Federations, Constitutions, and Political Bargaining

The paper studies a world where a region provides essential inputs for the successful implementation of a local public policy project with spill-overs, and where bargaining between different levels of government may ensure efficient decision making ex post. We ask whether the authority over the public policy measure should rest with the local government or be centralized, allowing financial relationships within the federation to be designed optimally. We show that centralization is always dominant when governments are benevolent, and that both governance structures are otherwise inefficient as long as political bargaining is disregarded. With bargaining, however, the first best can often be achieved under decentralization, but not under centralization. At the root of the result is the alignment of decision making over both essential inputs and final project size under decentralization.Federalism, Constitutions, Decentralization, Grants, Political Bargaining.

Success factors for farming collectives

As the most intensive form of partnership in agriculture, farming collectives (FCs) place high demands on their participants. Based on a census of Swiss farming collectives, three success indicators are formed. The first and second describe interpersonal and economic success respectively, whilst the third encompasses overall success. Factors influencing success are determined by means of multiple regressions. Five predictor variables (compatibility with co-operation partner, trust, information quality, attitude of social environment, and relationship/kinship circle of the cooperation partner) accounted for 44 per cent of the variance in interpersonal success. Economic success was far more difficult to explain (R2 = 0.11). Even so, the influence of “soft” factors, even on the economic success of a farming collective, is striking. Above all, trust and the human and structural compatibility of the cooperation partners play an important role for all three types of success. The co-operation agreement, agricultural consultation, the number of participating people on the farm, and the investments made may be ranked as less important than previously assumed.farming collective, economic satisfaction, interpersonal conflicts, Agribusiness,

Damage to fronto-parietal networks impairs motor imagery ability after stroke : a voxel-based lesion symptom mapping study

Background: mental practice with motor imagery has been shown to promote motor skill acquisition in healthy subjects and patients. Although lesions of the common motor imagery and motor execution neural network are expected to impair motor imagery ability, functional equivalence appears to be at least partially preserved in stroke patients.Aim: to identify brain regions that are mandatory for preserved motor imagery ability after stroke.Method: thirty-seven patients with hemiplegia after a first time stroke participated. Motor imagery ability was measured using a Motor Imagery questionnaire and temporal congruence test. A voxelwise lesion symptom mapping approach was used to identify neural correlates of motor imagery in this cohort within the first year post-stroke.Results: poor motor imagery vividness was associated with lesions in the left putamen, left ventral premotor cortex and long association fibres linking parieto-occipital regions with the dorsolateral premotor and prefrontal areas. Poor temporal congruence was otherwise linked to lesions in the more rostrally located white matter of the superior corona radiata. Conclusion: This voxel-based lesion symptom mapping study confirms the association between white matter tract lesions and impaired motor imagery ability, thus emphasizing the importance of an intact fronto-parietal network for motor imagery. Our results further highlight the crucial role of the basal ganglia and premotor cortex when performing motor imagery tasks

Improving the renovation, repair and painting training course to eliminate childhood lead poisonings: Wisconsin observations

Master's Project (M.A.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2013In 2011, I worked briefly with the Asbestos and Lead Program for the State of Wisconsin. It was my job to conduct audits of our training providers as well as on-site inspections of work sites. During my time there I discovered a real disconnect between what I saw in the field and what is taught in class. Wisconsin has its own lead rules that are more stringent than the EPA's. After taking a critical look at the EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule (RRP) curriculum, I saw where the problems lay. The required hands-on training does not present the skills in a logical order and the demonstration is not similar enough to reality to be retained and transferred to a worksite consistently. Instead of contractors and homeowners learning how to conduct a job safely from start to finish, they are presented specific skills broken down into 11 skill sets. Over a four month time span I took the EPA curriculum and wrote scripts, videotaped, edited and narrated training videos with the assistance of Department of Health Service staff to eliminate the disconnect between the classroom learning and the real world. The videos demonstrate lead-safe work practices in a manner intended to increase retention rates. The videos were released in July 2012, and since then inspection statistics show a 13 percent decrease in offenses from certified workers and a 31 percent decrease in violations overall. Data for the first half of 2013 also indicated a positive trend; violations by certified contracts are down an additional percent. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation conducted a study in 1996, finding that 62 percent of Alaska private homes were built prior to 1979. This means approximately 49 percent of all Alaskan homes contain lead-based paint, 14 percent higher than the national average. The use of lead-based paint in colder regions is not uncommon. Lead-based paint was praised for its durability and longevity, making it ideal for regions in the circumpolar north. Americans spend nearly 90 percent of their time indoors. In cold climates, such as the Arctic, people tend to spend even more time indoors (EPA, 2012). Increased time indoors allows for increased wear on friction surfaces in the home. For children, deteriorating lead-based paint and lead in house dust are the primary and often most concentrated sources of lead (CDC, 2012). The Center for Disease Control reports that in 2004 there were 143,000 deaths and a loss of 8,977,000 disability-adjusted life years attributed to lead exposure worldwide. The primary cause was lead-associated adult cardiovascular disease and mild intellectual disability in children. Children represent approximately 80 percent of the disease impact attributed to lead, with an estimated 600,000 new cases of childhood intellectual disabilities resulting from blood lead levels (BLLs) greater than 10 υg/dL(CDC, 2012)

Recent Advances in Nanostructured Thermoelectric Half-Heusler Compounds

Half-Heusler (HH) alloys have attracted considerable interest as promising thermoelectric (TE) materials in the temperature range around 700 K and above, which is close to the temperature range of most industrial waste heat sources. The past few years have seen nanostructuing play an important role in significantly enhancing the TE performance of several HH alloys. In this article, we briefly review the recent progress and advances in these HH nanocomposites. We begin by presenting the structure of HH alloys and the different strategies that have been utilized for improving the TE properties of HH alloys. Next, we review the details of HH nanocomposites as obtained by different techniques. Finally, the review closes by highlighting several promising strategies for further research directions in these very promising TE materials.Comment: 34 pages, 22 figure

White-light OLEDs using liquid crystal polymer networks

We have mixed nematic light-emitting liquid crystals and incorporated them as insoluble cross-linked polymer networks in a liquid crystal white-light organic light-emitting diode (LC-WOLED). The light emission is not voltage-dependent and polarized white light emission is also demonstrated. This wet-chemistry approach to WOLEDs is compatible with patterning by photolithography as well as by inkjet printing at room temperature on plastic substrates by roll-to-roll manufacturing

Global trends in infectious diseases at the wildlife–livestock interface

The role and significance of wildlife–livestock interfaces in disease ecology has largely been neglected, despite recent interest in animals as origins of emerging diseases in humans. Scoping review methods were applied to objectively assess the relative interest by the scientific community in infectious diseases at interfaces between wildlife and livestock, to characterize animal species and regions involved, as well as to identify trends over time. An extensive literature search combining wildlife, livestock, disease, and geographical search terms yielded 78,861 publications, of which 15,998 were included in the analysis. Publications dated from 1912 to 2013 and showed a continuous increasing trend, including a shift from parasitic to viral diseases over time. In particular there was a significant increase in publications on the artiodactyls–cattle and bird–poultry interface after 2002 and 2003, respectively. These trends could be traced to key disease events that stimulated public interest and research funding. Among the top 10 diseases identified by this review, the majority were zoonoses. Prominent wildlife–livestock interfaces resulted largely from interaction between phylogenetically closely related and/or sympatric species. The bird–poultry interface was the most frequently cited wildlife–livestock interface worldwide with other interfaces reflecting regional circumstances. This review provides the most comprehensive overview of research on infectious diseases at the wildlife–livestock interface to date