H. Charles Romesburg

• BS, MS, PhD
• Professor (Full) at Utah State University

When two or more co-authors of a research article are cited in another(s), how do the co-authors fairly share the citation among themselves? This short article explains.

This is a PREPRINT of an article titled "Why Weighters Grunt: A Classroom Exercise that Introduces Students to Evolution" by H. Charles Romesburg, published in the September, 2019 issue of The American Biology Teacher, Vol. 81 No. 7; pp.474-478. The article also stands apart from a teaching exercise as a research report on a novel hypothesis explai...

I explained how publishing wildlife research in open access (OA) journals like PLOS ONE makes wildlife science less reliable. Subsequently, several researchers rejected my explanation, opining that OA journals have top publishing standards and are crucial for the future of wildlife science because researchers in developing countries can access them...

The last decade has seen an enormous increase in the number of peer-reviewed open access research journals in which authors whose articles are accepted for publication pay a fee to have them made freely available on the Internet. Could this popularity of open access publishing be a bad thing? Is it actually imperiling the future of science? In this...

This article explains four kinds of inquiry exercises, different in purpose, for teaching advanced-level high school and college students the hypothetico-deductive (H-D) method. The first uses a picture of a river system to convey the H-D methods logic. The second has teams of students use the H-D method: their teacher poses a hypothesis drawn from...

Whether you are a student developing a senior thesis or a geoscientist preparing a research proposal, finding relevant concepts, data, and information produced by other geoscientists is a crucial step to eventual success. The quote, “If I have seen farther it is by standing on the shoulders of giants,” attributed to Sir Isaac Newton acknowledges th...

A course is described that prepares graduate science students to publish research, grounding them in the processes of academic publishing and encouraging them to publish their research in a timely fashion. As the course’s teacher, in this article I answer some key questions about it: What previously unmet need does it meet? What subjects does it co...

In many of the lesser developed areas of the world, regional development planning is increasingly important for meeting the needs of current and future inhabitants. Expansion of economic capability, infrastructure, and residential capacity requires significant investment, and so efforts to limit the negative effect of landslides and other natural h...

The surface-to-volume ratio (S/V) is well suited for inquiry-based learning in high school and college biology courses. It has a huge catalogue of biological and physical applications concerning structure and junction. It is easy to learn, illustrates scientific methods, and can provide students with their favorite classroom moments, as many of its...

Two models for estimating tree height using a hypsometer, termed the two-step and one-step models, are computer simulated to determine the precision of estimates as a function of the model and the observer's viewing position about the tree. Rules of thumb guiding model selection and viewing position are formulated.

Clearly explains how to plan and carry out reliable experiments, how to conceive and circumstantially support research hypotheses, how to test research hypotheses, how to discover cause and effect, and more. For students and practitioners in all fields of the physical, life, earth, social, and engineering sciences. Contains more than 150 illustrati...

In America's National Football League, a player gets full credit only for a so-called sack when he alone brings down the quarterback. In the world of US patents, a patent holder rakes in all the royalties if he or she is the sole name on the invention. If there's more than one name, the money is equally shared. It's called Laplace's Principle of In...

Now as to the beneficial uses of sensuality, dashes of it, to be sure, spice creativity. But runaway sensuality has pervaded much of society, turning spice to poison. The lesser trouble is extreme sensuality, for it is rare. The greater is wholesale, ordinary sensuality: browsing through store merchandise; catering to one's looks; idling in amuseme...

As most everybody learns, nature is vital to our physical wellbeing. For one thing, it sustains the balance of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen in the atmosphere. For another, it holds medically useful molecular compounds, preventives and cures to be discovered in centuries ahead. At the same time, few learn that wild nature, or wilderness, esp...

Knight (1993) claims that we in applied ecology already are recruiting the right type of students, are educating them properly, and that applied ecology is itself progressing adequately. I thoroughly maintain that his claims cannot stand up to counterexample nor to logical analysis. We must project our ideals out beyond the status quo; attaining th...

I argue that markedly better understanding of the processes of nature than is currently attained is possible; that this understanding would improve the management of natural resources and the environment; that competent scientists are the means to this goal; that to produce these scientists, college education should focus on developing the abilitie...

ZORRO, a FORTRAN-77 program, performs a conditional randomization text on the hypothesis that two or more types of individuals are distributed in space by a random process. The space may be one-, two-, or three-dimensional, and "type" may be any label signifying for example, events, classes, or species. The test is conditional on actual locations w...

Matter and Mannan (1989) interpret Romesburg (1981) as declaring that scientific methods are systematic, like shop manuals; and they state this is not so. I argue they are correct in what they believe, but incorrect in their interpretation. They also believe the test of the threshold-of-security hypothesis given in Romesburg (1981) is inappropriate...

CLUSTAR-PC performs hierarchical cluster analysis and provides for (a) 6 methods of data standardization, (b) 14 commonly used (dis)similarity coefficients for binary or multistate data, (c) 9 coefficients for interval/ratio scaled data, and (d) 4 clustering methods-single linkage, complete linkage, average linkage, and minimum variance (Ward's met...

Observer-expectancy bias is systematic error produced in observational data by an observer's expectations or wishes. The error is strongly associated with observations made on variables that required subjective assessment (Rosenthal 1969). Such assessments are common in some avian research, and an expectancy is usually inherent in hypothesis testin...

In the context of randomization tests, this paper discusses the roles of exploratory data analysis (EDA) and confirmatory data analysis (CDA) in geoscience research. It shows: (1) how the classical methods of statistical inference can be used in EDA with nonrandom samples of data, and (2) how much of the knowledge in the geosciences is derived from...

CHITEST is an interactive FORTRAN 77 program that uses Monte-Carlo methods to test the null hypothesis that the row and column factors of a r-by-k contingency table are independent of each other. The program optionally performs the test for two populations: (1) the population of tables that have the same row and column marginal frequencies as the o...

FITEST, a FORTRAN IV computer program, performs what is termed an exact chi-square test (ECST) to assess the goodness-of-fit between an observed and a theoretical distribution. This test is an alternative to the chi-square and Kolmogorov-Smirnov goodness-of-fit tests. Because it is based on less restrictive assumptions, the ECST may be more appropr...

Tension cracks are a major disturbance resulting from subsidence and differential settlement above underground coal mines. Recent engineering studies of subsidence indicate that cracks may close where tensile stresses causing the cracks are reduced or relaxed. This stress reduction occurs as mining in the area is completed. Crack closure was confir...

Program LIFE performs a life table analysis. The life table model may either be current or cohort, and either of these may be unabridged or abridged. For a current life table, input data consists of number of individuals and deaths in each age class obtained over a short period of time relative to the mortality rate. For a cohort life table, the da...

Two scientific methods called induction and retroduction form the basis for almost all wildlife research. Induction is used to establish reliable associations among sets of facts, whereas retroduction is used to establish research hypotheses about the fact-giving processes driving nature. A 3rd scientific method, the hypothetico-deductive (H-D), is...

An example and the use of randomization tests to test statistical hypotheses, explained in a form that researchers and non-specialists can easily understand.

As a general planning tool, matrix assessment provides preliminary identification of potentially unstable areas. Detailed tract or site evaluations for specific projects will incorporate additional significant factors, define areas of higher susceptibility unrecognized from preliminary assessment data, and identify possible remedial measures. -from...

The computer program CLUSTAR performs hierarchical cluster analysis following the sequential paradigm described by Sneath and Sokal (1973): (a) A data matrix of measurements for each of t objects (items, individuals, etc.) over n attributes is read; (b) the data matrix is optionally standardized; (c) a (dis)similarity coefficient is used to compute...

The distribution of a random variable p, where p is constrained on the domain 0 < p < 1, is often of interest. For example, p could be a subjectively estimated probability of a subject’s preference for an item, or it could be the fraction of questions that a subject answers correctly on a test. In examples like these, the beta distribution is often...

Eleusis, a card game invented in the mid-1950s, simulates various features of scientific inquiry (Gardner, 1959, 1977; Abbot, 1968, 1977). typically, card games exercise deductive logic: players try to achieve a goal without violating a known set of rules. Eleusis is unique because it requires inductive and deductive reasoning: players try to disco...

Cluster analysis is the generic name of data analysis techniques for appraising similarities among a set of objects described by measurements made on their attributes. In leisure research, the need to use cluster analysis appears, for example, when similarities among a sample of recreation participants (the objects), given a measure of individual p...

S. Rohwer recently has proposed that intraspecific plumage variability in winter flocking birds represents a polymorphism that functions to signal social status. We test several predictions of Rohwer's status signaling hypothesis for Dark-eyed Juncos (Junco hyemalis), explore some theoretical implications of our findings for juncos, and discuss the...

We computer simulated a mark-recapture experiment where the population size, N, is known and the recapture frequencies follow the geometric distribution. Two methods described by Edwards and Eberhardt (l967)-linear regression and maximum likelihood estimation (MLE)--were used with these hypothetical data to give estimates of N. The results were (1)...

Counting the individuals in a population before and after an annual period of environmental stress allows the proportion s of the initial population surviving the period to be computed. A series of such observations over n annual periods gives a sequence s1, s2, …, sn. A statistical model is formulated from axioms describing the survival process, a...

The scheduling of recreation in wilderness areas is explored through mathematical decision modeling. Two hypothetical systems are studied: a system of hiking trails, where the solution is found using quadratic programming; and a river system for recreational float trips, where solutions are derived utilizing quadratic programming, linear programmin...

Criticality data for homogeneous water moderated and reflected systems containing U/sup e/Oâ and thoria were analyzed to provide data that will be used to establish fuel handling and storage criteria for finely divided mixtures and alloys of U/sup e/Oâ + ThOâ. Homogeneous, water reflected and moderated spheres of thoria containing a wide range of U...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pittsburgh, 1972. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 277-285). Typescript (Photocopy).

Drawing upon the ideas of more than three hundred notable creators, including painters, scientists, mathematicians, entrepreneurs, writers, poets, naturalists, actors, and rock climbers, The Life of the Creative Spirit explains how to work at most any vocation or avocation as an artist would. For employers, it gives insights for keeping creative wo...

This book contains lists of 1,616 great opening sentences from nonfiction pieces, 1,633 great titles, and hundreds of great transition sentences, ways of saying “for example,” and ways of closing nonfiction pieces -- along with instructions and illustrations for using them as models for your writing. For instance, suppose you are writing a piece an...

Criticality data for homogeneous water moderated and reflected systems containing U/sup e/O/sub 2/ and thoria were analyzed to provide data that will be used to establish fuel handling and storage criteria for finely divided mixtures and alloys of U/sup e/O/sub 2/ + ThO/sub 2/. Homogeneous, water reflected and moderated spheres of thoria containing...