Falcon Commons (Univ. of Texas Permian Basin)
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U.S. Community Bank Profitability: A Cross-Sectional and Dynamic Panel Analysis of Rural and Metropolitan Banks
No full textThis study compares 5,286 community banks operating in rural and metropolitan counties from 2000 through the end of 2013 on the variables contributing to bank profitability using pooled OLS, pooled time-series OLS, and dynamic panels methodologies. Following the SCP and competition-fragility literature, one would expect a difference in the variables contributing to profitability. The size of the coefficients indicates that the variables contributing to profitability differ in magnitude when comparing community banks in metropolitan counties to those in rural counties. Both the pooled and time-series OLS models indicate that bank size contributes to profitability more in metropolitan areas; however, on average, rural banks have higher return on assets, higher net interest margins, and higher non-interest income. These findings provide some support for the competition-fragility argument that more competition in banking, as seen in metropolitan areas, leads to lower net interest margins. Arguably, the higher net interest margins and contribution of non-interest income to profits in the concentrated rural bank markets supports the structure-conduct-performance paradigm that when few competitors exist in a market, they are more likely to collude, implicitly or explicitly, to extract higher profits. The findings of this study indicate that community banks are not a homogenous group and highlight the importance of segregating rural and metropolitan banks when examining the US community banking industry
A Force to Be Reckoned With: College Women\u27s Experiences With the #MeToo Movement
No full textThe hashtag #MeToo was created for use on social media platforms to allow survivors of sexual violence to share their experiences. Our study describes a phenomenological analysis of college women\u27s experiences with the #MeToo movement and its impact on their help‐seeking behaviors. Participants had varied reactions to the movement and experiences with help‐seeking, but broadly experienced the movement as a positive force in society. Implications for college counselors and recommendations for future research are provided
Daily Incentive and Jump-base in a Non-Real-Time Apparel Manufacturing Context
No full textThis study summarizes piecework incentive systems and examines two apparel manufacturing factories that used daily incentive calculations at one time and weekly incentive calculations at another. In addition, one factory implemented a multiple base-rate incentive system, often called jump-base. The data shows that, when not controlled, daily incentive can facilitate operators engaging in fraudulent activity such as ticket-holding. With fraud controlled, daily incentive calculation makes little difference in overall pay; therefore, it may have individual level motivational effects by nullifying the effect of averaging one-bad-day into the week. While jump-base may enhance productivity in lower performing operators or modules, one must take great care when designing such systems
Battle of Stones River : the forgotten conflict between the Confederate Army of Tennessee and the Union Army of the Cumberland
No full textThree days of savage and bloody fighting between Confederate and Union troops at Stones River in Middle Tennessee ended with nearly 25,000 casualties but no clear victor. The staggering number of killed or wounded equaled the losses suffered in the well-known Battle of Shiloh. Using previously neglected sources, Larry J. Daniel rescues this important campaign from obscurity. The Battle of Stones River, fought between December 31, 1862, and January 2, 1863, was a tactical draw but proved to be a strategic northern victory. According to Daniel, Union defeats in late 1862―both at Chickasaw Bayou in Mississippi and at Fredericksburg, Virginia―transformed the clash in Tennessee into a much-needed morale booster for the North.Daniel\u27s study of the battle\u27s two antagonists, William S. Rosecrans for the Union Army of the Cumberland and Braxton Bragg for the Confederate Army of Tennessee, presents contrasts in leadership and a series of missteps. Union soldiers liked Rosecrans\u27s personable nature, whereas Bragg acquired a reputation as antisocial and suspicious. Rosecrans had won his previous battle at Corinth, and Bragg had failed at the recent Kentucky Campaign. But despite Rosecrans\u27s apparent advantage, both commanders made serious mistakes. With only a few hundred yards separating the lines, Rosecrans allowed Confederates to surprise and route his right ring. Eventually, Union pressure forced Bragg to launch a division-size attack, a disastrous move. Neither side could claim victory on the battlefield.https://falconcommons.utpb.edu/utpb-facbooks/1006/thumbnail.jp
Improving boys\u27 reading comprehension with readers theatre
No full textResearch on readers theatre has indicated that it can improve elementary students\u27 reading achievement and can be motivating, engaging and enjoyable, even for reluctant or struggling readers. Because of the potential for improvement and the engagement factor, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of readers theatre on young male students, a population that tends to be more reluctant to read. This matched quasi‐experimental study examined the differential effects of readers theatre on second‐grade boys\u27 decoding, word knowledge and reading comprehension. Students were pretested and posttested using the Gates‐MacGinitie Reading Test. With the use ofa propensity score matching procedure, 46 students were matched from a sample of 76 on the basis of pretest scores, English‐language learner status, at‐risk status and whether the students received special education services. A repeated measures analysis of variance detected a time effect on the reading comprehension measure, which was qualified by an interaction effect, indicating that boys in the treatment group outperformed those in the business‐as‐usual comparison group. Implementing readers theatre in elementary classrooms may be an effective means for engaging young male students in the reading process and improving their reading comprehension. Additional implications for instruction, limitations and directions for future research are also discussed
A new method for assessing stage-based hydraulic fracturing quality in Wolfcamp formation of Permian Basin
No full textIn 2018 US Geological Survey assessed Wolfcamp formation in Permian Basin at west Texas and southwest New Mexico, USA as the world\u27s largest tight oil play that has the most technically recoverable reserves. This is the result of favorable combination of tectonic activities and the depositional environments in the Paleozoic period. Three major cycles of tectonic movements controlled the creation of Permian Basin and its sub-basins. Frequent seawater inundations and retreats caused cyclic changes in depositional environments from Pennsylvania to early Permian ages, leading to the formation of an organic rich, tight and thick formation, the highly heterogeneous Wolfcamp play. Advanced completion technology of combining horizontal drilling with multi-stage massive hydraulic fracturing is needed for the commercial development of Wolfcamp play. Successful application of advanced completion technology in Wolfcamp faces two challenges: stage-after-stage cumulative stress-shadow effects and localized heterogeneity in lithofacies and reservoir quality. The “one-for-all” fracturing design needs to be able to fine-tune stage-by-stage based on real-time feedback from fracturing quality of previous stage. Existing methods, from production logging to micro-seismic mapping, cannot provide real-time feedback of stage-based treatment quality. We propose a new method in this paper. The new method is based on the assumption that constant density of slick-water at shut-in intervals during hydraulic fracturing allows an accurate calculation of bottom-hole pressure from surface treatment pressure and true vertical depth at each stage. Using real-time on-site monitored surface treatment pressures during shut-in intervals at the end of pad and flush injections, stage-by-stage fracturing quality are calculated. Two Wolfcamp case studies in Midland Basin at Reagan County, Texas show that the new method can be used to quantify stage-based treatment qualities. Stage-based fracturing qualities from this new method are consistent with stage-based treatment results evaluated using other methods
Risk decomposition, estimation error, and naïve diversification
No full textHow to achieve adequate diversification is important in portfolio construction. Efficient markets should not reward an investor for taking on risk that can be diversified away. Hence, when minimizing risk exposure, investors need to measure what part of total portfolio risk is systematic and what part can be diversified away. I examine several methods for decomposing total portfolio risk into systematic and diversifiable components and then carry out simulations to compare cross-sectional distributions of estimated and true risk as number of stocks increases in portfolios constructed using naïve diversification. Ordinary least squares estimators of diversifiable risk are relatively robust, and their cross-sectional distributions closely track the cross-sectional distributions of the corresponding true diversifiable risk. Other proposed estimators of diversifiable risk as well as all estimators of systematic risk have cross-sectional dispersion much greater than the corresponding true risk although, with one exception, bias is small. Results are relatively robust to the choice of method for generating market returns and to the underlying asset pricing model but not to random security betas. The simulation analysis also shows that risk and magnitude of shocks due to diversifiable risk are not negligible, even for 300-stock portfolios
Resilient Networked AC Microgrids Under Unbounded Cyber Attacks
No full textThis paper considers a cooperative and adversarial AC microgrid system consisting of cooperative leaders and inverters, as well as adversarial attackers. The attackers aim to destabilize the synchronization dynamics of the AC microgrid by first intercepting the communication channels, penetrating the local state feedback, and pretending to be a cooperative neighbor, and then initiating malicious attacks by launching unbounded injections. A fully distributed resilient control framework is offered for the secondary frequency regulation and voltage containment to ensure system stability and preserve bounded synchronization. In particular, a virtual resilient layer with hidden networks is developed to integrate with the original cyber-physical layer. The proposed resilient control framework is fully distributed without requiring any global information. A modified IEEE 34-bus test feeder benchmark system is emulated in a controller/hardware-in-the-loop environment, where the control objectives are met under different attack scenarios
Using Photovoice as a Counselor Education Pedagogical Tool: A Pilot
No full textCreativity is a critical part of counseling work. Counseling educators are consistently seeking new ways to cultivate counselors\u27 in training (CIT) creative capacity and self-reflection in the classroom. This article is a pilot study of photovoice, a qualitative research methodology, as a pedagogical tool. Participants (n = 7) were master\u27s degree students enrolled in a section of Counseling Techniques. As part of the course, students were asked to take a photo that represented each week\u27s material and to participate in class discussions about those photos. Results indicate that participants found the assignment enjoyable and helpful. Additionally, the article includes a discussion of the considerations for using photovoice in the classroom as well as areas for further research