FROM RECONSTRUCTION TO DECONSTRUCTION: UNDERMINING BLACK LANDOWNERSHIP, POLITICAL INDEPENDENCE, AND COMMUNITY THROUGH PARTITION SALES OF TENANCIES IN COMMON

The pattern of landownership in the rural African American community represents the mirror opposite of the trend in black land acquisition 100 years ago at the dawn of the twentieth century. Remarkable levels of acquisition have been replaced by extraordinary levels of land loss in the past half-century or so. Today, African American farm owner-operators on little more than 2 million acres of land in the United States. Land loss in rural African American communities far exceeds farmland lost by white farmers. Even American Indian landowners-a group whose current land base represents but a fraction of its ancestral landholdings-have fared better than rural African American landowners over the past 50 to 60 years. This paper focuses on one of the primary causes of involuntary black land loss in recent times-partition sales of black-owned land held under tenancies in common. Our society has a clear moral obligation to reverse the processes that have stripped black landowners of their land. This paper advocates government intervention to promote enhanced landownership-both quantitatively and qualitatively-for African Americans. This paper maintains that the problem of fractionated heir property within the rural, African American community justifies more fundamental reform of common property law and the creation of government institutions that would have the capacity to help those who own heir property restructure their ownership in a way that the ownership could be stabilized and the property could be used productively.Afro-Americans -- Land tenure, Joint tenancy -- United States, Partition -- United States, Afro-American farmers -- Government policy -- United States, Agrarian structure -- United States, Common property -- United States, Land Economics/Use,

Evaluation of the East Bay Municipal Utility District's Pilot of WaterSmart Home Water Reports

This report presents the results of an independent evaluation of the East Bay Municipal Utility District's (EBMUD) year-long pilot project (Pilot) of WaterSmart Software's Home Water Reports (HWRs) service.The Pilot was intended to address three primary questions:First, would an SNB efficiency program like WaterSmart result in measurable reductionsin household water use?Second, would it increase rates of participation in other EBMUD conservation programs? Third, would it increase household knowledge and awareness of water consumption andways to use water more efficiently

Non-global parameter estimation using local ensemble Kalman filtering

We study parameter estimation for non-global parameters in a low-dimensional chaotic model using the local ensemble transform Kalman filter (LETKF). By modifying existing techniques for using observational data to estimate global parameters, we present a methodology whereby spatially-varying parameters can be estimated using observations only within a localized region of space. Taking a low-dimensional nonlinear chaotic conceptual model for atmospheric dynamics as our numerical testbed, we show that this parameter estimation methodology accurately estimates parameters which vary in both space and time, as well as parameters representing physics absent from the model

A Theory of Factor Allocation and Plant Size

In this paper we develop a theory of how factors interact at the plant level. The theory has implications for: (1) the micro foundations for capital skill complementarity (2) the relationship between factor allocation and plant size and (3) the effects of trade and growth on the skill premium. The theory is consistent with certain facts about factor allocation and factor price changes in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Grand Challenge of Carbon Sequestration

This paper won a third place writing flag award in the collaborative category. Clayton Lawrence, Thomas Nguyen, Mitchell Tomazin, and Norberto Martinez, writing for Brandi DeMont 's ASE 333T class, " Engineering Communication ".DeMont, BrandiUndergraduate Studie