Resources for Studying Public Participation in the Arts: Inventory and Review of Available Survey Data on North Americans' Participation in and Attitudes Towards the Arts

This study contains summaries, critical reviews, and access information for 25 studies of public participation in the arts, as well as a chart enabling readers to indentify surveys that contain particular combinations of variables in which they are interested.

Thermal conductivity reduction in rough silicon nanomembranes

Nanostructured silicon is a promising material for thermoelectric conversion, because the thermal conductivity in silicon nanostructures can be strongly reduced with respect to that of bulk materials. We present thermal conductivity measurements, performed with the 3$\omega$ technique, of suspended monocrystalline silicon thin films (nanomembranes or nanoribbons) with smooth and rough surfaces. We find evidence for a significant effect of surface roughness on phonon propagation: the measured thermal conductivity for the rough structures is well below that predicted by theoretical models which take into account diffusive scattering on the nanostructure walls. Conversely, the electrical conductivity appears to be substantially unaffected by surface roughness: the measured resistance of smooth and rough nanostructures are comparable, if we take into account the geometrical factors. Nanomembranes are more easily integrable in large area devices with respect to nanowires and are mechanically stronger and able to handle much larger electrical currents (thus enabling the fabrication of thermoelectric devices that can supply higher power levels with respect to current existing solutions)

Public Opinion and Political Vulnerability: Why Has the National Endowment for the Arts Been Such an Attractive Target?

Federal government arts programs appear to deviate from the rule that legislative behavior closely follows public preferences. Between the mid-1970s and the late 1980s, despite stability in public opinion, the NEA evolved from Congress’s bipartisan darling to its controversial scapegoat. We inspect 55 items from public opinion surveys and re-analyze data from 2 state and 8 national surveys undertaken between 1975 and 1996 to resolve this puzzle. Our conclusions: (1) Arts support is not a salient issue to most voters, leaving legislators relatively unconstrained. (2) Positive responses to general questions about arts funding often mask complex, ambivalent views. (3) The core constituency for federal arts support – college graduates – is difficult to mobilize because their interest in the arts is balanced by skepticism about federal government programs. (4) Opponents of arts spending successfully built on ties to Christian conservative and Republican loyalists to mobilize the stable minorities opposed to the NEA. As a result, arts politics in the U.S. has consisted of a standoff between a committed minority of 15 to 20 percent of the public that strongly opposes federal support for the arts and a weakly committed majority of about 60 percent that favors the federal role.

Public Sentiments Towards the Arts: A Critical Reanalysis of 13 Opinion Surveys

This paper summarizes and reviews studies of public perceptions of and sentiments towards the arts. It provides the first critical synthesis of such research based upon original secondary analyses of thirteen of the major data sets collected between 1973 and 1993. In so doing, it reports on what the surveys tell us about several questions of pressing interest to policy makers and others interested in the role of the arts in American society. To what extent do Americans support government funding of the arts, and from what level of government? To what extent do Americans believe that it is important for children to learn about the arts and that the arts are worthy of inclusion in the school curriculum? To what extent do Americans regard the arts as fundamentally important for the quality of community life, on the one hand, or the domain of a select few, on the other? To what extent do sentiments vary between men and women, African-Americans and Euro-Americans, the highly educated and the less schooled, the old and the young, and the wealthy and the less well off? And finally, what, if anything, can we infer about how these patterns have changed over time?

The Role of Religion in Public Conflicts over the Arts in the Philadelphia Area, 1965-1997

How would we characterize the relationship between religion and the arts in the Philadelphia area between 1965 and 1997? The late 1980s and early 1990s in Philadelphia followed a decade that was unusually free of contention between religion and the arts. In comparison to the 1970s and early 1980s, religious participation in cultural conflict was not particularly high during the "culture-war" era. However, religious discourse as opposed to participation did play a role in more controversies during the late 1980s and 1990s. The findings also suggest that after 1986 religious actors and their allies were far more likely to employ the tools of social-movement mobilization and to connect their own claims to national social movements or campaigns.

Development of Novel Nicotinic Receptor Mediated Therapeutic Agents: Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Novel Epibatidine Analogs and the First Total Synthesis of Anabasamine and Related Analogs

In an effort to search for a more selective, less toxic neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptor analgesic agent in comparison to epibatidine, a series of analogs with hybrid structures of epibatidine and ABT-594 were designed and synthesized. The 1-(pyridyloxymethyl)-7-azabicyclo[2.2.1]heptane ring systems were furnished via an intramolecular cyclization from a trans 1, 4 disubstitituted amino-cyclohexane derivative. The functionalized cyclohexane ring was formed via a [4+2] Diels-Alder cyclization reaction between the acetamidoacrylate and Danishefsky\u27s diene. These 1- (pyridyloxymethyl)-7-azabicyclo[2.2.1]heptane ring systems were then tested in vitro as potential á4â2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor ligands with high potency and selectivity. In addition, a series of rigid acetylcholine analogs were synthesized from cocaine to study the conformation of acetylcholine, the endogenous neurotransmitter at the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor. A stereoselective reduction of 2-tropinone led to the enantioselective synthesis of the desired acetoxytropane systems. These compounds were also tested in in vivo models for binding affinity and efficacy responses. Anabasamine, an alkaloid isolated from the Central Asian shrub, Anabasis aphylla, was synthesized for the first time. It was targeted due to interesting preliminary biological activity such as exhibiting anticholinesterase activity, anti-inflammatory activity, and facilitated an increase in hepatic alcohol dehydrogenase levels. Only preliminary studies were performed as anabasamine is limited in quantity due to its difficult isolation. A versatile synthetic methodology was developed for the synthesis of anabasamine and related nicotine analogs. This new methodology employed a pyridyl anion addition to valerolactone, for anabasamine, or butyrolactone for the nicotine analog, to afford 5-hydroxy-1-(6-methoxy-pyridin-3-yl)-pentan-1-one or 4-hydroxy-1-(6- methoxy-pyridin-3-yl)-butan-1-one, respectively. A reductive amination provided the piperidine ring moiety and a Suzuki coupling reaction introduced the bipyridyl moiety to anabasamine in five steps and 23% overall yield. In addition, this methodology was applied successfully to the synthesis of nicotine and other related analogs. In particular the synthesis of 6-methoxynicotine, a useful drug intermediate, was generated improving the yield from 16% over five steps to 54% over three steps