The Advantage of Wealth: How partisan success is affected by rising income inequality in the United States

After the end of the Second World War, the United States when through a period of great growth. As the economy grew, income inequality also grew within the country. Parallel to this, as income inequality increased, Republicans began to break the stronghold of Democratic congressional control. This begs the question, what happens to politics as income inequality increases in the United States? Can Republican success be explained by increased inequality? In order to answer this question, I theorize that income inequality increases the power of the Republican core support base, while it mitigates the power of the Democratic support base leading to better election results for Republicans. To test to see if income inequality actually increases the success of Republican candidates, I look at congressional districts from the years of 2006-2010 to see if Republicans do better in one election to the next in districts with high-income inequality. I find that Republicans do, in fact, do better in places with high income inequality but only about seven percent better, which is not a substantial amount. I conclude that income inequality might be a small explication to Republican success

Flexure modulus of elasticity in living branch wood

Ever increasing human populations are creating a desire, and more importantly a demand for urban forests due to a disconnection from nature as more of us become urban dwellers. Future trends predict increases in human populations which will substantially increase the amount of urban lands, especially around metropolitan areas. Urban trees are exposed to different loading regimes than similar trees growing in a traditional forest. They do not have protection from wind that is seen in the middle of a forest stand, and wind loading has been suggested as one of the more important modes of failure .;This research investigated how an urban tree withstands environmental conditions and loading during ice, wind, or snow storms. This research is important in terms of preventing cascading effects of localized tree impacts on targets. Flexure modulus of elasticity (MOE) can be defined as an object\u27s tendency to be deformed elastically, or not permanently, when a force is applied to it This research measures flexure modulus distally along the length of the branch as well as identifies key attributes of branch elasticity during different climate periods.;Chapter 2 investigates the potential transitions of MOE of the juvenile pin oak (Quercus palustris) samples using a Dynamic Mechanical Thermal Analysis machine from tree trunk to branch tip. This chapter identifies that there is no difference in branch type (primary or secondary) within the variables of MOE, moisture content percent, slenderness ratio, end diameter, and full length. There is a significant difference between wood densities of the two branch types.;Chapter 3 helps to identify differentiating material properties of flexure MOE of seasonal periodicity between pre-dormant (leaf on) and dormant (leaf off) conditions, as well as temperature fluctuations within seasons. Within each season, half of the samples were frozen to -6.7 C while the other half were kept at ambient room temperature or 21.1 C. Two testing machines were used to measure MOE and subsequently compared to one another. In general, the data obtained from the Fakopp meter calculated MOE higher than the data from the universal test machine (UTM), but had a smaller standard error. The measurements of MOE for temperature and season between the two testing machines were compared and determined to be significantly different using one way analysis of variance of means. When using the UTM and Fakopp, significant differences were found between the cold and ambient temperature, with the cold temperature having a larger MOE. The UTM measured significantly different between seasons, with the dormant season having a higher MOE

Terrain Traversing Device Having a Wheel with Microhooks

A terrain traversing device is described. The device includes an annular rotor element with a plurality of co-planar microspine hooks arranged on the periphery of the annular rotor element. Each microspine hook has an independently flexible suspension configuration that permits the microspine hook to initially engage an irregularity in a terrain surface at a preset initial engagement angle and subsequently engage the irregularity with a continuously varying engagement angle when the annular rotor element is rotated for urging the terrain traversing device to traverse a terrain surface. Improvements related to the design, fabrication and use of the microspine hooks in the device are also described

Systems and Methods for Implementing Flexible Members Including Integrated Tools Made from Metallic Glass-Based Materials

Systems and methods in accordance with embodiments of the invention implement flexible members that include integrated tools made from metallic glass-based materials. In one embodiment, a structure includes: a flexible member characterized by an elongated geometry and an integrated tool disposed at one end of the elongated geometry; where the flexible member includes a metallic glass-based material

The OMII Software Distribution

This paper describes the work carried out at the Open Middleware Infrastructure Institute (OMII) and the key elements of the OMII software distribution that have been developed in collaboration with members of the Managed Programme Initiative. The main objective of the OMII is to preserve and consolidate the achievements of the UK e-Science Programme by collecting, maintaining and improving the software modules that form the key components of a generic Grid middleware. Recently, the activity at Southampton has been extended beyond 2009 through a new project, OMII-UK, that forms a partnership that now includes the OGSA-DAI activities at Edinburgh and the myGrid project at Manchester

WIYN Open Cluster Study XVI: Optical/Infrared Photometry and Comparisons With Theoretical Isochrones

We present combined optical/near-IR photometry (BVIK) for six open clusters - M35, M37, NGC 1817, NGC 2477, NGC 2420, and M67. The open clusters span an age range from 150 Myr to 4 Gyr and have metal abundances from [Fe/H] = -0.3 to +0.09 dex. We have utilized these data to test the robustness of theoretical main sequences constructed by several groups as denoted by the following designations - Padova, Baraffe, Y^2, Geneva, and Siess. The comparisons of the models with the observations have been performed in the [Mv, (B-V)o], [Mv, (V-I)o], and [Mv, (V-K)o] colour-magnitude diagrams as well as the distance-independent [(V-K)o, (B-V)o] and [(V-K)o, (V-I)o] two-colour diagrams. We conclude that none of the theoretical models reproduce the observational data in a consistent manner over the magnitude and colour range of the unevolved main sequence. In particular, there are significant zeropoint and shape differences between the models and the observations. We speculate that the crux of the problem lies in the precise mismatch between theoretical and observational colour-temperature relations. These results underscore the importance of pursuing the study of stellar structure and stellar modelling with even greater intensity.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 12 pages, 37 figures, 4 tables. High resolution figures available from http://www.astro.ufl.edu/~aaron/opt_ir_figs

Modeling the cost of bird strikes to US civil aircraft

The objective of our analysis is to develop a model of damage costs that arise from collisions between aircraft and birds, based on data drawn from the Federal Aviation Administration National Wildlife Strike Database (NWSD). We develop a two-part model, composed of two separate statistical models, that accounts for the effects of aircraft mass category, engine type, component of the aircraft struck, and the size and number of birds struck. Our results indicate the size of bird, number of birds, and engine ingestions are the largest determinants of strike-related costs. More generally, our result is a model that provides a better understanding of the determinants of damage costs and that can be used to interpolate the substantial amount of missing data on damage costs that currently exists within the NWSD. A more complete accounting of damage costs will allow a better understanding of how damage costs vary geographically and temporally and, thus, enable more efficient allocation of management resources across airports and seasons

Reducing Housing Cost-Burden Among Black Residents Through Investment in Community Land Trust Housing and A Mobile Market Nutrition Program in Durham County, NC

Economic stability is a social determinant of health that impacts a wide range of health risks and outcomes through the environment in which people are born, live, learn, and work. A lack of affordable housing as a factor contributing to economic instability forces many Durham County residents to spend a large portion of their income on rent, leaving many people in poverty. Having fewer economic resources prevents people from affording healthy food and preventative healthcare and puts them at greater risk of chronic conditions and premature mortality. The proposed program and policy aim to prevent Durham County residents from making trade-offs between affording housing and obtaining nutritious food. The program will partner with the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle to expand their mobile market model to the McDougald Terrace public housing community, and the policy will expand the Durham Community Land Trust (DCLT) with permanent municipal funding in the Durham County budget. Keywords: Durham County, North Carolina, social determinants of health, economic stability, mobile market, affordable housing, Community Land Trust, poverty, equityMaster of Public Healt

REDUCING HOUSING COST-BURDEN AMONG BLACK RESIDENTS THROUGH INVESTMENT IN COMMUNITY LAND TRUST HOUSING AND A MOBILE MARKET NUTRITION PROGRAM IN DURHAM COUNTY, NC

Economic stability is a social determinant of health that impacts a wide range of health risks and outcomes through the environment in which people are born, live, learn, and work. A lack of affordable housing as a factor contributing to economic instability forces many Durham County residents to spend a large portion of their income on rent, leaving many people in poverty. Having fewer economic resources prevents people from affording healthy food and preventative healthcare and puts them at greater risk of chronic conditions and premature mortality. The proposed program and policy aim to prevent Durham County residents from making trade-offs between affording housing and obtaining nutritious food. The program will partner with the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle to expand their mobile market model to the McDougald Terrace public housing community, and the policy will expand the Durham Community Land Trust (DCLT) with permanent municipal funding in the Durham County budget. Keywords: Durham County, North Carolina, social determinants of health, economic stability, mobile market, affordable housing, Community Land Trust, poverty, equityMaster of Public Healt

The Greater Taurus–Auriga Ecosystem. I. There is a Distributed Older Population

The census of Taurus–Auriga has been assembled over seven decades and inherited the biases and incompleteness of the input studies. The unusual shape of its inferred initial mass function (IMF) and the existence of isolated disk-bearing stars suggest that additional (likely disk-free) members remain to be discovered. We therefore have begun a global reassessment of the census of Taurus–Auriga that exploits new data and better definitions of youth and kinematic membership. As a first step, we reconsider the membership of all disk-free candidate members from the literature with spectral type ≥F0, 3^h50^m < α < 5^h40^m, and 14° < δ < 34°. We combine data from the literature with Keck/HIRES and UH88/SNIFS spectra to test the membership of these candidates using the positions in the Hertzsprung-Russel diagram, proper motions, radial velocities, Hα, lithium, and surface gravity. We find 218 confirmed or likely Taurus members, 160 confirmed or likely interlopers, and only 18 that lack sufficient evidence to draw firm conclusions. A significant fraction of these stars (81/218 = 37%) are not included in the most recent canonical member lists. There are few additional members to the immediate vicinity of the molecular clouds, preserving the IMFs that have been deemed anomalous in past work. Many of the likely Taurus members are instead distributed broadly across the search area. When combined with the known disk hosts, our updated census reveals two regimes: a high-density population with a high disk fraction (indicative of youth) that broadly traces the molecular clouds, and a low-density population with low disk fraction (hence likely older) that most likely represents previous generations of star formation