401 research outputs found
Black Mayors, White Majorities
No full textRecent years have seen an increase in the number of African Americans elected to political office in cities where the majority of their constituents are not black. In the past, the leadership of black politicians was characterized as either “deracialized” or “racialized”—that is, as either focusing on politics that transcend race or as making black issues central to their agenda. Today many African American politicians elected to offices in non-majority-black cities are adopting a strategy that universalizes black interests as intrinsically relevant to the needs of their entire constituency.
In Black Mayors, White Majorities Ravi K. Perry explores the conditions in which black mayors of majority-white cities are able to represent black interests and whether blacks’ historically high expectations for black mayors are being realized. Perry uses Toledo and Dayton, Ohio, as case studies, and his analysis draws on interviews with mayors and other city officials, business leaders, and heads of civic organizations, in addition to official city and campaign documents and newspapers. Perry also analyzes mayoral speeches, the 2001 ward-level election results, and city demographics. Black Mayors, White Majoritiesencourages readers to think beyond the black-white dyad and instead to envision policies that can serve constituencies with the greatest needs as well as the general public
Improved Approximation Algorithm for <em class="EmphasisTypeItalic">k</em>-level Uncapacitated Facility Location Problem (with Penalties)
No full textWe study the k-level uncapacitated facility location problem (k-level UFL) in which clients need to be connected with paths crossing open facilities of k types (levels). In this paper we first propose an approximation algorithm that for any constant k, in polynomial time, delivers solutions of cost at most αk times OPT, where αk is an increasing function of k, with limk→∞αk=3. Our algorithm rounds a fractional solution to an extended LP formulation of the problem. The rounding builds upon the technique of iteratively rounding fractional solutions on trees (Garg, Konjevod, and Ravi SODA’98) originally used for the group Steiner tree problem. We improve the approximation ratio for k-level UFL for all k ≥ 3, in particular we obtain the ratio equal 2.02, 2.14, and 2.24 for k = 3,4, and 5. Second, we give a simple interpretation of the randomization process (Li ICALP’2011) for 1-level UFL in terms of solving an auxiliary (factor revealing) LP. Armed with this simple view point, we exercise the randomization on our algorithm for the k-level UFL. We further improve the approximation ratio for all k ≥ 3, obtaining 1.97, 2.09, and 2.19 for k = 3,4, and 5. Third, we extend our algorithm to the k-level UFL with penalties (k-level UFLWP), in which the setting is the same as k-level UFL except that the planner has the option to pay a penalty instead of connecting chosen clients.</p
Heterogeneity, distribution, and cooperation in common property resource management
No full textThe report considers the role of group heterogeneity in the success or failure of common property resource management. The author argues that cooperative agreements are less likely to come about when agents are highly heterogeneous along relevant dimensions - and existing agreements are more likely to break down as a group becomes more heterogeneous. The author crystallizes his argument in simple numerical examples and illustrates by reference to case studies on common property resource management, in particular, cases involving fisheries and irrigation systems. More work is needed to substantiate the author's argument, but his analysis so far supports the argument that equity and efficiency complement rather than oppose each other.Agricultural Research,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Poverty Assessment,Common Property Resource Development,Environmental Economics&Policies
The value of intra-household survey data for age-based nutritional targeting
No full textThe object of this paper has been, first to develop a framework for upper-limit indicator targeting, and to illustrate it for age based targeting of nutrition interventions using data from the Philippines. Second, the authors provide quantitative estimates of the value of individual level information and of knowledge of the intra-household allocation of calories. For the sample, age proved to be a good indicator of undernutrition. However, this was not the case with household level calorie adequacy which rendered age less useful as a targeting instrument, at an often considerable calorie cost. Food sharing, on the other hand, truly rendered age less helpful as a targeting instrument because of within-household leakage. The authors conclude that the design of nutrition interventions can be very susceptible to the level of aggregation of available information. This is consistent with findings that while poverty or undernutrition rankings of groups defined on household level characteristics were not sensitive to the level of aggregation, the rankings of groups defined on individual characteristics were very sensitive. Perhaps the costs of collection of these intra-household data outweigh the benefits, but the experiments in this paper begin to answer questions about the costs of not collecting them.Poverty Lines,Youth and Governance,Science Education,Scientific Research&Science Parks,Health Monitoring&Evaluation
Children and intra-household inequality : a theoretical analysis
No full textArguing that resources within the household are not allocated according to need, several researchers have tried to model intra-household allocative behavior. One group (1990) argued that as households become better off, intra-household inequality first increases then decreases. The behavior of intra-household inequality as household welfare improves is clearly important for policy, as interventions are often restricted to the household level - although the objective is to improve the welfare of the least-well-off individual. The author shows here that many of the tractable derivations of intra-household resource allocation are available in what might be called the"linear expenditure systems"framework. He analyzes the relationship between intra-household inequality and total household resources for models of intra-household allocation that lead to a linear expenditure reduced form. He then investigates three structural models : household welfare maximization; cooperative bargaining; and a noncooperative game with children as public goods. The author indicates how these models should be modified to produce reduced forms that are better represented in the evidence.Urban Housing,Poverty Lines,Environmental Economics&Policies,Inequality,Housing&Human Habitats
Demographics and poverty spending attitudes in the Mississippi Poll: 2004-2014
No full textThe plight of the poor has played a role in America’s politics for decades. In the 1930’s, Franklin Roosevelt’s Democratic Party vowed to fight the Great Depression, and by implementing countless anti-poverty initiatives and agencies it won enormous favor with the public and ushered in a period of Democratic dominance. In modern politics, narratives surrounding the poor and programs designed to help them are utilized by Republicans and Democrats to further their party’s agenda. I examine the influence of various demographic factors on the attitudes of Mississippi residents towards spending by the government intended to alleviate poverty, using the Mississippi Poll’s results from the years 2004-2014 as my dataset and using cross-tabulation analyses to draw conclusions. I find that gender and religiosity are relatively weak predictors of poverty spending attitudes, while income, education, and age are stronger predictors, and race and party identification are very strong predictors
Quality of Evaluation Extruded Snacks.
No full textThis Dissertation / Report is the outcome of investigation carried out by the creator(s) / author(s) at the department/division of Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI), Mysore mentioned below in this page
Experience report: Scala collections
No full textWe report on our experiences in redesigning Scala's collection libraries, focussing on the role that type systems play in keeping software architectures coherent over time. Type systems can make software architecture more explicit but, if they are too weak, can also cause code duplication. We show that code duplication can be
avoided using two of Scala's type constructions: higher-kinded types and implicit parameters and conversions.sponsorship: The second author (Adriaan Moors) is supported by a grant from the Flemish IWT.status: Publishe
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