spreads to an exploitable degree. The pointwise outcomes of college football teams following 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-, and 9-game streaks during the 1996-2000 seasons. Streaks in the aggregate produced only breakeven results when used to predict the outcomes of …

An Empirical Study On The Relationship Between Sustainability Performance And Business Competitiveness Of International Construction Contractors, Yongtao Tan, Jorge Ochoa, Craig Langston, Li-Yin Shen

Craig Langston

With expectations for resource efficiency and climate change adaptation in the construction industry, there is an increasing need for contractors to implement sustainable practices. Such action will burden contractors with additional costs that will lower their economic performance. There are few research studies on how sustainability relates to a firm's competitiveness. This paper represents an empirical study of the relationship between sustainability performance and business competitiveness of international construction contractors. An inverse U-shape relationship between contractors' sustainability performance and their international revenue, and a U-shape relationship between contractors' sustainability performance and their international revenue growth was discovered. The findings can …

Session C-1: Coolhub.Imsa: Collaborative Innovation Networks, James Gerry, Carl Heine, Branson Lawrence, Aracelys Rios

Carl Heine

The use of social networking for students to learn from each other and experts around the world

Session D-4: Coolhub.Imsa: Collaborative Innovation In Action, Carl Heine, James Gerry

Carl Heine

Transform STEM teaching and learning with CoolHub.IMSA, a free virtual platform where youth and adults collaborate on projects they create. Explore the site through the eyes of project members and discover powerful ways to collaborate, innovate and network for learning.

Data In The Sciences At Colby College, A Case Study, Susan Westerberg Cole

Susan Westerberg Cole

A sabbatical project looked at the research data needs of science faculty at a small liberal arts college in order to determine potential library support services. I concluded that support needs to come from multiple campus units. This study highlighted the value of personal interviews to discover actual needs that had been unanticipated.

Microblogging For Engaged Teaching And Learning, Thomas Menkhoff, Kok Siew Benjamin Gan, Charles Jason Woodard, Yue Wah Chay

C. Jason Woodard

In this paper, we report how we put a newly developed Twitter application to work in the context of a Knowledge Management course taught at the Singapore Management University (SMU) allowing students to post and view relevant tweets in an organized manner for the benefit of collaborative class discussions and learning. Innovative elements of the ongoing project include the explorative usage of social media such as Twitter in the higher education context, student participation in providing initial evidence and qualitative feedback that tweeting is pedagogically meaningful and a newly built-in feature which can resolve tweeting challenges which occurred in class …

The Impact Of Hurricane Katrina On The Environmental Security Of The Us Gulf Coast Region And Beyond, John Lanicci, James Ramsay

John M Lanicci

No abstract provided.

Video Feature — Banned Books And The Stuart Rose Collection, Robert Brecha, Una Cadegan, John Inglis, Paul Morman

Paul J. Morman

A faculty panel discussion in two sessions:

Session 1:
The Index: Una Cadegan (history) looks at the current scholarship on the Index of Forbidden Books.
Galileo: Robert Brecha (physics) highlights the banning of Galileo and observational science.

Session 2:
Thomas Aquinas: John Inglis (philosophy) speaks on the banning of Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica, the most important book in Catholic intellectual tradition.
Descartes and the Index of Forbidden Books: Paul Morman (history, Distinguished Service Professor) highlights the book by Descartes that he was not allowed to study while a student at UD in the 1960s.

Video Feature — Banned Books And The Stuart Rose Collection, Robert Brecha, Una Cadegan, John Inglis, Paul Morman

John A. Inglis

A faculty panel discussion in two sessions:

Session 1:
The Index: Una Cadegan (history) looks at the current scholarship on the Index of Forbidden Books.
Galileo: Robert Brecha (physics) highlights the banning of Galileo and observational science.

Session 2:
Thomas Aquinas: John Inglis (philosophy) speaks on the banning of Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica, the most important book in Catholic intellectual tradition.
Descartes and the Index of Forbidden Books: Paul Morman (history, Distinguished Service Professor) highlights the book by Descartes that he was not allowed to study while a student at UD in the 1960s.

Video Feature — Banned Books And The Stuart Rose Collection, Robert Brecha, Una Cadegan, John Inglis, Paul Morman

Robert J. Brecha

A faculty panel discussion in two sessions:

Session 1:
The Index: Una Cadegan (history) looks at the current scholarship on the Index of Forbidden Books.
Galileo: Robert Brecha (physics) highlights the banning of Galileo and observational science.

Session 2:
Thomas Aquinas: John Inglis (philosophy) speaks on the banning of Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica, the most important book in Catholic intellectual tradition.
Descartes and the Index of Forbidden Books: Paul Morman (history, Distinguished Service Professor) highlights the book by Descartes that he was not allowed to study while a student at UD in the 1960s.

Feral Deer In The Suburbs: An Emerging Issue For Australia?, Shelley Burgin, Mariama Mattila, Daryl Mcphee, Tor Hundloe

Tor Hundloe

Deer are not endemic to Australia, but were introduced for game and aesthetics between the early 18th and 20th centuries. Until recent decades, most deer descended from these introductions. Before the 1970s when deer numbers and distribution expanded dramatically, farming was a modest enterprise. With the collapse of farming in the 1990s, large numbers of deer were deliberately released and translocated. Feral numbers and herds have subsequently expanded, and are increasingly encroaching on urban areas. As a new issue in Australia, views toward feral deer are polarized and span “welcome guest” to “major pest.” The emerging urban deer issues need …

Feral Deer In The Suburbs: An Emerging Issue For Australia?, Shelley Burgin, Mariama Mattila, Daryl Mcphee, Tor Hundloe

Daryl McPhee

Deer are not endemic to Australia, but were introduced for game and aesthetics between the early 18th and 20th centuries. Until recent decades, most deer descended from these introductions. Before the 1970s when deer numbers and distribution expanded dramatically, farming was a modest enterprise. With the collapse of farming in the 1990s, large numbers of deer were deliberately released and translocated. Feral numbers and herds have subsequently expanded, and are increasingly encroaching on urban areas. As a new issue in Australia, views toward feral deer are polarized and span “welcome guest” to “major pest.” The emerging urban deer issues need …

Turkers, Scholars, "Arafat" And "Peace": Cultural Communities And Algorithmic Gold Standards, Shilad Sen, M. Giesel, R. Gold, B. Hillmann, M. Lesicko, S. Naden, J. Russell, Z. Wang, B. Hecht

Shilad Sen

No abstract provided.

A Framework For Creating Active And Healthy Communities: A Case Study Of The Gold Coast, Bhishna Bajracharya, Linda Too, Isara Khanjanasthiti

Linda Too

Poor modern lifestyle choices have led to a burgeoning health concern for various government agencies prompting urgent review and action. Whilst the health sector has the primary role in addressing health issues, town planning can also contribute to better health by providing supportive environments for an active and healthy lifestyle. Local councils and other decision makers have a fundamental role in promoting healthy lifestyles among local community members through city planning and implementing physical activity and health programs. This research paper has two primary objectives. First, it develops an integrated 3-P (Place, Program and Partnership) framework for promoting active and …

A Framework For Creating Active And Healthy Communities: A Case Study Of The Gold Coast, Bhishna Bajracharya, Linda Too, Isara Khanjanasthiti

Bhishna Bajracharya

Poor modern lifestyle choices have led to a burgeoning health concern for various government agencies prompting urgent review and action. Whilst the health sector has the primary role in addressing health issues, town planning can also contribute to better health by providing supportive environments for an active and healthy lifestyle. Local councils and other decision makers have a fundamental role in promoting healthy lifestyles among local community members through city planning and implementing physical activity and health programs. This research paper has two primary objectives. First, it develops an integrated 3-P (Place, Program and Partnership) framework for promoting active and …

Australian Bid Cost Benchmarking Of Public Private Partnerships, Michael Regan, Jim Smith, Peter Love

Michael Regan

Bid costs are essentially a concern of private companies and evidence is difficult to source from companies keen to safeguard their cost structures in a competitive bid market. Little evidence is available from the product disclosure statements of public companies or published statutory or Securities Exchange returns. Few companies disclose detailed information although there is wide use of generic “rules of thumb” for different project categories and most companies engaged in the PPP market are unwilling to provide information other than in anecdotal form. This paper reviews empirical and pilot survey evidence to ascertain bid cost benchmarks for public private …

Financing Mechanisms For Public Private Partnerships: Australian Experience, Michael Regan, Jim Smith, Peter Love

Michael Regan

Recent events in international capital markets has had major impact on the ongoing rollout of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) and slowed their use. Capital has been hard to source especially for projects over $300 million, the patronage risk model for economic infrastructure is no longer available, debt is more expensive than it was 18 months ago and credit risk insurance is no longer readily available. This has affected bid markets and slowed the delivery of new infrastructures with longer-term implications for economic performance across the whole economy.

Comparing Project Costs Internationally: Methodology And Data Issues, Rick Best

Rick Best

It is not uncommon to see or hear statements that suggest that the cost of a project in one country is some multiple of the cost in another. Whether the claim is that it is more or less costly is irrelevant – the fact is that such statements are often meaningless yet governments and clients are all too ready to accept such claims and act on them in their decision-making. In some cases relative cost, however poorly calculated, is used as the basis for conclusions regarding relative productivity in industries such as construction. Arriving at truly comparable costs between countries …

Nuclear War: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, And A Workable Moral Strategy For Achieving And Preserving World Peace, Raymond Wilson

Raymond Wilson

Predicting Best Answerers For New Questions: An Approach Leveraging Topic Modeling And Collaborative Voting, Yuan Tian, Pavneet Singh Kochhar, Ee Peng Lim, Feida Zhu, David Lo

David LO

Community Question Answering (CQA) sites are becoming increasingly important source of information where users can share knowledge on various topics. Although these platforms bring new opportunities for users to seek help or provide solutions, they also pose many challenges with the ever growing size of the community. The sheer number of questions posted everyday motivates the problem of routing questions to the appropriate users who can answer them. In this paper, we propose an approach to predict the best answerer for a new question on CQA site. Our approach considers both user interest and user expertise relevant to the topics …

Emsian (Early Devonian) Tetracorals (Cnidaria) From Grattai Creek, New South Wales, Anthony Wright

Anthony Wright

The tetracoral species Phillipsastrea scotti sp. nov. and Trapezophyllum grattaiensis sp. nov. are described from strata assigned to the middle Emsian (nothoperbonus to inversus conodont zones: Early Devonian) part of the Cunningham Formation at Grattai Creek, west of Mudgee, N.S.W. For comparison with the former, Phillipsastrea oculoides, from the Early Devonian (late Pragian or early Emsian) Garra Formation in the Wellington area of N.S.W., is revised on the basis of the type material; new longitudinal thin sections show indisputable horseshoe dissepiments and trabecular fans in this species.

Recent Discoveries And A Review Of The Ordovician Faunas Of New Zealand, Ian Percival, Roger Cooper, Yong Yi Zhen, J Simes, Anthony Wright

Anthony Wright

Fossiliferous Ordovician rocks are of limited extent in New Zealand, being largely restricted to northwest Nelson and Westland in the northern part of the South Island, with some isolated exposures at the southern extremity of Fiordland (Fig. 1). The known stratigraphic record, though incomplete, covers much of the period, and new information from study and revision of old collections (mostly dating from the 1960s and 1970s) continues to fill in the gaps. These data are critical to a better understanding of New Zealand’s place in the Ordovician world, when it occupied an isolated position facing the palaeo-Pacific Ocean offshore to …

New Genera Of Early Devonian Calceoloid Corals From Australia And France, Anthony Wright

Anthony Wright

Two new Early Devonian genera and species of the family Calceolidae, phylum Cnidaria, are erected; these are Richtereola disruptus n. gen., n. sp., from the Emsian (perbonus conodont zone) of the Taemas area, NSW, Australia and from the Emsian Izarne Formation (gronbergi conodont zone) of the Montagne Noire, southern France; and Savageola unicus n. gen., n. sp. from the Lochkovian (eurekaensis conodont zone) Mandagery Park Formation at Manildra, NSW, Australia. These taxa are essentially defined on opercular characters; well-preserved opercula are essential for confident generic assignment of calceoloid material. Savageola is known only from eastern Australia, but Richtereola is known …

Phylum Cnidaria: Corals, Medusae, Hydroids, Myxozoans, Stephen Cairns, Lisa-Ann Gershwin, Fred Brook, Philip Pugh, Elliot Dawson, Oscar Ocana Vicente, Willem Vervoort, Gary Williams, Jeanette Watson, Dennis Opresko, Peter Schuchert, P Hine, Dennis Gordon, Hamish Campbell, Anthony Wright, Juan Sanchez, Daphne Fautin

Anthony Wright

This ancient phylum of mostly marine organisms is best known for its contribution to geomorphological features, forming thousands of square kilometres of coral reefs in warm tropical waters. Their fossil remains contribute to some limestones. Cnidarians are also significant components of the plankton, where large medusae – popularly called jellyfish – and colonial forms like Portuguese man-of-war and stringy siphonophores prey on other organisms including small fish. Some of these species are justly feared by humans for their stings, which in some cases can be fatal. Certainly, most New Zealanders will have encountered cnidarians when rambling along beaches and fossicking …