Cost Effectiveness of the US Geological Survey\u27s Stream-gaging Program in New York

The U.S. Geological Survey conducted a 5-year nationwide analysis to define and document the most cost effective means of obtaining streamflow data. This report describes the stream gaging network in New York and documents the cost effectiveness of its operation; it also identifies data uses and funding sources for the 174 continuous-record stream gages currently operated (1983). Those gages as well as 189 crest-stage, stage-only, and groundwater gages are operated with a budget of $1.068 million. One gaging station was identified as having insufficient reason for continuous operation and was converted to a crest-stage gage. Current operation of the 363-station program requires a budget of$1.068 million/yr. The average standard error of estimation of continuous streamflow data is 13.4%. Results indicate that this degree of accuracy could be maintained with a budget of approximately $1.006 million if the gaging resources were redistributed among the gages. The average standard error for 174 stations was calculated for five hypothetical budgets. A minimum budget of$970,000 would be needed to operated the 363-gage program; a budget less than this does not permit proper servicing and maintenance of the gages and recorders. Under the restrictions of a minimum budget, the average standard error would be 16.0%. The maximum budget analyzed was $1.2 million, which would decrease the average standard error to 9.4%. (Author \u27s abstract

From “La lucha está aquí!” to “we’re natural diplomats”: Generational change and Hispanic elite engagement with US foreign policy

The Hispanic population is the largest ethnic minority group in the United States and is projected to make up nearly one in three Americans by 2050. While the consequences of this demographic shift continue to be a growing area of interest for researchers of domestic politics, the potential implications for US foreign policy remain relatively overlooked. This paucity of attention is due in part to an assumption that Latino elites are almost exclusively focused on domestic concerns at the expense of foreign policy, evidenced by a lack of observable attempts by Hispanic elites to lobby the US government to influence foreign policy outcomes. This thesis argues that this assumption is misguided as it fails to appreciate the extent to which Hispanic elites engage with US foreign policy where it highlights, advances or compliments their domestic agenda. To demonstrate this point, the thesis examines case studies of foreign policy engagement by three political generations of Hispanic American elites: The Chicano generation in the 1960s and early 1970s, the Exile generation during the 1980s, and the pan-ethnic Latino generation from the 1990s to the present day. Drawing on extensive interviews with foreign diplomats, Latino advocacy organisations and Hispanic Americans working within foreign policy-related careers in the federal government, the thesis demonstrates that when the scope of foreign policy engagement is sufficiently broadened, a history of sophisticated discourse and policy engagement is revealed. The thesis findings therefore offer an original contribution to knowledge through the novelty of its central claim, the inclusion of new empirical evidence, as well as through the presentation of a new analytical framework – that of the political generation as a unit of analysis – with which to study ethnic minority group engagement with US foreign policy