State tax revenue growth and volatility

Macroeconomic conditions and tax structures jointly determine the growth and volatility of state tax revenues. Since a variety of economic conditions exist among states, government policymakers should carefully anticipate and consider the possible impacts of proposed tax reform and revenue enhancements on the long-term growth and volatility of their unique tax revenue portfolios. In the short run, states generally cannot alter the volatility and growth rates of their economies. They can, however, change the composition of their tax portfolios to minimize the effects of the business cycle on their fiscal health. For this reason, state officials need to consider the natural tendencies of their economies when formulating tax policy. For example, states with volatile economies might want tax portfolios that minimize the impact of national macroeconomic trends; those with stable economies might consider adopting more aggressive tax portfolios that optimize their tax revenue growth/volatility combinations.Taxation ; State finance ; Revenue

Field efficacy evaluation and post-treatment contamination risk assessment of an ultraviolet disinfection and safe storage system.

Inconsistent use of household water treatment and safe storage (HWTS) systems reduces their potential health benefits. Ultraviolet (UV) disinfection is more convenient than some existing HWTS systems, but it does not provide post-treatment residual disinfectant, which could leave drinking water vulnerable to recontamination. In this paper, using as-treated analyses, we report on the field efficacy of a UV disinfection system at improving household drinking water quality in rural Mexico. We further assess the risk of post-treatment contamination from the UV system, and develop a process-based model to better understand household risk factors for recontamination. This study was part of a larger cluster-randomized stepped wedge trial, and the results complement previously published population-level results of the intervention on diarrheal prevalence and water quality. Based on the presence of Escherichia coli (proportion of households with ≥ 1 E. coli/100 mL), we estimated a risk difference of -28.0% (95% confidence interval (CI): -33.9%, -22.1%) when comparing intervention to control households; -38.6% (CI: -48.9%, -28.2%) when comparing post- and pre-intervention results; and -37.1% (CI: -45.2%, -28.9%) when comparing UV disinfected water to alternatives within the household. We found substantial increases in post-treatment E. coli contamination when comparing samples from the UV system effluent (5.0%) to samples taken from the storage container (21.1%) and drinking glasses (26.0%). We found that improved household infrastructure, additional extractions from the storage container, additional time from when the storage container was filled, and increased experience of the UV system operator were associated with reductions in post-treatment contamination. Our results suggest that the UV system is efficacious at improving household water quality when used as intended. Promoting safe storage habits is essential for an effective UV system dissemination. The drinking glass appears to represent a small but significant source of recontamination that is likely to impact all HWTS systems

The Prevention of Blisters on the Hands of Horizontal Bar Gymnasts by the Use of Cryotherapy

A conditioned pair of hands, free of blisters or tears, is vital to a gymnast\u27s performance. If the hands should become blistered or torn, the gymnast will not be able to work to capacity. One of the six events in men\u27s gymnastics is performing on the horizontal bar. Work on the bar wears heavily on the gymnast\u27 s hands, considerably more so than any or all of the other apparatus combined. Many different preventive measures have been tried in an attempt to prevent blisters from forming. Such measures include the use of chalk, wicks, and tape. Their use has been reasonably successful for some gymnasts but, unfortunately, has proved inadequate for the majority. The idea behind using chalk, wicks, and tape is to eliminate as much friction as possible between the horizontal bar and the gymnast\u27 s hands. Admittedly, all of the friction cannot be eliminated, or the gymnast would not be able to maintain his grip on the horizontal bar. On the other hand, if the friction is not controlled, it will cause the gymnast\u27 s hands to heat up and may cause blisters to form. The old adage that practice makes perfect would seem to be very appropriate to this study. If a gymnast has any hope of becoming proficient on the horizonta1 bar, he must expect to engage in arduous hours of practice. For many aspiring gymnasts, however, extended practices become impossible due to the extreme pain caused by the blisters which inevitably seem to form. In the past many coaches, trainers, and gymnasts have advocated the use of cold water baths and cold sprays in an attempt to prevent blisters from forming. However, inadequate research has been completed on this subject to completely substantiate the use of cryotherapy as a blister preventive measure for the hands--thus the writer\u27s interest in this study

The Relationships between Student Veterans\u27 Marital Status, Parental Status, Military Service, Program of Study and Their Perceived Levels of Academic Self-Efficacy

The purpose of this quantitative predictive correlational study is to identify predictive indicators of perceived levels of academic self-efficacy for student veterans enrolled in Alabama community colleges and seeks to determine if the predictor variables of marital status, parental status, military service, and program of study have any relationship to their perceived levels of academic self-efficacy. It is noted by several studies that having low levels of academic self-efficacy is a significant contributing factor leading to student attrition. One way to mitigate this growing problem is to identify key elements that may predict a student\u27s level of academic self-efficacy. This study uses the SELF-A as the instrument and analyzes results taken from N=123 student veterans attending community college in Alabama. The students were identified through ACCS student enrollment records and were asked through email to complete the survey. This non-experimental predictive correlational study looks for relationships between several nontraditional student factors and students’ perceived levels of academic self-efficacy. The study found that both marital and parental status had a significance of p=.000, indicating that both variables were significant predictors of academic self-efficacy. While no other variables were found to be significant, further research that focuses on separating the variables of health science and career technical education (CTE) within the Program of Study variable would help to determine if students who typically enroll in CTE programs are more likely to exhibit low levels of academic self-efficacy than those in health sciences and academic transfer

Some properties of meta-stable supersymmetry-breaking vacua in Wess-Zumino models

As a contribution to the current efforts to understand supersymmetry-breaking by meta-stable vacua, we study general properties of supersymmetry-breaking vacua in Wess-Zumino models: we show that tree-level degeneracy is generic, explore some constraints on the couplings and present a simple model with a long-lived meta-stable vacuum, ending with some generalizations to non-renormalizable models.Comment: 12 page

Correlations, Fluctuations, and Flow Measurements from the STAR Experiment

New measurements of short-range and long-range two-particle correlations, azimuthal anisotropy, and event-by-event fluctuations from the STAR experiment for sqrt{s_{NN}}= 130 and 200 GeV Au+Au collisions are summarized. Striking evidence is presented for large, non-statistical fluctuations in mean transverse momentum. Descriptions of the data in terms of phenomenological source function models are also presented.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, Conference proceedin