A Comparative Study of Utah\u27s Primary Elections

The advantage of the incumbent in gaining re-nomination and voter participation in primary elections was studied. Six states, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Montana, and Washington were used as examples of different types of primaries during the years compared. There seemed to be no significant difference in the voter participation between the open and closed primaries. The other factors which influence voting behavior affected voter turnout more than the type of primary did. The incumbent advantage was slightly greater in the open primary, but not enough to be statistically significant. The closed primary of 1966 in Utah did affect the amount of voter participation slightly, but probably due more to a lack of understanding of the primary than a protest of it

Lattice Resistance and Peierls Stress in Finite-size Atomistic Dislocation Simulations

Atomistic computations of the Peierls stress in fcc metals are relatively scarce. By way of contrast, there are many more atomistic computations for bcc metals, as well as mixed discrete-continuum computations of the Peierls-Nabarro type for fcc metals. One of the reasons for this is the low Peierls stresses in fcc metals. Because atomistic computations of the Peierls stress take place in finite simulation cells, image forces caused by boundaries must either be relaxed or corrected for if system size independent results are to be obtained. One of the approaches that has been developed for treating such boundary forces is by computing them directly and subsequently subtracting their effects, as developed by V. B. Shenoy and R. Phillips [Phil. Mag. A, 76 (1997) 367]. That work was primarily analytic, and limited to screw dislocations and special symmetric geometries. We extend that work to edge and mixed dislocations, and to arbitrary two-dimensional geometries, through a numerical finite element computation. We also describe a method for estimating the boundary forces directly on the basis of atomistic calculations. We apply these methods to the numerical measurement of the Peierls stress and lattice resistance curves for a model aluminum (fcc) system using an embedded-atom potential.Comment: LaTeX 47 pages including 20 figure

Incorporating basic needs to reconcile poverty and ecosystem services

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this recordConservation managers frequently face the challenge of protecting and sustaining biodiversity without producing detrimental outcomes for (often poor) human populations that depend upon ecosystem services for their wellbeing. However, win-win solutions are often elusive and can mask trade-offs and negative outcomes for the wellbeing of particular groups of people. To deal with such trade-offs, approaches are needed to identify both ecological as well as social thresholds to determine the acceptable 'solution space' for conservation. Although human wellbeing as a concept has recently gained prominence among conservationists, they still lack tools to evaluate how their action affects human wellbeing in a given context. This paper presents the Theory of Human Needs in the context of conservation, building on an extensive historical application of needs approaches in international development. We detail an innovative participatory method, to evaluate how human needs are met, using locally relevant thresholds. We then establish the connections between human needs and ecosystem services. An application of this method in coastal East Africa identifies households who are in serious harm through not meeting different basic needs, and uncovers the role of ecosystem services in meeting these. Drawing from the international development and wellbeing literature, we suggest that this methodological approach, can help conservationists and planners balance poverty alleviation and biodiversity protection, ensure that conservation measures do not, at the very least, push individuals into serious harm and as a basis for monitoring the impacts of conservation on multidimensional poverty. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.This paper results from the project Sustainable Poverty Alleviation from Coastal Ecosystem Services (SPACES) project number NE-K010484-1, funded by the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme. The ESPA programme is funded by the Department for International Development (DFID), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)

Order-N Density-Matrix Electronic-Structure Method for General Potentials

A new order-N method for calculating the electronic structure of general (non-tight-binding) potentials is presented. The method uses a combination of the ``purification''-based approaches used by Li, Nunes and Vanderbilt, and Daw, and a representation of the density matrix based on ``travelling basis orbitals''. The method is applied to several one-dimensional examples, including the free electron gas, the ``Morse'' bound-state potential, a discontinuous potential that mimics an interface, and an oscillatory potential that mimics a semiconductor. The method is found to contain Friedel oscillations, quantization of charge in bound states, and band gap formation. Quantitatively accurate agreement with exact results is found in most cases. Possible advantages with regard to treating electron-electron interactions and arbitrary boundary conditions are discussed.Comment: 13 pages, REVTEX, 7 postscript figures (not quite perfect

Multi-shell gold nanowires under compression

Deformation properties of multi-wall gold nanowires under compressive loading are studied. Nanowires are simulated using a realistic many-body potential. Simulations start from cylindrical fcc(111) structures at T=0 K. After annealing cycles axial compression is applied on multi-shell nanowires for a number of radii and lengths at T=300 K. Several types of deformation are found, such as large buckling distortions and progressive crushing. Compressed nanowires are found to recover their initial lengths and radii even after severe structural deformations. However, in contrast to carbon nanotubes irreversible local atomic rearrangements occur even under small compressions.Comment: 1 gif figure, 5 ps figure

Anything You Can Do, You Can Do Better: Neural Substrates of Incentive-Based Performance Enhancement

Performance-based pay schemes in many organizations share the fundamental assumption that the performance level for a given task will increase as a function of the amount of incentive provided. Consistent with this notion, psychological studies have demonstrated that expectations of reward can improve performance on a plethora of different cognitive and physical tasks, ranging from problem solving to the voluntary regulation of heart rate. However, much less is understood about the neural mechanisms of incentivized performance enhancement. In particular, it is still an open question how brain areas that encode expectations about reward are able to translate incentives into improved performance across fundamentally different cognitive and physical task requirements