ALTERNATE ROUTES OF REFORMIST ACTIVISM: MEDICAL MARIJUANA AS A CASE STUDY OF INITIATIVES WITHIN AND BEYOND STATUTORILY PRESCRIBED CHANNELS

This essay discusses the various legal and political initiatives undertaken by reformers seeking change in the laws on medical marijuana use. Part I reviews the provisions of the Controlled Substances Act, and marijuana's status under the Act. Part II recounts the history of initiatives undertaken along the statutorily prescribed route for the Act's reform: citizens' petitions seeking administrative action, and court review of administrative decisions. Part III then surveys other fronts on which citizens and groups have attempted to make progress on the issue of medical marijuana, in the face of their fruitless efforts through the legislatively prescribed channels. While the outcomes of the current initiatives have not yet been determined, the conclusion addresses the significance of the controversy itself, as demonstration of the multiform power maintained by the people in our federalist democracy

Sources of small-scale variation in headwater stream habitat and macroinvertebrate communities

The extent to which small stream habitats and communities are influenced by the surrounding terrestrial environment is a function of the linkage between aquatic and terrestrial systems. The strength of that linkage is mediated primarily by topography and can affect the susceptibility of the stream to impairment by harvesting disturbance. Stream habitat and macroinvertebrate communities were studied at 30 small stream sites to characterize their associations with the surrounding terrestrial environment at the riparian and catchment scales. Local topography was described using the ‘reach contributing area’ (RCA) as a measure of the lateral terrestrial area contributing to the stream reach. In the first section of the study I examined the linkage between stream habitat characteristics and riparian and catchment scale terrestrial variables in light of differences in local topography, and assessed the effects of harvesting disturbance on stream habitat as mediated by that aquatic-terrestrial linkage. Using redundancy analysis (RDA) riparian scale factors were found to be more strongly correlated with local habitat variability than catchment scale factors in both small and large RCAs, and in both reference and harvested sites. In sites with large RCAs riparian scale variables explained 40% more variation than catchment scale variables. Aquatic habitat at sites with recent local harvesting had significantly higher temperatures and nitrogen concentrations (MANOVA p<0.05). Stream habitat variation in harvested sites was more strongly correlated with forest cover, whereas variation in reference sites was more strongly correlated with topographic variables. In the second section I characterized how macroinvertebrate communities are structured based on aquatic and terrestrial variables at 3 spatial scales, and how those influences differ based on local topography. The effects of harvesting on macroinvertebrate community structure were also examined in the final section. Local scale variables explained the most variation in taxonomic and functional invertebrate community structure (51.6% and 59.1%), followed by catchment scale variables (43.9% and 43.5%). In large RCA sites, the riparian scale variables had almost 10% more influence on taxonomic structure than catchment scale variables, and in small RCA sites catchment scale variables explained almost 23% more variation in feeding guild structure than riparian scale variables. The total abundance and richness of macroinvertebrates was significantly higher in harvested sites than in reference sites (ANOVA p<0.05), and communities differed significantly in structure (MRPP p<0.05). This study shows the effect of local topography on the linkage between aquatic and terrestrial environments. The RCA effect combined with the effects of harvesting disturbance on small streams can be combined to better understand processes driving variability in small stream habitats and communities. This understanding can then be applied to management practices to better conserve all aspects of headwater stream environments

Size-dependence of Strong-Coupling Between Nanomagnets and Photonic Cavities

The coherent dynamics of a coupled photonic cavity and a nanomagnet is explored as a function of nanomagnet size. For sufficiently strong coupling eigenstates involving highly entangled photon and spin states are found, which can be combined to create coherent states. As the size of the nanomagnet increases its coupling to the photonic mode also monotonically increases, as well as the number of photon and spin states involved in the system's eigenstates. For small nanomagnets the crystalline anisotropy of the magnet strongly localized the eigenstates in photon and spin number, quenching the potential for coherent states. For a sufficiently large nanomagnet the macrospin approximation breaks down and different domains of the nanomagnet may couple separately to the photonic mode. Thus the optimal nanomagnet size is just below the threshold for failure of the macrospin approximation.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure

Relaxation Mechanism for Ordered Magnetic Materials

We have formulated a relaxation mechanism for ferrites and ferromagnetic metals whereby the coupling between the magnetic motion and lattice is based purely on continuum arguments concerning magnetostriction. This theoretical approach contrasts with previous mechanisms based on microscopic formulations of spin-phonon interactions employing a discrete lattice. Our model explains for the first time the scaling of the intrinsic FMR linewidth with frequency, and 1/M temperature dependence and the anisotropic nature of magnetic relaxation in ordered magnetic materials, where M is the magnetization. Without introducing adjustable parameters our model is in reasonable quantitative agreement with experimental measurements of the intrinsic magnetic resonance linewidths of important class of ordered magnetic materials, insulator or metals

Market familiarity and the location of South and North MNEs

We use a systematic empirical analysis of the determinants of South-South (SS) and North-South (NS) foreign direct investment (FDI) as a canvas to explore how multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) location decisions are shaped by better acquaintance with a foreign market resulting from bilateral ties, experience of international expansion, and knowledge of how to deal with poor governance. We find that these various aspects of market familiarity, which can interact together, are important to explain and differentiate the location behaviors of South MNEs (S-MNEs) and North MNEs (N-MNEs) in developing countries

China's economic co-operation related investment:an investigation of its direction and some implications for outward investment

Chinese firms undertake large scale contracted projects in a number of countries under the auspices of economic cooperation. While there are suggestions that these activities are an extension of China's soft power aimed at facilitating Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in those countries, often for access to natural resources, there is no systematic analysis of this in the literature. In this paper, we examine China's economic cooperation related investment (ECI) over time. Our results suggest that the pattern of investment is indeed explained well by factors that are used in the stylised literature to explain directional patterns of outward FDI. They also demonstrate that the (positive) relationship between Chinese ECI and the recipient countries' natural resource richness is not economically meaningful. Finally, while there is some support for the popular wisdom that China is willing to do business with countries with weak political rights, the evidence suggests that, ceteris paribus, its ECI is more likely to flow to countries with low corruption levels and, by extension, better institutions

Extreme rainfall events alter the trophic structure in bromeliad tanks across the Neotropics

Changes in global and regional precipitation regimes are among the most pervasive components of climate change. Intensification of rainfall cycles, ranging from frequent downpours to severe droughts, could cause widespread, but largely unknown, alterations to trophic structure and ecosystem function. We conducted multi-site coordinated experiments to show how variation in the quantity and evenness of rainfall modulates trophic structure in 210 natural freshwater microcosms (tank bromeliads) across Central and South America (18°N to 29°S). The biomass of smaller organisms (detritivores) was higher under more stable hydrological conditions. Conversely, the biomass of predators was highest when rainfall was uneven, resulting in top-heavy biomass pyramids. These results illustrate how extremes of precipitation, resulting in localized droughts or flooding, can erode the base of freshwater food webs, with negative implications for the stability of trophic dynamics

Guest Editors’ Introduction: People Management and Emerging Market Multinationals

There is a very extensive body of literature on how multinationals manage their people in different national contexts. However, the bulk of this literature focuses on the case of multinationals from the advanced industrial economies, and to a considerable extent, the United States. Very much less has been written on multinationals with their country of origin being an emerging market, and what little there is has focused on a very limited number of preferred cases. The growing importance of emerging economies has led to an upsurge of strategy research on the topic (Wright, Filatotchev, Hoskisson, & Peng, 2005); however, research on human resource management has not paid enough attention to emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs). Many EMNEs tend to be smaller in size with considerably fewer resources and less international experience than their counterparts from developed markets, limiting their ability to transfer management practice across their subsidiaries (Thite, Wilkinson, & Shah, 2012), although there are important exceptions to this rule. This introductory article seeks to contribute to the emerging body of literature in this area, through seeking to encourage fresh insights, particularly on the varieties of people management encountered in different national contexts

Guest Editors’ Introduction: People Management and Emerging Market Multinationals

There is a very extensive body of literature on how multinationals manage their people in different national contexts. However, the bulk of this literature focuses on the case of multinationals from the advanced industrial economies, and to a considerable extent, the United States. Very much less has been written on multinationals with their country of origin being an emerging market, and what little there is has focused on a very limited number of preferred cases. The growing importance of emerging economies has led to an upsurge of strategy research on the topic (Wright, Filatotchev, Hoskisson, & Peng, 2005); however, research on human resource management has not paid enough attention to emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs). Many EMNEs tend to be smaller in size with considerably fewer resources and less international experience than their counterparts from developed markets, limiting their ability to transfer management practice across their subsidiaries (Thite, Wilkinson, & Shah, 2012), although there are important exceptions to this rule. This introductory article seeks to contribute to the emerging body of literature in this area, through seeking to encourage fresh insights, particularly on the varieties of people management encountered in different national contexts