Agricultural & Resource Economics Research Works

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Browsing Agricultural & Resource Economics Research Works by Title

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    Individual and Public-Program Adaptation: Coping with Heat Waves in Five Cities in Canada
    (MDPI, 2011-12-16) Alberini, Anna; Gans, Will; Alhassan, Mustapha
    Heat Alert and Response Systems (HARS) are currently undergoing testing and implementation in Canada. These programs seek to reduce the adverse health effects of heat waves on human health by issuing weather forecasts and warnings, informing individuals about possible protections from excessive heat, and providing such protections to vulnerable subpopulations and individuals at risk. For these programs to be designed effectively, it is important to know how individuals perceive the heat, what their experience with heat-related illness is, how they protect themselves from excessive heat, and how they acquire information about such protections. In September 2010, we conducted a survey of households in 5 cities in Canada to study these issues. At the time of the survey, these cities had not implemented heat outreach and response systems. The study results indicate that individuals’ recollections of recent heat wave events were generally accurate. About 21% of the sample reported feeling unwell during the most recent heat spell, but these illnesses were generally minor. Only in 25 cases out of 243, these illnesses were confirmed or diagnosed by a health care professional. The rate at which our respondents reported heat-related illnesses was higher among those with cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses, was higher among younger respondents and bore no relationship with the availability of air conditioning at home. Most of the respondents indicated that they would not dismiss themselves as “not at risk” and that they would cope with excessive heat by staying in air conditioned environments and keeping well hydrated. Despite the absence of heat outreach and education programs in their city, our respondents at least a rough idea of how to take care of themselves. The presence of air conditioning and knowledge of cooling centers is location-specific, which provides opportunities for targeting HARS interventions.
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    Likelihood Inference in Econometrics
    (1999) Nerlove, Marc
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    On the Numerical Accuracy of Mathematica 5.0 for Doing Linear and non-Linear Regression
    (Wolfram Media, Inc, 2005) Nerlove, Marc
    This article presents the results of performing the linear and nonlinear used as benchmarks by the National Institute of Standards and (NIST) with Mathematica 5.0. The performance is nearly flawless.
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    Programming Langauges: A short history for economists
    (IOS Press, 2004-02-04) Nerlove, Marc
    The development of programming languages as a means of communicating with digital computers is surveyed with emphasis on those languages and characteristics of particular relevance to economists and statisticians. There are several different types of software: (1) True programming languages which are used for many purposes in communicating with the machine, such as FORTRAN. (2) Software with greater specificity in purpose and function such as MATHEMATICA, GAUSS, MATLAB and MAPLE. (3) "Libraries" or collections of special purpose algorithms designed to be used within programs written in one of the major languages, e.g., the LINPACK, MINPACK, EISPAC, and IMSL libraries. (4) Collections of programs, sometimes called packages, linked together and designed for special purposes. These generally must be used within some of the languages one step removed from the basics. Examples include MATLAB Toolboxes. (5) Finally, there are programs which although made generally available cannot be used stand-alone in any sense.