On the Value of Faculty Development Abroad: Reflections on the 2000 Ghana Seminar Experience

In the summer of 2000, we were part of a three-week faculty development seminar that travelled to the West African nation of Ghana. The seminar was sponsored and organized by the University System of Georgia African Council. The theme of the seminar was Tradition and Modernity in Ghana

Internal Control of Cash in the Medical Office

Most individuals have an aversion to a discussion of internal control because the need for such a safeguard stems from an aspect of human behavior we would prefer to ignore. Yet internal control is a small necessity for most organizations, large and small

Tellipsoid: Exploiting inter-gene correlation for improved detection of differential gene expression

Motivation: Algorithms for differential analysis of microarray data are vital to modern biomedical research. Their accuracy strongly depends on effective treatment of inter-gene correlation. Correlation is ordinarily accounted for in terms of its effect on significance cut-offs. In this paper it is shown that correlation can, in fact, be exploited {to share information across tests}, which, in turn, can increase statistical power. Results: Vastly and demonstrably improved differential analysis approaches are the result of combining identifiability (the fact that in most microarray data sets, a large proportion of genes can be identified a priori as non-differential) with optimization criteria that incorporate correlation. As a special case, we develop a method which builds upon the widely used two-sample t-statistic based approach and uses the Mahalanobis distance as an optimality criterion. Results on the prostate cancer data of Singh et al. (2002) suggest that the proposed method outperforms all published approaches in terms of statistical power. Availability: The proposed algorithm is implemented in MATLAB and in R. The software, called Tellipsoid, and relevant data sets are available at http://www.egr.msu.edu/~desaikeyComment: 19 pages, Submitted to Bioinformatic

Automatic signal range selector for metering devices Patent

Voltage range selection apparatus for sensing and applying voltages to electronic instruments without loading signal sourc

A Research Note on the Situational Contexts of Inter-Ethnic “Stand Your Ground” Incidents

Analysis of 311 Florida’s Stand Your Ground (SYG) cases found no significant differences in SYG defense success in inter-ethnic incidents, a result apparently contradictory to some other SYG research. Any disparities in SYG inter-ethnic situations seem based upon, not racial bias, but such situational factors as the nature of pre-incident inter-personal relationships, the incident’s location and trigger, and whether the alleged assailant was armed and/or committing a crime during the incident

Florida\u27s Stand Your Ground Law: Enforcement Inconsistencies and Inherent Ambiguities

Theory maintains that immediate and consistent enforcement of a new rule is required for clarification of behavioral expectations. Inconsistencies in the implementation of Florida’s Stand Your Ground (SYG) law are examined, based upon 302 decisions rendered from 2005 through 2012. It is argued that, by removing the duty to retreat, SYG has turned justified self-defense from a more objective interpretation of the law by legal actors into a more subjective one

Legal Actors and the Stand Your Ground Law: Factors Associated with Successful Defenses

This report builds upon previous findings regarding Florida\u27s Stand Your Ground law (SYG). It is based upon 311 cases, from 2005 through 2012, in which SYG decisions have been rendered by legal actors (i.e., police, prosecutors, grand juries, judges, and/or juries). Those factors associated with successful SYG defenses are examined

The Enforcement of Florida\u27s Stand Your Ground Law: Preliminary Findings

Florida\u27s Stand Your Ground law loosens the legal requirements for the justifiable use of deadly force. Seeking to shed light on this controversial issue, the author examined 301 known cases of Stand Your Ground, occurring from 2005 through 2012. Preliminary findings in situational and enforcement patterns are presented. This article is an updated and revised version of a paper presented at the 2013 annual meeting of the Georgia Sociological Association. The author wishes to thank colleague Fred Zampa for his assistance and thoughtful comments during the development of this manuscript, and Michelle McCormick for editing advice