A Seat at the Table? Racial/Ethnic & Gender Diversity on Corporate, Hospital, Education, Cultural & State Boards

As part of its larger Diversity Initiative, the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies at UMass Boston has undertaken a number of projects. The first was a public opinion survey conducted around the time of the November 2006 elections. The report, Transformation and Taking Stock: A Summary of Selected Findings from the McCormack Graduate School Diversity Survey, included a comprehensive look at race relations in the Commonwealth at a time of significant transition—demographically and politically. This report was followed by A Benchmark Report on Diversity in State and Local Government, which focused on the percentage of positions filled by gubernatorial appointment to selected senior-level positions in government (and on selected boards and commissions) a well as on elected and appointed positions in ten cities and towns in Greater Boston. This new study rounds out this series on diversity on governing bodies filled through appointments. For the first time in the history of the Commonwealth, however, researchers at the McCormack Graduate School’s Center for Women in Politics & Public Policy undertook a comprehensive study of who sits on the boards of directors/trustees of the top corporations, hospitals, higher education institutions (both private and public) and a sample of major cultural institutions. These are important decision-making positions and we are pleased to share our findings on the racial and gender diversity—or lack thereof—on these for-profit and not-for-profit boards

R-modes in the ocean of a magnetic neutron star

We study the dynamics of r-modes in the ocean of a magnetic neutron star. We modeled the star's ocean with a spherical rotating thin shell and assumed that the magnetic field symmetry axis is not aligned to the shell's spin axis. In the magnetohydrodynamic approximation, we calculate the frequency of $\ell=m$ r-modes in the shell of an incompressible fluid. Different r-modes with $\ell$ and $\ell\pm2$ are coupled by the {\it inclined} magnetic field. Kinematical secular effects for the motion of a fluid element in the shell undergoing $\ell=m=2$ r-mode are studied. The magnetic corrected drift velocity of a given fluid element undergoing the $\ell=m$ r-mode oscillations is obtained. The magnetic field increases the magnitude of the fluid drift produced by the r-mode drift velocity, the high-$\ell$ modes in the ocean fluid will damp faster than the low-$\ell$ ones.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figures, to appear in ApJ, v574 n2 August 1, 2002 issu

Polarization: The Tea Party Movement's Effect on Congressional Roll Call Voting

The Tea Party movement is the most recent example of a faction rising from within an American political party. It rose unexpectedly, and it is hard to predict where it will end. It is important to get inside the heads of incumbent Congressmen to see how they deal with events like the rise of a faction within a two party system. This study analyzes roll call voting ideology scores of both Democrat and Republican incumbents to see just how the presence of the Tea Party caused a change from the 111th Congress to the 112th Congress. I find that the presence of the Tea Party seems to have a positive influence on roll call voting ideology, effectively pushing the parties further apart on the traditional liberal-conservative spectrum of ideology. Due to low sample sizes, this unfortunately cannot be said with statistical certainty. It is clear by the end that the Tea Party, as a faction attempting to change the status quo, further separated the two parties. This was due to the Republican Party’s need to assume the movement to ensure they remained Republicans. In a sort of reactionary force, the Democratic Party has been able to become more liberal in the face of extreme opponents and still retain the median voter all Representatives seek

Influence of Compost Amendment on Shear Properties of Topsoils Used in Highway Slopes

Erosion of highway slopes is of the utmost importance because it can lead to a decreased quality of the soil underneath, reduced water quality, and exacerbated air quality. Current highway slopes are implemented using compacted inorganic topsoil or occasionally by placing a layer of compost above the existing topsoil layer. The single topsoil layer can be susceptible to erosion but, if blended with compost materials, may potentially yield vegetation that reinforces the strength of the soil. The potential implementation of compost-amended topsoil on highway slopes is a sustainable practice due to larger amounts of compost use in construction but requires additional research to evaluate the geotechnical properties of these systems. A research study was undertaken to evaluate the changes in shear strength of topsoil upon amending with two common composts. Four mixtures were prepared at varying percentages of composts and one topsoil. Direct shear tests were performed on pure topsoil, composts, and the blends. Shape properties of the materials were defined using digital image analysis. The results indicate that the drained friction angle increased from 360 to 440, and the angularity increased from 2608 to 3127 due to addition of the compost material. The shape parameters of Form 2D, flatness, sphericity, elongation, angularity, and texture were compared with the respective friction angles; angularity and Form 2D were found to have the greatest correlation displaying high R^2 values ranging from 0.816 to 0.940, regardless of compost type.National Science Foundation Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participatio

General Relativistic Rossby-Haurwitz waves of a slowly and differentially rotating fluid shell

We show that, at first order in the angular velocity, the general relativistic description of Rossby-Haurwitz waves (the analogues of r-waves on a thin shell) can be obtained from the corresponding Newtonian one after a coordinate transformation. As an application, we show that the results recently obtained by Rezzolla and Yoshida (2001) in the analysis of Newtonian Rossby-Haurwitz waves of a slowly and differentially rotating, fluid shell apply also in General Relativity, at first order in the angular velocity.Comment: 4 pages. Comment to Class. Quantum Grav. 18(2001)L8

Emerging Synergisms Between Drugs and Physiologically-Patterned Weak Magnetic Fields: Implications for Neuropharmacology and the Human Population in the Twenty-First Century

Synergisms between pharmacological agents and endogenous neurotransmitters are familiar and frequent. The present review describes the experimental evidence for interactions between neuropharmacological compounds and the classes of weak magnetic fields that might be encountered in our daily environments. Whereas drugs mediate their effects through specific spatial (molecular) structures, magnetic fields mediate their effects through specific temporal patterns. Very weak (microT range) physiologically-patterned magnetic fields synergistically interact with drugs to strongly potentiate effects that have classically involved opiate, cholinergic, dopaminergic, serotonergic, and nitric oxide pathways. The combinations of the appropriately patterned magnetic fields and specific drugs can evoke changes that are several times larger than those evoked by the drugs alone. These novel synergisms provide a challenge for a future within an electromagnetic, technological world. They may also reveal fundamental, common physical mechanisms by which magnetic fields and chemical reactions affect the organism from the level of fundamental particles to the entire living system

Magnetostrophic MRI in the Earth's Outer Core

We show that a simple, modified version of the Magnetorotational Instability (MRI) can develop in the outer liquid core of the Earth, in the presence of a background shear. It requires either thermal wind, or a primary instability, such as convection, to drive a weak differential rotation within the core. The force balance in the Earth's core is very unlike classical astrophysical applications of the MRI (such as gaseous disks around stars). Here, the weak differential rotation in the Earth core yields an instability by its constructive interaction with the planet's much larger rotation rate. The resulting destabilising mechanism is just strong enough to counteract stabilizing resistive effects, and produce growth on geophysically interesting timescales. We give a simple physical explanation of the instability, and show that it relies on a force balance appropriate to the Earth's core, known as magnetostrophic balance

Non-Oberbeck-Boussinesq effects in turbulent thermal convection in ethane close to the critical point

As shown in earlier work (Ahlers et al., J. Fluid Mech. 569, p.409 (2006)), non-Oberbeck Boussinesq (NOB) corrections to the center temperature in turbulent Rayleigh-Benard convection in water and also in glycerol are governed by the temperature dependences of the kinematic viscosity and the thermal diffusion coefficient. If the working fluid is ethane close to the critical point the origin of non-Oberbeck-Boussinesq corrections is very different, as will be shown in the present paper. Namely, the main origin of NOB corrections then lies in the strong temperature dependence of the isobaric thermal expansion coefficient \beta(T). More precisely, it is the nonlinear T-dependence of the density \rho(T) in the buoyancy force which causes another type of NOB effect. We demonstrate that through a combination of experimental, numerical, and theoretical work, the latter in the framework of the extended Prandtl-Blasius boundary layer theory developed in Ahlers et al., J. Fluid Mech. 569, p.409 (2006). The latter comes to its limits, if the temperature dependence of the thermal expension coefficient \beta(T) is significant.Comment: 18 pages, 15 figures, 3 table