Random effects analysis
This paper explores relationships among environmental attitudes, nonuse values for endangered species, and underlying motivations for contingent valuation (CV) responses. The approach combines techniques from the attitude–behavior and economic valuation literature. Attitudes are measured with the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale, and economic values are derived from a referendum, CV survey for peregrine falcons and shortnose sturgeons. Respondents with stronger pro-environmental attitudes are found more likely to provide legitimate yes/no responses, while those with weaker attitudes are more likely to protest hypothetical CV scenarios. Analysis reveals environmental attitudes as a significant explanatory variable of yes/no responses, whereby stronger pro-environmental attitudes result in higher probabilities of responding ‘yes’. Pro-environmental attitudes are also shown to result in higher estimates of mean willingness to pay (WTP). Significant relationships are found between environmental attitudes and nonuse motivations. Specifically, pro-environmental attitudes are associated with stronger reliance on ethical motives for species protection. These results are discussed as they relate to testing predictions in the literature about potential bias in CV studies and to supporting National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recommendations for improving CV reliability.
Valuing wildlife in benefit‐cost analyses: A case study involving endangered species
The focus of the research presented in this paper is to ask what types of values are relevant in the valuation of wildlife species for benefit-cost analyses of projects that may affect wildlife or its habitat. First, the components of value for wildlife resources are discussed, with emphasis on those particularly relevant to the valuation of endangered species. A simple model is then proposed and results from an application to valuing two of Wisconsin's endangered species of wildlife are presented. The empirical results indicate that significant values may be associated with endangered species of wildlife above and beyond those that arise from viewing these species in the wild. We conclude that to overlook values for wildlife species that go beyond common use values may result in a misleading project or policy decision.
Software error analysis: a real case study involving real faults and mutations
The paper reports on a first experimental comparison of software errors generated by real faults and by 1st-order mutations. The experiments were conducted on a program developed by a student from the industrial specification of a critical software from the civil nuclear field. Emphasis was put on the analysis of errors produced upon activation of 12 real faults by focusing on the mechanisms of error creation, masking, and propagation up to failure occurrence, and on the comparison of these errors with those created by 24 mutations. The results involve a total of 3730 errors recorded from program execution traces: 1458 errors were produced by the real faults, and the 2272 others by the mutations. They are in favor of a suitable consistency between errors generated by mutations and by real faults: 85% of the 2272 errors due to the mutations were also produced by the real faults. Moreover, it was observed that although the studied mutations were simple faults, they can create erroneous behaviors as complex as those identified for the real faults. This lends support to the representativeness of errors due to mutations.
Using combined eye tracking and word association in order to assess novel packaging solutions: A case study involving jam jars
The present study utilized the techniques of eye tracking and word association in order to collect attentional information and freely-elicited associations from consumers in response to changing specific attributes of the product packaging (jam jars). We assessed the relationship between the data obtained from these two measures in a non goal-directed (or choice-based) task. Additionally, we addressed the question of which packaging attributes affected the consumers’ self-reported willingness to try the product. To relate how each element variation contributed to the focusing of participants’ attention on each area of interest to the immediate message that they conveyed and to the participants’ willingness to try, the rich mixed data obtained were analysed by means of conjoint analysis and multiple factor analysis. The results demonstrated that certain elements of the product packaging can be used to drive visual attention to one element or another; for instance, the ridged surface of certain jars contributed to spread the gaze; however, an important part of the associations that these formats elicited were related to the ridges or to unusualness of the packaging, suggesting that these “secondary” stimuli also captured attention. Though this case study does not provide direct guidelines for packaging design, it does shed light on the importance of knowing how to combine the appropriate design elements to predetermine consumers’ gaze patterns in order to convey the desired messaging on product packaging.
Assessing genetic structure with multiple classes of molecular markers: a case study involving the introduced fire ant Solenopsis invicta.
We used 30 genetic markers of 6 different classes to describe hierarchical genetic structure in introduced populations of the fire ant Solenopsis invicta. These included four classes of presumably neutral nuclear loci (allozymes, codominant random amplified polymorphic DNAs (RAPDs), microsatellites, and dominant RAPDs), a class comprising two linked protein-coding nuclear loci under selection, and a marker of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Patterns of structure revealed by F statistics and exact tests of differentiation were highly concordant among the four classes of neutral nuclear markers, although the microsatellites were the most effective markers for detecting structure. The results from the mtDNA complemented those from the neutral nuclear markers by revealing that strong limitations to female-mediated gene flow were the cause of the local structure registered by the nuclear markers. The pattern of structure inferred from the selected nuclear loci was markedly different from the patterns derived from the other sets of markers but was predictable on the basis of the presumed mode of selection acting on these loci. In general, the results for all six classes of markers can be explained by known features of the social and reproductive biology of fire ants. Thus, the results from these diverse sets of markers, combined with detailed natural history data, provide an unusually complete picture of how the fundamental evolutionary forces of gene flow, drift, and selection govern the distribution of genetic variation within and between fire ant populations.
ESC/Java2: Uniting ESC/Java and JML Progress and Issues in Building and Using ESC/Java2, Including a Case Study Involving the Use of the Tool to Verify Portions of an Internet Voting Tally System
The ESC/Java tool was a lauded advance in effective static checking of realistic Java programs, but has become out-of-date with respect to Java and the Java Modeling Language (JML). The ESC/Java2 project, whose progress is described in this paper, builds on the final release of ESC/Java from DEC/SRC in several ways. It parses all of JML, thus can be used with the growing body of JML-annotated Java code; it has additional static checking capabilities; and it has been designed, constructed, and documented in such a way as to improve the tool's usability to both users and researchers. It is intended that ESC/Java2 be used for further research in, and larger-scale case studies of, annotation and verification, and for studies in programmer productivity that may result from its integration with other tools that work with JML and Java. The initial results of the first major use of ESC/Java2, that of the verification of parts of the tally subsystem of the Dutch Internet voting system are presented as well.
Fitting mixtures of von Mises distributions: a case study involving sudden infant death syndrome
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) exhibits a seasonal pattern with a winter peak. This pattern is not symmetric. It rises rapidly to a winter peak before falling more slowly to a dip in the summer. It has been suggested that the relatively flat peak may be due to the presence of more than one population, where each population corresponds to a different cause of SIDS. Various models based on the von Mises distribution are fitted to monthly data for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland for the years 1983-1998, including a single von Mises distribution, a mixture of a von Mises and a uniform distribution and a mixture of two von Mises distributions. There are a number of ways of fitting such models (Fisher, 1993; Spurr and Koutbeiy, 1991). Various computational problems arise with the fitting procedures. Attempts to tackle these problems for the SIDS data are discussed. A bootstrap likelihood ratio approach (Polymenis and Titterington, 1998) is used to assess how many components are required in the model. Its properties are investigated by simulation. The improvement in fit of two components compared to one is not significant in most years, and hence there is little evidence of two populations in the seasonality of SIDS. In most years, it was also impossible to fit a mixture of von Mises and uniform components, with a single von Mises distribution being sufficient.
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