Identity and Democracy: Linking Individual and Social Reasoning

Following Amartya Sen\u27s approach, John Davis and Solange Regina Marin look at individual and social reasoning when examining the complex relationship between identity and democracy. They characterize democracy as a process of social or public reasoning that combines the individual reasoning of all citizens. Identity is explained in terms of personal identity, social identity, and individual identity. They argue that democracy in combining the individual reasoning of all citizens responds to individuals’ different personal identity concerns and needs, reflects their shared social identity interests and goals, and accords them rights and responsibilities associated with their many different individual identities

Equilibrium relationships for non-equilibrium chemical dependencies

In contrast to common opinion, it is shown that equilibrium constants determine the time-dependent behavior of particular ratios of concentrations for any system of reversible first-order reactions. Indeed, some special ratios actually coincide with the equilibrium constant at any moment in time. This is established for batch reactors, and similar relations hold for steady-state plug-flow reactors, replacing astronomic time by residence time. Such relationships can be termed time invariants of chemical kinetics

Corporate Hierarchies and the Size of Nations: Theory and Evidence

Corporate organization varies within a country and across countries with country size. The paper starts by establishing some facts about corporate organization based on unique data of 660 Austrian and German corporations. The larger country (Germany) has larger firms with flatter more decentral corporate hierarchies compared to the smaller country (Austria). Firms in the larger country change their organization less fast than firms in the smaller country. Over time firms have been introducing less hierarchical organizations by delegating power to lower levels of the corporation. We develop a theory which explains these facts and which links these features to the trade environment that countries and firms face. We introduce firms with internal hierarchies in a Krugman (1980) model of trade. We show that international trade and the toughness of competition in international markets induce a power struggle in firms which eventually leads to decentralized corporate hierarchies. We offer econometric evidence which is consistent with the models predictions

Tilted excitation implies odd periodic resonances

This work was supported by the Brazilian agencies FAPESP and CNPq. MSB also acknowledges the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council grant Ref. EP/I032606/1. GID thanks Felipe A. C. Pereira for fruitful discussions.Peer reviewedPostprin

The Relationship Between Virginia Title 1 Spending and Minority Male Graduation Rates: A Longitudinal Study

Over the past two decades, education funding in the United States has been redistributed to schools that lack sufficient financial resources to meet the needs of students (Boyle & Lee, 2015). The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, the reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), was enacted to increase academic accountability and achievement throughout the nation’s public-school systems. Nationwide, there is a persistent achievement gap between historically marginalized students and their affluent peers. This gap is evident in the Commonwealth of Virginia when measuring student proficiency on End of Course Assessments (EOCAs). For schools serving a large population of students from impoverished families, Title 1 funding is available to local education agencies (LEAs) to help students meet state academic standards. State’s per-pupil instructional expenditures vary widely between affluent and less affluent school divisions. The educational researchers demonstrated a connection between funding and the graduation rates of minority male students (Lhamon et al., 2018; Pan et al., 2003). There is limited research assessing the impact Title 1 funding has had on high school graduation rates in Virginia from 2008-2019. Prior educational finance studies have measured the relationship between state fiscal effort and high school graduation rates. The purpose of this study is to determine if there is a relationship between the amount of Title 1 and SOQ funds allocated to schools and the graduation rates of minority male students in the state of Virginia during the aforementioned time frame. This research seeks to examine the significance of Virginia’s fiscal effort for education, the proportion of its wealth invested in K-12 public education and its direct impact in determining how much federal and state funding is allocated in order to balance funding inequities through a concept known as vertical equity, defined as the treating of unequal’s requires appropriate unequal treatment (Owings & Kaplan, 2020). Policymakers and state Department of Education personnel should recognize that students and schools have unique needs that require different levels of funding. In this study, vertical equity relates to Title 1 funding and its direct educational impact on school divisions in Virginia with meeting the educational needs of historically marginalized students. The methodology used within this study includes linear and multiple regression, Pearson Product Moment correlation, and time-lagged correlation design. According to Maslow‘s Hierarchy of Needs (1943), many marginalized students do not have the basic resources needed to become self-actualizing learners and adequately function in society. Unfortunately, this has a significant impact on students struggling in school both behaviorally and academically, and the idea of high school graduation starts to fade in those students’ mind

Symmetric Brownian motor

In this paper we present a model of a symmetric Brownian motor (SBM) which changes the sign of its velocity when the temperature gradient is inverted. The velocity, external work and efficiency are studied as a function of the temperatures of the baths and other relevant parameters. The motor shows a current reversal when another parameter (a phase shift) is varied. Analytical predictions and results from numerical simulations are performed and agree very well. Generic properties of this type of motors are discussed.Comment: 8 pages and 10 figure