Discrimination, Lending Practices and Housing Values: Preliminary Evidence from the Houston Market

At the center of the debate on racially induced price differentials in housing is the issue of discrimination. This research studies the impact that ethnic as well as racial composition in a neighborhood exerts on value. In an attempt to extend previous efforts, aggregate data is used to study the effects of discrimination and lending bias on residential real estate in Houston, Texas. The data do not support allegations of systematic bias in the mortgage lending process.

Use of Remote Surface Based Tools for Visualizing Integrated Brain Imaging Data

We describe a surface-based approach to 3D visualization of integrated neuroimaging data. Our web-enabled software allows researchers to use these visualization tools over the Internet. We present examples of brain imaging studies where such remote surface-based visualization techniques have proven to be quite effective

Brain Visualization in Java3D

BrainJ3D is a cross-platform Java/Java3D software toolkit for processing and visualizing brain imaging data, which 1) contains general purpose tools for reconstructing, mapping and visualizing integrated structural and functional images and 2) leverages Java's Remote Method Invocation to provide both a standalone and a client/server mode

Conservation Provisions of the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008: Evolutionary Changes and Challenges

Farm Bill, Conservation, Agricultural land retirement, Agricultural land preservation, Working lands, Agricultural and Food Policy, H59, Q58, Policy,

Financial Benchmarks of North Dakota Farm Operators: 1992 Update

Agricultural Finance, Farm Management,

Cost-effectiveness analysis in R using a multi-state modelling survival analysis framework: a tutorial

This tutorial provides a step-by-step guide to performing cost-effectiveness analysis using a multi-state modelling approach. Alongside the tutorial we provide easy-to-use functions in the statistics package R. We argue this multi-state modelling approach using a package such as R has advantages over approaches where models are built in a spreadsheet package. In particular, using a syntax-based approach means there is a written record of what was done and the calculations are transparent. Reproducing the analysis is straightforward as the syntax just needs to be run again. The approach can be thought of as an alternative way to build a Markov decision analytic model, which also has the option to use a state-arrival extended approach if the Markov property does not hold. In the state-arrival extended multi-state model a covariate that represents patients’ history is included allowing the Markov property to be tested. We illustrate the building of multi-state survival models, making predictions from the models and assessing fits. We then proceed to perform a cost-effectiveness analysis including deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses. Finally, we show how to create two common methods of visualising the results, namely cost-effectiveness planes and cost-effectiveness acceptability curves. The analysis is implemented entirely within R. It is based on adaptions to functions in the existing R package mstate, to accommodate parametric multi-state modelling which facilitates extrapolation of survival curves