The Intermountain West today: A regional survey

What does it mean to live in the Intermountain West today? What issues are most and least important to the region’s residents? Do Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah have a collective identity or are state-level differences too great? Is there an identifiable Intermountain West personality? Today we will present the results of a unique survey that attempts to answer these questions

American political affiliation, 2003–43: a cohort component projection

The recent rise and stability in American party identification has focused interest on the long-term dynamics of party bases. Liberal commentators cite immigration and youth as forces which will produce a natural Democratic advantage in the future while conservative writers highlight the importance of high Republican fertility in securing Republican growth. These concerns foreground the neglect of demography within political science. This paper addresses this omission by conducting the first ever cohort component projection of American partisan populations to 2043 based on survey and census data. A number of scenarios are modeled, but, on current trends, we predict that American partisanship will shift much less than the nation’s ethnic composition because the parties’ age structures are similar. Still, our projections find that the Democrats gain two to three percentage points from the Republicans by 2043, mainly through immigration, though Republican fertility may redress the balance in the very long term

Rural Competitiveness: Results of the 1996 Rural Manufacturing Survey

Establishments in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan locations are surprisingly similar in their adoption of new technologies, worker skill requirements, use of government programs and technical assistance, exports, and sources of financing, according to the results of a nationwide survey of 3,909 manufacturing businesses. The most widespread concern of both metro and nonmetro businesses appears to be with quality of labor. Survey respondents report rapidly increasing skill requirements, and many report problems finding qualified workers. Quality of local labor is the most frequently cited problem associated with nonmetro business locations. Access to credit, transportation, and telecommunications infrastructure is a problem of secondary importance for both metro and nonmetro respondents. Rural communities face a considerable challenge in supplying workers with needed skills. The fastest-growing skill requirements -- computer, interpersonal/teamwork, and problem-solving skills -- are not central to traditional academic instruction.rural manufacturing, sample survey, worker skills, manufacturing location, credit availability, technology adoption, Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Americas Electoral Future The Coming Generational Transformation

A report building on a previous 2018 report issued by the authors as part of the States of Change project. The 2018 report examined various future presidential election scenarios (from 2020 through 2036) that could occur due to demographic changes at the state and national level over the next several decades. This revised 2020 report updates the scenarios with new demographic projections based on the latest census data, explicitly incorporates gender into the projections and scenarios for the first time, and examines the likely evolution of generational cohorts over the next several decades.

America’s new swing region: The political demography and geography of the Mountain West

The 2008 Presidential election showed the political importance of the Mountain West, America\u27s new swing region. Changing demographics and shifting geographical voting patterns have put this region in play between the two parties and competition is sure to be fierce for many years to come. This paper examines the political demography and geography of states in the Mountain West in anticipation of this November’s elections and the 2012 Presidential election

Trust in Government in the Trump Era: A Comprehensive Study of U.S. Public Opinion on the Federal Government Under the Trump Administration

The election and presidency of Donald Trump has upended American politics in numerous ways. For his most ardent supporters, President Trump's efforts to change things in Washington; to deliver nationalist economic policies on trade, jobs, and immigration; and to advance culturally conservative rhetoric and racial appeals are worth the break with past presidential behavior and national unity. For his detractors, the actions of Trump and his administration represent a serious abrogation of presidential norms and mark a dangerous shift away from pluralist democracy and toward more authoritarian nationalism. Many other voters with less intense feelings about Trump are just trying to put the whole spectacle out of their minds and to find some semblance of normalcy in a politically fractured environment. For those who study public attitudes about government itself, the Trump presidency raises serious questions about whether the United States is experiencing real, long-lasting changes in voters' attitudes toward government, or if Americans are reacting in intense but more typical ways that are consistent with past trends. To examine these issues in more detail, the Center for American Progress, along with its colleagues at Hart Research Associates, designed a comprehensive national survey to measure basic beliefs about government and specific voter attitudes about the Trump administration. The online survey of 1,500 registered voters nationally was conducted March 19–25, 2018, and has an overall margin of error of +/- 2.6 percent. This study builds upon a major public opinion study that CAP and Hart conducted in 2015, which examined public attitudes about government and explored a variety of proposals for improving the performance and representation of the government in Washington. The results of that research are summarized in the unpublished May 2016 report, "Of the People, By the People, For the People? A National Study of Public Trust and Confidence in Government."1Based on the results of the current study and comparisons with earlier responses from the 2015 research and other publicly available data, we believe that reactions to the Trump administration represent a genuine break with past public views of government in significant ways. Most importantly, the partisan divisions on measures of trust and confidence in government found in earlier research are now fully solidified. Many American voters today are not basing their evaluations of government on objective criteria that weigh policy choices and overall performance in a neutral manner. Rather, in-party and out-party voters are reacting in entirely divergent ways to the government itself based primarily upon who is leading the government and which party is in control

Indexação e recuperação da informação com função de crença

Um modelo usando funções de crença para indexar e recuperar documentos á proposto. Tal modelo é baseado em um vocabulário controlado, semelhante a um tesauro, e na frequência dos termos em cada documento. Cada descritor nesse vocabulário é um termo escolhido entre seus sinônimos. Um descritor pode ter um subconjunto de descritores mais gerais, um subconjunto de descritores mais específicos e um subconjunto de descritores relacionados. Assim, descritores não são mutuamente exclusivos e modelos probabilísticos convencionais não são adequados. Contudo, uma função de crença pode ser definida sobre um subconjunto dos descritores atômicos. Taís descritores são aqueles sem termos mais específicos  (denotados por Ω). Subconjuntos de Ω  podem ser vistos corno temos mais gerais, ou como termos relacionados. Desde modo, uma função de crença sobre Ω pode estimar o conteúdo semântico de um documento. Uma consulta ponderada (à base de documentos) pode ser vista como outra função de crença. Desde que ambas as funções são definidas sobre Ω, é possível computar o grau de condordância ente elas. Equivalentemente, é possível determinar o grau de concordância entre a consulta  e os documentos e ordená-los segundo esse valor. Palavras-chave Indexação automática. Ordenação de documentos. Recuperação da informação. Modelo de recuperação. Teoria de função de crença.Modelo com  função de crença. Modelo baseado em frequência. Relevância de documentos. Information indexing and retrieval with a belief function model Abstract A belief function model for automatic indexing and ranking of documents with respect to a given user query is proposed here. The model is based on a controlled vocabulary, like a thesaurus, and on term frequency in each document. Each descriptor in this volcabulary is a term among its synonyms chosen to be the index term. A descriptor can have a subset of broader descriptors, a subset of narrower descritors, and a subset of related descritors. Thus descriptors are not mutually exclusive and naive probabilistic models are not adequate. However, a belief function can still be definied over a subset of atomic descriptors. These atomic descriptors are those without narrower terms (denoted Ω). Subsets of Ω can be viewed as broader terms, or as related terms. Hence, the belief function over Ω can estimate the semantic content of a document A weighted user query can bem seen as another belief function too. Since both functions are definied over Ω, we can compute the conflict between them. The inverse of this computed conflict is a measure of agreement between the document and the user query. Here we propose that the set of documents be ranked by their agreement with the given user query. Keywords  Automatic indexing; Ranking of documents.Information retrieval.Retrieval model.Belief function theory.Belief function model. Frequency based model. Relevance of documents

Students’ perception of campus sustainability in a Brazilian university

Over recent decades, higher education institutions (HEIs) have been recognised as ideal leaders in supporting the transition to sustainable societies. Leading by example, they have been embarking upon committing themselves to sustainability by incorporating sustainable development practices (SDP) into their integrated management system. As a major stakeholders group, students play a significant role in moving this agenda forward. This study aims to develop an assessment framework to evaluate the students’ perception of campus sustainability, based on a Brazilian HEI case study. A survey was assembled using five demographic questions, three dichotomous questions, and 43 items resorting to a 1–5 Likert scale and administered to a sample of 207 undergraduate technology students. Through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, a reliable scale emerges with 31 items grouped into eight dimensions: Waste; Emissions/Procurement; Energy; Quality of Life in the Workplace (QLW); Fauna and Flora; Institutional Framework; Education/Research; and, Water. The dimensions explain 68.50% of the total model variance. The lowest-evaluated dimension was Emissions/Procurement, with a 2.26 average value, followed by water (2.27) and Energy (2.28); all three of these were below the scale’s midpoint. The best-evaluated dimension was Education/Research, with an average of 3.30. This research provides an insight into HEI students’ sustainability perception and into how the university decision-makers could improve the sustainable practices to increase the students’ engagement.- (undefined

The effect of elastic abdominal binder use on respiratory function on persons with high spinal cord injury at orthostatic position

Introduction : Spinal cord injury causes respiratory muscles paralysis, especially in high thoracic paraplegia and tetraplegia with injury above or right on the sixth thoracic segment, and also biomechanics, volumes, capacities and respiratory pressures changes in affected people. The elastic abdominal binder provides a mechanical support for respiratory function treatment, assisting with abdominal restraint and abdominal compliance reduction while at orthostatic position. Objective : To verify the elastic abdominal binder effect on the respiratory function of people with spinal cord injuries during standing position with the help of orthostatic table, from vertical angle position of 60° and 90°. Method : The study included 56 people suffering from spinal cord injury with motor level above or right on the sixth thoracic segment. They were randomly divided into four distinct groups regarding the use or not of the binder and different inclinations of the orthostatic table during the evaluation procedure. The measured outcomes were vital capacity, tidal volume, inspiratory and expiratory pressure and oxygen saturation. The descriptive analysis presented according to average and standard deviation or median and interquartile. For the outcomes analysis of the five evaluations, the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) of two factors with repeated measures was used. Statistical significance was set at 5%. Results : The values obtained from respiratory parameters showed no statistical significance regarding the elastic abdominal binder intervention nor on the angle of the standing position. Conclusion : There was no contrasting effect regarding the use of the binder among the evaluated people, therefore it should not be nominated as a standard procedure in the treatment of spinal cord injury at orthostatic position. However, this procedure should not be absolute contraindicated, thus its effect has not demonstrated any harm to participants. Introdução : A lesão da medula espinhal ocasiona paralisia dos músculos respiratórios, principalmente na tetraplegia e paraplegia torácica alta, com lesão acima ou igual ao sextosegmento torácico, e assim mudanças na biomecânica, volumes, capacidades e pressões respiratórias das pessoas acometidas. A cinta abdominal elástica proporciona um suporte mecânico ao tratamento e cuidados com as alterações da função respiratória destas pessoas, podendo auxiliar na contenção abdominal, reduzindo a complacência abdominal durante a posição ortostática. Objetivo : Verificar os efeitos que a cinta abdominal elástica proporciona à função respiratória das pessoas com lesão medular posicionadas em ortostatismo com auxílio da mesa ortostática, a partir da posição a 60° e 90° de angulação vertical. Método : Participaram deste estudo 56 pessoas acometidas por lesão medular com nível motor igual ou acima do sexto segmento torácico, divididos aleatoriamente em quatro grupos distintos em relação ao uso ou não da cinta e angulações da mesa ortostática durante o procedimento de avaliação. Os desfechos mensurados foram capacidade vital, volume corrente, pressão inspiratória e expiratória máxima e saturação de oxigênio. A análise descritiva apresentou-se por meio de média e desvio padrão ou mediana e interquartis. Para análise dos desfechos nos cinco momentos avaliados utilizou-se a Análise de Variância (ANOVA) de dois fatores com medidas repetidas. A significância estatística foi estipulada em 5%. Resultados : Os valores encontrados para os parâmetros respiratórios avaliados demonstraram que não houve significância estatística em relação à intervenção cinta abdominal elástica e à angulação do ortostatismo. Conclusão : Não houve efeito diferencial em relação ao uso da cinta nas pessoas avaliadas, não podendo ser indicada como um procedimento padrão para as abordagens de tratamento na posição ortostática na lesão medular espinhal. Em contrapartida, este procedimento não deve ser uma contraindicação absoluta, pois, seu efeito não demonstrou malefícios aos participantes

Sex and body mass index impact on digit circumference for Leeds Dactylitis Index calculation

OBJECTIVES: To estimate digit circumference and the impact of sex and body mass index (BMI) for the calculation of the Leeds Dactylitis Index (LDI) in psoriatic arthritis (PsA) patients with bilateral dactylitis. METHODS: Digit circumference of the hands and the foot were measured with a dactylometer and were studied according to sex and BMI (divided in 4 weight categories) in healthy Portuguese subjects, using Student's t-test and One-way ANOVA, respectively. The effect size of sex and BMI were calculated using Cohen's d test and Eta squared, respectively. Multiple linear regression was used to calculate the effect of sex and BMI, as well as their interaction, to create a formula to predict digit circumference. RESULTS: Fifty-nine participants (33 women, 26 men) with a mean BMI of 24.8 were included. Men's mean digit circumferences were statistically higher than those of women (p<0.001), with a large sex effect size in most of the digits. Differences in the mean circumference between the four BMI categories were statistically significant (p<0.05) for all digits, with a large BMI effect size. Sex and BMI were independent variables to predict mean digit circumference (p<0.001). A new tool (based on regression analysis) allowing to estimate the circumference of digits for males and females of different BMIs is presented. CONCLUSIONS: Our data allows the calculation of digit circumference for males and females of different BMIs in the Portuguese population; and shows that BMI influences digital circumference supporting BMI inclusion in LDI references tables.publishersversionpublishe