Legislative Passage of Marijuana and PAC Contributions: An Analysis of Illinois and New York Political Donations

The growing prominence of Political Action Committees (PACs) calls for the analysis of their impact on state legislatures and the passing of bills. This thesis sought to determine the relationship between PACs and the state legislatures of New York and Illinois as it relates to the passage of statutes that legalized recreational marijuana. This was done by collecting contribution disclosures from the individuals who voted on the bills and finding the aggregate amounts given to a candidate by in-state and out-of-state PACs and non-PACs. Then the data was subjected to a Pearson Correlation analysis. If the Pearson Correlation indicated a certain kind of contributor was significant then it underwent a simple regression analysis. Accurately illustrating the relationship between PAC contributions and policy outcomes allows the furtherance of our understanding of how money as speech can impact American society

Legislative Passage of Marijuana and PAC Contributions: An Analysis of Illinois and New York Political Donations

The growing prominence of Political Action Committees (PACs) calls for the analysis of their impact on state legislatures and the passing of bills. This thesis sought to determine the relationship between PACs and the state legislatures of New York and Illinois as it relates to the passage of statutes that legalized recreational marijuana. This was done by collecting contribution disclosures from the individuals who voted on the bills and finding the aggregate amounts given to a candidate by in-state and out-of-state PACs and non-PACs. Then the data was subjected to a Pearson Correlation analysis. If the Pearson Correlation indicated a certain kind of contributor was significant then it underwent a simple regression analysis. Accurately illustrating the relationship between PAC contributions and policy outcomes allows the furtherance of our understanding of how money as speech can impact American society

Theoretical investigation of the scope of sequential ligand tuning using a bifunctional scorpionate tris(1,2,4-triazolyl)borate-based architecture

The donor properties of a series of tripodal mixed N-donor/carbene ligands derived through sequential alkylation of hydrotris(1,2,4-triazolyl)borate have been investigated by density functional theory (DFT) methods. The structures of complexes of the form [Mo(L)(CO)3]- were optimized (L = [HB(1,2,4-triazolyl)n(1,2,4-triazol-5-ylidene)3-n]- (n = 0 – 3), hydrotris(pyrazolyl)borate, hydrotris(3,5-dimethylpyrazolyl)borate and hydrotris(imidazol-2-ylidene)borate) and nuCO frequencies for these complexes and partial charges of their Mo(CO)3 fragments were determined. Results show that ligand donation is highly tunable when compared to similar experimentally known ligands with a shift in the symmetric nuCO stretching mode of -39 cm -1 on going from the tris(1,2,4-triazolyl)borate complexes to that of the triscarbene hydrotris(1,2,4-triazol-5-ylidene) and an increase in partial charge (distributed multipole analysis) of the Mo(CO)3 fragment from -0.23 to -0.48

Good for Business? Connecticut's Paid Sick Leave Law

On July 1, 2011, Connecticut became the first state in the nation to pass legislation requiring many employers to allow workers to earn paid sick leave; the law took effect six monthslater. It brought paid sick leave to large numbers of part-time workers in the state for the first time, especially in industries like hospitality and retail. The law also prohibits employersfrom penalizing covered workers who take paid sick leave, an important protection. The concerns articulated by many business associations that the law would impose heavy burdens on employers and invite worker abuse turn out to have been misplaced; instead the impact of the new law on business has been modest. One reason for this is that the coverage of the statute is limited, affecting only establishments with 50 or more workers and excluding manufacturing businesses as well as nationally chartered non-profit organizations. In short, this path-breaking legislation has brought paid sick leave to tens of thousands of Connecticut workers, with modest effects or none at all on the state's businesses.This report examines the experiences of Connecticut employers with the state's paid sick leave law. Between June and September 2013, a year and a half after the law went into effect, we conducted a survey of 251 Connecticut employers covered by the new law using a size stratified random sample. In addition, we conducted on-site interviews with managers, using a convenience sample of 15 covered organizations in the state, to assess the impact of the new law in more detail.The largest increases in paid sick leave coverage after the law went into effect were in health,education and social services; hospitality; and retail. Part-time workers, rarely covered before the law took effect, benefited disproportionately from its passage. Few employers reported abuse of the new law, and many noted positive benefits such as improved morale and reductions in the spread of illness in the workplace.Most employers reported a modest impact or no impact of the law on their costs or busines soperations, and they typically found that the administrative burden was minimal. Finally, a year and a half after its implementation, more than three-quarters of surveyed employers expressed support for the earned paid sick leave law

Review of \u3cem\u3eSave Our Unions\u3c/em\u3e. Steve Early. Reviewed by Luke Elliott-Negri

Steve Early, Save Our Unions. Monthly Review Press (2013). $19.95 (paperback), 344 pages

Cardiovascular health, stress and sleep of shift working police officers : a physiological assessment

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Science.Police officers have been reported to experience a high incidence of chronic health issues (Kales et al., 2009; Hartley et al., 2011), which present prematurely in an otherwise healthy population (Bonneau & Brown, 1995; Barron, 2010). Shift work has also been associated with an increased prevalence of cardiovascular, stress and sleep disorders (Åkerstedt & Wright, 2009; Pan et al., 2011; Jermendy et al., 2012; Zimberg et al., 2012; Hamta et al., 2017), attributed primarily to its propensity for circadian rhythm dysfunction (Shen et al., 2006; Gamble et al., 2011). However, contention exists as to whether shift work has a direct effect upon blood pressure (BP) regulation (Hublin et al., 2010; Sfreddo et al., 2010; Ohlander et al., 2015). The present study explores the associations between shift work and the stress, sleep and cardiovascular health of general duties police officers, as well as comparing within subgroups based on sex, shift and occupational rank. Recruited participants were added to an existing database (Elliott & Lal, 2016) (n=100) to produce a total sample of N=255 general duties police officers. Endorsed by the New South Wales (NSW) Police Force and Police Association of NSW, observations were made across nine Local Area Commands in a cross-sectional model. The experimental protocol involved BP measurements, taken before and after their regular twelve hour shift, in combination with a comprehensive questionnaire battery. Participants completed the following tools, including the Lifestyle Appraisal Questionnaire (Craig et al., 1996), Epworth Sleepiness Scale (Johns, 1991), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (Buysse et al., 1989), Checklist of Individual Strength (Vercoulen et al., 1994), Fatigue Severity Scale (Krupp et al., 1989), Ways of Coping Questionnaire (Folkman et al., 1986) and Survey of Shiftworkers (Folkard et al., 1995). Systolic BP was found to significantly increase (p<0.05) after shift work for the total sample, female officers, senior constables and police working a day shift, although these changes were relatively small. A substantial number of significant associations were also identified with BP, even after accounting for the covariates of age, sex, waist-hip ratio and lifestyle risk factors. Subjects’ perception of stress was within normal ranges for the majority, likely due to the significant associations found with preferable coping style prevalence. By comparison, poor sleep quality and severe fatigue was found to predominate within the sample, almost irrespective of sex, shift or occupational rank. Finally, many significant differences were also found amongst police officers when compared between the aforementioned subgroups. Based on these initial findings, further insight has been made into the detrimental effects shift work may have upon the cardiovascular and sleep health of individuals. Future research must incorporate more physiological measurements, as well as assess the efficacy of suggested interventional programmes which seek to ameliorate fatigue and bolster coping mechanisms. Not only would this reduce potential accidents and associated costs for the NSW Police Force, but most importantly also improve the occupational health and safety of the global shift working community at large

Finite Presentability of Brin-Higman-Thompson Monoids via Free J\'onsson-Tarski Algebras

We show that the total monoids totnM_{k,1} introduced by Birget(and their multi-rooted generalisations), which extend the Brin-Higman-Thompson groups, can be realised as the endomorphism monoids of higher dimensional J\'onnson-Tarski algebras. We use this representation to show that they are finitely presented.Comment: 18 page

Sufficient conditions for a group of homeomorphisms of the Cantor set to be two-generated

Let $\mathfrak{C}$ be some Cantor space. We study groups of homeomorphisms of $\mathfrak{C}$ which are vigorous, or, which are flawless, where we introduce both of these terms here. We say a group $G\leq \operatorname{Homeo}(\mathfrak{C})$ is $vigorous$ if for any clopen set $A$ and proper clopen subsets $B$ and $C$ of $A$ there is $\gamma \in G$ in the pointwise-stabiliser of $\mathfrak{C}\backslash A$ with $B\gamma\subseteq C$. Being vigorous is similar in impact to some of the conditions proposed by Epstein in his proof that certain groups of homeomorphisms of spaces have simple commutator subgroups (and/or related conditions, as proposed in some of the work of Matui or of Ling). A non-trivial group $G\leq \operatorname{Homeo}(\mathfrak{C})$ is $flawless$ if for all $k$ and $w$ a non-trivial freely reduced product expression on $k$ variables (including inverse symbols), a particular subgroup $w(G)_\circ$ of the verbal subgroup $w(G)$ is the whole group. It is true, for instance, that flawless groups are both perfect and lawless. We show: 1) simple vigorous groups are either two-generated by torsion elements, or not finitely generated, 2) vigorous groups are simple if and only if they are flawless, and, 3) the class of vigorous simple subgroups of $\operatorname{Homeo}(\mathfrak{C})$ is fairly broad (it contains many well known groups such as the commutator subgroups of the Higman-Thompson groups $G_{n,r}$, the Brin-Thompson groups $nV$, R\"{o}ver's group $V(\Gamma)$, and others of Nekrashevych's `simple groups of dynamical origin', and, the class is closed under various natural constructions).Comment: 29 page