Bottomland hardwood forests and pine forests in the southern United States provide valuable ecosystem services such as timber, recreation, wildlife habitat, carbon sequestration, floodwater storage, and sediment and nutrient retention. However, these forest ecosystems are threatened because of intensive forest management, forest land conversion, and urbanization. As private landownership dominates in this region, landowner participation is crucial for success of conservation programs facilitating ecosystem services. This research focused on three different aspects of private land conservation programs. First, it estimated the impact of environmental contextual factors, private land attributes and sociodemographic characteristics on landowner concern about environmental issues. Second, it determined the influence of private land attributes, environmental concerns, frequency of contacts with federal agencies and socioeconomic characteristics on landowner satisfaction with available conservation programs. Third, it estimated the monetary compensation required by landowners to implement conservation practices focused on increasing provision of ecosystem services. Data were collected using a mail survey and from online sources. Data were analyzed using seemingly unrelated regression and logistic regression models. Results indicated that private land attributes, particularly size of agricultural land owned, and landownership goals such as providing ecosystem services and profitability, had a greater magnitude of positive association with landowner concerns about environmental issues than other factors. Similarly, size of agricultural land owned, landownership goals such as profitability and personal recreation, concerns about wildlife habitat losses and frequent contacts with federal agencies were positively related to landowner satisfaction with conservation programs. Landowner willingness to participate in a conservation program was positively related to payment amount, concerns about wildlife habitat losses, frequency of contact with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and education level. Similarly, provision of clean water as landownership objective, concerns about hurricanes and tornadoes, and landowner age were negatively associated with landowner interests to participate in conservation programs. This research also quantified landowner median willingness to accept (WTA) compensation which was $229.98 ha-1 yr-1 for participation in a conservation program related to bottomland hardwood or pine forests. The findings help identify likely participants or landowners for conservation programs facilitating ecosystem services and determine actual conservation costs at a regional level.

Stand conditions influence the partitioning of biomass to stem, foliage, branch, and root components. Using data from 4 to 6-year old loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) trees grown in a miniature-scale spacing trial, this study determined the effect of initial planting density on the biomass partitioning of loblolly pine. An analysis of covariance concluded that density did not have a significant effect on the relative amount of biomass in aboveground components.Some measures of partitioning tradeoffs (such as root: shoot ratio) showed a significant positive slope when regressed against trees per hectare. Systems of linear equations were developed based on tree measurements and age, and additivity was specified. By taking into account contemporaneous correlations among tree components, seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) methodologies led to efficient parameter estimates. When compared to studies with mature trees at operational scales, results from the miniature-scale trees showed similar trends. Stem and woody roots were 70 and 14% of total mass, respectively. Since these miniature-scale trees were physiologically young at time of harvest, allocation of mass to foliage continued to be a priority, occupying 10% of total mass. / Master of Science

This thesis presents three essays on Malaysia’s poverty profile based on the Household Expenditure Survey (HES). The first and second studies were motivated by the shortcomings of the official poverty lines and poverty measurements. There are several conceptual and measurement problems related to evaluating the extent of poverty in Malaysia. The first study offers several alternative regional poverty analyses based on the consumption expenditure approach with varying underlying assumptions. The poverty lines are estimated using Ravallion-Bidani and Kakwani-Sajaia approaches and the consumption pattern of the 10th and 20th percentile per capita expenditure (PCE) households. Regional poverty lines based on Kakwani-Sajaia and Ravallion-Bidani lower bounds produced robust poverty measurement rankings across regions in the country for both the 10th and 20th percentile PCE households. However, for the 10th percentile PCE, Ravallion’s upper bound poverty lines do not produce robust poverty rankings. In relation to the shortcomings of the official poverty measurements, the second study analyses the economies of scale in consumption, specifically amongst poor households. Using the 10th and 20th percentile PCE households, the household size economies are estimated using specifications proposed by Deaton-Paxson and Kakwani-Son. The findings show that the economies of scale indices are sensitive to the selection of methods and sample groups. Economies of scale in poor household consumption are present for food, housing, clothing, furnishing, personal goods and miscellaneous goods. This study further suggests that these indices be used as complementary to the existing national poverty measurements. The final study provides new insights into the limited urban poverty studies and to the new dimension of urban poverty. Using logistic regression, the determinants are analysed using the new poverty lines estimated in the earlier essay. The test of robustness of the determinants is conducted through re-estimating the logistic regression using a range of poverty lines. The findings show that education, locational dimension, foreign migrant workers and household size are significant determinants of poverty in the urban areas.

Submitted by RAUL DE SA DURLO null (durlo.raul@gmail.com) on 2016-11-29T01:51:08Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Durlo (2016) FINAL.pdf: 1806501 bytes, checksum: 74cd40ddb134f06e7c07175bed61a550 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Felipe Augusto Arakaki (arakaki@reitoria.unesp.br) on 2016-12-02T11:59:30Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 durlo_rs_me_arafcl.pdf: 1806501 bytes, checksum: 74cd40ddb134f06e7c07175bed61a550 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-02T11:59:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 durlo_rs_me_arafcl.pdf: 1806501 bytes, checksum: 74cd40ddb134f06e7c07175bed61a550 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-10-28 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Este trabalho tem como objetivo inferir sobre características e padrões espaços-temporais da criminalidade no contexto de uma grande cidade. O crime na sociedade é um problema complexo, que abrange um grande leque de interpretações e que passou a incorporar a agenda de pesquisa em economia principalmente após o trabalho seminal de Gary S. Becker (1968). De modo mais recente, é observado um crescente interesse nos aspectos geográficos da análise da criminalidade. Particularmente interessante é o fenômeno da criminalidade urbana, que em grandes centros apresentam padrões e dissimilaridades intra-regionais não negligenciáveis. A cidade de São Paulo é uma das grandes metrópoles mundiais, com quase 12 milhões de habitantes e com índices de criminalidade que impõem altos custos à qualidade de vida e ao bem-estar de seus habitantes. Neste trabalho, o fenômeno da criminalidade foi investigado do ponto de vista histórico e teórico, apontando os principais parâmetros para se interpretar o crime nas cidades. Posteriormente, discutiu-se a criminalidade no contexto do município de São Paulo com ênfase na década de 2000. Na abordagem empírica, as ocorrências de crimes contra pessoa e contra o patrimônio, registradas nos anos de 2003 e de 2013 nos distritos do município, foram relacionadas a varáveis socioeconômicas e de características do ambiente urbano por meio da metodologia SUR-espacial. Para comparabilidade entre Distritos Municipais e Distritos Policiais, foi formulada uma metodologia de agregação que os compatibilizassem em termos espaciais. Para detecção de não-aleatoriedade espacial nas ocorrências criminais foi calculada a estatística I de Moran. Os resultados corroboram com a hipótese de que o espaço urbano é importante para explicar a criminalidade em diversos aspectos, como por exemplo, as formas de uso do solo urbano, as condições de moradias e a proporção de empregos formais por moradores nos bairros. / The aim of this study is to infer about the crime and its spatial-temporal patterns and characteristics in the context of a big city. The crime in society is a complex issue, which covers a wide range of interpretations and began to incorporate the research agenda in economics especially after the seminal work of Gary S. Becker (1968). Recently, there has been a growing interest on geographical aspects in the analysis of crime. Particularly interesting is the urban crime phenomenon, which in large centers its patterns and intra-regional dissimilarities are not negligible. The city of São Paulo, in Brazil, is one of the world's great metropolises, with almost 12 million inhabitants and crime rates that impose high costs on the quality of life and well being of its inhabitants. In this study, the crime phenomenon was investigated by its historical and theoretical approach pointing out the main developments that account for interpreting the crime in cities. Thereafter, the crime was discussed in the São Paulo city context, with emphasis on 2000s. On the empirical approach, the criminal occurences against the person and the property in the years 2003 and 2013 by city districts were related with socioeconomic variables and urban environment features using the spatial-SUR methodology. In order to compare Municipal Districts with Police Districts, an aggregation methodology was formulated to merge them in spatial terms. Moreover, Moran I statistical was calculated for detection of spatial non-randomness on the criminal activities. The results corroborate the hypothesis that the urban space is important to explain the crime in many aspects, such as the forms of urban land use, the conditions of housing and the proportion of formal employment by residents in neighborhoods.

Submitted by Jaqueline Silva (jtas29@gmail.com) on 2014-12-08T17:37:44Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese-Thiago Santos-2013.pdf: 3081181 bytes, checksum: 2458be035ed935ff9e529ed2df6f9200 (MD5) / Rejected by Jaqueline Silva (jtas29@gmail.com), reason: on 2014-12-08T19:42:18Z (GMT) / Submitted by Jaqueline Silva (jtas29@gmail.com) on 2014-12-12T19:32:30Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Tese-Thiago Santos-2013.pdf: 3081181 bytes, checksum: 2458be035ed935ff9e529ed2df6f9200 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Jaqueline Silva (jtas29@gmail.com) on 2014-12-16T09:22:12Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Tese-Thiago Santos-2013.pdf: 3081181 bytes, checksum: 2458be035ed935ff9e529ed2df6f9200 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-16T09:22:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Tese-Thiago Santos-2013.pdf: 3081181 bytes, checksum: 2458be035ed935ff9e529ed2df6f9200 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-06-14 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / (Sem resumo em outra língua) / Dentre os mecanismos que geram as distribuições das espécies, tem sido atribuído um papel localàs interações biológicasenquanto que as causas de padrões regionais ou globais são atribuídas às variáveis abióticas.Recentemente,um número crescente de trabalhostem concluído que as interações biológicas interespecíficas apresentam efeitos significativos sobre os limites das distribuições das espécies e que a variação espacial em grande escala de atributos populacionais, como a densidade, é mais bem explicada pelas interações que pelas condições abióticas. Os objetivos deste trabalho são, portanto, mensurar a importância das interações biológicas na distribuição espacial das espécies, tanto em relação aos limites das distribuições quanto à variação espacial nas densidades populacionais e discutir novas técnicas para se incluir as interações interespecíficas nos modelos de distribuição potencial. No primeiro capítulo, um modelo estatístico de sistema de equações foi empregado para se verificar o efeito da competição entre duas espécies de cupins de montículos, Cornitermescumulans e Cornitermes silvestrii.No segundo capítulo, foi analisado o efeito da distribuição potencial de Crotalaria maypurensis (Fabaceae), sobre a distribuição potencial de Utetheisa ornatrix(Arctiidae). No terceiro capítulo, a distribuição de um predador de topo, Panthera onca, e a variação espacial de sua densidade populacional foram estimadas usando-se modelos alométricos de interação predador-presa.

Despite the potential benefits of larger datasets for crop insurance ratings, pooling yields with similar distributions is not a common practice. The current USDA-RMA county insurance ratings do not consider information across state lines, a politically driven assumption that ignores a wealth of climate and agronomic evidence suggesting that growing regions are not constrained by state boundaries. We test the appropriateness of this assumption, and provide empirical grounds for benefits of pooling datasets. We find evidence in favor of pooling across state lines, with poolable counties sometimes being as far as 2,500 miles apart. An out-of-sample performance exercise suggests our proposed pooling framework out-performs a no-pooling alternative, and supports the hypothesis that economic losses should be expected as a result of not adopting our pooling framework. Our findings have strong empirical and policy implications for accurate modeling of yield distributions and vis-à-vis the rating of crop insurance products.

Traffic crashes have been identified as one of the main causes of death in the US, making road safety a high priority issue that needs urgent attention. Recognizing the fact that more and effective research has to be done in this area, this thesis aims mainly at developing different statistical models related to the road safety. The thesis includes three main sections: 1) overall crash frequency analysis using negative binomial models, 2) seemingly unrelated negative binomial (SUNB) models for different categories of crashes divided based on type of crash, or condition in which they occur, 3) safety models to determine the probability of crash occurrence, including a rainfall index that has been estimated using a logistic regression model. The study corridor is a 36.25 mile stretch of Interstate 4 in Central Florida. For the first two sections, crash cases from 1999 through 2002 were considered. Conventionally most of the crash frequency analysis model all crashes, instead of dividing them based on type of crash, peaking conditions, availability of light, severity, or pavement condition, etc. Also researchers traditionally used AADT to represent traffic volumes in their models. These two cases are examples of macroscopic crash frequency modeling. To investigate the microscopic models, and to identify the significant factors related to crash occurrence, a preliminary study (first analysis) explored the use of microscopic traffic volumes related to crash occurrence by comparing AADT/VMT with five to twenty minute volumes immediately preceding the crash. It was found that the volumes just before the time of crash occurrence proved to be a better predictor of crash frequency than AADT. The results also showed that road curvature, median type, number of lanes, pavement surface type and presence of on/off-ramps are among the significant factors that contribute to crash occurrence. In the second analysis various possible crash categories were prepared to exactly identify the factors related to them, using various roadway, geometric, and microscopic traffic variables. Five different categories are prepared based on a common platform, e.g. type of crash. They are: 1) Multiple and Single vehicle crashes, 2) Peak and Off-peak crashes, 3) Dry and Wet pavement crashes, 4) Daytime and Dark hour crashes, and 5) Property Damage Only (PDO) and Injury crashes. Each of the above mentioned models in each category are estimated separately. To account for the correlation between the disturbance terms arising from omitted variables between any two models in a category, seemingly unrelated negative binomial (SUNB) regression was used, and then the models in each category were estimated simultaneously. SUNB estimation proved to be advantageous for two categories: Category 1, and Category 4. Road curvature and presence of On-ramps/Off-ramps were found to be the important factors, which can be related to every crash category. AADT was also found to be significant in all the models except for the single vehicle crash model. Median type and pavement surface type were among the other important factors causing crashes. It can be stated that the group of factors found in the model considering all crashes is a superset of the factors that were found in individual crash categories. The third analysis dealt with the development of a logistic regression model to obtain the weather condition at a given time and location on I-4 in Central Florida so that this information can be used in traffic safety analyses, because of the lack of weather monitoring stations in the study area. To prove the worthiness of the weather information obtained form the analysis, the same weather information was used in a safety model developed by Abdel-Aty et al., 2004. It was also proved that the inclusion of weather information actually improved the safety model with better prediction accuracy.

No description available.

In this study, the possibility that money demand of one country might be affected by macroeconomic activities of other countries is investigated. We use the seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) technique, which takes into account all covariances between residuals of country-specific money demand equations. Efficiency of estimates using the SUR technique is enhanced because it uses information contained in the contemporaneous correlation of the error terms. The hypothesis of economic interdependence is tested. A proxy for foreign influence, deviation from interest rate parity (DIRP), is tested for significance in the money demand function.

No description available.