Why Campaigns for Local Transportation Initiatives Succeed or Fail: An Analysis of Four Communities and National Data, MTI Report 00-01

As funding from state and national sources has dwindled and demands for relief from traffic and congestion have grown, local governments and transportation agencies are increasingly left to develop their own sources of enhanced revenues. Frequently the bid to increase available revenues comprises a local ballot measure, enabling the citizens served by these governments and agencies to express their preferences for or against increased taxation in support of an improved transportation system. What determines the success of campaigns in support of such ballot measures? To answer this question, this report includes the use of two different approaches and data sources. 1) A statistical analysis of community-level characteristics. Data from localities across the nation, as well those within the state of California, that have conducted elections for transportation tax increase are analyzed to determine what factors seem to affect the outcome of such elections. 2) Case studies of four communities that recently conducted elections for transportation tax increases (Santa Clara and Sonoma Counties in California, and the Denver and Seattle metropolitan areas). The case studies allow for in-depth, qualitative understanding of what election strategies and other campaign elements comprise successful or unsuccessful efforts to raise local revenues. Among the most significant findings from the statistical analysis of local elections were the following: Efforts to fund transportation with taxes where the proportion of elderly is greater than 9 percent are more likely to succeed In communities where the percentage of elderly is greater than 9 percent, the analysis indicates that voters may be more willing to accept local transportation taxes. However, in communities where the percentage of elderly is less than 9 percent, transportation measures may require significantly more determined marketing to enhance the probability of passage. Efforts to increase sales taxes for transportation programs will be less successful in communities with higher sales taxes. A relatively strong and negative relationship between sales tax and support for transportation tax initiatives was identified in the national election data. This suggests that communities with relatively higher sales taxes will be hard pressed to convince citizens to support additional increases

Mechanism of T-Cell Lymphomagenesis: Transformation of Growth-Factor-Dependent T-Lymphoblastoma Cells to Growth-Factor-Independent T-Lymphoma Cells

In a previous paper we described the induction by x-irradiation or radiation-induced leukemia virus-in-oculation of two classes of lymphoid T-cell neoplasms: The first class, designated T-cell lymphoblastoma (TCLB), consists of growth-factor-dependent eudiploid cells that home to the spleen and give rise to splenic tumors on injection into syngeneic mice; the second class, designated T-cell lymphoma (TCL), consists of growth-factor-independent aneuploid or pseudodiploid cells that give rise to local tumors at the site of subcutaneous injection. This paper describes the generation of a family of growth-factor-independent aneuploid or pseudodiploid TCL cells after the injection into the thymus of growth-factor-dependent diploid TCLB cells. In contrast to the donor TCLB cells, the resulting TCL cells could be cloned in semisolid medium, produced local tumors at the site of subcutaneous injection, and proliferated in a growth-factor-independent fashion in vitro. The induced growth-factor-independent TCL cells were chromosomally and phenotypically unstable and continued to evolve both in vivo and in vitro. After propagation in the thymus, the cells often showed stable translocations in addition to the evolving aneuploidy. We propose that the chromosome abnormalities induced during the proliferation of growth-factor-dependent TCLB cells in the thymus constitute a general mechanism by which neoplastic cells progress from growth-factor dependency to independency

The disordered-free-moment phase: a low-field disordered state in spin-gap antiferromagnets with site dilution

Site dilution of spin-gapped antiferromagnets leads to localized free moments, which can order antiferromagnetically in two and higher dimensions. Here we show how a weak magnetic field drives this order-by-disorder state into a novel disordered-free-moment phase, characterized by the formation of local singlets between neighboring moments and by localized moments aligned antiparallel to the field. This disordered phase is characterized by the absence of a gap, as it is the case in a Bose glass. The associated field-driven quantum phase transition is consistent with the universality of a superfluid-to-Bose-glass transition. The robustness of the disordered-free-moment phase and its prominent features, in particular a series of pseudo-plateaus in the magnetization curve, makes it accessible and relevant to experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Trust in the US-EU fruit and vegetable chain: Do US exporters understand EU importers?

Research on organizational and inter organizational trust has become an important field in management and marketing literature, as it is perceived as a pivotal aspect of business transactions. However, clarifications are still needed on the issue of whom we trust; is the person whom we are trading with trusted, or the organization, or just the product‐quality? Not only has this question not been answered within this field of research, neither have cultural differences have been described to any great extent. Additionally, if the perceived factors important to establish trusting relationships may or may not be the same on the buyers and the sellers side in international business transaction in food chains. The primary objective of this research study therefore is to identify how well US exporters understand the elements of trust that establish strong relationships with EU importers. The Analytical Hierarchy Process was used to evaluate the importance of different trust elements in interviews conducted with US exporters and EU importers of fruits and vegetables. Results are compared, providing both a picture of the important facets of trust, as well as whether the partners understand the perspectives of the other partner

Photoemission Spectra in t-J Ladders with Two Legs

Photoemission spectra for the isotropic two-leg t-J ladder are calculated at various hole-doping levels using exact diagonalization techniques. Low-energy sharp features caused by short-range antiferromagnetic correlations are observed at finite doping levels close to half-filling, above the naive Fermi momentum. These features should be observable in angle-resolved photoemission experiments. In addition, the formation of a d-wave pairing condensate as the ratio J/t is increased leads to dynamically generated spectral weight for momenta close to $k_F$ where the $d_{x^2-y^2 }$-order parameter is large.Comment: 9 pages, RevTex, to be published in Phys. Rev. B (RC

Global environmental controls of wildfire burnt area, size and intensity.

Fire is an important influence on the global patterns of vegetation structure and composition. Wildfire is included as a distinct process in many dynamic global vegetation models but limited current understanding of fire regimes restricts these models' ability to reproduce more than the broadest geographic patterns. Here we present a statistical analysis of the global controls of remotely sensed burnt area (BA), fire size (FS), and a derived metric related to fire intensity (FI). Separate generalized linear models were fitted to observed monthly fractional BA from the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFEDv4), median FS from the Global Fire Atlas, and median fire radiative power from the MCD14ML dataset normalized by the square root of median FS. The three models were initially constructed from a common set of 16 predictors; only the strongest predictors for each model were retained in the final models. It is shown that BA is primarily driven by fuel availability and dryness; FS by conditions promoting fire spread; and FI by fractional tree cover and road density. Both BA and FS are constrained by landscape fragmentation, whereas FI is constrained by fuel moisture. Ignition sources (lightning and human population) were positively related to BA (after accounting for road density), but negatively to FI. These findings imply that the different controls on BA, FS and FI need to be considered in process-based models. They highlight the need to include measures of landscape fragmentation as well as fuel load and dryness, and to pay close attention to the controls of fire spread