In this paper, we present a model for estimating the final decision point for committing to the development of features that are under analysis for inclusion in the scope of a future release. The Basic Lost Opportunity Estimation Model (BLOEM) is based on studies at a company that uses an agile-inspired software development model. The main objective of BLOEM is to support feature selection in a...

Unsustainable land uses present many challenges for securing ecosystem service provision. It is also difficult to estimate the cost of a transition to more sustainable land-management practices for individual landholders. The main cost to landholders is the opportunity costs, the income foregone when changing land use for continued or enhanced ecosystem service provision. Thus accurate estimati...

This thesis first critically analyzes John Rawls’s second principle of justice as a democratic conception of equality and the challenge posed to that conception by Ronald Dworkin’s ‘Equality of Resources.’ Democratic equality is defended over luck egalitarianism as an articulation of liberal egalitarianism. However, where Rawls deems social primary goods to be unconditionally regulated by insti...

Floods, snow, $5.00 corn, $.50 calves, and a $55 fed cattle market—What is this, a list of reasons not to be in the cattle business? No, just a description of 1996. In addition to these factors, there has been consumer frenzy regarding outbreaks of E. coli and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in the United States and Europe, respectively. All of these represent reasons why cattlemen need ...

This paper presents a framework to help decisions makers better measure the opportunity cost of resources with differing economic characteristics. After characterizing resources by the intrinsic lumpiness of acquisition (acquisition granularity), storability of benefits (expiration granularity), and control over the rate of consumption of available benefits (consumption granularity), this paper...

Revenue management (RM) brings rational approaches to pricing for goods and/or services with a limited shelf life. The practice of dynamically pricing a perishable product across different market segments continues to be applied across an ever-increasing set of business arenas. While numerous consulting and software development firms preach the bottom line impacts of RM practice, little effort ...

This paper argues that widening income inequality contributes to the propensity to evade by both reducing the probability of detection and increasing compliance opportunity costs. Lower detection probability occurs as rising inequality gradually alters the composition of income from being employment-based (i.e., matchable) to investment-based (i.e., non-matchable). Greater economic polarization...