Political Quotas and Governance

Reserving political office for members of a particular, usually disadvantaged, group is a common form of political quota in many parts of the world. This has been shown to improve distributional access in favour of reserved groups, but often conjectured (and shown) to come at the cost of governance quality. We develop the first theoretical model to demonstrate the opposite possibility; a reduction in political competition - due to office being restricted to members of a pre-designated group - can improve governance. The model establishes a tight set of predictions regarding when improvements should be expected to occur, and when not. Such predictions are not yielded by alternative theories of political competition, are a priori unlikely to occur by chance, and have never been investigated in the large empirical literature on the effects of political reservations. We first show, in a Maharashtrian sample of rural villages, that governance outcomes dramatically increase under reservations. This is the first such effect documented in the literature. We then demonstrate a non-uniform pattern of improvement that lines up precisely with the predictions of the theory developed here

Transnational Radical Islamism

This article examines the al-Qaeda movement in terms of the categories of “global” and “local.” Both descriptions are relevant. Structurally, the label al-Qaeda is used to describe many things: the original al-Qaeda-central organization; locally-based affiliated groups who operate under its banner; and a global social movement of sympathizers and participants connected via the internet. Ideologically, the emergence of jihadist doctrine has taken place against the backdrop of social change on a global scale and can be convincingly analyzed as a direct symptom of modernity and globalization. The roots and aims of the movement are, however, local. They pertain to specific societies and emerge from widely-felt grievances against the state system and the ruling elites of the Arab world. As such, the al-Qaeda movement is best viewed as a global expression of local grievances: a new “global” strategy in the service of local goals centered on the states of the Middle East

Evaluating Photovoltaics in a Peak-Shaving Supply Management Role in Rural Communities

ABSTRACT I Little literature exists on measuring agricultural buildings with data collected from an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) mounted aerial cameras. Survey grade tools produce highly accurate results, but with high financial and temporal costs. Satellite imagery is readily available and relatively low-cost but has low spatial and temporal resolution. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles are emerging as a balance between these traditional methods for measuring and monitoring natural and constructed environments. The objective of this study was to compare the accuracy of building measurements in the orthophotos generated from satellite and UAV imagery based on control measurements without Ground Control Points (GCP’s) or on-board survey-grade georeferencing. The rooftops of 31 broiler houses located in Oconee and Anderson Counties (South Carolina, USA) were evaluated for solar energy applications. Building plan dimensions were acquired and building heights were independently hand-measured. A DJI Mavic Pro UAV flew following a traditional double grid flight path at 69-meter altitude with a 4K-resolution camera angle of -80° from the horizon with a 70% to 80% overlap. The captured images were processed using Agisoft Photoscan Professional digital photogrammetry software. Orthophotos of the study areas were generated from the acquired 3D image sequences using Structure from Motion (SfM) techniques. Building rooftop overhang obscured building footprint in aerial imagery. To accurately measure building dimensions, 0.91 m was subtracted from building roof width and 0.61 m was subtracted from roof length based on observations of roof overhangs from poultry buildings. The actual building widths and lengths ranged from 10.8 to 184.0 m and the mean measurement error using the UAV-derived orthophotos was 0.69% for all planar dimensions. The average error for building length was 1.66 ± 0.48 m and the average error for widths was 0.047 ± 0.13 m. Building sidewall, side entrance and peak heights ranged from 1.9 to 5.6 m and the mean error was 0.06 ± 0.04 m, or 1.2% mean error. The results proved that using consumer-grade UAV’s and photogrammetric SfM could create accurate DSM and orthomosaics of a study area at efficient use of economic and temporal resources without the use of survey grade equipment or GCPs. When compared to the horizontal accuracy of the same building measurements taken from readily available satellite imagery, the results were mixed. The mean error in satellite images was -0.36%. The average length error was -0.46 ± 0.49 m and -0.44 ± 0.14 m for building widths. It was not possible to measure building heights using satellite image analysis. The satellite orthomosaics were more accurate for length predictions and the UAV orthomosaics were more accurate for width predictions. This disparity was likely due to flight altitude, camera field of view, and building shape. The satellite imagery had low cost and ease of access that allowed a convenient determination of structural orientation and planimetric dimensions. However, the UAV provided dependably current data, vertical dimensions, and had higher absolute accuracy useful for combining with GIS data layers from other sources. With an average flight time of 5.4 min/ha and an average GSD of 4.84 cm/pi, the results obtained from a relatively inexpensive UAV mounted camera and image analysis demonstrated sufficient accuracy for planning and monitoring purposes in agricultural applications. ABSTRACT II The primary challenge faced by energy suppliers is forecasting and supplying hourly peak demand. Generating supply at peak demand and efficiently distributing to remote customers are vital supply-side load management practices for controlling supplier cost. This research sought to determine if poultry farms could function as rurally distributed, peak-demand photovoltaic (PV) power plants to sparsely populated areas. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and satellite imagery were used to examine 88 poultry farms. The typical farm consisted of four poultry houses, each 15.2 meters by 152.4 meters, oriented East/West, with a rooftop slope of 22.6º and a suitable rooftop area of 1,254 m2. The average rooftop supply of all farms was calculated and grouped into key supply categories of seasonal peak, shoulder, base, and energy. The average supply from a farm of typical size was 496 kW/hr during peak periods, 279 kW/hr during summer shoulder periods, and a contribution to base load of 425 kW/hr during summer months. The average rooftop supply estimated for all 88 farms was 59.2 MW/h during summer peak, a contribution to summer base load of 47.0 mW/hr, and total annual energy supply of 127.3 GWh/yr. Calculations of facility demand and energy use were in the range of 10-20% of gross hourly rooftop supply across time categories. This resulted in a net peak demand reduction potential of 51.6 MW/h (83%), and an annual net supply of 109.4 GWh (86%) to the grid. In light of distribution costs, the twenty-seven farms located further than 3.28 km from existing transmission lines proved the most valuable in peak demand reduction and distributing energy to rural areas. Results suggest a promising potential for distributed PV adoption for peak-shaving

Automatic detection of electric power troubles (AI application)

The design goals for the Automatic Detection of Electric Power Troubles (ADEPT) were to enhance Fault Diagnosis Techniques in a very efficient way. ADEPT system was designed in two modes of operation: (1) Real time fault isolation, and (2) a local simulator which simulates the models theoretically

Halo-Independent Direct Detection Analyses Without Mass Assumptions

Results from direct detection experiments are typically interpreted by employing an assumption about the dark matter velocity distribution, with results presented in the $m_\chi-\sigma_n$ plane. Recently methods which are independent of the DM halo velocity distribution have been developed which present results in the $v_{min}-\tilde{g}$ plane, but these in turn require an assumption on the dark matter mass. Here we present an extension of these halo-independent methods for dark matter direct detection which does not require a fiducial choice of the dark matter mass. With a change of variables from $v_{min}$ to nuclear recoil momentum ($p_R$), the full halo-independent content of an experimental result for any dark matter mass can be condensed into a single plot as a function of a new halo integral variable, which we call $\tilde{h}(p_R)$. The entire family of conventional halo-independent $\tilde{g}(v_{min})$ plots for all DM masses are directly found from the single $\tilde{h}(p_R)$ plot through a simple rescaling of axes. By considering results in $\tilde{h}(p_R)$ space, one can determine if two experiments are inconsistent for all masses and all physically possible halos, or for what range of dark matter masses the results are inconsistent for all halos, without the necessity of multiple $\tilde{g}(v_{min})$ plots for different DM masses. We conduct a sample analysis comparing the CDMS II Si events to the null results from LUX, XENON10, and SuperCDMS using our method and discuss how the mass-independent limits can be strengthened by imposing the physically reasonable requirement of a finite halo escape velocity.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figures. v2: footnote and references adde

Quarter Life Crisis Or How To Get Over College And Become A Functioning Member Of Society

As a writer, I feel like dealing with conflict in real life is the best way to deal with conflict in my fiction. Quarter-Life Crisis or How to Get Over College and Become a Functioning Member of Society, while a fictional novel, is very much about many of the conflicts I‘ve experienced over the past few years. Sean Easton is a twenty-five year old college graduate living in Miami, trying to balance out his life in a world that doesn‘t make as much sense to him as it did when he first graduated college, happy and looking forward to the future. Suffering through the aftermath of a major breakup as well as the death of his best friend, Sean is in the midst of a year-long alcohol binge when we are introduced to him, a period of time characterized by sporadic bouts of self-loathing interlaced with sardonic internal dialogue directed towards the world at large. Sean‘s story eventually intersects with the second protagonist in Quarter Life Crisis, Lauren Ellis. Lauren is a twenty-four year old college dropout turned pharmacy technician. When we are introduced to her, Lauren‘s life is characterized by her child—Justin—and her husband Rick. Rick‘s a mechanic, and he, Lauren, and their son are all living a comfortably mundane life until the day Lauren comes home to find Rick having sex with eighteen year old Natalie, Justin‘s babysitter. From there, Lauren‘s entire life is thrown into disarray, forcing her to confront desires and dreams she had previously filed away in the mental category of ―lost.‖ Together, Sean and Lauren represent a large portion of our society, a generation of individuals entering their mid- and late-twenties in the new millennium. Many of them have been told to dream big and aim high throughout their entire lives, that the next four years will be the best of their lives. And then the next four years. A few of us fulfill these dreams. Most don‘t, and iv in a time when acquiring a college degree has become more an expectation than an accomplishment, Sean Easton and Lauren Ellis are two of many that are defined by their uncertainty as to where their place in society is. Quarter Life Crisis follows their journey from complete uncertainty to little less uncertain, bringing their lifelong dreams into direct conflict with what they are actually capable of achieving. Though the circumstances of Sean and Lauren‘s shifts in character are both distinct, their mentality and outlook on love and life are similar. In the end, they both find a balance that gives them hope for happiness which, they both realize, is the most they can really get in the long run. The underlying theme of Quarter Life Crisis or How to Get Over College and Become a Functioning Member of Society is that college has become a fixture in American upbringing. The novel isn‘t saying this is a good or bad thing, just that it is something that hangs over everybody in the current generation‘s heads growing up, whether they attend college or not. The novel is an attempt to examine how people function in the new millennium after reaching the point in their life when college is no longer a factor, when they are thrown into the real world and told to fend for themselves. It‘s the story of how two people end up doing exactly that, and the hellish process they go through to get to that point

Influence of anaerobic and anoxic hydraulic retention time on biological nutrient removal in a membrane bioreactor

Regulation of the discharge of biological nutrients into the environment continues to increase in order to protect sensitive bodies of water. One promising new technology is the membrane bioreactor, which combines the activated sludge process with membrane filtration. The focus of this study was to determine the best anaerobic and anoxic hydraulic retention time (HRT) for biological nitrogen and phosphorus removal. A randomized experimental design of fourteen different HRT runs was tested with the anaerobic HRT varying between 0.5 and 3 hours and the anoxic HRT varying between 1 and 5 hours. Essentially complete nitrification was achieved with an average ammonia removal of 98.8 ± 0.2%. Total nitrogen removal varied from a low of 76 ± 1.2% to 88.7 ± 0.3% and showed a positive correlation with increases in anoxic HRT from 1 to 4 hours. High anaerobic HRTs (3 hours) slightly decreased nitrogen removal. Phosphorus removal varied from 40.3 ± 2.2% to 81.7 ± 0.8% and showed strong positive correlation with increases in anaerobic HRT from 0.5 to 2 hours and a negative correlation with increases in anoxic HRT. In general, phosphorus removal appears to be more sensitive to changes in HRT than nitrogen removal. Optimization of the system requires balancing the conflicting needs of higher anoxic HRT for nitrogen removal but negative impact on phosphorus removal and higher anaerobic HRT for phosphorus removal. A prediction model was developed to estimate nitrogen and phosphorus removal given the anaerobic and anoxic HRT. In addition, a study was conducted to determine the influence of various SRTs on biomass phosphorus concentrations and bacterial floc sizes in an aerobic MBR system. Phosphorus uptake by the biomass increased with increased SRT from 10 to 50 days and decreased from 50 to 75 days. This finding has implications for the operation of aerobic MBR systems at high SRTs. A statistical analysis indicated that the bacterial floc diameters were statistically similar from 10 to 50 day SRT and significantly larger for 75 day SRT. The results did not follow the trend of decreasing floc size with increased SRT reported in other studies, although the floc sizes were generally similar to those reported in other studies