Why is there no radical right party in Ireland?

The rise of the radical or extreme right parties in Europe - parties usually noted for strong, sometimes racist anti-immigrant ideologies - has attracted a great deal of attention in political science. Ireland, despite having some conditions favourable to the growth of such a party has no Radical Right party. This paper argues that that this is because the ‘space’ usually occupied by such parties - for young, poor people disaffected by economic change - is taken up by Sinn Féin, which though it has similarities to radical right parties, differs markedly in its attitudes to immigrants. It goes on to explain the special circumstances that prevent nationalist parties in Ireland from presenting overtly anti-immigrant platforms. The focus on anti-immigration and liberal economic policies for such parties may mean that other parties with strong resemblances are excluded from studies they might usefully be included in

Unequal Opportunity = Unequal Results

Governor Andrew Cuomo is right: New York State has a dramatic contrast in the quality of education available in different school districts. Nowhere are these lines of contrast clearer than in the Schools In Need of Improvement (SINI). While the majority of our students are in schools with high rates of student success, too many students in SINI schools are not succeeding. Across the state 92% of students in the highest income districts graduate on time (these districts are classified by the State Education Department as Low Need Districts) and 81% in average need schools, while only 57% graduate on time in SINI schools. Every year, the New York State Education Department publishes a list of SINI schools as an accountability measure to make the public aware. But putting out a list is not enough, where is the plan to improve these schools? Governor Cuomo has warned that he plans to make large cuts to education. This is on top of $1.4 billion cuts last year -- the largest cuts in the history of the New York State. Will large cuts two years in a row improve our schools or undermine schools that are succeeding and increase educational inequity

Early Childhood Education: Frozen Funding Leads to Cracks in Foundation

Early childhood education is the cornerstone of our educational system. With benefits that include higher academic achievement, higher earnings as adults, a more productive civic life, high quality early childhood education is a proven-to-work strategy for all children. Yet, New York State's investment in early childhood programs and specifically in the Universal Prekindergarten (UPK) program has decreased over the years

Female coaches in strength and conditioning: Why so Few?

Abstract A substantial issue in sporting professions today, including elite strength and conditioning is gender imbalance. Attitudes towards women’s roles are complex and institutionally entrenched, contributing to barriers to women’s success. While real issues still exist for today’s elite female strength and conditioners, murmurings of change are audible. Further research on why gender imbalance in strength and conditioning matters as well as the creation of a culture where women feel included and wanted is part of the solution. This research focuses on women leaders in strength and conditioning, their experiences, the barriers they perceive and their ways of overcoming them

Consumer Direction of Personal Assistance Services in Medicaid: A Review of Four State Programs

Discusses eligibility for and use of Consumer Direction of Personal Assistance Services, which give beneficiaries control over the hiring, scheduling, training and paying of personal care attendants, in California, Colorado, New York, and Virginia

The orientation of swimming bi-flagellates in shear flows

Biflagellated algae swim in mean directions that are governed by their environments. For example, many algae can swim upward on average (gravitaxis) and toward downwelling fluid (gyrotaxis) via a variety of mechanisms. Accumulations of cells within the fluid can induce hydrodynamic instabilities leading to patterns and flow, termed bioconvection, which may be of particular relevance to algal bioreactors and plankton dynamics. Furthermore, knowledge of the behavior of an individual swimming cell subject to imposed flow is prerequisite to a full understanding of the scaled-up bulk behavior and population dynamics of cells in oceans and lakes; swimming behavior and patchiness will impact opportunities for interactions, which are at the heart of population models. Hence, better estimates of population level parameters necessitate a detailed understanding of cell swimming bias. Using the method of regularized Stokeslets, numerical computations are developed to investigate the swimming behavior of and fluid flow around gyrotactic prolate spheroidal biflagellates with five distinct flagellar beats. In particular, we explore cell reorientation mechanisms associated with bottom-heaviness and sedimentation and find that they are commensurate and complementary. Furthermore, using an experimentally measured flagellar beat for Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, we reveal that the effective cell eccentricity of the swimming cell is much smaller than for the inanimate body alone, suggesting that the cells may be modeled satisfactorily as self-propelled spheres. Finally, we propose a method to estimate the effective cell eccentricity of any biflagellate when flagellar beat images are obtained haphazardly

Changes in Characteristics, Needs, and Payment for Care of Elderly Nursing Home Residents: 1999 to 2004

Focuses on changes in trends in the population of elderly nursing home residents, including characteristics of their healthcare needs and insurance coverage

Finding a party and losing some friends: overcoming the weaknesses of the prime ministerial figure in Italy

Silvio Berlusconi poses a problem for the existing literature on prime ministers and their power. Though Italian prime ministers are traditionally seen as weak, Berlusconi has been able to achieve some remarkable policy gains during his current term as prime minister. This article uses veto player theory and combines it with existing institutional and political explanations for variation in prime ministerial power to look at this challenging case. By looking at the number of veto players in the Italian system, and their ability to credibly use their veto against Berlusconi, an explanation is posited which can accommodate the exceptionalism of his second term in office. Despite the emphasis on his control of the media, we conclude that Berlusconi's power stems from more traditional political factors. The authors argue that Berlusconi's coalition and party allies have no choice but to accept his will and his decisions, as any alternatives are less appealing

Paired and altruistic kidney donation in the UK: Algorithms and experimentation

We study the computational problem of identifying optimal sets of kidney exchanges in the UK. We show how to expand an integer programming-based formulation due to Roth et al. [2007] in order to model the criteria that constitute the UK definition of optimality. The software arising from this work has been used by the National Health Service Blood and Transplant to find optimal sets of kidney exchanges for their National Living Donor Kidney Sharing Schemes since July 2008. We report on the characteristics of the solutions that have been obtained in matching runs of the scheme since this time. We then present empirical results arising from experiments on the real datasets that stem from these matching runs, with the aim of establishing the extent to which the particular optimality criteria that are present in the UK influence the structure of the solutions that are ultimately computed. A key observation is that allowing four-way exchanges would be likely to lead to a moderate number of additional transplants