Drought in the Breadbasket of America and the Influence of Oceanic Teleconnections

From 1980 to 2020, drought events accounted for 11.4% of the billion-dollar disasters in the United States (U.S.) yet caused the second highest total amount in damages at $236.6 billion. With the average cost of a drought being upwards of$9.5 billion, these natural disasters can create serious problems in agriculture. Drought is defined as a period of below average precipitation that causes damage to agriculture and water supply. Previous research has linked drought events in the U.S. Great Plains to oceanic teleconnections in the Pacific and Atlantic basins, indicating the influence of the El Niño – Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). This study looks to identify areas of the Great Plains where drought has the strongest correlations to ENSO, PDO, and AMO. The states studied are Iowa, Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Texas, Nebraska, and Kansas because these rank as the second through seventh most agriculturally productive states in terms of crop and livestock production. Results show that most of this region displays a relationship between drought and the ENSO and PDO, with less of the region displaying a relationship with the AMO

STABILITY AND RESILIENCE IN RAWLS\u27S POLITICAL LIBERALISM

Stability and resilience are complementary attributes in John Rawls’s most developed liberal system. In his early theory, stable cooperation is guaranteed by liberal society’s single, shared conception of justice. Rawls’s more pluralist theory introduces a possibility of cooperation without a consensus about justice, but it does not explain stable cooperation. If citizens are committed to a family of reasonable, liberal conceptions of justice, a pluralist liberal system can be stable because it is also resilient. Though pluralism increases discord in dynamic conditions, citizens can appeal to a shared family of ideals to adapt and restore allegiance. This adaptive capacity is the liberal system’s form of resilience. In disrupting times, liberal resilience restores commitment to some view of justice recognized in the political culture. In a pluralist Rawlsian liberal system, resilience is the attribute—and the unnamed virtue—that secures a stable and just liberal order

On Density-Critical Matroids

For a matroid $M$ having $m$ rank-one flats, the density $d(M)$ is $\tfrac{m}{r(M)}$ unless $m = 0$, in which case $d(M)= 0$. A matroid is density-critical if all of its proper minors of non-zero rank have lower density. By a 1965 theorem of Edmonds, a matroid that is minor-minimal among simple matroids that cannot be covered by $k$ independent sets is density-critical. It is straightforward to show that $U_{1,k+1}$ is the only minor-minimal loopless matroid with no covering by $k$ independent sets. We prove that there are exactly ten minor-minimal simple obstructions to a matroid being able to be covered by two independent sets. These ten matroids are precisely the density-critical matroids $M$ such that $d(M) > 2$ but $d(N) \le 2$ for all proper minors $N$ of $M$. All density-critical matroids of density less than $2$ are series-parallel networks. For $k \ge 2$, although finding all density-critical matroids of density at most $k$ does not seem straightforward, we do solve this problem for $k=\tfrac{9}{4}$.Comment: 16 page

Alien Registration- Campbell, Grace B. (Brewer, Penobscot County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/11378/thumbnail.jp

The Cycle of Failing Reform: How Mentally Ill Detainees Continue to Suffer Unconstitutional Wait Times in Colorado

This research examines the state of Colorado’s failing criminal justice system, particularly as it pertains to mentally ill detainees. For several years, mentally ill detainees in Colorado have been forced to wait for extensive amounts of time to receive court-ordered evaluations to determine mental competency before trial. The state’s continued failure to administer these evaluations in a timely manner has led to a series of complaints and lawsuits against the state. Unfortunately, these lawsuits have ultimately done little to create lasting reform. The state has managed to temporarily mitigate the problem as complaints of unconstitutional wait times arise, but it has historically disregarded the broader failures in the criminal justice system. Outpatient, community-based programs may be more beneficial to mentally ill detainees than a state forensic hospital

Law and Legislation in Ohio

A discussion of the current Ohio health insurance law regarding the uninsured and underinsured and what the Ohio legislature is trying to do about it. Jane Campbell discussed adopting a system similar to the Canadian health care system, creating an Ohio health care trust fund, and helping those in high-risk health care categories. Ray Miller addressed indigent health care and the Hagan bill. Grace Drake said that universal health care has not been successful where it has been tried, so the focus should be on the working poor and uninsured