INTERPRETATIONS AND TRANSFORMATIONS OF SCALE FOR THE PRATT-ARROW ABSOLUTE RISK AVERSION COEFFICIENT: IMPLICATIONS FOR GENERALIZED STOCHASTIC DOMINANCE: REPLY

Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Risk and Uncertainty,

A GENERALIZED STOCHASTIC DOMINANCE PROGRAM FOR THE IBM PC

A microcomputer program to perform Generalized Stochastic Dominance (GSD), Quasi-Second Degree Dominance (SSD), and Quasi-First Degree Stochastic Dominance (FSD) is described. The program is designed to run on IBM-compatible personal computers with a Hercules or CGA graphics adapter. It is menu-driven and has options for GSD, quasi-FSD, quasi-SSD, graphics, and calculations of premiums associated with use of dominant distributions.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Projections of Agricultural and Fish and Wildlife Water Demand in the Ouachita River Basin: A Linear Programming Approach

The availability of an abundant water supply has been a major resource of the Ouachita River Basin. In recent years, water requirements for a number of uses have increased, raising the concern that future water shortages could occur in the basin. The purpose of the study reported here was to estimate future water demand for irrigation, commercial fisheries, and fish and wildlife uses

WASOS: An Ontology for Modelling Traditional Knowledge of Sustainable Water Stewardship

Recent work and publications concerning sustainable water stewardship in Rajasthan (India) highlight how contemporary challenges are eroding traditional, communal approaches to water stewardship through mechanised extraction beyond the renewable capacities of ecosystems. Our work is focused on developing a formal ontology for modelling the knowledge of traditional water stewardship in India’s drylands by capturing the key constitutional elements of regenerative methods. Our method follows an iterative evolving prototype process for delivering the first version of the Ontology for Sustainable Water Stewardship (WASOS). The ontology contains a moderate number of high-level classes and properties that represent the water management decisionmaking process. By making key relationships visible, we aim to support decision-making in complex catchments particularly where there are contested urban and rural claims on water

A Genome-Wide Association Study of Diabetic Kidney Disease in Subjects With Type 2 Diabetes

dentification of sequence variants robustly associated with predisposition to diabetic kidney disease (DKD) has the potential to provide insights into the pathophysiological mechanisms responsible. We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of DKD in type 2 diabetes (T2D) using eight complementary dichotomous and quantitative DKD phenotypes: the principal dichotomous analysis involved 5,717 T2D subjects, 3,345 with DKD. Promising association signals were evaluated in up to 26,827 subjects with T2D (12,710 with DKD). A combined T1D+T2D GWAS was performed using complementary data available for subjects with T1D, which, with replication samples, involved up to 40,340 subjects with diabetes (18,582 with DKD). Analysis of specific DKD phenotypes identified a novel signal near GABRR1 (rs9942471, P = 4.5 x 10(-8)) associated with microalbuminuria in European T2D case subjects. However, no replication of this signal was observed in Asian subjects with T2D or in the equivalent T1D analysis. There was only limited support, in this substantially enlarged analysis, for association at previously reported DKD signals, except for those at UMOD and PRKAG2, both associated with estimated glomerular filtration rate. We conclude that, despite challenges in addressing phenotypic heterogeneity, access to increased sample sizes will continue to provide more robust inference regarding risk variant discovery for DKD.Peer reviewe

INTERPRETATIONS AND TRANSFORMATIONS OF SCALE FOR THE PRATT-ARROW ABSOLUTE RISK AVERSION COEFFICIENT: IMPLICATIONS FOR GENERALIZED STOCHASTIC DOMINANCE

The Pratt-Arrow measure of absolute risk aversion, as defined by r(x)=-un(x)/u1(x), is well known to be invariant to linear transformations. However, this invariance property applies with respect to transformations of u and not with respect to arbitrary rescalings of the outcome variables, x. The effects of this misunderstanding has led to ambiguity in classifying attitudes by risk aversion coefficients. It is shown that inappropriate rescalings of the outcome variable can lead to inaccurate rankings produced by generalized stochastic dominance

Interpretation and Transformation of Scale for the Pratt-Arrow Absolute Risk Aversion Coefficient: Implications for Stochastic Dominance

The Pratt-Arrow measure of absolute risk aversion, as defined by r(x} = u"{x}/u' (x}, is well known to be "invariant to linear transformations." However, this invariance property applies with respect to transformations of u and not with respect to arbitrary rescalings of x. The effects of this misunderstanding has led to ambiguity as to what actually constitutes behavior tnat is "slightly risk averse," "very risk averse," etc. The use of the coefficient in "per acre" analyses is particularly addressed

INTERPRETATIONS AND TRANSFORMATIONS OF SCALE FOR THE PRATT-ARROW ABSOLUTE RISK AVERSION COEFFICIENT: IMPLICATIONS FOR GENERALIZED STOCHASTIC DOMINANCE: REPLY

The Pratt-Arrow measure of absolute risk aversion, as defined by r(x)=-un(x)/u1(x), is well known to be invariant to linear transformations. However, this invariance property applies with respect to transformations of u and not with respect to arbitrary rescalings of the outcome variables, x. The effects of this misunderstanding has led to ambiguity in classifying attitudes by risk aversion coefficients. It is shown that inappropriate rescalings of the outcome variable can lead to inaccurate rankings produced by generalized stochastic dominance

Semantic Web for Earth and Environmental Terminology (SWEET

In this presentation, we describe our experiences with building and using large ontologies, with application to locating NASA Earth science data. We use OWL to represent the mutual relationships of scientific concepts and their ancillary space, time, and environmental descriptors. Background NASA’s Earth science mission is to improve our understanding of the integrated Earth system and its components, through the use of satellite data products. NASA makes its data and information products available at no charge to scientists and non-scientists. The motivation of our task is to improve the discovery of these products using tools that incorporate semantic understanding. In support of this effort, we developed a collection of ontologies for describing Earth science data and knowledge. An ontology-aided search tool was developed to demonstrate the use of these ontologies. Ontologie