This dissertation reveals why Senegal has confronted difficulties in establishing and maintaining an articulated rural development strategy. Departing from a weak state model, this work develops the concept of symbiotic societal differential dynamism to explain how the modern Se…
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We present a study of conflict from an economic perspective. We start by reviewing the approach to conflict in the economic sciences. We model conflict as a process of allocation of resources into two main technologies, production and appropriation. Then we complement this frame…
This study examines the role of tertiary education in the development of a knowledge based economy, with particular reference to developing countries and in the particular case of the University of Botswana (UB). It presents evidence to suggest that the commodification of knowle…
Due to introduction of smart phones with data intensive multimedia and interactive applications and exponential growth of wireless devices, there is a shortage for useful radio spectrum. Even though the spectrum has become crowded, many spectrum occupancy measurements indicate t…
With climate change adaptation becoming ever more urgent, decisions about how to allocate adaptation resources have become increasingly important. For instance, should decision-makers in flood-prone areas fund a sea wall to protect a larger community, provide subsidies to proper…
The desegregation of public schools continues to be a controversial topic in the U.S., particularly after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) decision. It’s been over sixty years following Brown, yet U.S. schools have remained racially and socioeconomically…
Secondary contact occurs when two previously isolated lineages come back into contact after generations of independent selection and evolution. The processes that occur at the onset of secondary contact determine whether populations fuse, form a stable hybrid zone, or undergo sp…
Throughout development, plants are constantly shifting resource allocation between their different tissue types; roots, stems, leaves, fruits and seeds. This allows them to balance resource gain, optimize growth, and increase reproductive output. While plants with different life…
Colonel Blotto games have been used as the model in strategic analysis on resource allocation sincethe 1950’s. This paper implements an algorithm consistent with operational and tactical theories of Carlvon Clausewitz in a probabilistic Colonel Blotto game. It transfers the empi…
Visual signals in the form of wing color, size, shape, pattern, and UV reflectance play an important role in the mating and reproductive strategies of diurnal butterflies. Wing-based visual signals are linked to different functions and can be acted on by a variety of selective p…
This study is concerned with an aspect of public sector resource allocation, specifically the mechanisms whereby United Kingdom central government public expenditure within the New Towns budget heading was utilised for the planned expansion of the town of Northampton from 1965 t…
The impact of the turnover tax and the value-added tax systems on resource allocation and international trade is examined when intermediate goods are introduced into a general equilibrium model. The value-added tax allows tax credit on sales tax paid on intermediate good while t…
This research examines the weak condition of pareto efficiency maintained by the unitary and collective models of the household. Farm production data collected from Senegalese households over a two-year period are used to test whether resources are allocated efficiently across m…
The fitness of an annual plant can be thought of as how much fruit is produced by the end of its growing season. Under the assumption that annual plants grow to maximize fitness, we can use techniques from optimal control theory to understand this process. We introduce two model…
Software testing costs might be reduced if software engineers could easily determine which parts of a system were more complex and thus more likely to contain faults. Once these areas are identified, extra testing resources and preference could be assigned accordingly. A survey …
Over the last 9 years, the United States Government spent approximately 300 billion on the war in Afghanistan. Despite the employment of these resources, the goal of creating stability in the country has not been achieved. This is especially the case at the village, town, and di…
Dynamic programming is used in many military and industrial applications to solve sequential decision making problems. This research proposes the development of a model and approach to address the application of dynamic programming in nation-building modeling. Through the creati…
This thesis presents two applications of combinatorial optimization. The first part contains a detailed description of a conference scheduling problem. We model the problem as a symmetric clustering problem, or a variant of minimum k -partition we call capacitated k -partition .…
This dissertation investigates the relationship between the Holy Spirit, ethnic identity and the ‘other’ in Luke-Acts. I argue that the Spirit is the central figure in the formation of a new social identity that affirms, yet chastens and transcends ethnic identity. The investiga…