How Citizens United Drastically Changed The Campaign Finance Reform Landscape: Implications for Donor Behavior, Polarization and Transparency of Political Information

Campaign finance laws were passed with the intent to prevent large sums of money from entering the electoral system. However, each time Congress passed campaign finance reforms, the Supreme Court struck them down the basis they violated the First Amendment. In the Supreme Court cases that followed, Buckley V. Valeo (510 F.2d 821 (D.C. Cir. 1975) and Citizens United V. Federal Election Commission (558 U.S. 310, 130 S. Ct. 876 (2010), the Court ruled money is a form of speech used during an election cycle, thus deserves constitutional protections. Likewise, the Supreme Court allowed interest groups to favor an electoral oriented donation strategy where they win seats by donating large sums of money to their preferred candidate. Instead of lobbying for legislation at the federal level, interest groups will elect their preferred candidate into office by donating large sums of money to win the seat. Citizens United permitted an interest group to run independent expenditure ads funded by the interest group’s general treasury fund that explicitly advocated for their preferred candidate. By the same token, to win the seat interest groups run independent advertisements on behalf of their candidate of choice. These independent expenditure advertisements, as a result of Citizens United, appear on tv up and till Election Day. Furthermore, these independent expenditure advertisements polarize the electorate by reinforcing the voters already held beliefs about a candidate and policy issue. Lastly, Citizens United allowed organizations called, “501 c (4),” social welfare organizations to donate to candidates without disclosing how and where they are receiving their funds. These 501 c (4)’s that donate, but hide to whom and where they are giving their money to are called, “dark money groups.” Moreover, these “501 c (4)’s,” can give money to interest groups who will run issue advertisements on behalf of the dark money group. When dark money groups spend money on issue advertisements without disclosing their donors, this causes a decrease of transparent political information during an election cycle

Model and Sensor-Based Recommendation Approaches for In-Season Nitrogen Management in Corn

Nitrogen management for corn (Zea mays L.) may be improved by applying a portion of N in-season. This investigation was conducted to evaluate crop modeling (Maize-N) and active crop canopy sensing approaches for recommending in-season N fertilizer rates. These approaches were evaluated during 2012–2013 on 11 field sites, in Missouri, Nebraska, and North Dakota. Nitrogen management also included a no-N treatment (check) and a non-limiting N reference (all at planting). Nitrogen management treatments were assessed for two hybrids and at low and high seeding rates, arranged in a randomized complete block design. In 9 of 11 site-years, the sensor-based approach recommended lower in-season N rates than the model (collectively 59% less N), resulting in trends of higher partial factor productivity of nitrogen (PFPN) and higher agronomic efficiency (AE) than the model. However, yield was better protected by the model-based approach. In some situations, canopy sensing excelled at optimizing the N rate for localized conditions. With abnormally warm and moist soil conditions for the 2012 Nebraska sites and presumed high levels of inorganic N from mineralization, N application was appropriately reduced, resulting in no yield decrease and N savings compared to the non-limiting N reference. Depending on the site, both recommendation approaches were successful; a combination of model and sensor information may optimize in-season decision support for N recommendation

Towards sustainable tuna fishing: understanding the role of private incentive mechanisms

Unsustainable fishing practices, including the use of non-selective fishing methods and Illegal Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing, contribute to the decline of tuna fish stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO). This has led to emergence of different public and private governance arrangements to foster the sustainable exploitation of tuna stocks. This thesis focuses on the performance of three innovative private incentive mechanisms: Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs), International Seafood Sustainability Foundation’s Pro-active Vessel Register and eco-FADs, and Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification, to deliver economic incentives for improved production. The overall objective of this thesis is to evaluate the extent to which private incentive mechanisms influence Filipino fishers’ decision to improve their fishing practices. In order to address the overall objective, this thesis first analyses and compares the ways existing private incentive mechanisms influence the upgrading strategies of Filipino tuna fishers in the value chains (in chapter 2). Second, it evaluates the important determinants for small-scale handline fishers’ decisions to participate in two FIPs for yellowfin tuna in the Philippines (in chapter 3). Third, it examines the effect of MSC certification on the allocation of fishing days by Filipino purse seiners operating in Parties to Nauru Agreement (in chapter 4). And finally, it analyses the profitability of investments in measures needed to comply with private incentive mechanisms by Filipino purse seiners (in chapter 5). The findings show that overall, the incentive mechanisms are able to improve the practices of fishers, however only to a limited extent. The first two chapters (chapters 2 and 3) show that producers first need to have the capabilities to meet the requirements of private incentive mechanisms, so that they can be included in the value chain and that they can realise the incentives offered by these mechanisms. However, being capable does not guarantee that producers will improve their practices. As shown in the last two chapters (chapters 4 and 5), producers must also have the willingness to upgrade, based on their risk attitude and on the ability of the economic incentive to cover the additional costs and to compensate for the increase of the risks of participation of producers. Given that producers have the availability of capabilities to upgrade and that the benefit is sufficient to opt for participation, then producers may decide to improve their practices, which may contribute to the sustainability improvement goal of private incentive mechanisms. As a consequence of this finding, the incentives, inclusiveness, and improvements must be taken into account in both the design and implementation of private incentive mechanisms.</p

An original template solution for FAIR scientific text mining

This method paper presents a template solution for text mining of scientific literature using the R tm package. Literature to be analyzed can be collected manually or automatically using the code provided with this paper. Once the literature is collected, the three steps for conducting text mining can be performed as outlined below: • loading and cleaning of text from articles, • processing, statistical analysis, and clustering, and • presentation of results using generalized and tailor-made visualizations. The text mining steps can be applied to a single, multiple, or time series groups of documents. References are provided to three published peer reviewed articles that use the presented text mining methodology. The main advantages of our method are: (1) Its suitability for both research and educational purposes, (2) Compliance with the Findable Accessible Interoperable and Reproducible (FAIR) principles, and (3) code and example data are made available on GitHub under the open-source Apache V2 license

Model and Sensor-Based Recommendation Approaches for In-Season Nitrogen Management in Corn

Nitrogen management for corn (Zea mays L.) may be improved by applying a portion of N in-season. This investigation was conducted to evaluate crop modeling (Maize-N) and active crop canopy sensing approaches for recommending in-season N fertilizer rates. These approaches were evaluated during 2012–2013 on 11 field sites, in Missouri, Nebraska, and North Dakota. Nitrogen management also included a no-N treatment (check) and a non-limiting N reference (all at planting). Nitrogen management treatments were assessed for two hybrids and at low and high seeding rates, arranged in a randomized complete block design. In 9 of 11 site-years, the sensor-based approach recommended lower in-season N rates than the model (collectively 59% less N), resulting in trends of higher partial factor productivity of nitrogen (PFPN) and higher agronomic efficiency (AE) than the model. However, yield was better protected by the model-based approach. In some situations, canopy sensing excelled at optimizing the N rate for localized conditions. With abnormally warm and moist soil conditions for the 2012 Nebraska sites and presumed high levels of inorganic N from mineralization, N application was appropriately reduced, resulting in no yield decrease and N savings compared to the non-limiting N reference. Depending on the site, both recommendation approaches were successful; a combination of model and sensor information may optimize in-season decision support for N recommendation

Logistics Trends and Innovations in Response to COVID-19 Pandemic: An Analysis Using Text Mining

The disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have forced many companies in the logistics sector to innovate, or even transform their business and underlying processes. Closing borders, limited supply and manpower, and continuous changes in regulations challenged many logistics firms to innovate. This study analyzes 5098 abstracts of logistics articles using text mining to identify and to quantify the changes in logistics trends and innovations before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, and if these trends and innovations were accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Results indicate that (1) resiliency is an ongoing trend in logistics and has shown increasing importance during the COVID-19 pandemic; (2) there appears to be acceleration in digitalization trend in logistics based on emerging focus on blockchain, Internet of Things, data, drones, robots, and unmanned vehicles during COVID-19 pandemic, and (3) there seems to be no evidence of acceleration in sustainability due to COVID-19 despite an observed shift in sustainability trends in terms of bioenergy and biofuel before COVID-19 pandemic to low-carbon, hydrogen and electric vehicles during COVID-19 pandemic. This paper recommends logistics firms, especially Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), to analyze their readiness to adopt digitalization in terms of data, resources, and technology via, e.g., the use of a maturity scan, to contribute to sustainable and resilient logistics and to make sure that they remain competitive and future-proof. Policy makers can provide support to these SMEs by providing information, funding, and template solutions

A Managerial and Behavioral Approach in Aligning Stakeholder Goals in Sustainable Last Mile Logistics: A Case Study in the Netherlands

Contains fulltext : 233424.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access

A Managerial and Behavioral Approach in Aligning Stakeholder Goals in Sustainable Last Mile Logistics: A Case Study in the Netherlands

Stakeholders play vital roles in the implementation of sustainable last mile logistics solutions. Therefore, the first step in setting up successful sustainable last mile logistics is to conduct stakeholder analysis. This paper analyzes the goals of the stakeholders in the Heijendaal living lab, a city logistics project that uses two hubs for bundling goods to be delivered to the Heijendaal campus in The Netherlands. We use the Theory of Planned Behavior and Policy Deployment to present a qualitative case study, which examines the goals of stakeholders in relation to their roles in the supply chain and in the organization, and if these goals lead to their expected participation behavior. Results show that stakeholders have economic, social, and environmental goals and that some of these goals are prominent within certain groups of stakeholders along the supply chain and within the organization. In addition, the set goals do not always lead to participation behavior of stakeholders due to identified disruptions and habits. This study identifies the importance of information sharing and collaboration within the supply chain, the leading role of middle-level managers in translating strategic to operational goals, and the stimulation of behavioral factors to increase participation of stakeholders in the living lab