A weighted interpretation for the super Catalan numbers

The super Catalan numbers $T(m,n)=(2m)!(2n)!/2m!n!(m+n)!$ are integers which generalize the Catalan numbers. With the exception of a few values of $m$, no combinatorial interpretation in known for $T(m,n)$. We give a weighted interpretation for $T(m,n)$ and develop a technique that converts this weighted interpretation into a conventional combinatorial interpretation in the case $m=2$.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

BallotMaps: Detecting name bias in alphabetically ordered ballot papers

The relationship between candidates’ position on a ballot paper and vote rank is explored in the case of 5000 candidates for the UK 2010 local government elections in the Greater London area. This design study uses hierarchical spatially arranged graphics to represent two locations that affect candidates at very different scales: the geographical areas for which they seek election and the spatial location of their names on the ballot paper. This approach allows the effect of position bias to be assessed; that is, the degree to which the position of a candidate’s name on the ballot paper influences the number of votes received by the candidate, and whether this varies geographically. Results show that position bias was significant enough to influence rank order of candidates, and in the case of many marginal electoral wards, to influence who was elected to government. Position bias was observed most strongly for Liberal Democrat candidates but present for all major political parties. Visual analysis of classification of candidate names by ethnicity suggests that this too had an effect on votes received by candidates, in some cases overcoming alphabetic name bias. The results found contradict some earlier research suggesting that alphabetic name bias was not sufficiently significant to affect electoral outcome and add new evidence for the geographic and ethnicity influences on voting behaviour. The visual approach proposed here can be applied to a wider range of electoral data and the patterns identified and hypotheses derived from them could have significant implications for the design of ballot papers and the conduct of fair elections

Will Problems in Early Primaries Affect the Buckeye State?

The 2008 election is historic in many ways, and voter involvement is expected to be the highest ever seen. On Super Tuesday, according to the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, 12 states saw record turnouts in their Democratic primaries and eleven in their Republican contests. The Chesapeake Primary (Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC) also saw exceptionally high turnout. Especially exciting are exit polls in many states that indicate that turnout increased exponentially among historically disenfranchised communities -- in some places over 50 percent.With the increased turnout in the primaries, we have seen increased pressure on our already burdened voting system. High turnout led to long lines at some polling stations, exacerbated by machine failures, too few ballots and too few check-in machines. Poll workers were not prepared to handle so many voters; they were inadequately trained on the use of provisional ballots and machine functions.During some of the early the 2008 primaries, the Election Protection Coalition mobilized and dispatched trained Election Protection (EP) poll monitors to polling locations in targeted communities and provided legal support and technical assistance to citizens who experience difficulties voting. To date, EP has recorded more than 2900 incidents.The problems seen in the early primaries are significant not only because of high numbers of incidents, but because they indicate what we might see in the upcoming Ohio Primary on March 4th. In the past, Ohio has seen its share of election problems.This summary provides a snapshot of the types of problems and reports the EP coalition has documented and experienced during this year's primary elections and what we could potentially see in the upcoming Ohio primary. Based on the potential problems that voters could experience in Ohio, People For the American Way Foundation (PFAWF) and other members of the EP coalition will be on the ground providing legal and informational support to voters at the polls

A note on super Catalan numbers

We show that the super Catalan numbers are special values of the Krawtchouk polynomials by deriving an expression for the super Catalan numbers in terms of a signed set.Comment: 4 pages. Revised and Accepted. To appear in Interdisciplinary Information Sciences (IIS

Hate the Player and Hate the Game

This article spells out the continuing "war against the young," and the increased punitiveness and criminalization of youth behavior in the courts, legislatures, media, schools, and on the streets. Dr. Krisberg examines three case studies in California of struggles over pertinent legislation and concludes by describing the latest evolution in reform strategies, with youth as key leaders

Secret Spending in the States

Six years after Citizens United enabled unfettered spending in our elections, the use of so-called dark money has become disturbingly common. Contrary to the Supreme Court's assumption that this unlimited spending would be transparent to voters, at the federal level powerful groups have since 2010 poured hundreds of millions of dollars into influencing elections while obscuring the sources of their funding. But it is at the state and local levels that secret spending is arguably at its most damaging. For a clear understanding of the degree to which dark money is warping American democracy, state ballot referenda and local school board contests may be a better starting point than the presidential campaign or even congressional races. As Chris Herstam, a former Republican majority whip in the Arizona House of Representatives and now lobbyist, put it, "In my 33 years in Arizona politics and government, dark money is the most corrupting influence I have seen."This report documents how far outside spending -- election spending that is not coordinated with candidates -- at the state and local levels has veered from the vision of democratic transparency the Citizens United Court imagined, drawing on an extensive database of news accounts, interviews with a range of stakeholders, campaign finance and tax records, court cases, and social science research. For the first time, it also measures changes in dark money – and a thus far unrecognized rise in what we term "gray money" – at the state level, by analyzing spender and contributor reports in six of nine states where sufficient usable data were available. This set of six geographically and demographically diverse states, comprising Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Maine, and Massachusetts, represents approximately 20 percent of the nation's population.

Internal rapid rotation and its implications for stellar structure and pulsations

Massive and intermediate mass stars play a crucial role in astrophysics. Indeed, massive stars are the main producers of heavy elements, explode in supernovae at the end of their short lifetimes, and may be the progenitors of gamma ray bursts. Intermediate mass stars, although not destined to explode in supernovae, display similar phenomena, are much more numerous, and have some of the richest pulsation spectra. A key to understanding these stars is understanding the effects of rapid rotation on their structure and evolution. These effects include centrifugal deformation and gravity darkening which can be observed immediately, and long terms effects such as rotational mixing due to shear turbulence, which prolong stellar lifetime, modify chemical yields, and impact the stellar remnant at the end of their lifetime. In order to understand these effects, a number of models have been and are being developed over the past few years. These models lead to increasingly sophisticated predictions which need to be tested through observations. A particularly promising source of constraints is seismic observations as these may potentially lead to detailed information on their internal structure. However, before extracting such information, a number of theoretical and observational hurdles need to be overcome, not least of which is mode identification. The present proceedings describe recent progress in modelling these stars and show how an improved understanding of their pulsations, namely frequency patterns, mode visibilities, line profile variations, and mode excitation, may help with deciphering seismic observations.Comment: Proceedings for the CoRoT 3/KASC 7 meeting in Toulous