ON COMPARING FARM MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATIONS AND THE FARM POPULATION

Farm Management,

Optimal Entry and Exit Decisions Under Uncertainty and the Impact of Mean Reversion

Tvedt, J. Optimal Entry and Exit Decisions Under Uncertainty and the Impact of Mean Reversion. Oper. Res. Forum 3, 54 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43069-022-00161-9This paper derives an entrepreneur’s optimal switching between an idle and an active state under stochastic mean reverting output prices. The paper suggests a new categorisation of the effects of mean reversion. Mean reversion affects valuation and optimal entry and exit thresholds via the variance of output prices and expected future cashflows. High variance increases the value of optionality and enhances hysteresis effects. Changes to the expected cashflow path affect the attractiveness of the active relative to the idle state. In addition, changes to the moments affect the implicit risk discounting rate and thereby valuation and the optimal switching strategy.publishedVersio

Water and Society

Historian and leading water expert Terje Tvedt argues for a change that acknowledges the significant role played by water in societal development

Indigenous rights and fracking in Patagonia : an ecofeminist perspective

The number of conflicts between natural resource extraction and local populations, particularly indigenous peoples, in South America is the highest in the world. One such case happens in Patagonia, in Argentina’s Vaca Muerta, where state-sponsored fracking development dispossesses the local Mapuche indigenous people of their land and rights. The Argentine state rationalizes oil extraction with its desire for economic growth and energy sovereignty. However, the uneven effects imposed on the Mapuche and the state’s dismissal of their right and way of life suggests an underlying neocolonial perspective driving the development. In this thesis, I therefore explore the state’s framings of the extractive industry, nature, and the Mapuche that rationalize the fracking development. I do this by applying the critical lens of socialist ecofeminism to a desk study analyzing secondary data. This reveals how the state holds a gendered and dualistic worldview that deems nature and indigenous peoples as inferior, feminine, and passive to be subordinated to the masculine extractive industry and state. The case of the Mapuche and fracking in Vaca Muerta thus illustrates how such dualistic worldviews need to be deconstructed for alternative developments and an inclusive future to flourish.submittedVersionB-D

SLICE

Throughout this submission, I will discuss the overall process of creating my short thesis film, Slice. An overall summary of my production approach and a detailed account of the specifics of how each production element occurred will also be provided along with production documents and visuals from the set. I will also discuss my education and experiences from my time at the University of New Orleans

Accounting for Gender in International Refugee Law: A Close Reading of the UNHCR Gender Guidelines and the Discursive Construction of Gender as an Identity

This thesis conducts a close reading of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ “Guidelines on International Protection: Gender-Related Persecution within the context of Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention and/or its 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees” – a document that explains how legal definitions of refugee status might take into account gender issues. In it, I investigate the relationship between gender identity and the refugee status to understand how gender is constructed in relation to other terms or identity categories that determine whether an individual will be granted asylum. Performing a close reading of this text, I demonstrate that the UNHCR defines gender as a ground that may influence or dictate violence. Defining gender in this way, the text betrays a performative contradiction. On the one hand, the UNHCR treats gender as a recognizable and distinct identity—one that can be separated from other identity categories. On the other hand, their inability to articulate clear terms for describing such a gender identity—to pin down the words with which they might express this bounded gender—suggests that gender is not a stable, confined, or separable identity category. This contradiction is significant because it draws our attention to the ways human rights instruments delineate the language and vocabulary available to people asserting a claim before the law. The analysis conducted in this thesis demonstrates that there is a need to pay close attention to how international human rights instruments open and foreclose an individuals’ ability to account for their experiences and gain a voice in the law

Some factors that effect [sic] statistical power in ANCOVA: a population study

A study into the factors that affect power in an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) design were examined. Four factors - sample size, significance level, dependent variable-covariate correlations and homogeneity of regression - were varied in a population study. Results indicate that power increased when the dependent variable-covariate correlations increased and when sample size increased. Power also increased when a less stringent alpha level was used. Homogeneity of regression did not effect power. Implications and recommendations for the applied researcher are discussed

Social Work and Chaplain Perspectives in Offering Long Term Care Bereavement Support

Currently, more than 1.4 million people are considered long term care residents in the United States and one in five deaths happen in long term care facilities (Nursing Home Statistics, 2013). The purpose of this study will be to understand the types of grief and loss experienced by family members, as well as gain awareness of bereavement support systems in long term care facilities, what the support systems entail and what, if any, the barriers are to providing support. The research design was qualitative research with interviews. This design was chosen due to the exploratory nature of the research question. The researcher interviewed eight subjects; five social workers and three chaplains. The interview was a semi-structured format, guided by a set of questions. The researcher used a grounded theory-based approach to analyze the transcripts of the discussions. The qualitative interviews reflect the lack of bereavement services provided to families whose loved one has passed away in a long term care facility. Respondents feel there is a greater need for these services. They also feel there isn’t sufficient time to invest in the support services and that they lack funding. There are many common needs during bereavement. While some experience different types of grief, they all need some form of support to cope with their loss. Long term care facilities should have a relationship with bereaved individuals when their loved one dies. Data suggests there is a need for bereavement services that offer different types of supports in long term care settings but there are barriers that influence program development and accessibility

Supported to Stay in School: How Students’ Perceptions of the Psychosocial Learning Environment are Related to Intentions to Quit Upper Secondary School

Background: National and international research has repeatedly shown that many late adolescents have poor motivation for school. Moreover, the fact that a considerable proportion of youth do not complete upper secondary education is an insistent challenge with severe costs for the individual and society. This thesis concentrates on upper secondary students’ intentions to quit school, which is considered an indicator of a negative motivational process that can lead to dropout from school. From a motivation theory perspective (self-determination theory, in particular), intentions to quit school is considered a persistence-related academic outcome. A theoretical rationale based on self-determination theory (SDT) and achievement goal theory (AGT) of how and why perceptions of the psychosocial learning environment may contribute to the development of such intentions is proposed. Emanating from this theoretical ground and previous evidence, research questions considering how the following aspects of the psychosocial learning environment are related to intentions to quit school were posed: perceived teacher support (emotional support, autonomy granting, and feedback quality), loneliness among peers, and perceived mastery climate. Thus, while decades of research on school dropout have focused on demographic factors and students’ academic achievement level, the current approach scrutinizes the potential in the learning environment on a process that do not limit itself to the final “pass or fail” (dropout vs. completion) yet acknowledges the broader and gradual process of the individual’s more or less prominent intentions to quit school. Enhanced knowledge regarding this process can be vital from a dropout preventive perspective, but also for increased understanding of how the psychosocial learning environment in upper secondary school is related to student motivation. Aims: The overall aim was to empirically investigate how students’ perceptions of the psychosocial learning environment in upper secondary school are related to their intentions to quit school. Three separate studies had specific aims subordinate to this. Hopefully, knowledge derived from this work can contribute to inform measures to optimize students’ motivation and increase their likelihood of completing upper secondary education. Methodology: The thesis has a quantitative approach, and all three studies were empirical investigations of a sample of 1379 students in upper secondary schools in Rogaland, Norway. The main data source was self-reports from these students on three occasions during upper secondary school: T1 in the second semester of the first year, T2 in the first semester of the second year, and T3 in the second semester of the second year, giving a total timespan of 13 months. In addition to self-reports, register data on students’ previous academic achievement, gender, and study track in upper secondary were obtained from county administration, which were applied as control variables in the structural models. Study I had a cross sectional design, and Study Ⅱ and Study Ⅲ had longitudinal panel designs. To investigate the specific research questions, different statistical methods were applied, primarily types of structural equation modeling (SEM) in Mplus. This included confirmatory factor analyses (CFA), mediation models, multigroup testing of moderation, latent growth curve models (LGCM), and growth mixture models (GMM). Results: In the cross-sectional design of Study Ⅰ, the main aim was to investigate the degree to which three aspects of perceived teacher support (i.e., emotional support, autonomy granting, and feedback quality) were related to intentions to quit school, directly, and/or indirectly via emotional engagement and academic boredom. Relevant individual background variables (gender, prior academic achievement, immigrant background, as well as study track) were accounted for. The SEM results showed that all three aspects of perceived teacher support were indirectly negatively associated with intentions to quit school. In addition, emotional support showed a direct negative association with intentions to quit and thus appeared to be a particularly important aspect of perceived teacher support. In Study Ⅱ, the main aim was to investigate intentions to quit school longitudinally, and specifically scrutinize how individual change in intentions to quit was related to initial levels and changes in perceived emotional support from teachers and loneliness among peers at school. Initially, unconditional latent growth curve models indicated an average increase in intentions to quit school and loneliness among peers during the study period, and no average change in emotional support from teachers. However, substantial individual differences were found in the trajectories of all these three concepts. A multivariate latent growth curve model with the rate of change in intentions to quit as the final outcome showed no significant prediction from initial levels of either emotional support or loneliness; however, a substantial inverse associated change with perceived emotional support from teachers and a strong positive association with change in loneliness among peers was found. In Study Ⅲ, individual change in intentions to quit school was kept as the focal outcome yet investigated from the outset of potential trajectory subgroups of perceived emotional support from teachers. The substantial between-student differences in individual trajectories of perceived emotional support detected in Study Ⅱ served as an important ground for this person-centered approach. Furthermore, change in perceived mastery climate was theorized to function as an intermediate variable in a hypothesized association with change in intentions to quit school. Three distinct trajectory subgroups of perceived emotional support from teachers were identified: stable-high (84.9%; the normative group), decreasing (7.8%), and low-increasing (7.3%). Compared to the normative group, membership in the decreasing emotional support trajectory subgroup was indirectly associated with more increase in intentions to quit, and this association was fully mediated by a more negative development in perceived mastery climate. Membership in the low-increasing group was associated with more positive development in mastery climate, but no significant indirect association with change in intentions to quit was found. Conclusion: Prominent in all three studies, was the central role of perceived emotional support from teachers as negatively associated with students’ intentions to quit school. This was also persistent when accounting for background variables, and predominantly when investigating longitudinal relationships. Students with decreasing trajectories of perceived emotional support during the first and second years of upper secondary school were more likely to have steeper increase in intentions to quit school during this phase. However, the opposite route was not supported and requires further research. In addition to emotional support from teachers, individual trajectories of loneliness among peers were closely related to individual trajectories of intentions to quit school, and these results add to previous research conducted in cross-sectional designs. In sum, the current work contributes to empirical support for psychosocial factors in school having a substantial potential to keep students motivated to continue upper secondary school, and this should be considered in all efforts to enhance late adolescents’ academic motivation and to increase upper secondary completion rates