How Women Vote: Exploring the Relationship Gender and Party Affiliation

The overwhelming majority of women identify with the Democratic party and vote for Democrats. There are a few exceptions to this generalization, which shows that gender is only a single factor in determining political identification, thus allowing the Republican party to still hold a significant portion of the female electorate

Tetratic Order in the Phase Behavior of a Hard-Rectangle System

Previous Monte Carlo investigations by Wojciechowski \emph{et al.} have found two unusual phases in two-dimensional systems of anisotropic hard particles: a tetratic phase of four-fold symmetry for hard squares [Comp. Methods in Science and Tech., 10: 235-255, 2004], and a nonperiodic degenerate solid phase for hard-disk dimers [Phys. Rev. Lett., 66: 3168-3171, 1991]. In this work, we study a system of hard rectangles of aspect ratio two, i.e., hard-square dimers (or dominos), and demonstrate that it exhibits a solid phase with both of these unusual properties. The solid shows tetratic, but not nematic, order, and it is nonperiodic having the structure of a random tiling of the square lattice with dominos. We obtain similar results with both a classical Monte Carlo method using true rectangles and a novel molecular dynamics algorithm employing rectangles with rounded corners. It is remarkable that such simple convex two-dimensional shapes can produce such rich phase behavior. Although we have not performed exact free-energy calculations, we expect that the random domino tiling is thermodynamically stabilized by its degeneracy entropy, well-known to be $1.79k_{B}$ per particle from previous studies of the dimer problem on the square lattice. Our observations are consistent with a KTHNY two-stage phase transition scenario with two continuous phase transitions, the first from isotropic to tetratic liquid, and the second from tetratic liquid to solid.Comment: Submitted for publicatio

Analysis of Factors Affecting Farmers’ Willingness to Adopt Switchgrass Production

In the United States, biomass is the largest source of renewable energy accounting for over 3 percent of the energy consumed domestically and is currently the only source for liquid, renewable, transportation fuels. Continued development of biomass as a renewable energy source is being driven in large part by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which mandates that by 2022 at least 36 billion gallons of fuel ethanol be produced, with at least 16 billion gallons being derived from cellulose, hemi-cellulose, or lignin. However, the market for cellulosic biofuels is still under development. As such, little is known about producer response to feedstock prices paid for dedicated energy crops. While there have been some studies done on factors that determine farmers’ willingness to produce switchgrass, these have been very regional in nature. This study will provide information regarding potential switchgrass adoption by agricultural producers in twelve southeastern states. The objectives of this research are 1) to determine the likelihood of farmers growing switchgrass as a biomass feedstock and the acres they would be willing to devote to switchgrass production and 2) to evaluate some of the factors that are likely to influence these decisions, including the price of switchgrass.Switchgrass, Farmer Adoption, Crop Production/Industries, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q12, Q16,

A Sampler from the New Historical Atlas of Maine: Religion in Maine

This article offers an example of work-in-progress on a significant project to develop an historical atlas of Maine. Although an article depicting religious settlement in Maine may seem far removed from the policy analyses typically featured in the journal, religious participation is a fundamental aspect of civic engagement in the United States. Thus, we feature here a glimpse of Maine’s religious heritage. We also present Maine Policy Review’s first full color pullout, which is intended to give readers a visual as well as textual portrait of religious settlement in the Kennebec Valley and Portland through the first half of the nineteenth century