Violent Crime With the Influx of Immigrants Along the Southern US Border.

The United States citizens have a perception that the foreign-born, especially “illegal aliens,” are responsible for the carnage and the reported increase in violent crime rates along the U.S.and Mexico border, and the media and popular myth often perpetuate this mentality. But these perceptions are not supported empirically; instead, they are proven wrong by the scientific evidence. If we understand “carnage” to mean criminal violence and killings, state and national crime data doesn’t support this narrative. Although an increase of property crimes, due to the sheer number of border crossers, have been attributable to traveling migrants — like break-ins, cut fences, and car thefts — violent crime is relatively steady compared to last year. Today an estimated twelve million immigrants are unauthorized, or 30 percent of the foreign-born population of the U.S. Since the early 1990s, over the same time period as legal and especially illegal immigration was reaching historic highs, crime rates have declined in cities and regions of high immigrant concentration (Lee et al., 2001). Research and scientific evidence will show that the purported increase of violent crime along the U.S. Mexico border is not “caused” or even aggravated by immigrants, regardless of their legal status. The following are the main research questions this project seeks to answer: Are migrants causing “carnage” at the U.S. southern border? Is there a link between illegal immigrants and rising U.S. crime rates, and if so, how are the two related statistically?https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/fsrs2021/1036/thumbnail.jp

Determining an Expected House Majority Using Pattern Analysis

Since the early 1800s, state committees and legislatures have been drawing districts in order to win elections by splitting and grouping populations to promote their chances of victory, a process called gerrymandering. Little consensus can be found in past work as some studies claim that current partisan gridlock is partially related to this procedure, while other works have found that sorting and the spatial distribution of partisanship account for gridlock. This exercise seeks to measure the impact of gerrymandering by comparing the party makeup of the current U.S. House delegation to the natural partisan makeup of a state as determined by a randomized process. This project removes political bias in the redistricting process through a series of Monte Carlo simulations to randomly assign Census tracts to ad hoc districts that are within one percent population of each other in a given state. These aggregated districts and corresponding demographic data are then compared to historical House election results from the modern era to produce likely victors using a regression model. This approach determines a framework for the natural partisanship of the congressional delegation from each state. The delegation suggested by the regression model is then compared to the actual partisan makeup of each delegation, producing evidence that is used to evaluate the impact of current redistricting practices on the party makeup of Congress. This process can be used to predict the election results of potential redistricting plans, and potentially identify the use of gerrymandering in a way that can have serious implications for litigation and policymaking surrounding redistricting

Mapping archaeological landscapes through aerial thermographic imaging

This project aims to develop techniques for efficient, high-resolution aerial thermal infrared imaging of archaeological sites and surrounding landscapes. Archaeologists have been aware since the 1970s that images which record thermal wavelengths of light can reveal surface and buried archaeological features that are otherwise invisible, but the costs and difficulty of the technology has made its application beyond the reach of most scholars. This project will develop methods for collecting high-resolution thermal infrared images using a specialized camera mounted on a remote-controlled unmanned aerial vehicle. Conducting surveys at archaeological sites in three environmentally and culturally distinct regions--Cyprus, Dubai and South Dakota--our results will demonstrate the potential and limitations of the technology in a variety of archaeological contexts, offer guidelines for executing surveys and processing results, and serve as a blueprint for other investigators in the future

Using Empirical Data to Investigate the Original Meaning of Emolument in the Constitution

The United States Constitution prohibits federal officials from receiving any “present, Emolument, Office or Title” from a foreign state without the consent of Congress. In interpreting the Constitution’s text, we are to be guided “by the principle that ‘[t]he Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning.’ However, in trying to determine the “normal” meaning of “emolument” in the Founding Era we are confronted with a term that might as well be a foreign word from an unknown language. The word emolument has virtually vanished from contemporary American English. A search for either “emolument” or “emoluments” in the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA), a digital database containing more than 400 million words of text from the 1810s–2000s, produced only four occurrences since 1990. In this article, we investigate the mysterious meaning of emolument by using computer-assisted search and analysis of a massive database of texts from the time of the Constitution and find strong patterns of usage that reveal how the word was used at the time the Constitution was drafted and ratified

Striped spin liquid crystal ground state instability of kagome antiferromagnets

The Dirac spin liquid ground state of the spin 1/2 Heisenberg kagome antiferromagnet has potential instabilities[1-4]. This has been suggested as the reason why it is not strongly supported in large-scale numerical calculations[5]. However, previous attempts to observe these instabilities have failed. We report on the discovery of a projected BCS state with lower energy than the projected Dirac spin liquid state which provides new insight into the stability of the ground state of the kagome antiferromagnet. The new state has three remarkable features. First, it breaks both spatial symmetry in an unusual way that may leave spinons deconfined along one direction. Second, it breaks the U(1) gauge symmetry down to $Z_2$. Third, it has the spatial symmetry of a previously proposed "monopole" suggesting that it is an instability of the Dirac spin liquid. The state described herein also shares a remarkable similarity to the distortion of the kagome lattice observed at low Zn concentrations in Zn-Paratacamite suggesting it may already be realized in these materials.Comment: 4+ pages, 3 figure

Procedural Reform in the Unemployment Insurance System

In the 1990s, we have witnessed a political movement toward smaller governament and reduced federal funding for social benefits programs. At the same time, evidence suggests that the unemployment insurance (UI) system as it works today still may not benefit all of its intended recipients. The need for improved UI services and the scarcity of resources available to meet this need create a tension between political pressures and constitutional considerations of fairness and due process. While constitutional considerations always override political pressures, the real issue is where to strike the appropriate balance between fundamental fairness and economic reality

Approaches to the Cooperative Revitalization of Auburn Avenue

Applied Research Paper School of City and Regional Planning Georgia Institute of Technology In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Master of City and Regional Planning May, 2011Cooperation can take many forms, whether between individual workers within an organization or the collaborative efforts of multiple institutions. Cooperation has a long history in contributing to many of the significant achievements of the United States, from the American Revolution to the Civil Rights Movement. However, civic engagement and collective efforts have steadily declined in this country since the 1960s. Meanwhile, the domestic macro-economic landscape has become increasingly unequal in the face of globalization. This in turn has played out spatially in the decline of individual communities across the country. This paper proposes a collective response to the challenges of inequality and spatial decline of Auburn Avenue in the form of collaborative initiatives and worker cooperatives. The historic Auburn Avenue commercial district in Downtown Atlanta, Georgia was once the center for African-American economic, cultural and civic life within the city. While the street is perhaps best known as the birth place, church and final resting place of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it was also a pivotal landmark launch pad for the Atlanta and American Civil Rights Movement and a focal point of fostering African-American entrepreneurship in Atlanta. However, in a story familiar across the country, middle class flight, disinvestment, urban renewal and the loss of industry worked together to depress the vitality of the area. The street began experiencing decline in the late 1940s and has yet to fully rebound. The 50s witnessed the proposed destruction of the business district and the implemented construction of Interstate 75/85 that bisected the street. The 60s and 70s produced numerous grassroots revitalization initiatives that were unable to sustain a concerted effort with adequate resources. The 80s witnessed the creation of a national urban park that now receives over 650,000 visitors annually. However, these efforts have been unable to bring back Auburn Avenue to its previous prominence in Atlanta. The continued urban sprawl of the adjacent Georgia State University provide both an opportunity for long-awaited economic development and the risk of gentrification within the district. Furthermore, despite the large number of tourist visits to the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site along Auburn Avenue annually, there are few businesses to capture the potential spending of these visitors. Traditional methods of neighborhood revitalization and economic development may not achieve adequate or equitable results. Rather than attempt insular individual initiatives, this paper proposes a collaborative community economic development effort to leverage these opportunities for the revitalization of Auburn Avenue. This applied research paper presents an argument for various proposals of partnership initiatives and place-based worker cooperative businesses within a targeted geographic area of the Auburn Avenue Historic District. The goal is to capture the economic development potential of upcoming investments in a way that builds wealth from within the community

Effective Handoff Communication

The patient handoff—the transfer of patient related health information from one caregiver to another—has come under increased scrutiny in recent years. This is due to many factors including high-profile and well documented incidents of medical errors, a subsequent magnified focus on patient safety by the general public, and changes in resident work hours which have had the unintentional consequence of increasing the number of necessary handoffs during a given patient hospitalization. As medical care becomes more specialized and increasingly fragmented, handoffs are necessary in order to maintain consistency of information and plans of care. However, despite this increased focus, errors in transferring medical information are still common. In order to meet standards, many training organizations and medical institutions mandate lengthy handoffs at all levels. While initial studies demonstrated a decrease in medical errors after implementation of a standardized handoff bundle, more recent evidence calls into question those results. Certainly many components are necessary, can improve handoff communications, and reduce errors during a patient sign-out. However, more is not always better, and caregivers should not blindly attempt to transfer information unless there is medical necessity. Achieving a balance between “safe” and “effective” communication is the goal that we are still trying to achieve