85 research outputs found
The efficacy of machine learning programs for Navy manpower analysis
No full textThis thesis investigated the efficacy of two machine learning programs for Navy manpower analysis. Two machine learning programs, AIM and IXL, were compared to conventional statistical techniques. A large manpower data set and a logistic regression equation were obtained. The same data set was used to generate models from the two commercial machine learning programs. Using a held out sub-set of the data the capabilities of the three models were evaluated. AIM generated results comparable to those of the logistic regression equation; both in number of correct predictions and computed partial effects of the independent variables. IXL had significantly fewer correct predictions than the other two models and does not support evaluation of partial effects. The author recommended further investigation of AIM's capabilities, and testing in an operational environment.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.Lieutenant, United States Navyhttp://archive.org/details/theefficacyofmac109453988
Minnesota Philosophical Society Fall 2014 Conference (2014-10-04)
No full textWhether you're an expert or simply an enthusiast, you are welcome to attend the following Minnesota Philosophical Society events, including a talk by Dr. William Lycan, noted philosopher. William Lycan teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is the William Rand Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor. He is the author of eight books and over 150 articles.Keynote Speech:"The Intentionality of Smell"
Argues against opponents that smell does represent. Then defends my 1996 view of what smell represents, viz., miasmas in the air, against more recent competitors put forward by Clare Batty and Ben Young. Concludes by considering a "layering" thesis: that smell represents commonsensical distal objects and kinds by representing miasmas.UMD Philosophy Department, The CLA Dean's Excellence Fund, and the Minnesota Philosophical SocietyWalsh, Sean; Saint, Michelle; Cole, David; LaChance Adams, Sarah; Bausman, William; Taylor, Samuel; Forschler, Scott; Swenson, Joseph; Sharpe, Kevin W; Wilson, Brian T; Woodcock, Brian; Mouch, Phillip M; Bramer, Marilea; Kapus, Jerry; Kringle, Kristen M; Logan, Shay; Krizan, Mary; Cooley, Dennis; Johnson, Jeff; Leibel, Rhona; Pech, Garry; McAleer, Sean; Kyeong Yu, Sun; Cunningham, Arthur; Preiss, Joshua; Hong, Cheng-Seong; Stevens, Christopher; Kraemer, Eric. (2014). Minnesota Philosophical Society Fall 2014 Conference (2014-10-04). Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/186014
Specific and General Information Sharing Among Academic Scientists
No full textWe provide theoretical and empirical evidence on the factors that influence the willingness of academic scientists to share research results. We distinguish between two types of sharing, specific sharing in which a researcher shares her data or materials with another and general sharing in which scientists report results to the entire community (as in conference presentations). We present two simple games in which scientists research a problem of scientific merit (with an associated prize of academic and/or commercial value). In both cases, the scientists have intermediate research results but none has solved the entire problem.We test these models using a unique survey of bio-scientists in the UK and Germany regarding their willingness to "share." Our results generally support both models. In both, sharing is negatively related to competition and the importance of patents. In other respects they differ markedly. For example, large teams are more likely to share specifically but less likely to share generally. Rank does not matter for general sharing, but it does for specific sharing, where untenured faculty are less likely to share. One important implication is that policies designed to enhance sharing must be tailored to the type of sharing.
Mesoscale eddies modulate mixed layer depth globally.
No full textAuthor Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 46(3), (2019):1505-1512, doi:10.1029/2018GL080006.Mesoscale eddies, energetic vortices covering nearly a third of the ocean surface at any one time, modulate the spatial and temporal evolution of the mixed layer. We present a global analysis of concurrent satellite observations of mesoscale eddies with hydrographic profiles by autonomous Argo floats, revealing rich geographic and seasonal variability in the influence of eddies on mixed layer depth. Anticyclones deepen the mixed layer depth, whereas cyclones thin it, with the magnitude of these eddy‐induced mixed layer depth anomalies being largest in winter. Eddy‐centric composite averages reveal that the largest anomalies occur at the eddy center and decrease with distance from the center. Furthermore, the extent to which eddies modulate mixed layer depth is linearly related to the sea surface height amplitude of the eddies. Finally, large eddy‐mediated mixed layer depth anomalies are more common in anticyclones when compared to cyclones. We present candidate mechanisms for this observed asymmetry.This project was supported by NASA grants NNX13AE47G and NNX16AH9G. This manuscript was improved as a result of helpful discussions with Jeffery Early, Johnathan Lilly, and Eric Kunze of Northwest Research Associates. D. J. M. also gratefully acknowledges support of the National Science Foundation. The eddy data set used here is distributed by AVISO at https://www.aviso.altimetry.fr/en/data/products/value-added-products/global-mesoscale-eddy-trajectoryproduct.html. The MLD data can be accessed at http://mixedlayer.ucsd.edu.2019-06-0
The Christian Right and US Foreign Policy in the Twenty-first Century
No full textThe thesis discusses the role of the Christian Right in the US foreign policy decision making process. The research revealed that the Christian Right has long been fascinated with some international issues in general and US foreign policy in particular. The Christian Right’s interest in international issues increased markedly during years of the George W. Bush presidency. It successfully widened its activities from domestic social conservative issues to foreign policy issues by participating in, articulating and lobbying for its religious version of American foreign policy. In assessing the role of the Christian Right in US foreign policy making, this dissertation examines three aspects of US foreign policy, namely Israel, international religious freedom and global humanitarianism. Based on these aspects, the Christian Right is seen as skilled in framing and defining issues. The Christian Right seems effective in selecting and prioritizing international issues that have a reasonable chance of being selected by foreign policy decision makers, especially in Congress. Moreover, the Christian Right has shown its maturity in seeking engagement and cooperation with other organizations, secular and religious, in order to advance its international goals. Finally, in pursuing and conveying its international agenda, the Christian Right has adopted a more moderate and less overtly religious approach. Instead of using its traditional religious rhetoric, the Christian Right has successfully projected its foreign policy preferences into the conventional realist discourse of American foreign policy that is largely based on the objective of national interest and national security. Nevertheless, this study does not, in any way, conclude that the Christian Right was able to influence or determine the direction of US foreign policy and its outcomes; however, it does suggest that the Christian Right did contribute and have an impact on the formulation of some US foreign policy. As such, the research contends that the role of the Christian Right is similar to other interest group lobbies and that its perceived influence on US foreign policy should not be exaggerated. Finally, the research suggests that the emergence of the Christian Right as an actor in asserting its global agenda through US foreign policy can possibly provide an example of how religious beliefs and values can become a potential source of “soft power”. Together with the “climate of opinion” of the American public during the Bush administration, the “soft power” at domestic level could serve as a valuable new explanatory variable in understanding how the US foreign policy was formulated in the early 21st century
Transportation and Infrastructure, Retail Clustering, and Local Public Finance: Evidence from Wal-Mart's Expansion
No full textThe author examines the role highway infrastructure and local property tax rate variability play in retail agglomeration in Indiana from 1988 through 2003. To account for data errors and the potential endogeneity of taxes and infrastructure on retail agglomeration, he introduces a unique identification strategy that exploits the entrance timing and location of Wal-Mart stores in Indiana. Using a time-series cross-sectional model of Indiana’s 92 counties from 1988 through 2003, he estimates the impact highway infrastructure, property taxes, and big-box competition have in creating regional agglomerations. Among two separate specifications and a full and rural-only set of the data, the author finds considerable agreement in the results. In the full sample, he finds no relationship between property tax rates or highway infrastructure and retail agglomeration. Within the non-metropolitan statistical area (MSA) counties, this relationship is very modest, though it possesses considerable statistical certainty. Highway impacts within the non-MSA counties are significant and positively related to retail agglomeration, with the presence of highways explaining about 10 percent of total agglomeration variability. (JEL R11, R53)Infrastructure; endogeneity; taxation; Wal-Mart
An epidemiological assessment of lens opacifications that impaired vision in patients injected with radium-224
No full textThe incidence of lens opacifications that impaired vision (cataract) was analyzed among 831 patients who were injected with known dosages of 224Ra in Germany shortly after World War II. The dependence of the incidence on dosage, i.e., injected activity per unit body weight, and on time after treatment was determined. The observations are equally consistent with proportionality of the incidence of cataract to the square of dosage or with a linear dependence beyond a threshold of 0.5 MBq/kg. The possibility of a linear dependence without threshold was strongly rejected (P less than 0.001). The analysis of temporal dependences yielded a component that was correlated with the injected amount of 224Ra and a component that was uncorrelated. The former was inferred by a maximum likelihood analysis to increase approximately as the square of the time after treatment. The component unrelated to the treatment was found to increase steeply with age and to become dominant within the collective of patients between age 50 and 60. The relative magnitudes of the two components were such that a fraction of 55 to 60% of the total of 58 cataracts had to be ascribed to the dose-related incidence. Impaired vision due to cataract was diagnosed before age 54 in 25 cases. In terms of injected activity per unit body weight no dependence of the sensitivity on age was found; specifically there was no indication of a faster occurrence of the treatment-related cataracts in patients treated at older ages
"A Symbol of the New African": Drum magazine, popular culture and the formation of black urban subjectivity in 1950s South Africa.
No full textPhDThis thesis examines the emergence of black urban subjectivity in South Africa
during the 1950s, focussing on the ways in which popular American genres were
utilised in the construction of black urban identities that served as a means of
resistance to apartheid. At the centre of this process was Drum magazine:
founded in South Africa in 1951 , it became the largest selling magazine on the
African continent in 1956. Drum's success was due to the way in which it
enabled the relocation of black identity from the "traditional" towards the
"modern'. The 1940s gave rise to widespread migration of black South Africans
from rural to urban areas and this newly urbanised community was seeking
models of black urban identity. Yet the Nationalist government was attempting
to curtail the emergence of a black urban proletariat, which posed a threat to
white political supremacy. Through apartheid legislation black identity was
constructed as essentially tribal and rural. As a means of resisting this, urbanised
black South Africans turned to, and appropriated, readily available forms of
American culture. Drum published Americanised images and stories: gangsters,
black detectives, black comic heroes, and pulp romances. This popular material
appeared alongside some of the finest investigative journalism ever published.
While Drum magazine is widely acknowledged as having provided a platform
for the emergence of black South African writing in English, its popular content
has been dismissed by critics as apolitical escapism, imitation and capitulation to
American culture. This thesis challenges the dismissal of the popular that has
dominated analyses of Drum since the 1960s, arguing that such a position denies
the agency of local writers and audiences. My analysis reveals that American
forms were adopted in critically discerning ways and chosen for their ability to
convey local meaning and create positions from which to resist aparthei
Returning culture to peacebuilding : contesting the liberal peace in Sierra Leone
No full textThis thesis investigates the advantages and limitations of applying culture to the analysis of violent conflict and peacebuilding, with a particular focus on liberal peacebuilding in Sierra Leone. While fully aware of the critique of the concept of culture in terms of its uses for the production of difference and ‘otherness,’ it also seeks to respond to the critique of liberal peacebuilding on the account of its low sensitivity towards local culture, which allegedly undermines the peace effort. After a careful examination of the terms of discussion about culture enabled by theoretical approaches to conflict in Chapter 2, the thesis presents a theoretical framework for the analysis of cultural aspects of conflict and peace based on the processes and effects of meaning-generation (Chapter 3), developing the conceptual apparatus and vocabulary for the subsequent empirical study. Instead of bracketing out the recursive nature of cultural theorising, the developed approach embraces the recursive dynamics which arise as a result of cultural ‘embeddedness’ of the analyst and the processes which s/he seeks to elucidate, mirroring similar dynamics in the cultural production of meaning and knowledge. The framework of ‘embedded cultural enquiry’ is then used to analyse the practices of liberal peacebuilding as a particular culture, which shapes the interaction of the liberal peace with its ‘subjects’ and critics as well as framing its reception of the cultural problematic generally (Chapter 4). The application of the analytical framework to the case study investigates the interaction between the liberal peace and ‘local culture,’ offering an alternative reading of the conflict and peace process in Sierra Leone (Chapter 5). The study concludes that a greater attention to cultural meaning-making offers a largely untapped potential for peacebuilding, although any decisions with regard to its deployment will inevitably be made from within an inherently biased cultural perspective
Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals
No full textThe Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals provides an overview of open access concepts, and it presents over 1,300 selected English-language books, conference papers (including some digital video presentations), debates, editorials, e-prints, journal and magazine articles, news articles, technical reports, and other printed and electronic sources that are useful in understanding the open access movement's efforts to provide free access to and unfettered use of scholarly literature. Most sources have been published between 1999 and August 31, 2004; however, a limited number of key sources published prior to 1999 are also included. Where possible, links are provided to sources that are freely available on the Internet (approximately 78 percent of the bibliography's references have such links). The 129-page bibliography has been published in print and PDF formats by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). The print version is available from ARL. The book is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License
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