Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Public Interest In Climate Change Over The Past Decade And The Effects Of The ‘Climategate’ Media Event, William R. L. Anderegg, Gregory R. Goldsmith

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Despite overwhelming scientific consensus concerning anthropogenic climate change, many in the non-expert public perceive climate change as debated and contentious. There is concern that two recent high-profile media events—the hacking of the University of East Anglia emails and the Himalayan glacier melt rate presented in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—may have altered public opinion of climate change. While survey data is valuable for tracking public perception and opinion over time, including in response to climate-related media events, emerging methods that facilitate rapid assessment of spatial and temporal patterns in public interest and opinion could …

The Reclamation Of Public Parks: An Analysis Of Environmental Justice In Los Angeles, Allison Rigby

Scripps Senior Theses

People who live in cities are far more likely to suffer the physical and psychological effects of urban environments--high noise levels, automobile emissions, toxic industrial waste, crowded living conditions, and a general scarcity of open space. Combating these issues, public parks do more than provide recreational space. They are fundamental to any efforts focusing on urban revitalization, social justice, and sustainability. In downtown Los Angeles, public parks are rare, especially in low-income communities. Several new public parks have reclaimed abandoned land, unwelcoming spaces, and the City’s brownfields. After years of intense private use and neglect, spent land has been reinvigorated …

Musical Missteps: The Severity Of The Sophomore Slump In The Music Industry, Shane M. Zackery

Scripps Senior Theses

This study looks at alternative models of follow-up album success in order to determine if there is a relationship between the decrease in Metascore ratings (assigned by Metacritic.com) between the first and second album for a musician or band and the 1) music genre or 2) the number of years between the first and second album release. The results support the dominant thought, which suggests that neither belonging to a certain genre of music nor waiting more or less time to drop the second album makes an artist more susceptible to the Sophomore Slump. This finding is important because it …

Spatial Analysis Of Post-Hurricane Katrina Thermal Pattern And Intensity In Greater New Orleans: Implications For Urban Heat Island Research, Aram P. Lief

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina’s diverse impacts on the Greater New Orleans area included damaged and destroyed trees, and other despoiled vegetation, which also increased the exposure of artificial and bare surfaces, known factors that contribute to the climatic phenomenon known as the urban heat island (UHI). This is an investigation of UHI in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which entails the analysis of pre and post-hurricane Katrina thermal imagery of the study area, including changes to surface heat patterns and vegetative cover. Imagery from Landsat TM was used to show changes to the pattern and intensity of the UHI effect, …

The Santa Clara, 2014-05-15, Santa Clara University

The Santa Clara

No abstract provided.

Usability Testing: Open Geoportal 2.0, Rob Wolff, Kristin Parker

PLACE Project

The PLACE project team at the University of New Hampshire Library performed usability testing on May 9, 2014 with three participants with GIS experience. Tasks focused on use of Open GeoPortal 2.0 (beta).

The Santa Clara, 2014-05-08, Santa Clara University

The Santa Clara

No abstract provided.

Bioplastics: Reinventing Conventional Plastic Production And The Future Of Biodegradable Materials, Ruby Roca

2014 Student Theses

The use of plastic is prevalent in our society due to the increasing amount of new products entering the market that need some form of packaging that is solid enough yet disposable. From everything to yogurt containers to diapers, plastic containers are a large part of our society’s consumption culture and often goes unnoticed. However, people point to plastic water bottles and containers as the only culprit, and often times forget that almost all packaging contains some form of plastic. For my thesis I want to examine how the use of plastics has increased waste material, considering that it takes …

The State Of The Upper Bay Of Panama Wetlands: Ecological Significance, Environmental Policy, Urbanization, And Social Justice, Madeline A. Price

Celebration

I conducted this research while studying abroad with SIT Panama: Tropical Ecology, Marine Ecosystems, and Biodiversity Conservation. This is a multidisciplinary investigation of the Upper Bay of Panama wetlands, a 49,000 hectare region east of Panama City that features mangrove, intertidal mudflat, and grassland habitat internationally recognized as a stopover site for two million shorebirds every migration season. However, with economic pressure to increase urban development in the area, this land’s protected status under the Ramsar convention was suspended for a year in April 2012. By compiling scientific studies, news articles, photographs, and interviews with local conservationists and community members, …

Investment In Technology & Voluntary Simplicity: Exploring Opportunities For Energy-Efficiency In The Us Residential Sector, Elaine Charlebois

Honors Scholar Theses

This work examines alternative approaches for middle-class Americans to make lifestyle changes to promote energy efficiency. The US residential sector poses a significant opportunity for improvement in efficiency which will lead to electricity and carbon savings, further leading to long-term cost savings for each household.

A way to think about energy savings is by considering two radically different approaches: voluntary simplicity or investment in technology. Investments in technology include retrofits for existing homes and building new homes more efficiently, both focusing on aspects such as heating and cooling, insulation, water use and water heating, lighting, and appliances. Voluntary simplicity is …

Schrödinger And Nietzsche And Life: Eternal Recurrence And The Conscious Now, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

The phenomenological question of consciousness usually associated with Husserl (although there are echoes of this in Augustine as in Marcus Aurelius, Kant and Schopenhauer), is the consciousness of the now, the present moment. I explore this consciousness for Erwin Schrödinger, which for him included reference to the Upaniṣads together with Nietzsche’s central teaching or “thinking” of the eternal recurrence of the same.

The Santa Clara, 2014-05-01, Santa Clara University

The Santa Clara

No abstract provided.

Interannual Variations And Trends In Global Land Surface Phenology Derived From Enhanced Vegetation Index During 1982–2010, Xiaoyang Zhang, Bin Tan, Yunyue Yu

GSCE Faculty Publications

Land surface phenology is widely retrieved from satellite observations at regional and global scales, and its long-term record has been demonstrated to be a valuable tool for reconstructing past climate variations, monitoring the dynamics of terrestrial ecosystems in response to climate impacts, and predicting biological responses to future climate scenarios. This study detected global land surface phenology from the advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data from 1982 to 2010. Based on daily enhanced vegetation index at a spatial resolution of 0.05 degrees, we simulated the seasonal vegetative trajectory for each individual pixel …

Pssa In The Baltic Sea : Protection On Paper Or Potential Progress?, Alina Prylipko

PSSA in the Baltic Sea

This report analyzes the effectiveness of the mechanisms of the particularly sensitive sea area (PSSA) and associated protective measures (APMs) as adopted and applied in the Baltic Sea and their contribution towards achieving sustainable shipping in future scenarios.

Herring Governance Report Herring Network Institutions And Governance, Harry V. Strehlow, Dariusz P. Fey, Adam M. Lejk, Friederike Lempe, Henrik Nilsson, Iwona Psuty, Lena Szymanek

HERRING

The Governance Report presents the research about the governance framework in which the various aspects and sectors that are relevant for spawning ground management are embedded.

Bias And Precision Of The Squared Canonical Correlation Coefficient Under Nonnormal Data Condition, Lesley F. Leach, Robin K. Henson

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Monte Carlo methods were employed to investigate the effect of nonnormality on the bias associated with the squared canonical correlation coefficient (R_c²). The majority of R_c² estimates were found to be extremely biased, but the magnitude of bias was impacted little by the degree of nonnormality.

Stochastic Randomized Response Model For A Quantitative Sensitive Random Variable, Sarjinder Singh, Stephen A. Sedory

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

A new stochastic randomized response model is introduced that is useful for estimating the population mean of a sensitive quantitative variable. The proposed stochastic randomized response model is an extension of the stochastic randomized response model from a qualitative sensitive variable to a quantitative variable found in Singh (2002). The stochastic nature of a randomized response device helps increase a respondent’s cooperation while collecting information on sensitive variables in a society. The Bar-Lev, Bobovitch, and Boukai (2004) model is shown to be a special case of the proposed model.

Ridge Regression In Calibration Models With Symmetric Padding Extension-Daubechies Wavelet Transform Preprocessing, Nurwiani, S Sunaryo, Setiawan, B W. Otok

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Wavelet transformation is commonly used in calibration models as a preprocessing step. This preprocessing does not involve all results of a spectrum discretization; consequently, a lot of information can be missing. To avoid missing information, a symmetric padding extension (SPE) can be used to place all data points into dyadic scales, however, high dimensional discretization points need to be reduced. Dimension reduction can be performed with Daubechies wavelet transformation (DWT). Scale function and Daubechies wavelet are continuous functions, thus they perform a faster approximation. SPE-DWT preprocessing combines SPE and DWT. Multicollinearity often occurs in calibration models; the ridge regression (RR) …

Statistical Power Of Alternative Structural Models For Comparative Effectiveness Research: Advantages Of Modeling Unreliability, Emil N. Coman, Eugen Iordache, Lisa Dierker, Judith Fifield, Jean J. Schensul, Suzanne Suggs, Russell Barbour

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

The advantages of modeling the unreliability of outcomes when evaluating the comparative effectiveness of health interventions is illustrated. Adding an action-research intervention component to a regular summer job program for youth was expected to help in preventing risk behaviors. A series of simple two-group alternative structural equation models are compared to test the effect of the intervention on one key attitudinal outcome in terms of model fit and statistical power with Monte Carlo simulations. Some models presuming parameters equal across the intervention and comparison groups were under- powered to detect the intervention effect, yet modeling the unreliability of the outcome …

A Flexible Method For Conducting Power Analysis For Two- And Three-Level Hierarchical Linear Models In R, Yi Pan, Matthew T. Mcbee

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

A general approach for conducting power analysis in two- and three-level hierarchical linear models (HLMs) is described. The method can be used to perform power analysis to detect fixed effects at any level of a HLM with dichotomous or continuous covariates. It can easily be extended to perform power analysis for functions of parameters. Important steps in the derivation of this approach are illustrated and numerical examples are provided. Sample code implementing this approach is provided using the free program R.

Estimation Of Reliability In Multicomponent Stress-Strength Based On Generalized Rayleigh Distribution, Gadde Srinivasa Rao

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

A multicomponent system of k components having strengths following k- independently and identically distributed random variables x₁, x₂, ..., x_k and each component experiencing a random stress Y is considered. The system is regarded as alive only if at least s out of k (s < k) strengths exceed the stress. The reliability of such a system is obtained when strength and stress variates are given by a generalized Rayleigh distribution with different shape parameters. Reliability is estimated using the maximum likelihood (ML) method of estimation in samples drawn from strength and stress …

Specifying Asymmetric Star Models With Linear And Nonlinear Garch Innovations: Monte Carlo Approach, Olaoluwa S. Yaya, Olanrewaju I. Shittu

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Economic and finance time series are typically asymmetric and are expected to be modeled using asymmetrical nonlinear time series models. Smooth Transition Autoregressive (STAR) models: Logistic (LSTAR) and Exponential (ESTAR) are known to be asymmetric and symmetric respectively. Under non-normal and heteroscedastic innovations, the residuals of these models are estimated using Generalized Autoregressive Conditionally Heteroscedastic (GARCH) models with variants which include linear and nonlinear forms. The small sample properties of STAR-GARCH variants are yet to be established but these properties are investigated using Monte Carlo (MC) simulation. An MC investigation was conducted to investigate the performance of selections of STAR-GARCH …

Robustness Of Several Estimators Of The Acf Of Ar(1) Process With Non-Gaussian Errors, A A. Smadi, J J. Jaber, A G. Al-Zu'bi

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

The autocorrelation function (ACF) plays an important role in the context of ARMA modeling, especially for their identification and estimation. This study considers the robust estimation of the ACF of the AR(1) model if the white noise (WN) process is non- Gaussian. Three estimators including the ordinary moment estimator and two other (robust) estimators are considered. The impacts of the deviation from normality of the WN process on those estimators in terms of bias, MSE and distribution via Monte-Carlo simulation are examined. The empirical distribution of those estimators when the errors are normal, t, Cauchy and exponential are studied. …

Two Parameter Modified Ratio Estimators With Two Auxiliary Variables For Estimation Of Finite Population Mean With Known Skewness, Kurtosis And Correlation Coefficient, Jambulingam Subramani, G Prabavathy

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Consider the two parameter modified ratio estimators for the estimation of finite population mean using the skewness, kurtosis and correlation coefficient of two auxiliary variables. The efficiencies of the proposed modified ratio estimators are assessed with that of the simple random sampling without replacement (SRSWOR) sample mean and some of the existing ratio estimators in terms of mean squared errors. The entire above is explained with the help of certain natural populations available in the literature.

Change Point Estimation For Pareto Type-Ii Model, Gyan Prakash

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Some Bayes estimators of the change point for the Pareto Type-II model under right item failure-censoring scheme are proposed. The Bayes estimators are obtained here in two cases, the first is when one parameter is known and second when both parameters are considered as the random variable. The performances of the procedures are illustrated by simulation technique.

Comparison Of Three Calculation Methods For A Bayesian Inference Of Two Poisson Parameters, Yohei Kawasaki, Etsuo Miyaoka

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

The statistical inference drawn from the difference between two independent Poisson parameters is often discussed in medical literature. Kawasaki and Miyaoka (2012) proposed an index θ = P(λ_1,post < λ_2,post), where λ_1,post and λ_2,post denote Poisson parameters following posterior density. A new calculation method is proposed using MCMC and an approximate expression and exact expression for θ are compared.

Likelihood Ratio Type Test For Linear Failure Rate Distribution Vs. Exponential Distribution, R R. L. Kantam, M C. Priya, M S. Ravikumar

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

The Linear Failure Rate Distribution (LFRD) is considered. The graphs of its probability density function are examined for selected parameter combinations. Some of them are similar to the well-known exponential distribution. Incidentally exponential distribution is one of the two component models of the LFRD model. In view of the simpler form of exponential model as applicable in inference, looking at the frequency curves of LFRD, a test statistic is proposed based on ratio of likelihood functions containing the standard forms of the density functions of both LFRD and Exponential to discriminate between LFRD and exponential models. The critical values and …

A Comparison Of Shape And Scale Estimators Of The Two-Parameter Weibull Distribution, Florence George

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Weibull distributions are widely used in reliability and survival analysis. In this paper, different methods to estimate the shape and scale parameters of the two-parameter Weibull distribution have been reviewed and compared, based on the bias, mean square error and variance. Because a theoretical comparison is not possible, an extensive simulation study has been conducted to compare the performance of different estimators. Based on the simulation study it was observed that MLE consistently performs better than other methods.

An Alternative Test For The Equality Of Intraclass Correlation Coefficients Under Unequal Family Sizes For Several Populations, Madhusudan Bhandary, Koji Fujiwara

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

An alternative test for the equality of several intraclass correlation coefficients under unequal family sizes based on several independent multinormal samples is proposed. It was found that the alternative test consistently and reliably produced results superior to those of Likelihood ratio test (LRT) proposed by Bhandary and Alam (2000) and F_max test proposed by Bhandary and Fujiwara (2006) in terms of power for various combinations of intraclass correlation coefficient values and also the alternative test stays closer to the significance level under null hypothesis compared to the Likelihood ratio test and F_max test. This alternative test is computationally …

Inference For The Rayleigh Distribution Based On Progressive Type-Ii Fuzzy Censored Data, Abbas Pak, Gholam Ali Parham, Mansour Saraj

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Classical statistical analysis of the Rayleigh distribution deals with precise information. However, in real world situations, experimental performance results cannot always be recorded or measured precisely, but each observable event may only be identified with a fuzzy subset of the sample space. Therefore, the conventional procedures used for estimating the Rayleigh distribution parameter will need to be adapted to the new situation. This article discusses different estimation methods for the parameters of the Rayleigh distribution on the basis of a progressively type-II censoring scheme when the available observations are described by means of fuzzy information. They include the maximum likelihood …