Curtin University

About: Curtin University is a education organization based out in Perth, Western Australia, Australia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Zircon. The organization has 14257 authors who have published 48997 publications receiving 1336531 citations. The organization is also known as: WAIT & Western Australian Institute of Technology.

Protest Responses in Contingent Valuation

Abstract: A significant number of respondents to contingent valuation surveys tend to either state a zero bid, or refuse to state a bid at all, for reasons associated with the process of valuation. These protest responses are routinely removed from contingent valuation samples because it is assumed that they are not indicative of respondents’ ‘true’ values. The censoring of protest responses has led to the emergence of a definitional controversy. One view is that the definition of protest responses and the rules for censoring them are dependent on whether the practitioner conceives of the contingent valuation survey as a market or as a referendum. However, what is not acknowledged is the possibility that protest responses and their meaning may vary according to the type of good being valued, the elicitation format, and the interaction between these elements and external factors. This potential renders the development of unambiguous rules for censoring protest responses difficult. Moreover, when willingness to pay is viewed as a behavioural intention, it becomes important to determine what the responses actually mean. This approach does not assume an interpretative position a priori against which the responses should be judged, but seeks to inform an existing understanding which is inadequate.

Modeling Terrestrial Laser Scanner Data for Precise Structural Deformation Measurement

Abstract: A modeling strategy has been developed that permits coarse-precision terrestrial laser scanner observations to be used to accurately measure vertical deflections of deforming beams. The model is developed from fundamental beam-deflection equations and implemented using a weighted-constraint, least-squares curve-fitting approach. After the solution is computed, a statistical testing procedure is applied to assess the level of contribution of each of the estimated parameters in the model and identify redundant terms for removal. Two terrestrial laser scanners (TLSs) are employed to test the approach by measuring the vertical displacement of beams undergoing controlled loading for which the magnitude of displacements was at the 2–50 mm level. Results demonstrate that the modeled TLS data, when compared to conventional monitoring equipment, such as convergent digital photogrammetry and contact sensors, achieved an accuracy that is up to 20 times higher than the TLS’s coordinate precision, thus underscoring th...