The Dilemma of Direct Democracy

The dilemma of direct democracy is that voters may not always be able to make welfare- improving decisions. Lupia’s seminal work has led us to believe that voters can substitute voting cues for substantive policy knowledge. Lupia, however, emphasized that cues were valuable under certain conditions and not others. In what follows, we present three main findings regarding voters and what they know about California’s Proposition 7. First, much like Lupia reported, we show voters who are able to recall endorsements for or against a ballot measure vote similarly to people who recall certain basic facts about the initiative. We show, second, that voters whose stated policy preferences would otherwise suggest they would favor the “no” position cast their ballots with far less error than do people who favor the “yes” position. One thing this suggests is that many voters may employ a “defensive no” strategy when faced with complex policy choices on the ballot. Our third result is a bit surprising: we find that better- informed voters, whether this information is derived from factual knowledge of the initiative or from knowledge of well-publicized voting cues, are no more likely to make reasoned decisions than those who are, by our measure, uninformed. This suggests that existing theories of voter choice, especially in direct democracy, may be inadequate. We conclude with some preliminary policy recommendations that could help improve the information environment for initiatives and referenda by providing key information on the ballot

Ambitious STS-7 mission to feature first landing at Kennedy

The STS-7 press briefing schedule, NASA select television schedule; launch preparations, countdown and liftoff; major countdown milestones; launch window; STS-7 flight sequence of events, landing timeline; STS-7 flight timeline; landing and post landing operations; flight objectives; Telesat's ANIK-C 2; PALAPA-B; STS-7 experiments; and spacecraft tracking and data network are presented

Values of H_0 from Models of the Gravitational Lens 0957+561

The lensed double QSO 0957+561 has a well-measured time delay and hence is useful for a global determination of H0. Uncertainty in the mass distribution of the lens is the largest source of uncertainty in the derived H0. We investigate the range of \hn produced by a set of lens models intended to mimic the full range of astrophysically plausible mass distributions, using as constraints the numerous multiply-imaged sources which have been detected. We obtain the first adequate fit to all the observations, but only if we include effects from the galaxy cluster beyond a constant local magnification and shear. Both the lens galaxy and the surrounding cluster must depart from circular symmetry as well. Lens models which are consistent with observations to 95% CL indicate H0=104^{+31}_{-23}(1-\kthirty) km/s/Mpc. Previous weak lensing measurements constrain the mean mass density within 30" of G1 to be kthirty=0.26+/-0.16 (95% CL), implying H0=77^{+29}_{-24}km/s/Mpc (95% CL). The best-fitting models span the range 65--80 km/s/Mpc. Further observations will shrink the confidence interval for both the mass model and \kthirty. The range of H0 allowed by the full gamut of our lens models is substantially larger than that implied by limiting consideration to simple power law density profiles. We therefore caution against use of simple isothermal or power-law mass models in the derivation of H0 from other time-delay systems. High-S/N imaging of multiple or extended lensed features will greatly reduce the H0 uncertainties when fitting complex models to time-delay lenses.Comment: AASTEX, 48 pages 4 figures, 2 tables. Also available at: http://www.astro.lsa.umich.edu:80/users/philf/www/papers/list.htm

Helical motions in the jet of blazar 1156+295

The blazar 1156+295 was observed by VLBA and EVN + MERLIN at 5 GHz in June 1996 and February 1997 respectively. The results show that the jet of the source has structural oscillations on the milliarcsecond scale and turns through a large angle to the direction of the arcsecond-scale extension. A helical jet model can explain most of the observed properties of the radio structure in 1156+295.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, to appear in New Astronomy Reviews (EVN/JIVE Symposium No. 4, special issue

Social and Economic Impact of Solar Electricity at Schuchuli Village

Schuchuli, a small remote village on the Papago Indian Reservation in southwest Arizona, is 27 kilometers (17 miles) from the nearest available utility power. Its lack of conventional power is due to the prohibitive cost of supplying a small electrical load with a long-distance distribution line. Furthermore, alternate energy sources are expensive and place a burden on the resources of the villagers. On December 16, 1978, as part of a federally funded project, a solar cell power system was put into operation at Schuchuli. The system powers the village water pump, lighting for homes and other village buildings, family refrigerators and a communal washing machine and sewing machine

Motor Affordance for Grasping a Handrail

Mere observation of objects around us can potentiate motor action by priming specific areas in the brain. This concept, referred to as the affordance effect, suggests that humans put viewed objects into motor terms automatically. Such automated linking of observations to action offers potential advantages to interact with our environment quickly and efficiently when producing goal-directed movements. One possible application of this affordance effect includes the rapid balance reactions needed to avoid a fall. In reactive balance control, movements must be extremely fast yet simultaneously appropriate for a given environment (e.g. quickly grasping a nearby handrail to avoid a fall). The present study was conducted to test if viewing a wall-mounted handrail – the type of handle commonly used to regain balance – results in activation of motor cortical networks

Cluster Cores, Gravitational Lensing, and Cosmology

Many multiply--imaged quasars have been found over the years, but none so far with image separation in excess of 8\arcsec. The absence of such large splittings has been used as a test of cosmological models: the standard Cold Dark Matter model has been excluded on the basis that it predicts far too many large--separation double images. These studies assume that the lensing structure has the mass profile of a singular isothermal sphere. However, such large splittings would be produced by very massive systems such as clusters of galaxies, for which other gravitational lensing data suggest less singular mass profiles. Here we analyze two cases of mass profiles for lenses: an isothermal sphere with a finite core radius (density $\rho \propto (r^2+r_{core}^2)^{-1})$, and a Hernquist profile ($\rho \propto r^{-1}(r+a)^{-3}$). We find that small core radii $r_{core} \sim 30 h^{-1}$ kpc, as suggested by the cluster data, or large a \gsim 300 h^{-1} kpc, as needed for compatibility with gravitational distortion data, would reduce the number of large--angle splittings by an order of magnitude or more. Thus, it appears that these tests are sensitive both to the cosmological model (number density of lenses) and to the inner lens structure, which is unlikely to depend sensitively on the cosmology, making it difficult to test the cosmological models by large--separation quasar lensing until we reliably know the structure of the lenses themselves.Comment: 17 pages, uuencoded compressed tarred postscript file including text and 1 figure. To appear in January 20, 1996 issue of ApJ Letter

Chandra Observations of the Gravitationally Lensed System 2016+112

An observation of the gravitationally lensed system 2016+112 with the Chandra X-ray Observatory has resolved a mystery regarding the proposed presence of a dark matter object in the lens plane of this system. The Chandra ACIS observation has clearly detected the lensed images of 2016+112 with positions in good agreement with those reported in the optical and also detects 13 additional X-ray sources within a radius of 3.5 arcmin. Previous X-ray observations in the direction of 2016+112 with the ROSAT HRI and ASCA SIS have interpreted the X-ray data as arising from extended emission from a dark cluster. However, the present Chandra observation can account for all the X-ray emission as originating from the lensed images and additional point X-ray sources in the field. Thus cluster parameters based on previous X-ray observations are unreliable. We estimate an upper limit on the mass-to-light ratio within a radius of 800 h_(50)^(-1) kpc of M/L_(V) < 190 h_(50) (M/L_(V))_Sun. The lensed object is quite unusual, with reported narrow emission lines in the optical that suggest it may be a type-2 quasar (Yamada et. al. 1999). Our modeling of the X-ray spectrum of the lensed object implies that the column density of an intrinsic absorber must lie between 3 and 85 x 10^22 cm^-2 (3 sigma confidence level). The 2-10 keV luminosity of the lensed object, corrected for the lens magnification effect and using the above range of intrinsic absorption, is 3 x 10^43 - 1.4 x 10^44 erg/s.Comment: 9 pages, includes 2 figures, Accepted for publication in ApJ