Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Transformation Based Learning For Specialization Of Generic Event Extractions, Mary D. Taffet, Nancy Mccracken, Eileen Allen, Elizabeth D. Liddy

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

As part of our Evidence Extraction and Link Discovery (EELD) project, we proposed to use Transformation Based Learning (TBL) to learn domain-specific specializations for generic event extractions. The primary goal of our learning task was to reduce the amount of human effort required for specializing generic event extractions to domains that are new and specific. Three initial annotation cycles and one annotation review and correction cycle involving a total of 70 documents were completed, with slightly over 32 hours required for the entire annotation effort; where possible, the annotation cycles started with bootstrapped files resulting from the application of TBL …

Concept Tree Based Clustering Visualization With Shaded Similarity Matrices, Bei Yu, Jun Wang, Les Gasser

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

One of the problems with existing clustering methods is that the interpretation of clusters may be difficult. Two different approaches have been used to solve this problem: conceptual clustering in machine learning and clustering visualization in statistics and graphics. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the benefits of combining clustering visualization and conceptual clustering to obtain better cluster interpretations. In our research we have combined concept trees for conceptual clustering with shaded similarity matrices for visualization. Experimentation shows that the two interpretation approaches can complement each other to help us understand data better.

November 2002, Syracuse Department Of Economics

Economics - All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

2002 Assessment Of Municipal Web Sites In Onondaga County, Syracuse University. Maxwell School Of Citizenship And Public Affairs. Community Benchmarks Program

Community Benchmarks Program

This report evaluates the Web sites of municipalities in Onondaga County. The Community Benchmarks Program (CBP) revisited a study conducted in 1999 that assessed municipal Web sites in the county. The goal of this study is to report the changes that have taken place since the last research project was conducted, given society’s increased reliance on technology

2002 Technology Audit Of Onondaga Municipalities, Maxwell School Of Syracuse University. Community Benchmarks Program

Community Benchmarks Program

This study reports information about the recent technology audit of 30 of the 35 municipalities in Onondaga County. Data collection time was designated from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, 2002. Several extensions were made with the final data accepted on Oct. 23, 2002. Researchers used an instrument designed to gather information about number of computers accessible to staff, type of hardware and software used, funding allocated for computer training, number of printers available, access to the Internet, employee satisfaction with current technology and future technology needs. The report provides the results of the audit comparing the compiled data using bar …

Why Relative Economic Position Does Not Matter: A Cost Benenit Analysis, Thomas J. Kniesner, W. Kip Viscusi

Center for Policy Research

The current debate over cost-benefit concerns in agencies’ evaluations of government regulations is not so much whether to consider costs and benefits at all but rather what belongs in the estimated costs and benefits. Overlaid is the long-standing belief that the distribution of costs and benefits needs some consideration in policy evaluations. In a recent article in the University of Chicago Law Review, Robert Frank and Cass Sunstein proposed a relatively simple method for adding distributional concerns to policy evaluation that enlarges the typically constructed estimates of the individual’s willingness to pay for safer jobs or safer products. One might …

Health Insurance Coverage And The Disability Insurance Application Decision, Jonathan Gruber, Jeffrey D. Kubik

Economics - All Scholarship

We investigate the effect of health insurance coverage on the decision of individuals to apply for Disability Insurance (DI). Those who qualify for DI receive public insurance under Medicare, but only after a two-year waiting period. This raises concerns that many disabled are going uninsured while they wait for their Medicare coverage. Moreover, the combination of this waiting period and the uncertainty about application acceptance may deter those with health insurance on their jobs, but no alternative source of coverage, from leaving work to apply for DI.

Data from the Health and Retirement Survey show that, in fact, uninsurance does …

Commercial Websites And The Use Of Classification Schemes: The Case Of Amazon.Com. In Lopez-Huertas, Maria J. Challenges In Knowledge Represantation An Organization For The 21st Century: Intergration Of Knowledge Across Boundaries., Barbara H. Kwasnik

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

The structure and use of the classification for books on the Amazon.com website are described and analyzed. The contents of this large website are changing constantly and the access mechanisms have the main purpose of enabling searchers to find books for purchase. This includes finding books the searcher knows about at the start of the research, as well as those that might present themselves in the course of searching and that are related in some way. Underlying the many access paths to books is a classification scheme comprising a rich network of terms in an enumerative and multihierarchical structure.

Lethal Elections: Gubernatorial Politics And The Timing Of Executions, Jeffrey D. Kubik, John R. Moran

Economics - All Scholarship

We document the existence of a gubernatorial election cycle in state executions, suggesting that election year political considerations play a role in determining the timing of executions. Our analysis indicates that states are approximately 25 percent more likely to conduct executions in gubernatorial election years than in other years. We also find that elections have a larger effect on the probability that an African American defendant will be executed in a given year than on the probability that a white defendant will be executed, and that the overall effect of elections is largest in the South. These findings raise concerns …

Can Policy Changes Be Treated As Natural Experiments? Evidence From State Excise Taxes, Jeffrey D. Kubik, John R. Moran

Economics - All Scholarship

An important issue in public policy analysis is the potential endogeneity of the policies under study. If policy changes constitute responses on the part of political decision-makers to changes in a variable of interest, then standard analyses that treat policy changes as natural experiments may yield biased estimates of the impact of the policy (Besley and Case 2000). We examine the extent to which such political endogeneity biases conventional fixed effects estimates of behavioral parameters by identifying the elasticities of demand for cigarettes and beer using the timing of state legislative elections as an instrument for changes in state excise …

Confidence Statements For Efficiency Estimates From Stochastic Frontier Models, William C. Horrace, Peter Schmidt

Economics - All Scholarship

This paper is an empirical study of the uncertainty associated with technical efficiency estimates from stochastic frontier models. We show how to construct confidence intervals for estimates of technical efficiency levels under different sets of assumptions ranging from the very strong to the relatively weak. We demonstrate empirically how the degree of uncertainty associated with these estimates relates to the strength of the assumptions made and to various features of the data.

Search And Rescue: Repair Strategies Of Remote Users Searching The Online Catalog, Nancy B. Turner, Susan E. Beck

Libraries' and Librarians' Publications

No abstract provided.

Information Literacy Instruction In Higher Education: Trends And Issues, Abby Kasowitz-Scheer, Michael Pasqualoni

Libraries' and Librarians' Publications

Students today face a daily explosion of information resources and the challenge of using these resources effectively and responsibly. Information literacy instruction (ILI) requires a shift in focus from teaching specific information resources to a set of critical thinking skills involving the use of information. ILI in an academic setting includes a variety of instructional approaches, such as course-related library instruction sessions, course-integrated projects, online tutorials, and stand-alone courses. Those running formal ILI programs consider curricular objectives, invoking combinations of instructional solutions over a period of time. This ERIC Digest examines characteristics of successful programs, presents specific examples of approaches …

April 2002, Syracuse Department Of Economics

Economics - All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Nonprofit Compensation : A Study And Comparison Of Nonprofit Agencies In Onondaga County, Syracuse University. Maxwell School. Community Benchmarks Program, Linda Lopez, Martha Roberts, Yusuke Tanno

Community Benchmarks Program

This report is a comparative study of the salary and benefits compensation packages of nonprofit executives in Onondaga County. The local data collected is contrasted to information presented in four similar studies of nonprofit organizations across the country. Three of the research studies were national in scope; one examined nonprofit agencies in New York City.

Cost-Benefit Analysis: Why Relative Economic Position Does Not Matter, Thomas J. Kniesner, W. Kip Viscusi

Economics - All Scholarship

The current debate over cost-benefit concerns in agencies' evaluations of government regulations is not so much whether to consider costs and benefits at all but rather what belongs in the estimated costs and benefits themselves. Overlaid is the long-standing concern that the distribution of costs and benefits needs some consideration in policy evaluations. In a recent article in the University of Chicago Law Review, Robert Frank and Cass Sunstein proposed a relatively simple method for adding distributional concerns to policy evaluation that enlarges the typically constructed estimates of the individual's willingness to pay for safer jobs or safer products. One …

On The Edge Of Scarcity: Environment, Resources, Population, Sustainability, And Conflict, Michael N. Dobkowski, Isidor Wallimann

Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration

These essays address one of the most pressing and significant issues that humanity has confronted to date - the lack of life-sustaining resources. Michael N. Dobkowski and Isidor Wallimann establish a disturbing but realistic scenario of the disastrous future that awaits humankind as surplus populations collide with dwindling resources. Authors consider a number of cause-and-effect situations on industrialization, biophysical limits, exponential population growth, and genocide, to name a few. This volume is a critical contribution to the field and will serve as an ideal introduction to courses in the environment, population, resources, genocide, and social conflict.

Front Matter

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

No abstract provided.

Beadwork Of Hungary And Transylvania, Robin Atkins

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

Beading is a cultural necessity in some rural villages of Hungary and Transylvania, where peasants have used embroidery and beads to lavishly embellish their costumes for hundreds of years. Remaining little changed over several centuries and almost oblivious to beads and beadwork in the rest of the world, the peasants of these villages have slowly evolved their own style of beadwork from thread embroidery and other embellishing methods. Based on field research, this article explores the cultural traditions, rich designs, and techniques of beadwork in four Hungarian villages—three in Transylvania (Romania) and one in southern Hungary.

Table Of Contents (V. 14, 2002)

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

No abstract provided.

In Memoriam: Peter Francis, Jr., 1945-2002, Karlis Karklins

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

The bead research community lost a principal member when Peter Francis, Jr., director of the Center for Bead Research in Lake Placid, New York, died December 8, 2002, while on a research trip to Ghana, West Africa. Pete was widely known and respected, and was responsible for significantly increasing people's awareness—on a worldwide scale—of beads and their place in human culture through his many publications, lectures, workshops, symposia, and internet website. He leaves a void that will be very hard, if not impossible, to fill.

Reviews And End Matter

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

Amulets and Pendants in Ancient Maharashtra, by Jyotsna Maurya (2000), reviewed by Jonathan Mark Kenoyer

South East African Beadwork, 1850-1910: From Adornment to Artefact to Art, by Michael Stevenson and Michael Graham-Stewart (2000), reviewed by Margret Carey

Ancient Glass in the Israel Museum: Beads and Other Small Objects, by Maud Spaer et al. (2001), reviewed by Peter Francis, Jr.

Asia's Maritime Bead Trade: 300 B.C. to the Present, by Peter Francis, Jr. (2002), reviewed by James W. Lankton

Ethnographic Beadwork: Aspects of Manufacture, Use and Conservation, Margot M. Wright (ed.) (2001), reviewed by Alice Scherer.

Late Neolithic Amber Beads And Pendants From The Lake Lubāns Wetlands, Latvia, Ilze Biruta Loze

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

In Late Neolithic Europe, amber beads and pendants were initially mainly made in the coastal zone of the Baltic Sea, due to the presence of amber washed up by the Litorina Sea. There were four principal localized zones of Neolithic amber artifacts in this region: the eastern Baltic, the mouth of the Vistula River, Jutland and Skone, and Fennoscandinavia. The British Isles are regarded as a fifth zone. As the popular-scientific literature has so far provided scant information on the amber-working zone of the eastern Baltic, this article summarizes the findings revealed by extensive archaeological research, particularly during the past …

A Brief Biography Of Giovanni Giacomuzzi: Artist And Glassmaker, Vincenzo Zanetti

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

Giovanni Giacomuzzi (1817-1872) was the driving force behind the celebrated 19th-century Venetian beadmaking and glassworking firm of Fratelli Giacomuzzi fu Angelo, one of whose bead sample books is described in the accompanying report. This tribute by a learned contemporary summarizes Giacomuzzi's accomplishments and sheds light on the life of a much-honored master glassworker.

Captions And Color Plates (V. 14, 2002)

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

No abstract provided.

The Giacomuzzi Bead Sample Book And Folders, Karlis Karklins

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

The sample book described herein displays the wound glass beads produced during the third quarter of the 19th century by an acclaimed Venetian firm, that of the Giacomuzzi brothers. The book vividly shows what sorts of beads were being marketed by a single firm at this time, and provides much useful information concerning bead sizing systems. Although not marked with the producers name, the folders that accompany the book are of like date and at least one is likely a product of the Giacomuzzis.

Beads: Journal Of The Society Of Bead Researchers - Volume 14 (Complete)

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

No abstract provided.

The Digital Library: A Biography, Suzanne E. Thorin, Daniel Greenstein

Libraries' and Librarians' Publications

The idea for the study took shape in a New York City steakhouse where four DLF directors met to reflect on the new roles and responsibilities that were emerging for their libraries as they entered an increasingly networked digital age.1 Realizing that lessons from the past were easier and perhaps more predictive than prognostications about the future, they suggested that a study of DLF member programs would reveal the history, aims, organization, and immediate challenges in their libraries The study progressed quickly, following the development of a lengthy (104-question) survey that was received and completed without complaint at DLF member …

A Breadth Of Nlp Applications, Elizabeth D. Liddy

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

The Center for Natural Language Processing (CNLP) was founded in September 1999 in the School of Information Studies, the “Original Information School”, at Syracuse University. CNLP’s mission is to advance the development of human-like, language understanding software capabilities for government, commercial, and consumer applications. The Center conducts both basic and applied research, building on its recognized capabilities in Natural Language Processing. The Center’s seventeen employees are a mix of doctoral students in information science or computer engineering, software engineers, linguistic analysts, and research engineers.

Ontological Representation Of Learning Objects, Jian Qin, Christina Finneran

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

Many of the existing metadata standards use content metadata elements that are coarse-grained representations of learning resources. These metadata standards limit users ’ access to learning objects that may be at the component level. The authors discuss the need for component level access to learning resources and provide a conceptual framework of the knowledge representation of learning objects that would enable such access.