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Open Access Publications from the University of California

Scholarly Works (417 results)

  • Article
  • Peer Reviewed
UC Irvine Previously Published Works (1986)
    Cover page: ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH - A GUIDE TO GENERAL CONDUCT - ELLEN,RFCreative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    UC San Diego Previously Published Works (2019)
    Recent research has questioned the value of statistical learning methods for producing accurate predictions in the criminal justice context. Using results from respondents on Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurkers) who were asked to predict recidivism, Dressel and Farid (2018) argue that nonexperts can achieve predictive accuracy and fairness on par with algorithmic approaches that employ statistical learning models. Analyzing the same data from the original study, this comment employs additional techniques and compares the quality of the predicted probabilities output from statistical learning procedures versus the MTurkers’ evaluations. The metrics presented indicate that statistical approaches do, in fact, outperform the nonexperts in important ways. Based on these new analyses, it is difficult to accept the conclusion presented in Dressel and Farid (2018) that their results “cast significant doubt on the entire effort of algorithmic recidivism prediction.”
      Cover page: Can nonexperts really emulate statistical learning methods? A comment on "The accuracy, fairness, and limits of predicting recidivism"
      • Article
      • Peer Reviewed
      UC San Diego Previously Published Works (2020)
      This study introduces a new approach to power analysis in the context of estimating a local average treatment effect (LATE), where the study subjects exhibit noncompliance with treatment assignment. As a result of distributional complications in the LATE context, compared to the simple ATE context, there is currently no standard method of power analysis for the LATE. Moreover, existing methods and commonly used substitutes - which include instrumental variable (IV), intent-to-treat (ITT), and scaled ATE power analyses - require specifying generally unknown variance terms and/or rely upon strong and unrealistic assumptions, thus providing unreliable guidance on the power of tests of the LATE. This study develops a new approach that uses standardized effect sizes to place bounds on the power for the most commonly used estimator of the LATE, the Wald IV estimator, whereby variance terms and distributional parameters need not be specified nor assumed. Instead, in addition to the effect size, sample size, and error tolerance parameters, the only other parameter that must be specified by the researcher is the compliance rate. Additional conditions can also be introduced to further narrow the bounds on the power calculation. The result is a generalized approach to power analysis in the LATE context that is simple to implement.
        • Article
        • Peer Reviewed
        Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Volume 22, Issue 1 (1991)
          Cover page: Early Criticism of Erasmus's Latin Translation of the Bible
          • Article
          • Peer Reviewed
          UC San Diego Previously Published Works (2020)
          Experiments often include multiple treatments, with the primary goal to compare the causal effects of those treatments. This study focuses on comparing the causal anatomies of multiple treatments through the use of causal mediation analysis. It proposes a novel set of comparative causal mediation (CCM) estimands that compare the mediation effects of different treatments via a common mediator. Further, it derives the properties of a set of estimators for the CCM estimands and shows these estimators to be consistent (or conservative) under assumptions that do not require the absence of unobserved confounding of the mediator–outcome relationship, which is a strong and nonrefutable assumption that must typically be made for consistent estimation of individual causal mediation effects. To illustrate the method, the study presents an original application investigating whether and how the international legal status of a foreign policy commitment can increase the domestic political “audience costs” that democratic governments suffer for violating such a commitment. The results provide novel evidence that international legalization can enhance audience costs via multiple causal channels, including by amplifying the perceived immorality of violating the commitment.
            Cover page: Comparative Causal Mediation and Relaxing the Assumption of No Mediator-Outcome Confounding: An Application to International Law and Audience Costs
            • Article
            Contemporary Music Score Collection (2020)
            This music score was submitted for the Kaleidoscope 2020 Call for Scores, an open access collaboration with the UCLA Music Library.
              Cover page: Last of Its Kind
              • Article
              Contemporary Music Score Collection (2020)
              This music score was submitted for the Kaleidoscope 2020 Call for Scores, an open access collaboration with the UCLA Music Library.
                Cover page: Our decision to thrive
                • Article
                Contemporary Music Score Collection (2020)
                This music score was submitted for the Kaleidoscope 2020 Call for Scores, an open access collaboration with the UCLA Music Library.
                  Cover page: who are we to know what children's dreams might be?
                  • Article
                  Hydrology (2005)

                  Scientists predict that future climate change will effect both human and natural systems. Using two rainfall-runoff modeling methods, this analysis predicts the effects of climate change on the hydrology of upper Alameda Creek, a small drainage area in California’s Coast Range. I analyzed daily rainfall, temperature, and stream flow data collected from field gages for 8 years to develop a numerical predictive model. Using the Army Corps of Engineers Hec-HMS model and autoregressive statistical techniques, I minimized the difference between the predicted and the observed creek discharge. I then generated an altered temperature and precipitation regime based on a high-end climate change prediction downscaled to a 60 square mile grid. For upper Alameda Creek, annual precipitation is predicted to fall by 28.2% and annual temperature is predicted to increase by 5.2°C by 2100. The autoregressive model had the lowest error when compared to the observed data, and predicts a 22% decrease in total discharge and considerably smaller peak flows with climate change. The Hec-HMS model predicts a 46% reduction in total discharge and large reductions in peak flows with climate change. Reduced discharge and peak flows will have adverse impacts on downstream uses, including drinking water supplies for San Francisco, recreational uses at Sunol Regional Wilderness, and habitat for native rainbow trout, alluvial sycamore, California red-legged frog, California tiger salamander, and other rare and endangered species.

                    Cover page: Effects of climate change on the hydrology of upper Alameda Creek
                    • Article
                    Berkeley Scientific Journal, Volume 20, Issue 1 (2015)
                      Cover page: Computing the Cure to Cancer
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