An Economic Analysis of Crime

This study estimates the economic factors that explain crime rates for robbery, burglary, and larceny in the United States from 2002 to 2009. A panel data set was used, covering 2002, and 2004 to 2009. Our explanatory variables were sorted into three categories: economic, deterrence, and demographic. Economic variables included unemployment and poverty rates. Deterrence variables included concealed carry weapons laws, preventative spending, and incarceration rates. Demographic variables included the urbanization rate, the dropout rate, the young male population (15-24), as well as the racial composition of the population. Our results varied across the three crime types, becoming less significant as the violence of the observed crime increased. Our results indicate that econometric models have difficulty predicting and explaining crime rates. This may be due to the fact that rational economic calculation is not a primary determinant of crime

Gods, Caesars and Fate in Aeneid 1 and Metamorphoses 15

The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the poetics of Ovid’s reception of Jupiter’s prophecy in Aeneid 1 and to discuss the implications of Ovid’s engagement with Vergil. At the end of the Metamorphoses Ovid is interested in exploring the role of Vergilian prophetics in epic from a perspective that channels all the ways Vergil utilized fate, prophecy and divination into an ironic authorization of an Augustan present on the verge of ending. Whereas the Aeneid ends with the interpretative crux of the meaning of Turnus’ death, Ovid’s epic concludes with the imminent death of Augustus and the interpretative void his absence creates

The Poetics of Alliance in Vergil’s Aeneid

The following paper argues that the series of desecrated altars that are found in the Aeneid reflects prior moments of ruptured alliances that have taken place in the epic cycle and Roman history more generally. Vergil has constructed these ruptured alliances along a number of parallel lines that focus on the various means by which the poem constructs ethnic and spatial unification. From the perspective of ethnic amalgamation the infectum foedus of Aeneid 12 raises a number of problems concerning the foundation of Rome and the nature of Roman alliance through time. This problematic alliance that ends the poem, however, moves against the theme of East-West unification in which a central feature of Aeneas’ actions is the reunification of Europe, Asia and Africa through a new system of alliance

An Analysis of the Academic Growth of Students with Disabilities Instructed in Self-Contained Schools and a Unique Therapeutic Inclusive Public School Special Education Program

This study analyzes the academic growth of students with disabilities (SWD) educated in two self-contained schools and a unique therapeutic inclusive public school program (TP) located in Piedmont County (PC). The majority of participants in this study were classified as students with an emotional disability (ED) (40%) or other health impairment (OHI) (34%). Results revealed that students in the TP group showed overall higher significant growth in mathematics as gauged by the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessment, until variables of grade level, gender, and medical assistance (MA) eligibility were added to the analysis. Following an additional analysis of growth accounting for these additional variables, there were no significant differences between the two educational environments. This study suggests that variables of teacher efficacy, relationship, background, prior knowledge, professional development, lack of random assignment of students, teacher certification and content knowledge of teachers need to be studied in future research. Findings from this research should not be generalized beyond this study due to a low number of participants (48 students) and the unique nature of the TP. Additional limitations regarding generalizability and recommendations are addressed within this study

Calibrating the HSM Predictive Methods for Oregon Highways

The Highway Safety Manual (HSM) was published by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) in the spring of 2010. Volume 2 (Part C) of the HSM includes safety predictive methods which can be used to quantitatively estimate the safety of a transportation facility. The resulting information can then be used to provide guidelines to identify opportunities to improve transportation safety. The safety performance functions (SPFs) included with this content, however, were developed for several states other than Oregon. Because there are differences in crash reporting procedures, driver population, animal populations, and weather conditions (to name a few), the State of Oregon needs to use calibrated SPFs when applying the HSM procedures to local Oregon facilities. Currently, the predictive methods have been developed for three facility types: rural two-lane two-way roads, rural multilane roads, and urban and suburban arterial roads. In this project, the research team calibrated SPFs for all three facility types based on their historic safety performance in Oregon. The report illustrates methods of site selection, the collection of crash and site-specific data, and analysis methods for calibration. Also, the report includes an evaluation of the crash severity distribution methods. With this information, Oregon agencies can use the calibrated HSM predictive methods to assess expected facility safety performance for Oregon conditions and facility alternatives

Augustus Senex: Old Age and the Remaking of the Prinipate

In September ad 1, on the occasion of his birthday, Augustus wrote to Gaius, his adopted son and grandson by Julia and Agrippa, complaining about his age, stating that he had passed the climacteric common to all old men, the sixty-fourth year. And I pray the gods that whatever time is left to me I may pass with you safe and well, with our country in a flourishing condition, while you are playing the man and preparing to succeed to my position. (Gell. NA 15.7

Tiberius on Capri and the Limits of Roman Sex Culture

This paper examines Suetonius’ representation of Tiberius and sex on Capri at Vita Tiberii 43-44. Many of the features of Suetonius’ narrative move through normative elements of Roman sex culture: brothels and prostitutes, sex manuals, erotic paintings in domestic spaces, pederasty and elite garden spaces. But each element is reconstituted as something dehumanizing and dangerous in Suetonius’ telling. Tiberius constructs a radical sexuality, in which the closer an individual orbits the emperor, the more Roman notions of sex become deconstructed, atomized and reassembled in ways that expose a destructive and dangerous pathology. Nearly every structuring category that might delineate and demarcate Roman sexuality is distorted, obscured and blurred. Bodies are controlled and transformed. New functions and constructions of human embodiment are conceived. States of being become iterative replications of images imprinted in paint or on stone. Children become “bracelet workers”, little fishes or hybrid, hooved deities or woodland goddesses. Normative stages and transitions of human development are obliterated and replaced by an assemblage of activity that orbits the sexual organs of the emperor. Tiberius transforms traditional Roman sex culture and assembles an admixture of extreme and complex performances of a particularly disruptive and corrosive sexuality that confounds categories and frameworks

Exploring Traffic Safety and Urban Form in Portland, Oregon

Street layout and design, once established, are then not easily changed. Urban form affects community development, livability, sustainability, and traffic safety. There has been an assumed relationship between urban form and traffic safety that favors designs with less through streets to improve safety. An empirical study to test this assumed relationship was carried out for crash data for Portland, Oregon. This thesis presents an empirical methodology for analyzing the relationship between urban form and traffic safety utilizing a uniform grid for the spatial unit. Crashes in the Portland, Oregon city limits from 2005-2007 were analyzed and modeled using negative binomial regression to study the effect of urban form and street layout through factors on exposure, connectivity, transit accessibility, demographic factors, and origins and destinations. These relationships were modeled separately by mode: vehicle crashes, pedestrian and bicycle crashes. Models were also developed separately by crash type and by crash injury severity. The models found that urban form factors of street connectivity and intersection density were not significant at 95% confidence for vehicle and pedestrian crash rates, nor for different crash severity levels, indicating that high connectivity grid street layout may have comparable safety to loops and lollipops, in contrast to results in earlier studies. Elasticity for all models was dominated by VMT increases. Business density, population and transit stops were also significant factors in many models, underlining the importance not only of street layout design, but also planning to direct development to influence where businesses, employment, and housing will grow and handle traffic volumes safely

The Poetics of Human Sacrifice in Vergil’s Aeneid

Outside of hostia humana, a phrase Cicero (pro Fonteio, 31), Sallust (Hist. 1.55.14), and Livy (22.57.6, 38.47.12) unambiguously use to describe the ritual sacrifice of a human being, the evidence for human sacrifice in Rome is scant, negative, and largely literary. The nature of the evidence necessitates that one approaches Roman human sacrifice through literary representations. Roman authors utilized the ritual slaughter of a person to signal to the audience that the literary world the read..