State tax revenue growth and volatility

Macroeconomic conditions and tax structures jointly determine the growth and volatility of state tax revenues. Since a variety of economic conditions exist among states, government policymakers should carefully anticipate and consider the possible impacts of proposed tax reform and revenue enhancements on the long-term growth and volatility of their unique tax revenue portfolios. In the short run, states generally cannot alter the volatility and growth rates of their economies. They can, however, change the composition of their tax portfolios to minimize the effects of the business cycle on their fiscal health. For this reason, state officials need to consider the natural tendencies of their economies when formulating tax policy. For example, states with volatile economies might want tax portfolios that minimize the impact of national macroeconomic trends; those with stable economies might consider adopting more aggressive tax portfolios that optimize their tax revenue growth/volatility combinations.Taxation ; State finance ; Revenue

The Two Georgias: Disparities in Rural Health and Healthcare

The Two Georgias: Disparities in Rural Health and Healthcar

The effects of a smoking education risk reduction program on selected student impact measures

dissertationThe problem of the study was to determine the extent to which an experimental smoking education risk reduction curriculum affects resistance to persuasion skills, selected decsion making skills, knowledge of the health consequences of smoking, and tobacco use including cigarette smoking among sixth grade students. Following inservice training with the experimental curriculum, 14 Salt Lake city School district teachers and 316 subjects were randomly assigned to the experimental and control group conditions. Seven teachers and 180 subjects were assigned to the experimental group and seven teachers with 136 subjects were assigned to the control group. An additional 9 teachers ans 218 subjects were selected as a nonequivalent control group. A pretest posttest control group design with the additional of a nonequivalent control group was used in the study. Experimental group teachers implemented the educational program within their sixth grade classrooms during the 1981/1982 academic school year. The experimental, control, and non equivalent control group subjects' tobacco use including cigarette smoking, knowledge of the health consequences of smoking and selected decision making and resistance to persuasion skills were pretested prior to the implementation of the curriculum and/or posttested at the completion of the 15 week instruction period. All data were analyzed using the Mantel-Haenszel , McNemer, and Pearson Chi-square statistics and analysis of covariance. Analysis of the results revealed no significant group or gender differences on tobacco use including smoking behavior. Significant group differences were found on measures of knowledge, and decision making and resistance to persuasion skills. results of this study were intrepreted to mean that the experimental curriculum effectively de-emphasized the long-range health consequences of smoking in favor of the immediate health effects. The subjects' application of relevant knowledge in the decision making process as well as the ability to identify and recommend selected resistance to persuasion skills provide further evidence of the beneficial effects of the curriculum

Local government officials\u27 perspectives on regional councils of governments

The decades of the 1960s and 1970s were a time of rapid change in the operations of county and municipal governments. Citizen expectations regarding the scope and quality of local government services escalated rapidly. State and federal legislation and regulations resulted in higher standards for health care, housing, education, law enforcement, public assistance, personnel practices, and environmental conditions. Specialized services were mandated as a way of meeting the needs of the aged, of youth, of minorities, and of the disadvantaged.https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/specialreports/1084/thumbnail.jp

CELT site testing program

The California Extremely Large Telescope, CELT, is a proposed 30-m telescope. Choosing the best possible site for CELT is essential in order to extract the best science from the observations and to reduce the complexity of the telescope. Site selection is therefore currently one of the most critical pacing items of the CELT project. In this paper, we first present selected results from a survey of the atmospheric transparency at optical and infrared wavelengths over the southwestern USA and northern Mexico using satellite data. Results of a similar study of South America have been reported elsewhere. These studies will serve as the pre-selection criterion of the sites at which we will perform on-site testing. We then describe the current status of on-site turbulence evaluation efforts and the future plans of the CELT site testing program

EPIC 219217635: A Doubly Eclipsing Quadruple System Containing an Evolved Binary

We have discovered a doubly eclipsing, bound, quadruple star system in the field of K2 Campaign 7. EPIC 219217635 is a stellar image with $Kp = 12.7$ that contains an eclipsing binary (`EB') with $P_A = 3.59470$ d and a second EB with $P_B = 0.61825$ d. We have obtained followup radial-velocity (`RV') spectroscopy observations, adaptive optics imaging, as well as ground-based photometric observations. From our analysis of all the observations, we derive good estimates for a number of the system parameters. We conclude that (1) both binaries are bound in a quadruple star system; (2) a linear trend to the RV curve of binary A is found over a 2-year interval, corresponding to an acceleration, $\dot \gamma = 0.0024 \pm 0.0007$ cm s$^{-2}$; (3) small irregular variations are seen in the eclipse-timing variations (`ETVs') detected over the same interval; (4) the orbital separation of the quadruple system is probably in the range of 8-25 AU; and (5) the orbital planes of the two binaries must be inclined with respect to each other by at least 25$^\circ$. In addition, we find that binary B is evolved, and the cooler and currently less massive star has transferred much of its envelope to the currently more massive star. We have also demonstrated that the system is sufficiently bright that the eclipses can be followed using small ground-based telescopes, and that this system may be profitably studied over the next decade when the outer orbit of the quadruple is expected to manifest itself in the ETV and/or RV curves.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA

An HST/WFPC2 Snapshot Survey of 2MASS-Selected Red QSOs

Using simple infrared color selection, 2MASS has found a large number of red, previously unidentified, radio-quiet QSOs. Although missed by UV/optical surveys, the 2MASS QSOs have K-band luminosities that are comparable to "classical" QSOs. This suggests the possible discovery of a previously predicted large population of dust-obscured radio-quiet QSOs. We present the results of an imaging survey of 29 2MASS QSOs observed with WFPC2 onboard the Hubble Space Telescope. I-band images, which benefit from the relative faintness of the nuclei at optical wavelengths, are used to characterize the host galaxies, measure the nuclear contribution to the total observed I-band emission, and to survey the surrounding environments. The 2MASS QSOs are found to lie in galaxies with a variety of morphologies, luminosities, and dynamical states, not unlike those hosting radio-quiet PG QSOs. Our analysis suggests that the extraordinary red colors of the 2MASS QSOs are caused by extinction of an otherwise typical QSO spectrum due to dust near the nucleus.Comment: 23 pages including 9 figures and 7 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ, higher resolution HST images at: http://shapley.as.arizona.edu/~amarble/papers/twomq

Extremal black holes as exact string solutions

We show that the leading order solution describing an extremal electrically charged black hole in string theory is, in fact, an exact solution to all orders in \a' when interpreted in a Kaluza-Klein fashion. This follows from the observation that it can be obtained via dimensional reduction from a five dimensional background which is proved to be an exact string solution.Comment: 13 pages, harvmac, Imperial/TP/93-94/51, UCSBTH-94-24 (references added