Does Political Incorporation Matter? The Impact of Minority Mayors Over Time

The authors assess the effects of minority political incorporation in large cities. An interrupted time-series research design is used to determine whether the election of a city’s first minority mayor has any short-term or long-term impact on fiscal policies. The authors examined six cities that elected black or Latino mayors and six cities with white mayors from 1972 to 1992. In general, they find that minority political incorporation did not significantly change fiscal policies in different ways from that which occurred in cities without minority incorporation

Bellwether Trial Selection in Multi-District Litigation: Empirical Evidence in Favor of Random Selection

For decades, courts overseeing mass tort litigation have struggled with how to identify the right plaintiffs for early trials. These initial trials, often called “bellwether” trials, are intended to help the parties evaluate the merits of other cases in the same litigation. But a successful bellwether process depends heavily on the method by which the trials are selected. A process that all litigants regard as fair and that results in the selection of plaintiffs who are representative of the claims of other plaintiffs can help to facilitate the resolution of an entire mass tort docket, whereas a process that is unfair or that results in a sample of plaintiffs whose claims are outliers in either direction will not. To explore these issues in more detail, Part II of this article begins with a brief overview of the history and purpose of the bellwether trial process. Part III summarizes the various methods that courts and litigants have used to select bellwether plaintiffs and describes the theoretical advantages and disadvantages of each. Part IV presents our empirical analysis from the Bextra and Celebrex litigation. Ultimately, we conclude that if a party selection process both produces unrepresentative bellwether cases and disadvantages one party disproportionately, then such a process cannot fulfill the fairness and information-gathering purposes of bellwether trials. Accordingly, we urge courts to employ random selection procedures where possible

Shock waves in one-dimensional Heisenberg ferromagnets

We use SU(2) coherent state path integral formulation with the stationary phase approximation to investigate, both analytically and numerically, the existence of shock waves in the one- dimensional Heisenberg ferromagnets with anisotropic exchange interaction. As a result we show the existence of shock waves of two types,"bright" and "dark", which can be interpreted as moving magnetic domains.Comment: 10 pages, with 3 ps figure

A reduced model for shock and detonation waves. II. The reactive case

We present a mesoscopic model for reactive shock waves, which extends a previous model proposed in [G. Stoltz, Europhys. Lett. 76 (2006), 849]. A complex molecule (or a group of molecules) is replaced by a single mesoparticle, evolving according to some Dissipative Particle Dynamics. Chemical reactions can be handled in a mean way by considering an additional variable per particle describing a rate of reaction. The evolution of this rate is governed by the kinetics of a reversible exothermic reaction. Numerical results give profiles in qualitative agreement with all-atom studies

Small-amplitude excitations in a deformable discrete nonlinear Schroedinger equation

A detailed analysis of the small-amplitude solutions of a deformed discrete nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger equation is performed. For generic deformations the system possesses "singular" points which split the infinite chain in a number of independent segments. We show that small-amplitude dark solitons in the vicinity of the singular points are described by the Toda-lattice equation while away from the singular points are described by the Korteweg-de Vries equation. Depending on the value of the deformation parameter and of the background level several kinds of solutions are possible. In particular we delimit the regions in the parameter space in which dark solitons are stable in contrast with regions in which bright pulses on nonzero background are possible. On the boundaries of these regions we find that shock waves and rapidly spreading solutions may exist.Comment: 18 pages (RevTex), 13 figures available upon reques

Institutionalization of the Economic Mechanism of Resource Conservation and Energy Efficient Environmental Management at the Level of Amalhamated Territorial Communities

The authors prove that decentralization of power and local governance reform have necessitated the reconsideration of the priorities in the rational environmental management, including resource conservation and energy efficiency at the level of amalhamated territorial communities (ATCs). Thus, it becomes necessary to transform the existing control system over the economic development of natural resource potential and environmental protection. It is substantiated that in the situation when new energy indicators are being implemented, numerous problems become mainstream, e.g. increase in the energy production output from renewable sources, e.g. solid and gaseous fuel on the basis of waste disposal. It is proved that the effective implementation of waste disposal projects is possible provided that the economic mechanism of resource conservation and energy efficiency is institutionalized at the level of ATC, which will provide budgetary, fiscal and credit prerequisites to increase financial support for modern waste management industry. The research carries out shows that in 2007–2021, the dynamics of the real volume of local budget expenditures on waste disposal has been declining, due to the lack of interest among local authorities in financing resource conservation and energy efficiency projects. It is established that the achievement of positive results in the financing of waste disposal directly depends on pooling part of the rent for the special use of natural resources and environmental tax in special funds within local budgets. It is substantiated that targeting natural resources and environmental payments accumulated in local government budgets will increase funding for waste disposal, thus increasing the use of the material substance of household waste and waste from agricultural and forestry production to produce solid and gaseous fuel. It is proved that the state should provide incentives for local governments to enhance resource conservation and energy efficiency based on waste disposal due to participation in financing and indirect promotion of such projects