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Structural Incentives for Political Party Polarization
Politics is often thought of as a pie cut in half and split between republicans and democrats. A
more accurate representation would be a pie cut into several uneven slices; most of the small pieces
would go to the democrats and the few large slices would go to republicans. The existing literature on
political parties indicates that parties are not mirror opposites of one another. Issue density is not uniform
among the parties. Since the New Deal, democrats have pushed extensive policy from Social Security to
new roads and dams. The trend to expand the scope of government policy continues today in the form of
universal healthcare, combating global warming, and gay rights. The tendency of democrats to expand
their policy agenda stems from the makeup of the party. Unlike republicans, the Democratic party is
composed of a coalition of interest groups. Republicans, in contrast, can be described as ideological and
have held consistent over time. Republicans are more easily thought of in terms of big ideological
principles that include low taxes, defense, and family values. Republicans, being more ideological, have a
few core tenants. Democrats, being a coalition of interest groups, have a wide and diverse set of principles
but less support behind each issue area.
Given two political parties, one with a smaller but deeper set of beliefs and a second with a wider
and shallower set of beliefs, the group with a smaller number of principles will find it relatively more
difficult to compromise. Since politicians are single-minded seekers of reelection, they try to capture a
comfortable number of votes to become reelected; however, if the party with the smaller number of
principles were to compromise on a single principle, they would risk losing a proportionally greater
number of voters. For instance, let us assume two political parties ‘R’ and ‘D’. R holds two principles ‘1’
and ‘2’, while D holds principles ‘3’, ‘4’, ‘5’, ‘6’, and ‘7’. If R compromises on principle 2 to gain access
to voters from principle area 3, they risk losing half of their voter base, assuming 1 and 2 contain equal
numbers of voters who care deeply about that principle. Whereas if D compromises on principle 3 to gain
access to voters from principle area 2 they risk only losing one-fifth of their voter base, assuming 3, 4, 5,
6, and 7 all contain equal numbers of voters who care deeply about that issue. Therefore, republicans are
disincentivized from compromising while democrats have an incentive to work with republicans.
Democrats compromise because they are likely to gain more votes from sacrificing small areas for a
bigger traditionally republican area.Governmen
BIG PROBLEMS, SMALL SOLUTIONS A Solution to the Housing Crisis Through Prefabrication.
Coronavirus has come as America is in the midst of a crisis-level affordable housing issue. In 2019, 37.1 million households were identified as “housing cost-burdened,” spending 30% or more of their income on housing. 63% of Americans have been living pay-check to pay-check since the pandemic. And in addition to that, it has been estimated that we as a country have a deficit of at least 1,000,000 single-family homes. This is affordable housing as it stands today, with a huge percentage of Americans searching for permanent housing and unable to find any, and if they do, unable to afford it for long. It seems fitting, albeit terrifying, that an epicenter of these occurrences is so close to home. Atlanta’s populating has grown by almost 20% since 2010, yet between 2010 and 2018, only 3,301 units have been erected that could be classified as “affordable”. So with an influx of close to 100,000 people in the last ten years and with Atlanta’s percentage of cost-burdened households nearing 50%, there is an incredible lack of cost-effective housing in the city. Attempting to find a solution for fundamental problems of infrastructure seems daunting, especially when it appears radical legislation is the only way to change the system. But there is hope. Dozens of cities around the country, Atlanta included, have pledged to change some of the laws that prevent Affordable housing projects. However, even before the laws are changed, people’s perception of basic housing rights and what affordable housing really means needs to be amended. That is the end to which my thesis research has been focused. Establishing the need, and inspiring the solution. In the name of proposing a solution to the housing crisis, my thesis will present a model of modular design and efficient use of space that intends to alter the perception of what affordable housing mean
Dynamics of Essentially Unstable Nonlinear Waves
In this thesis we primarily consider the stability of traveling wave solutions to a modified Kuramoto-Sivashinsky Equation equation modeling nanoscale pattern formation and the St. Venant equations modeling shallow water flow down an inclined plane. Numerical evidence suggests that these equations have no unstable spectrum other than λ =0, however they both have unstable essential spectrum. This unstable essential spectrum manifests as a convecting, oscillating perturbation which grows to a certain size independent on the initial perturbation — precluding stability in the regular L^2(R) space. Exponentially weighted spaces are typically used to handle such instabilities, and in Theorem 5.7 we prove asymptotic orbital linear stability in such an exponentially weighted space. We also discuss difficulties with extending this to a nonlinear stability result. In Section 5.5 we discuss another way of obtaining stability, through ad-hoc periodic wave trains. Chapter 6 concerns the general problem of creating a spectral projection to project away unstable essential spectrum. We consider this problem in the context of spatially periodic-coefficient PDE by proposing a candidate spectral projection defined via the Bloch transform and showing that initial perturbations which activate a sufficiently unstable part of the essential spectrum lead to solutions which are not Lyapunov stable. We also extend these results to dissipative systems of conservation laws. Additional chapters of interest are Chapter 3 where we address finding the spectrum and Chapter 4 where we discuss the numerics which lead to many of the figures in this thesis
South Bay Fire Department: Back Deck
Local fire station, Station 15, in the community of Los Osos, was in need of a deck to be built in the rear of the station. There was public support, funding, and a desire for an upgrade. With the help of the firefighters and administrative staff at South Bay Fire Department, a 285 square foot structure was constructed to operate as a relaxing area for on duty staff to use between emergency calls. The plan creation, estimating, and building of the deck took approximately a year to complete. An estimated 305 man hours were spent collectively on the project, with great care given to the needs of the department and attention to detail. On June 11, 2016 the project was completed. The project took longer than scheduled and cost more than originally estimated
Can Attachment Style and Temperament Predict Personality Organization?
Otto Kernberg (1967) developed a psychoanalytic theory of personality organization in which he posited that all individuals operate on one of three levels of personality organization: neurotic, borderline, or psychotic. His theory was developmental in nature and based on the idea that our earliest experiences establish unconscious interpersonal patterns that persist throughout life.The current study examined whether attachment style (anxious or avoidant) and factors of temperament (negative affect, effortful control) would predict personality organization. In particular, we examined identity diffusion and use of primitive defenses as markers of personality functioning. Results revealed that anxious attachment, negative affect, and effortful control significantly predicted identity diffusion and use of primitive defenses. The clinical implications for these findings as well as potential future research directions are discussed
Questing and Defense Against Death Anxiety
In his seminal work The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker suggested that the primary motivation behind human behavior is a fear of dying. This claim has been operationalized into an empirically based theory entitled Terror Management Theory (TMT). TMT outlines how self-esteem and cultural worldviews play an important role in how humans manage death anxiety. One especially important cultural worldview is religion. TMT research suggests that religious beliefs help provide protection again death anxiety. Religious orientation research outlines three orientations to religion: extrinsic, intrinsic, and quest. In the present study, I investigate whether a quest-like state of mind may help buffer the effects of death anxiety
Evaluation of the Geothermal Potential of the Camas Prairie, South-Central Idaho
The area studied in this thesis was assessed based on the analysis of a water sample collected from the exploratory well USU Camas-1. The water sample was characterized and compared to other water samples collected and analyzed during a previous phase of this project according to its water chemistry.
Lithologic, geophysical, and temperature logs were also used to assess the study area. The depth sensitive data was analyzed to determine the characteristics of the formation as they relate to the favorable parameters of a geothermal resource, those being permeability of the subsurface, heat, and the presence of a clay seal.
The analyses suggest that USU Camas-1 falls short of being a high-temperature resource capable of generating electricity efficiently. However, temperatures are high enough for the resource to be developed as a low-temperature asset that could be utilized to heat buildings in the area
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