Contracts or scripts? A critical review of the application of institutional theories to the study of environmental change

The impact of new institutionalism on the study of human environment interactions has been meaningful. Institutional perspectives have further shaped and modified the field problems of common pool resources, environmental hazards, and risk and environmental management. Given the relative potential of institutional theories to increase the comprehension of the various dimensions of human-environmental interactions, it has become increasingly important to attempt to consolidate different interpretations of what institutions are, and how they mediate and constrain possibilities for more successful environmental outcomes. This article focuses primarily on contending ontological perspectives on institutions and institutional change. It argues that what should guide the application of institutional theories in practical research regarding environmental change is the ontological dimension, and that the focus of research should be on uncovering the underlying dynamics of institutional change. In doing so, it calls for a methodological pluralism in the investigation of the role institutions play in driving/managing for environmental change

Letter from Richard Cobb

Letter concerning an instructor in modern languages at the Utah Agricultural College

A Descriptive Study of Potential Drug Problems in Montgomery County and Mount Sterling, Kentucky

A thesis presented to the faculty of the School of Education at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Richard Cobb on May 8, 1973

Structural Damage Identification from Limited Measurement Data

The research focused on the development of a new method to identify damaged structural elements from a large flexible space structure on-orbit, using limited measured modal data. Limited measured modal data is loosely defined as measured data containing only a few modal frequencies and less than 10% of the total structural degrees-of-freedom. This effort was decomposed into four specific tasks. The first is the identification of partial modal properties from measured data of the nominal space structure. Second, the finite element model must be adjusted to match the measured nominal partial data. The third task is an analysis of the extent to which structural damage can be localized to individual structural elements using the measured data. In conjunction with this task is the determination of where to best place the limited number of sensors on the structure. Lastly, the identification of structural damage must be performed using the limited measured modal data from a damaged space structure. Identification of the modal parameters was accomplished using the Eigensystem Realization Algorithm, a time domain based method, adopted for use with averaged measured frequency response functions. Model tuning was performed using the Automated Structural Optimization Software package, adapted for model tuning. The method minimizes a cost function based on the mismatch between the measured and analytical eigenstructure. The minimization is solved using the eigenvalue and eigen-vector sensitivities at each iteration step. The determination of prioritized sensor locations and damage localization is performed using the eigenvalue and eigenvector sensitivities

Letter from Richard Cobb to John Muir, 1896 Sep 18.

Harvard University,Cambridge, Mass. Sept/ 18, 1896.My dear Sir:-I have the honor of sending to you to-day, by registered mail, a diploma certifying to the fact that at our last Connencement the degree of Master of Arts was conferred on you by the University.Yours very truly,Corresponding Secretary.John Muir, Esq. DiplomaNotice of transmission et

Letter from Richard Cobb to John Muir, 1896 Sep 18.

Harvard University,Cambridge, Mass. Sept/ 18, 1896.My dear Sir:-I have the honor of sending to you to-day, by registered mail, a diploma certifying to the fact that at our last Connencement the degree of Master of Arts was conferred on you by the University.Yours very truly,Corresponding Secretary.John Muir, Esq. DiplomaNotice of transmission et

Identifying Sources and Sinks in the Presence of Multiple Agents with Gaussian Process Vector Calculus

In systems of multiple agents, identifying the cause of observed agent dynamics is challenging. Often, these agents operate in diverse, non-stationary environments, where models rely on hand-crafted environment-specific features to infer influential regions in the system's surroundings. To overcome the limitations of these inflexible models, we present GP-LAPLACE, a technique for locating sources and sinks from trajectories in time-varying fields. Using Gaussian processes, we jointly infer a spatio-temporal vector field, as well as canonical vector calculus operations on that field. Notably, we do this from only agent trajectories without requiring knowledge of the environment, and also obtain a metric for denoting the significance of inferred causal features in the environment by exploiting our probabilistic method. To evaluate our approach, we apply it to both synthetic and real-world GPS data, demonstrating the applicability of our technique in the presence of multiple agents, as well as its superiority over existing methods.Comment: KDD '18 Proceedings of the 24th ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery & Data Mining, Pages 1254-1262, 9 pages, 5 figures, conference submission, University of Oxford. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1709.0235

Storage and Behavior of Plant and Diet-Fed Adult Cereal Leaf Beetle, Oulema Melanopus (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae)

The univoltine life cycle of the cereal leaf beetle Oulema melanopus (L.) in Michigan (Castro et al. 1965) is similar to that reported by Venturi (1942) in Europe. Adults emerge from pupal cells in the soil in mid-June to early July, feed voraciously for about three weeks, and enter aestivation sites. For the remainder of the summer and early autumn only a few adults can be found feeding on late-maturing native grasses. The beetles overwinter and usually emerge in late March to early April and resume feeding. Mating and oviposition occur, and larval development is usually completed by late June in southern Michigan. Techniques for rearing the cereal leaf beetle on greenhouse-grown small grain seedlings have been developed by Connin, et al. (1968). Maintaining these cultures requires collecting field adults, growing host material, and handling the cultures to insure that all stages will be available for study. In Michigan during July adults can be collected more economically and in greater numbers in the field than by rearing in the laboratory. A summary of collection techniques, laboratory feeding and storage conditions for large numbers of field-collected cereal leaf beetles is presented in this paper. In addition, the mortality during storage of newly emerged field collected beetles fed either barley seedlings or an artificial diet is compared

The Very Light Jet Arrives: Stakeholders and Their Perceptions

This article summarizes the initial results of a systematic study that addressed issues related to the direct and indirect market impact of very light jet (VLJ) aircraft. Although reports in the popular press offer wide-ranging estimates of the impact that these new jets will have on existing air travel, no systematic data exists that may be of use to all potential stakeholders. This introductory study serves to describe potential VLJ users and their perceptions of this new type of aircraft