Leveraging Legal Analytics and Spend Data as a Law Firm Self-Governance Tool

This paper discusses the advantages that law firms can get by using legal analytics (big data) to analyze how they do their work for their clients (and how their clients can benefit as well). We discuss the external forces that are reshaping the economics of today’s legal industry; the types of decisions, in determining how best to represent a client in a given matter, that tend to drive up costs; the possible reasons for those decisions; how law firms can use data-analytics tools to examine their own choices; and the benefits that stem from a data-driven analysis of those choices

IMPACTS OF HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION ON CONVENIENCE AND NONCONVENIENCE FOOD EXPENDITURES IN THE SOUTH

Consumer/Household Economics,

On Setting Apartment Rental Rates: A Regression-Based Approach

This study presents a regression-based analysis of apartment rents for a cross-section of properties located in an "edge city" submarket. It attempts to provide a solution for owners and managers of apartments to the thorny problem of setting a property's rental rate. The approach used in this analysis differs from previous studies in at least three important respects: (1) vacancy is treated as part of the dependent variable, (2) the property-specific rental rate generated by the regression analysis is compared to the property's actual effective rent, and (3) each property in the submarket is ranked by the difference between its actual effective rent and its characteristic-adjusted effective rent. This is then followed by several observations concerning the advantages and disadvantages of such an analysis in a practical setting.

Macroeconomic fluctuations in Europe: demand or supply, permanent or temporary?

We use generalized method of moments to estimate a rational expectations aggregate demand-aggregate supply macroeconomic model for five European economies. Our aim is to examine whether supply or demand shocks have predominated in the major European economies during the post-war era and whether shocks of either type have been primarily temporary or permanent in nature. The estimation procedure is an alternative to estimating and interpreting vector autoregressions under restrictions either of the Bernanke-Sims variety or the Blanchard-Quah variety or to performing calibration exercises. ; We find that all four types of shocks (permanent supply, permanent demand, temporary supply, and temporary demand) are needed to account for the data on output and inflation. Permanent or temporary demand shocks have been the dominant source of variance in output growth in four of the five countries, but there is no consistent pattern for inflation.Business cycles ; Econometric models ; Europe ; Macroeconomics

A Fundamental Examination of Securitized and Unsecuritized Real Estate

Most studies (including this one) have found a weak statistical relationship between total returns for securitized and unsecuritized real estate equities. Some studies argue that REIT shares behave more like the stock market, than real estate. In an attempt to focus this discussion, this study examines the fundamental underlying return-generating components: dividends, investment values, and dividend yields using NAREIT and NCREIF data from 1978 through 1994. While dividends have been part of the REIT pricing calculus for some time, relatively few studies have focused upon the "dividends" paid by NCREIF properties. The short-run relationships between these fundamental components are weak and many of their distributions display significant non-normal tendencies. Even when quarterly lags of up to two years are examined, these distributions also tend to be weakly correlated with one another. Of the three fundamental components, the long-run path of prices exhibited the strongest relationship. Interestingly, the volatility of the NCREIF dividend series is approximately 150% of the NAREIT volatility, while the volatility of the NCREIF asset values is roughly 25% of the NAREIT volatility. This is contradictory: in a simplified setting, greater dividend volatility should be accompanied by greater price volatility, not less, as observed here. Nevertheless, such comparisons suffer due to the incompatibility of the data sources and, accordingly, this study should be viewed as a preliminary examination of securitized and unsecuritized real estate returns.

The Effects of Triclosan Derivatives against the Growth of Staphylococcus Aureus

Triclosan is an antimicrobial commonly used in many different antiseptics and everyday products. Unfortunately, many bacteria are now resistant to triclosan due to innate resistance, mutations in the fabI gene, and/or overexpression of certain other genes (soxS, marA, and an efflux pump encoded by acrAB). Therefore, it is essential that drugs be developed to destroy bacteria now resistant to triclosan. In this experiment, four different derivatives of triclosan were tested for antibacterial capabilities under the supervision of Dr. Hubbard at Liberty University. The derivatives were synthesized by Professor McGibbon (professor of organic chemistry at LU). Solutions of 4.0 ug/mL of each derivative were made and then tested against S. aureus for inhibition capabilities. Some of the derivatives seemed to have some inhibition capabilities, but none of them were as inhibitive as triclosan itself. Of special note, some of the results seem to indicate that the added benzene ring may inactivate triclosan’s antibacterial capabilities while the added chlorines provide at least some inhibition to S. aureus. Ultimately, the derivatives of triclosan did not have high inhibition rates at 4.0 ug/mL, but more experiments need to be performed in order to determine their effects at higher concentrations and on different species of bacteria. Hopefully, the data gathered and inferred from this experiment, including several valuable dissolving ratios and laboratory techniques which were discovered, will be implemented into future research on triclosan derivatives that will lead to the discovery of compounds even more inhibitive against bacteria growth than triclosan

Rethinking: The Understanding of Learning and Assessment in the Millennial Generation

Much has been written and discussed about the challenges of educating members of the Millennial Generation. There is little agreement about which sentiment is more accurate; they are lazy, entitled and spoiled with little incentive to excel academically or they are different than other generations in learning styles and motivation. What does garner agreement is that changes in teaching approaches are warranted if improvement in learning is to be achieved. This paper explores some of these arguments and makes a case for a number of changes to achieve this end

A Demand Side Requirements Model to Forecast C-17 Mobility Aircraft Availability

Current aircraft forecasting methods of the Air Mobility Command (AMC) Directorate of Logistics are reliant on the experience of personnel and lead to after the fact, labor-intensive analysis. These deficiencies led AMC to the development of a Mobility Aircraft Availability Forecasting (MAAF) model. The purpose of the MAAF model is threefold: predict aircraft availability in order to provide the Tanker Airlift Control Center (TACC) with a forecast of aircraft that will be available for AMC mission requirements, provide what if capabilities that analyze the effects of tasking and policy changes, and to provide foresight into problems associated with aircraft availability (Briggs, 2003b). This research uses Arena simulation to model C-17 aircraft generation at a major enroute location to determine how significant the factors of crew chief manning and spares levels affect aircraft throughput and turn-times. From the simulation, ANOVA statistical techniques are applied to determine factor significance. In addition, a hierarchical structure of aircraft generation is generated to include the variability of unscheduled maintenance actions. This provides a more precise analysis of expected turn-time duration, which leads to overall throughput of the system. Ultimately, this research provides a key input to the MAAF project that will enable AMC to predict aircraft availability and provide the TACC with a monthly forecast of the number of aircraft that will be available to fulfill AMC mission requirements