A Study of the Relationship of School Attendance and School Achievement and Social Behavior

This thesis has been written for the purpose of recording and interpreting facts which were discovered in a study of non-attendance, school achievement and social behavior

Optimal tariffs and retaliation with perfect foresight

The naive Cournot and Stackelberg retaliation assumptions were replaced with perfect foresight on the part of all countries involved. Each country maximized some measure of welfare subject to a belief about how the other countries would react to changes in tariffs. The two country, two good world was modelled in partial equilibrium, using consumer and producer surplus as approximations to welfare. The problem was solved within the framework of an infinite horizon dynamic programming model. The five equilibrium points representing perfect foresight were classified into three categories: no retaliation, full retaliation, and opposite retaliation. The optimal tariff levels and resulting welfare were compared for various values of the social discount factor;The perfect foresight problem was also solved for M exporting and N importing countries. The levels of the five possible optimal tariffs were examined as the number of exporters and importers was increased. In most cases, the optimal tariffs were subsidies that rapidly declined to zero (free trade) as the number of countries was increased

Improving the Judicial System to Handle Computer Crime

This paper asked professionals in the legal system to evaluate the current state and effectiveness of laws to identify and deter computer crime. Responses were evaluated with a formal structural equation model. The results generally show that legal professionals believe potential jurors have minimal knowledge of computer crime issues. More importantly, they also believe that judges have little knowledge or experience. A similar lack of knowledge by defense attorneys indicates that it could be difficult for a person accused of computer related infractions to find adequate representation. On the other hand, more experienced participants do not believe computer laws present an effective deterrent to computer crime. The bottom line is that all levels of the legal profession will need more education and training in aspects of computer security laws

Systems Development Tools and the Relationship to Project Design: Cost and Budget Implications

An investigation into current system development trends, including a summary of projects, platforms, and tools. The majority of projects get completed on time and within budget, but 14 percent still present problems. The choice of tools appears to be changing to represent the demand for new projects on new platforms—particularly the Internet. CASE tools are used sparingly, and Java is beginning to replace C++ in many projects. Database management systems are critical to almost all projects

Internet Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth

This paper looks at national attempts to promote economic growth through the Internet. Growth can be driven through service exports or internally through increased service transactions and fostering entrepreneurship. India is often held as an example of service exports, but economic statistics show that India might not be a good example for other nations because net service trade is negative and wages have been economically distorted. Ultimately, developing nations need to find internal growth models. Internal growth could be driven though increased consumption due to improved information, or increased investment expenditures from infrastructure investments

Audit Firm Affiliations with Companies Backdating Executive Stock Options

Several reports during 2005 -2007 questioned how over one-hundred pub-licly-traded companies had apparently backdated stock-option grants beginning in the 1990s. An analysis of the external audit firms affiliated with these companies revealed that these firms are dis-proportionally represented as compared to relative audit-market shares of all public companies. After controlling for industry-adjusted audit-market shares, statistically fewer backdating companies than expected used Arthur Andersen as their auditors. Overall, the results argue against the notion of audit firm involvement as a conduit for these transactions

MASET: Multi-Attribute Software Evaluation Tool

Software developers and organizational users face many problems in identifying and evaluating features of software products. The products are complex, with numerous options, making design and development of applications time consuming and costly. With many users, it can be difficult to summarize user needs and priorities, let alone identify the functions and features that they need in the applications. Once functions and features are identified, a three stage least squares technique is used to identify and prioritize important features of software products. TheMulti-Attribute Software Evaluation Tool (MASET) can be used to evaluate existing software (commercial or in-house) or proposed features of new software products. This tool combines a series of functions into a software product that aids in the development of an evaluation questionaire, accepts input from respondents, prepares the input for the statistacal analysis package and uses an artifical intelligence module to analyze the result

Energy-momentum conservation in pre-metric electrodynamics with magnetic charges

A necessary and sufficient condition for energy-momentum conservation is proved within a topological, pre-metric approach to classical electrodynamics including magnetic as well as electric charges. The extended Lorentz force, consisting of mutual actions by F=(E, B) on the electric current and G=(H, D) on the magnetic current, can be derived from an energy-momentum "potential" if and only if the constitutive relation G=G(F) satisfies a certain vanishing condition. The electric-magnetic reciprocity introduced by Hehl and Obukhov is seen to define a complex structure on the tensor product of 2-form pairs (F,G) which is independent of but consistent with the Hodge star operator defined by any Lorentzian metric. Contrary to a recent claim in the literature, it does not define a complex structure on the space of 2-forms itself.Comment: 8 pages, 1 fugur

Usability Investigation of E-Business Web-Based Forms

Usability on Web sites is critical because almost no training is provided for users on commercial sites. Instead, Web design relies on standards and consistency across sites. Traditional usability results indicated that computer forms should follow paper-based forms. Yet, Web paradigms have evolved that are quite different from paper-based forms. Specifically, this study reveals that users commit fewer errors and prefer simple forms limited to a single concept per screen. This conclusion significantly alters the recommendations for designing business forms