Examining Uranium Mining in the Canyon Mine

In November 2020, Energy Fuels changed the name of one of its uranium mines from “Canyon Mine” to “Pinyon Plain Mine” in order to put distance between the mine and its historical controversies. However, changing the name does not change the potential harm the mine can cause. Canyon Mine sits fifteen miles from the rim of the Grand Canyon and is built on land sacred to the nearby Havasupai Tribe. The mine stands to not only destroy the health and well-being of the Havasupai people by contaminating their water supply with radioactive elements, but also to destroy the sacred ties the Havasupai Tribe holds to the land. The mine lies above the Redwall-Muav Aquifer, the same aquifer that feeds Havasu Creek – the Havasupai Tribe’s sole source of water. The Havasupai Tribe has opposed the mine since its first permit in 1978 and continues to do so. This article will examine Canyon Mine and its connection to the Havasupai people, the potential adverse effects of the mine on the Havasupai Tribe, and potential domestic legal solutions and actions that the Tribe could pursue in order to stop the mine from operating

Farmer-centered pesticide risk reduction education in Senegal: A novel, participatory approach

As pest pressures continue to intensify across Sub-Saharan Africa, many smallholder farmers are increasing their use of pesticides, including highly hazardous options, to meet the market demands for high-quality fresh produce. Many of these farmers, however, have not had access to pesticide risk reduction training or have participated in programs that have not enabled them to protect themselves and their families. Given the risks posed by dried and invisible though still toxic pesticide residues, new forms of information and realistic learning strategies are required. This study combined the innovative Adaptive Learner-Centered Education (ALCE) approach with the Farmer Field School (FFS) model to address the need for a rigorous pesticide risk reduction program. This hybrid method was piloted over two years in a project with smallholder farmers in the Niayes region of Senegal. The findings demonstrate that following a 12-week course, this novel approach enabled 20 farmer-facilitators to educate and train 236 other farmers to reduce their use of highly hazardous pesticides, select pesticides with shorter restricted re-entry intervals, and adopt protective mitigation practices. Through seasonal planning exercises, farmers operationalized new knowledge in ways that fit their crop production needs and protected themselves and their families. Because the ALCE-FFS process is grounded in community-based needs, it can serve as an appropriate educational design framework for practitioners working in a wide range of geographic, sociocultural, and political contexts

Wearables and Warranties

The last few years have seen an explosion of wearable digital health products. Where a doctor’s visit used to be required for a basic check-up, now a patient’s health status is increasingly at his or her fingertips. We have the ability to track fitness levels, monitor lung and heart capacity, check skin temperature, and observe blood pressure with a simple wearable device

Sequential Estimation of Multivariate Factor Stochastic Volatility Models

We provide a simple method to estimate the parameters of multivariate stochastic volatility models with latent factor structures. These models are very useful as they alleviate the standard curse of dimensionality, allowing the number of parameters to increase only linearly with the number of the return series. Although theoretically very appealing, these models have only found limited practical application due to huge computational burdens. Our estimation method is simple in implementation as it consists of two steps: first, we estimate the loadings and the unconditional variances by maximum likelihood, and then we use the efficient method of moments to estimate the parameters of the stochastic volatility structure with GARCH as an auxiliary model. In a comprehensive Monte Carlo study we show the good performance of our method to estimate the parameters of interest accurately. The simulation study and an application to real vectors of daily returns of dimensions up to 148 show the method's computation advantage over the existing estimation procedures

Transcript of Interview with Dr. Louise Caudill and Susie Halbleib (Interview 1)

A transcript of the second interview of Dr. Louise Caudill and Susie Halbleib, conducted by Shirley Gish, about Dr. Caudill\u27s life and career

Which model to match?

The asymptotic efficiency of indirect estimation methods, such as the efficient method of moments and indirect inference, depends on the choice of the auxiliary model. To date, this choice has been somewhat ad hoc and based on an educated guess. In this article we introduce a class of information criteria that helps the user to optimize the choice between nested and non–nested auxiliary models. They are the indirect analogues of the widely used Akaike–type criteria. A thorough Monte Carlo study based on two simple and illustrative models shows the usefulness of the criteriaLa eficiencia asintótica de los estimadores de inferencia indirecta, tales como el método eficiente de los momentos, depende de la elección del modelo auxiliar. Hasta ahora, esta elección era ad hoc y basada en criterios subjetivos. En este artículo introducimos una clase de criterios de información que ayuda al usuario a escoger entre modelos anidados y no anidados. Esta clase es la análoga a los ampliamente utilizados criterios del tipo Akaike. Un detallado estudio de Monte Carlo basado en dos modelos simples e ilustrativos muestran la utilidad de los criterio

Transcript of Interview with Dr. Louise Caudill and Susie Halbleib (Interview 4)

A transcript of the second interview of Dr. Louise Caudill and Susie Halbleib, conducted by Shirley Gish, about Dr. Caudill\u27s life and career. The transcript includes two versions of the interview

Transcript of Interview with Dr. Louise Caudill and Susie Halbleib (Interview 6)

A transcript of the second interview of Dr. Louise Caudill and Susie Halbleib, conducted by Shirley Gish, about Dr. Caudill\u27s life and career

Transcript of Interview with Dr. Louise Caudill and Susie Halbleib (Interview 5)

A transcript of the second interview of Dr. Louise Caudill and Susie Halbleib, conducted by Shirley Gish, about Dr. Caudill\u27s life and career. The transcript includes two versions of the interview