Voter attitudes to inter-party transfers in Northern Ireland: a median-difference analysis of inter-party transfers in the 1982 and 1998 Assembly elections

The impact of the 1998 peace agreement in Northern Ireland on electoral behaviour is analysed in this article by plotting median differences in inter-party transfers under the PR by Single Transferable Vote system used in 1998 and in 1982. There is clear evidence that moderate and militant nationalists have followed the lead of their party elites and have transferred lower preference votes to each other at higher levels and more consistently in 1998 than in 1982. Patterns of change within unionism are more complex. While there were some signs of a slightly increased willingness from pro-Agreement unionists to transfer to moderate nationalists and a fall in the percentage of transfers to anti-Agreement unionists, there was still considerable consistency of support between the unionist parties despite the split over the peace agreement

Forest-Mill Integration: A Transaction Costs Perspective

In Canada, where public ownership of forestland is prevalent, a central decision facing policy makers is how to allocate timber resources to private forest companies. Debates tend to focus around what proportion of the annual harvest should be devoted to markets opposed to long-term contracts. To give a guide to policy makers, we surveyed forest firms from New Zealand and Sweden where this decision is based purely on a commercial basis. On average, mills source fifty percent of their fibre from the market. However, using a fractional logit model, we test whether theories from transaction cost economics influence this decision. Results are consistent with transaction cost economics; firms decrease the proportion of fibre sourced from a market with increasing fibre specificity, capital intensity, and uncertainty.transaction costs, forest tenure, vertical integration

A finite-strain hyperviscoplastic model and undrained triaxial tests of peat

This paper presents a finite-strain hyperviscoplastic constitutive model within a thermodynamically consistent framework for peat which was categorised as a material with both rate-dependent and thermodynamic equilibrium hysteresis based on the data reported in the literature. The model was implemented numerically using implicit time integration and verified against analytical solutions under simplified conditions. Experimental studies on the undrained relaxation and loading-unloading-reloading behaviour of an undisturbed fibrous peat were carried out to define the thermodynamic equilibrium state during deviatoric loading as a prerequisite for further modelling, to fit particularly those model parameters related to solid matrix properties, and to validate the proposed model under undrained conditions. This validation performed by comparison to experimental results showed that the hyperviscoplastic model could simulate undrained triaxial compression tests carried out at five different strain rates with loading/unloading relaxation steps.Comment: 30 pages, 16 figures, 4 tables. This is a pre-peer reviewed version of manuscript submitted to the International Journal of Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanic

Low temperature behavior of nonequilibrium multilevel systems

We give a low temperature formula for the stationary occupations in Markovian systems away from detailed balance. Two applications are discussed, one to determine the direction of the ratchet current and one on population inversion. Both can take advantage of low temperature to improve the gain and typical nonequilibrium features. The new formula brings to the foreground the importance of kinetic aspects in terms of reactivities for deciding the levels with highest occupation and thus gives a detailed quantitative meaning to Landauer's blowtorch theorem at low temperature.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure

Corporate Mechanisms and the Presumption of Accountability

This paper seeks to draw out this focus on form in British public administration reform by focusing on the role that the idea of the corporate form has played in reform. Drawing on the codification of Foundation Trusts in the English NHS, I argue that, while accountability ought to be considered as a 'social space' in which conduct conducive to particular interests emerges, reformers tend to regard accountability as a function of appropriate procedures and forms. The turn to the corporate form relies on a hope that it will deliver various 'accountability' benefits will emerge. This hope, I argue, is misplace

A low temperature analysis of the boundary driven Kawasaki Process

Low temperature analysis of nonequilibrium systems requires finding the states with the longest lifetime and that are most accessible from other states. We determine these dominant states for a one-dimensional diffusive lattice gas subject to exclusion and with nearest neighbor interaction. They do not correspond to lowest energy configurations even though the particle current tends to zero as the temperature reaches zero. That is because the dynamical activity that sets the effective time scale, also goes to zero with temperature. The result is a non-trivial asymptotic phase diagram, which crucially depends on the interaction coupling and the relative chemical potentials of the reservoirs.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figur

Effect of Damping on the Natural Frequencies of Linear Dynamic Systems

An analysis is presented of the effect of weak damping on the natural frequencies of linear dynamic systems. It is shown that the highest natural frequency is always decreased by damping, but the lower natural frequencies may either increase or decrease, depending on the form of the damping matrix

Voter attitudes to inter-party transfers in Northern Ireland: a median-difference analysis of inter-party transfers in the 1982 and 1988 Assembly elections

The impact of the 1998 peace agreement in Northern Ireland on electoral behaviour is analysed in this article by plotting median differences in inter-party transfers under the PR by Single Transferable Vote system used in 1998 and in 1982. There is clear evidence that moderate and militant nationalists have followed the lead of their party elites and have transferred lower preference votes to each other at higher levels and more consistently in 1998 than in 1982. Patterns of change within unionism are more complex. While there were some signs of a slightly increased willingness from pro-Agreement unionists to transfer to moderate nationalists and a fall in the percentage of transfers to anti-Agreement unionists, there was still considerable consistency of support between the unionist parties despite the split over the peace agreement

Analysis of the convergence properties of Rubenstein's method for the determination of the lower modes of vibration of a multi-degree of freedom system

This paper analyzes the convergence properties of a method, recently proposed by Rubenstein, for the determination of the lower modes of vibration of a multi-degree of freedom system from a reduced eigenvalue problem. It is shown that under certain conditions the method converges to the exact eigenvalues. It does not have global convergence and hence some care must be exercised when using it