| Tuesday April 29 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9:30 - 10:10 | An Industry Analysis: Trends in Energy Industry in US | |||
| Preeti Bais Ahu Meco Kevin Heiberger Shae Ary Mark Anderson |
In this analysis we take a look at the industry of crude oil. The objective of this project was to find out the reason for increasing fuel prices and what factors control these prices. To do this we analyzed the historical data from the Energy Information Administration of the Department of Energy and analyzed the fuel sources and the energy consumption. We also analyzed our reliance on the imports and crude oil reserves. We also tried to determine some factors that increase gas price, consumption, and energy overall. The crude oil industry has seen its rise in popularity and as a result we see of high gas prices and reductions in our oil reserves. We found that the wars and disturbances in the energy rich countries have a negative influence on the energy prices and with the knowledge that our crude oil reserves are going down. We also saw that even as vehicles become efficient that the increase in number of vehicles still causes an overall increase in gas consumption over the years. Future research needs to focus on efficient consumption of the energy and also investigate alternative energy resources. By switching to simple energy efficient bulbs or energy efficient vehicles we can start to bring down the gap between consumption and production and reduces our reliance on other countries. | |||
| 10:10 - 10:50 | Salary and Employment Report | |||
| Jason Crowley Kara Hickey Taylor Hopper Emma Tegels Vivien Tse |
For our project, we used the labor statistics for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We examined questions involving wage and salary, unemployment and employment, and areas known for a certain type of industry, all within large cities and states within the United States. | |||
| Thursday May 1 | ||||
| 9:30 - 10:05 | Subprime Mortgage Crisis | |||
| Hung-Yun Chen Derek Grittmann Xiaowen Guo Brian Swanson Yong Huang |
Our report and presentation is on the subprime mortgage crisis. It is believed that the current mortgage problems are pulling the entire economy into a recession. We will discuss the events that led up to the subprime mortgage crisis. We will also go over the current housing conditions and look ahead to see if we can predict how much longer it will last. | |||
| 10:10 - 10:50 | Factors Associated With Trucker's Strike | |||
| Shih-Hsu Chang Yiteng Hsu Hideki Kunizawa Eric Henderson Mingzhu Lin Wah Pheow Tan |
We explore plausible reasons why truckers would go on strike. The preliminary look at the available data suggests that the relatively stable profits of the companies was maintained probably by increasing the workload of drivers without increasing their wages, and/or compromising on the safety of truckers by not spending more money on fleet maintenance. This might have increased the resentments amongst truckers and induced them to strike. | |||
| Tuesday May 5 | ||||
| 9:45 - 10:15 | Casualties of Operation Iraqi Freedom | |||
| Jessica Romaine Jenna Coellner Sung Young Lee Seung-Gyu Lee |
Our report looks at the geographic distribution of military and civilian casualties that resulted from Operation Iraqi Freedom. We also further investigate the military casualties by demographics such as their age, pay grade, and gender. We also investigate the changes in casualties over time by looking at the casualty count for each month and attempting to explain any unusual patterns by looking at the military actions and political climate at that time. Finally, we take a closer look at the casualties of soldiers who list their home city as being in the Midwest. | |||
| 10:15-10:45 | An examination of gross state product and agricultural indicators | |||
| Thomas Harwood Jason Jirak Lili Peng Joseph McPhail |
For this project our group looked at data from the census of agriculture for the years 1982, 1987, 1992, and 1997 and the Midwest region. We looked into changes such as the changes in acreage, number of farms and the average size of farms. We also looked at data such as energy costs and land prices to determine how they were related to agricultural indicators like farm size. From there we explored data for the gross state product for those same states and also the gross product for the agricultural sector. From there we explored the relationship between the changes in agriculture for the state and how they impacted the gross state product. | |||