ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY: IMPACTS ON NATURAL-RESOURCE-BASED ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Environmental Economics and Policy,

Clergy Voices: Findings From the 2008 Mainline Protestant Clergy Voices Survey

Presents findings from a survey of mainline Protestant clergy on their political affiliations and views on social issues, government action on health care and the environment, and the separation of church and state. Includes comparisons by denomination

Religion and Same-Sex Marriage in California: A New Look at Attitudes and Values Two Years After Proposition 8

Based on a survey, explores shifts in Californians' support for Proposition 8, legalizing same-sex marriage, and broader LGBTQ issues by religion, race/ethnicity, age, and political affiliation. Analyzes the roles of theology and clergy on shaping views

A Shifting Landscape: A Decade of Change in American Attitudes about Same-Sex Marriage and LGBT Issues

This national survey of more than 4,500 Americans finds that support for allowing gay and lesbian people to legally wed has jumped 21 percentage points over the last decade, from 32 percent in 2003 to 53 percent in 2013, transforming the American religious landscape in the process

Anxiety, Nostalgia, And Mistrust: Findings from the 2015 American Values Survey

The nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) conducted the 2015 American Values Survey among 2,695 Americans between September 11 and October 4, 2015. The sixth annual AVS measures public opinion about the economy, racial discrimination, the criminal justice system, trust in public institutions, perception of the Tea Party, the relationship between religious affiliation and political attitudes, views of immigrants, and how demographic changes impact the cultural landscape in the country

Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: Attitudes on LGBT Nondiscrimination Laws and Religious Exemptions - Finding from the 2015 American Values Atlas

Across 2015, the year that saw same-sex marriage become legal in all 50 states following the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision in June, public opinion on same-sex marriage remained remarkably stable. Based on interviews with more than 42,000 Americans conducted between May and December 2015, PRRI finds that 53% of Americans support allowing gay and lesbian people to legally marry, while 37% are opposed.In surveys conducted during May 2015, the month before the Supreme Court decision, 53% of the public on average supported same-sex marriage. Weekly tracking polls showed no significant shift in opinion as a result of the court decision, with the June average showing 55% support and the July average showing 53% support

Nematic cells with defect-patterned alignment layers

Using Monte Carlo simulations of the Lebwohl--Lasher model we study the director ordering in a nematic cell where the top and bottom surfaces are patterned with a lattice of $\pm 1$ point topological defects of lattice spacing $a$. We find that the nematic order depends crucially on the ratio of the height of the cell $H$ to $a$. When $H/a \gtrsim 0.9$ the system is very well--ordered and the frustration induced by the lattice of defects is relieved by a network of half--integer defect lines which emerge from the point defects and hug the top and bottom surfaces of the cell. When $H/a \lesssim 0.9$ the system is disordered and the half--integer defect lines thread through the cell joining point defects on the top and bottom surfaces. We present a simple physical argument in terms of the length of the defect lines to explain these results. To facilitate eventual comparison with experimental systems we also simulate optical textures and study the switching behavior in the presence of an electric field

Inducing Private Wildfire Risk Mitigation: Experimental Investigation of Measures on Adjacent Public Lands

Increasing private wildfire risk mitigation is an important part of the larger forest restoration policy challenge. Data from an economic experiment are used to evaluate the effectiveness of providing fuel treatments on public land adjacent to private land to induce private wildfire risk mitigation. Results show evidence of “crowding out” where public spending can decrease the level of private risk mitigation. However, a policy prescription that ameliorates this crowding out is identified. Participants undertake more mitigation when fuel treatments on publicly owned lands are conditional on a threshold level of private mitigation effort and information describing each participant’s spending is provided. Key Words:

Reconfigurable Data Communications Packet-Switch Emulation Test Bed Demonstrated

The Communications Technology Division at the NASA Lewis Research Center has an ongoing program to develop advanced switching and routing technology concepts for future satellite onboard processing systems. Through a university grant as a part of this research, the Cleveland State University is using a flexible reconfigurable data communications packet switch emulation test bed to investigate packet switching techniques. Because of the switching speed and protocol complexity, implementing a data communications network is a tremendous task. Various alternatives should be carefully studied and evaluated in the development stage so that the optimal system configuration can be obtained and implemented later. Therefore, it is desirable to predict the performance of the network before it is actually constructed. This is especially true in the case of satellite systems. In the past, theoretical analysis, software simulation, and prototyping were used to evaluate performance. However, each method has its drawback. There are basic tradeoffs among accuracy, cost, and required evaluation time. No method is completely satisfactory