6 pp. / More and more consumers are choosing to buy locally produced foods. Health and environment conscious consumers believe locally grown foods are healthier, fresher, and are better tasting than foods that have endured many miles of transport. Buying locally also helps communities by stimulating local economies and protecting the environment. This article outlines the benefits of buying locally grown food and eating seasonally in Arizona. A recipe that is easy and affordable using local produce is included. An Arizona seasonal produce availability calendar is included in the Appendix.

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In a rapidly globalizing economy, many communities are stranded in unemployment or work without meaning. This thesis asks the question: can local communities create economic development with fulfilling work? The experience of the author in African development projects is used to pose questions about modernist approaches to development. The alternative approaches to work and human development by Fritz Schumacher, Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers are melded with the political insight of Robert Putnam, to suggest that the answer to the above question can be positive. Their theories are distilled into an approach called Local Enterprise Facilitation, which is based on four principles: 1. Only work with individuals or communities that invite you. 2. Do not motivate individuals to do anything they do not wish to do. 3. Trust that they are naturally drawn towards self-improvement. 4. Have faith in community and the higher social needs that bond it together. The author’s experience of twenty years in applying and developing this approach is traced from its origins in rural Western Australia, through other parts of Australia and New Zealand to its extensive application in North America. The experience has created a methodology for successful Local Enterprise Facilitation based around a community Board that can provide the necessary support for networks for new enterprises. In particular the methodology uses a “Trinity of Management” approach whereby the separate skills of production/enterprise, financial accounting and marketing are facilitated as no individual can do more than one of these skills successfully. The Local Enterprise Facilitation philosophy has many implications and some of these are suggested in terms of planning, education, bureaucracy, and conservation. Whilst an evaluation of the businesses created can only be done in the long term, Local Enterprise Facilitation has opened up some hope for communities seeking to create good work.

The influence of observations on the outcome of an analysis is of importance in statistical data analysis. A practical and well-established approach to influence analysis is case deletion. However, it has its draw-backs when subsets of observations are jointly influential and offset each other's influence. Another approach is local influence proposed by Cook (1986).The local influence methodology of Cook (1986) is based on the curvature of the likelihood displacement surface formed by model/data perturbations. Wu and Luo (1993a, 1993b) further developed the idea and proposed the study of the perturbation-formed surface of a variable by evaluating the curvature of the surface in addition to its maximum slope. This thesis utilizes the local influence approach to develop influence diagnostic methods for four different topics.Firstly, we proposed a stepwise confirmatory procedure for the detection of multiple outliers in two-way contingency tables. The procedure begins with the identification of a reliable set of candidate outliers by evaluating the derivatives of the perturbation-formed surface of the Pearson goodness-of-fit statistic. An adding-back iterative algorithm is then applied to the candidate set to assess their relative discordancy. Using two real data sets, the proposed procedure is shown to be less susceptible to both masking and swamping problems than residual based measures. In a Monte Carlo study, the local influence diagnostics are also found to outperform standard residual-based methods in terms of efficiency and other criteria.Transformations of covariates are commonly applied in regression analysis. When a parametric transformation family is used, the maximum likelihood estimate of the transformation parameter is often sensitive to minor perturbations of the data. Diagnostics based on the local influence approach are derived to assess the influence ++ / of observations on the covariate transformation parameter in generalized linear models. Three numerical examples are presented to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed diagnostics. The need for transformation is also addressed in addition to assessing influence on the transformation parameter.A common method of choosing the link function in generalized linear models is to specify a parametric link family indexed by unknown parameters. The maximum likelihood estimates of such link parameters, however, often depend on one or several extreme observations. Diagnostics based on the local influence approach are derived to assess the sensitivity of the parametric link analysis. Two examples demonstrate that the proposed diagnostics can identify jointly influential observations on the link even when masking is present. The application of the diagnostics can also assist us in revising the link parameter and hence the form of the model.The portmanteau statistic is commonly used for testing goodness-of-fit of time series models. However, this lack of fit test may depend on one or several atypical observations in the series. We investigate the sensitivity of the portmanteau statistic in the presence of additive outliers. Diagnostics based on the local influence approach are developed to assess both local and global influence. Three practical examples demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed diagnostics.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of North Texas, Aug., 2007. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Arch.)--University of Detroit Mercy, 2008. / "28 April 2008". Includes bibliographical references (p. [39-40]).

Thesis (doctoral)--Philipps-Universität zu Marburg, 1938. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. xi-xvi).

Thesis (Ph. D. in Engineering - Civil and Environmental Engineering)--University of California, Berkeley, 2008. / Text document in PDF format. Title from PDF title page (viewed on June 26, 2009). "Fall 2008." Includes bibliographical references (p. 272-288).

Thesis (doctoral)--Georg-August-Universität zu Göttingen, 1932.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Alberta, 2010. / "A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Dept. of Political Science, University of Alberta." Title from title screen (viewed on Apr. 13, 2010). "Spring 2010." Includes bibliographical references.