Symbolic Maximum Likelihood Estimation with Mathematica

Mathematica is a symbolic programming language that empowers the user to undertake complicated algebraic tasks. One such task is the derivation of maximum likelihood estimators, demonstrably an important topic in statistics at both the research and expository level. In this paper, a Mathematica package is provided that contains a function entitled SuperLog. This function utilises pattern-matching code that enhances Mathematica's ability to simplify expressions involving the natural logarithm of a product of algebraic terms. This enhancement to Mathematica's functionality can be of particular benefit for maximum likelihood estimation

Development and Validation of an Agricultural Literacy Instrument Using the National Agricultural Literacy Outcomes

This study was conducted to develop a standardized agricultural literacy assessment using the National Agricultural Literacy Outcomes (NALOs) as benchmarks. The need for such an assessment was born out of previous research, which found that despite numerous programs dedicated to improving agricultural literacy, many students and adults remain at low or very low levels of literacy. Low literacy levels lead to negative associations with the production and processing of food, clothing, and shelter, as well as misinformed public perceptions and policies. Agricultural literacy researchers recognized that the development of a standardized assessment for post-12th grade, or equivalent, could unify both research and program development efforts. The assessment was developed by forming two groups of experts. Teaching experts and agricultural content experts worked together in an iterative process. They crafted 45 questions using research methods and models. The 45 items were placed in an online survey to be tested for validity by a participant group. During the Fall 2018 semester, 515 Utah State University students between the ages of 18-23 years old participated in the online assessment. The participant data assisted in determining which questions were valid and reliable for determining agricultural literacy, as aligned to the NALO standards. Additional demographic information was also collected from participants. The demographic items asked students to self-report their level of exposure to agriculture and their self-perceived level of agricultural literacy. The study concluded that two separate 15-item Judd-Murray Agricultural Literacy Instruments (JMALI) were valid and reliable for determining agricultural proficiency levels based on the NALOs. Participant scores were reported as a single proficiency stage: exposure, factual literacy, or applicable proficiency. The study also determined that students who had a “great deal” or higher level of exposure to agriculture also had a strong, positive correlation with a “good” or higher level of agricultural literacy. Findings show participants who reported a “good” level of agricultural literacy shared a positive correlation with either performing at a factual literacy (middle) or applicable proficiency (highest) level on the assessment. The results suggest JMALI instruments have the potential to assist in improving current agricultural education endeavors by providing a critical tool for determining the agricultural literacy proficiency stages of adult populations

“It is time for the slaves to speak:” transatlantic abolitionism and African American activism in Britain 1835-1895

During their transatlantic journeys to Britain throughout the nineteenth century, African Americans engaged in what I term “adaptive resistance,” a multi-faceted interventionist strategy by which they challenged white supremacy and won support for abolition. Alongside my recovery of this mode of self-presentation in sources I have excavated from Victorian newspapers, I use an interdisciplinary methodology that draws on literary studies, cultural history, memory studies, African American studies and the visual culture of antislavery iconography to (re)discover black performative strategies on the Victorian stage from the late 1830s to the mid 1890s. Performance was only one strand in the black activist arsenal, however. The successful employment of adaptive resistance relied on a triad of performance, abolitionist networks and exploitation of print culture. For the first time, I have identified and unified these themes as central to black abolitionist transatlantic visits, and conclude that if an individual ensured an even balance between all three, it was likely their sojourn was successful. This changes our previous knowledge of black abolitionist missions, as we can use this analysis to explain why some activist visits were more successful than others. To share their testimony of slavery, black men and women such as Moses Roper, Frederick Douglass, William and Ellen Craft, Henry ‘Box’ Brown, J. Sella Martin, Josiah Henson and Ida B. Wells “adapted” to the location and the climate in which they spoke in. Intervening in white public spaces, they subverted white power and refused to exploit themselves as spectacles or objects for white consumption. To maximize their message, they exploited the connections made available through Victorian print culture to foster favourable coverage of their lectures, befriended newspaper editors and organized the printing of narratives or pamphlets recording their speeches. Synonymous with this was their utilization of as many white abolitionist networks as possible. Through the exploitation of performance, print culture and abolitionist networks, black men and women forged a black American protest tradition in Britain. Their acts of resistance infused this tradition with a spirit of independence that could be deployed against paternalistic white antislavery reformers as well as white racists, both on an abolitionist and non-abolitionist stage. An essential part of this African American protest tradition was the creation and celebration of black testimony. Black men and women sought to make their voices heard in a climate dominated by white supremacy; they refused to capitulate and educated thousands of people on slavery and its legacies through physically and mentally demanding tours organized across Britain. This protest tradition continues to this day, with #BlackLivesMatter activists travelling to Britain to campaign against transatlantic state violence