Courting Prom Night Voters

A creature of state law, voter registration is a point of national contention and a subject that frequents partisan debate. Federal legislation—meant to unsew a patchwork quilt of discriminatory practices against voters—complicated the voter registration process. States have changed their voter registration laws in the wake of Supreme Court opinions and prolonged litigation. But an opportunity endures for states to take further accountability for their younger voting-age populations without more federal intervention. By amending their election codes to require that high school graduates choose whether to register to vote, states can act as legislative laboratories and court their prom night voters to guarantee the fundamental right to vote

Assessment of UV light for the treatment of cyanotoxins in small-scale drinking water treatment systems

Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) are commonly caused by the rapid growth of cyanobacteria in fresh waterways, which many people rely on for drinking water. When a HAB occurs, a variety of cyanotoxins can be produced and released into sources of drinking water, which can make people sick or die if not properly treated. Two of the most common toxins are microcystin-LR (MC-LR) and anatoxin-a (A-a), for which the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a maximum allowable concentration of 1 µg/L in drinking water to avoid health risks. The recommendation for maximum allowable concentration was calculated specifically for microcystins, but is currently used as a limit for all cyanotoxins due to a lack of research on other toxin varieties. Treatment of drinking water to remove cyanotoxins requires special knowledge and equipment that may not be available to people who do not have access to a community-scale water system and use a small-scale treatment system such as a slow-sand filter. The lack of special training and equipment leaves members of underserved communities, such as the Hoopa and Yurok tribes in Humboldt County, at risk of drinking untreated water contaminated with cyanotoxins. The purpose of this project was to assess the effectiveness of using ultra-violate (UV) light for the treatment of two of the most prevalent cyanotoxins (MC-LR and A-a) in a small-scale drinking water treatment system. MC-LR and A-a were each dissolved separately in solutions of Nanopure water and water from the Klamath River after being treated by a slow-sand filter at concentrations of 1, 10, 100, 1000, and 5000 µg/L. Each concentration of toxin was then exposed to UV light focused at a wavelength of 254 nm. Doses of UV light applied were: 60, 750, 1500, and 4000 mJ/cm2. A successful UV dose would lower MC-LR and A-a concentrations to below 1 µg/L, which means a 4-log removal for the highest concentrations. The concentration of MC-LR and A-a in each sample was determined using ELISA test kits, which are specific to microcystin congeners and anatoxin congeners, respectively. The work reported here showed that the highest doses of UV light applied could not achieve even a 2-log removal and showed a pattern of diminishing returns between 1500 and 4000 mJ/cm2. When the starting concentration of toxins was 10 µg/L or less, then the highest dose of UV light was sufficient to degrade the cyanotoxins below the WHO guideline. The results of this study suggest that UV treatment may require prohibitively high doses to be relied upon for treatment of cyanotoxins on its own, but may be an effective polishing step after some other primary treatment has occurred. Further testing is required to find the optimal UV dose to provide treatment in a small-scale drinking water treatment system

Foraging behavior of Northern Bobwhites in relation to resource availability

The Northern Bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) is a popular game bird that inhabits pine grasslands throughout the Southeast. This study used experimental manipulation of food resources to investigate how resource availability influenced foraging behavior and space use of bobwhite in a southern pine-grassland forest system. Radio marked bobwhite were monitored to determine daily space use, movements, and daily and seasonal ranges. I observed no difference in daily (P = 0.06) or seasonal home range size (P = 0.55) between feeding treatments. However, dispersion in daily locations of radio-marked bobwhite differed among feed levels (P \u3c 0.001). I assessed effects of food availability on diet and total body lipids of birds harvested from each treatment during February. Although bobwhite extensively utilized supplemental feed when available, energy value of pre-roosting crop contents did not differ among treatments (P = 0.41), but total body lipids differed between feed treatments and years (P \u3c 0.001)

Foraging behavior of Northern Bobwhites in relation to resource availability

The Northern Bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) is a popular game bird that inhabits pine grasslands throughout the Southeast. This study used experimental manipulation of food resources to investigate how resource availability influenced foraging behavior and space use of bobwhite in a southern pine-grassland forest system. Radio marked bobwhite were monitored to determine daily space use, movements, and daily and seasonal ranges. I observed no difference in daily (P = 0.06) or seasonal home range size (P = 0.55) between feeding treatments. However, dispersion in daily locations of radio-marked bobwhite differed among feed levels (P \u3c 0.001). I assessed effects of food availability on diet and total body lipids of birds harvested from each treatment during February. Although bobwhite extensively utilized supplemental feed when available, energy value of pre-roosting crop contents did not differ among treatments (P = 0.41), but total body lipids differed between feed treatments and years (P \u3c 0.001)

Challenger J Hockey Prosthesis Final Design Report

The content of this report is withheld as confidential. QL+ is the owner of the intellectual property created throughout the duration of this project. Dr. Tom Mase (mechanical engineering) maintains a full copy of the report and intends to disseminate it upon completion of the necessary intellectual property protection measures

Age-Based Property Tax Exemptions in Georgia

Many local jurisdictions offer property tax exemptions or similar concessions to older citizens, especially from the school portion of the tax bill. Such exemptions can be controversial. This report is a step toward informing (but surely not settling!) such debates in Georgia. First, we apprise readers of a new resource, the Georgia Property Tax Database, housed at Georgia State University’s Fiscal Research Center. Second, we describe the patterns of the data, documenting the kinds of jurisdictions offering age-targeted exemptions and the steady increase in their prevalence and coverage over time. Third, we show how these data can be used to estimate the fiscal impacts of such exemptions on local budgets using static scoring. Fourth, we show how the data can be used to estimate the effect of these exemptions on the migratory and location decisions of older households. Finally, we include an age-based homestead exemption estimate calculator in the appendix