Journal articles on the topic 'Climatic changes – United States – Public opinion'
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1
Sugg, Johnathan W. "Exploratory Geovisualization of the Character and Distribution of American Climate Change Beliefs." Weather, Climate, and Society 13, no. 1 (January 2021): 67–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/wcas-d-20-0071.1.
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AbstractAmericans remain polarized about climate change. However, recent scholarship reveals a plurality of climate change opinions among the public, with nontrivial support for a range of awareness, risk perceptions, and policy prescriptions. This study uses publicly available opinion estimates to examine the geographic variability of American climate change opinions and maps them as regions that share similarities or differences in the character of their beliefs. The exploratory geovisual environment of a self-organizing map is used to compare the support for 56 different climate opinions across all counties in the United States and arrange them into a spatially coherent grid of nodes. To facilitate the exploration of the patterns, a statistical cluster analysis groups together counties with the most similar climate beliefs. Choropleth maps visualize the clustering results from the self-organizing map. This study finds six groups of climate beliefs in which member counties exhibit a distinct regionality across the United States and share similarities in the magnitude of support for specific opinions. Groups that generally exhibit high or low levels of support for climate change awareness, risk perceptions, and policy prescriptions vary in their relative support for specific opinions. The results provide a nuanced understanding of different types of climate change opinions and where they exist geographically.
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Hartley, Thomas, and Bruce Russett. "Public Opinion and the Common Defense: Who Governs Military Spending in the United States?" American Political Science Review 86, no. 4 (December 1992): 905–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1964343.
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We measure the extent to which military spending policy reflects public opinion, while controlling for other reasonable influences on policy. We use survey data as an indicator of aggregate public opinion on military spending and find evidence that changes in public opinion consistently exert an effect on changes in military spending. The influence of public opinion is less important than either Soviet military spending or the gap between U.S. and Soviet military spending and more important than the deficit and the balance of Soviet conflict/cooperation with the United States. We also examine the hypothesis that public opinion does not influence the government but that the government systematically manipulates public opinion. We find no evidence to support this hypothesis.
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SOROKA, STUART N., and CHRISTOPHER WLEZIEN. "Opinion–Policy Dynamics: Public Preferences and Public Expenditure in the United Kingdom." British Journal of Political Science 35, no. 4 (August 22, 2005): 665–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0007123405000347.
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Work exploring the relationship between public opinion and public policy over time has largely been restricted to the United States. A wider application of this line of research can provide insights into how representation varies across political systems, however. This article takes a first step in this direction using a new body of data on public opinion and government spending in Britain. The results of analyses reveal that the British public appears to notice and respond (thermostatically) to changes in public spending in particular domains, perhaps even more so than in the United States. They also reveal that British policymakers represent these preferences in spending, though the magnitude and structure of this response is less pronounced and more general. The findings are suggestive about the structuring role of institutions.
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Tompsett, Carolyn J., Paul A. Toro, Melissa Guzicki, Manuel Manrique, and Jigna Zatakia. "Homelessness in the United States: Assessing Changes in Prevalence and Public Opinion, 1993-2001." American Journal of Community Psychology 37, no. 1-2 (February 24, 2006): 29–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10464-005-9007-2.
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Bolshakov, S. N. "The political mechanism of governance in the United States public opinion assessments." Moscow State University Bulletin. Series 18. Sociology and Political Science 27, no. 1 (February 26, 2021): 251–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.24290/1029-3736-2021-27-1-251-262.
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The article discusses the current problems of functioning democratic institutions in the United States. The consequences of presidential elections and their influence on public opinion are analyzed. In the face of growing tensions toward world democracy and democratic values, US citizens usually agree on the importance of democratic ideals and values that are important to the United States. The results of the study also demonstrate the awareness of American society of the objective existence necessary criticism. Most respondents emphasize their knowledge of basic facts about the political system and democracy in the United States. The majority of respondents said that “significant changes” are necessary in the fundamental structure of the executive bodies of the American government in order for it to work effectively at the present time.The article states the complexity of the ongoing domestic political processes in the United States, the existence of existing contradictions and the split of public opinion regarding the stability of democratic mechanisms of the functioning of the US political system. The complexity of religious, national, social and other contradictions of social development brought to the surface of public debate a complex of problems of the dynamics of political development and the state mechanism of government.
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Adamczyk, Amy, and Yen-Chiao Liao. "Examining Public Opinion About LGBTQ-Related Issues in the United States and Across Multiple Nations." Annual Review of Sociology 45, no. 1 (July 30, 2019): 401–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-073018-022332.
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Over the last three decades, many countries across the world, including the United States, have experienced major increases in support for LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) individuals and related issues. In partial relation to these changes, multiple studies have examined the factors shaping public opinion. In this review, we focus on four major areas of research on public opinion in this field of study. First, we assess the terms that scholars typically use when examining attitudes and highlight the areas of public opinion research that have received the most attention. Second, we focus on the data and measurement challenges related to examining attitudes in the United States and across many nations. Third, we consider how and why attitudes and related laws have changed over time and across nations. Finally, we discuss the major micro and macro empirical forces that influence and the theoretical explanations for why there are such differences in attitudes. We end by offering several suggestions for future research.
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Chapman, Terrence L. "Audience Beliefs and International Organization Legitimacy." International Organization 63, no. 4 (October 2009): 733–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0020818309990154.
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AbstractRecent work suggests that multilateral security institutions, such as the UN Security Council, can influence foreign policy through public opinion. According to this view, authorization can increase public support for foreign policy, freeing domestic constraints. Governments that feel constrained by public opinion may thus alter their foreign policies to garner external authorization. These claims challenge traditional realist views about the role of international organizations in security affairs, which tend to focus on direct enforcement mechanisms and neglect indirect channels of influence. To examine these claims, this article investigates the first link in this causal chain—the effect of institutional statements on public opinion. Strategic information arguments, as opposed to arguments about the symbolic legitimacy of specific organizations or the procedural importance of consultation, posit that the effect of institutional statements on public opinion is conditional on public perceptions of member states' interests. This article tests this conditional relationship in the context of changes in presidential approval surrounding military disputes, using a measure of preference distance between the United States and veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council. Findings indicate that short-term changes in presidential approval surrounding the onset of military disputes in the United States between 1946 and 2001 have been significantly larger when accompanied by a positive resolution for a Security Council that is more distant in terms of foreign policy preferences. The article also discusses polling data during the 1990s and 2000s that support the strategic information perspective.
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Lasala Blanco, Maria Narayani, Robert Y. Shapiro, and Joy Wilke. "The Nature of Partisan Conflict in Public Opinion: Asymmetric or Symmetric?" American Politics Research 49, no. 1 (October 8, 2020): 46–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1532673x20961022.
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What are the dynamics of partisan conflict in the mass public in the United States? Has this conflict been driven by Republicans moving to the right across a wide range of issues, or have Democrats contributed to this as well? Have these changes been symmetric, occurring for both sides, or asymmetric, occurring for just one side? Understanding how the partisan gaps have widened may shed light on potential prospects for reversing extreme political conflict in public opinion. This paper examines this question with an analysis of opinion trend data over the last 40 years. It includes an original analysis of these trends among racial and ethnic groups. We find that symmetric partisan changes have only occurred among whites. Overall partisan differences have been less for Blacks and Hispanics than for whites.
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Denham, Bryan E. "Attitudes toward legalization of marijuana in the United States, 1986-2016: Changes in determinants of public opinion." International Journal of Drug Policy 71 (September 2019): 78–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2019.06.007.
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Tercek, Michael T., David Thoma, John E. Gross, Kirk Sherrill, Stefanie Kagone, and Gabriel Senay. "Historical changes in plant water use and need in the continental United States." PLOS ONE 16, no. 9 (September 2, 2021): e0256586. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256586.
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A robust method for characterizing the biophysical environment of terrestrial vegetation uses the relationship between Actual Evapotranspiration (AET) and Climatic Water Deficit (CWD). These variables are usually estimated from a water balance model rather than measured directly and are often more representative of ecologically-significant changes than temperature or precipitation. We evaluate trends and spatial patterns in AET and CWD in the Continental United States (CONUS) during 1980–2019 using a gridded water balance model. The western US had linear regression slopes indicating increasing CWD and decreasing AET (drying), while the eastern US had generally opposite trends. When limits to plant performance characterized by AET and CWD are exceeded, vegetation assemblages change. Widespread increases in aridity throughout the west portends shifts in the distribution of plants limited by available moisture. A detailed look at Sequoia National Park illustrates the high degree of fine-scale spatial variability that exists across elevation and topographical gradients. Where such topographical and climatic diversity exists, appropriate use of our gridded data will require sub-setting to an appropriate area and analyzing according to categories of interest such as vegetation communities or across obvious physical gradients. Recent studies have successfully applied similar water balance models to fire risk and forest structure in both western and eastern U.S. forests, arid-land spring discharge, amphibian colonization and persistence in wetlands, whitebark pine mortality and establishment, and the distribution of arid-land grass species and landscape scale vegetation condition. Our gridded dataset is available free for public use. Our findings illustrate how a simple water balance model can identify important trends and patterns at site to regional scales. However, at finer scales, environmental heterogeneity is driving a range of responses that may not be simply characterized by a single trend.
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Hu, Tao, Siqin Wang, Wei Luo, Mengxi Zhang, Xiao Huang, Yingwei Yan, Regina Liu, et al. "Revealing Public Opinion Towards COVID-19 Vaccines With Twitter Data in the United States: Spatiotemporal Perspective." Journal of Medical Internet Research 23, no. 9 (September 10, 2021): e30854. http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/30854.
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Background The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed a large, initially uncontrollable, public health crisis both in the United States and across the world, with experts looking to vaccines as the ultimate mechanism of defense. The development and deployment of COVID-19 vaccines have been rapidly advancing via global efforts. Hence, it is crucial for governments, public health officials, and policy makers to understand public attitudes and opinions towards vaccines, such that effective interventions and educational campaigns can be designed to promote vaccine acceptance. Objective The aim of this study was to investigate public opinion and perception on COVID-19 vaccines in the United States. We investigated the spatiotemporal trends of public sentiment and emotion towards COVID-19 vaccines and analyzed how such trends relate to popular topics found on Twitter. Methods We collected over 300,000 geotagged tweets in the United States from March 1, 2020 to February 28, 2021. We examined the spatiotemporal patterns of public sentiment and emotion over time at both national and state scales and identified 3 phases along the pandemic timeline with sharp changes in public sentiment and emotion. Using sentiment analysis, emotion analysis (with cloud mapping of keywords), and topic modeling, we further identified 11 key events and major topics as the potential drivers to such changes. Results An increasing trend in positive sentiment in conjunction with a decrease in negative sentiment were generally observed in most states, reflecting the rising confidence and anticipation of the public towards vaccines. The overall tendency of the 8 types of emotion implies that the public trusts and anticipates the vaccine. This is accompanied by a mixture of fear, sadness, and anger. Critical social or international events or announcements by political leaders and authorities may have potential impacts on public opinion towards vaccines. These factors help identify underlying themes and validate insights from the analysis. Conclusions The analyses of near real-time social media big data benefit public health authorities by enabling them to monitor public attitudes and opinions towards vaccine-related information in a geo-aware manner, address the concerns of vaccine skeptics, and promote the confidence that individuals within a certain region or community have towards vaccines.
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Aziza, Zahra Nur, and Daniel Yeri Kristiyanto. "Prediction of The Level of Public Trust in Government Policies in the 1st Quarter of The Covid 19 Pandemic using Sentiment Analysis." E3S Web of Conferences 317 (2021): 05013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/202131705013.
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The covid-19 pandemic has made changes in society, including Government policy. The policy changes led to mixing responses from the public, namely netizens. Netizen shares their opinion in social media, including Twitter. Their opinion can represent the public’s trust in the Government. Sentiment analysis analyses others’ opinions and categorises them into positive opinions, negative opinions, or neutral opinions. Sentiment analysis can analyze large numbers of opinions so that public opinion can be analyzed quickly. This paper explains how to analyze public trust using sentiment analysis and to use Naïve Bayes classification method to analyze sentiment. The data research was taken from Twitter in the first quarter of the Covid-19 pandemic, with around 3000 tweets. The tweets were related to Covid-19 and the Government from several countries such as the United States, Australia, Ireland, Switzerland, Italy, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Canada, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, and Lebanon. This study aims to determine the level of public trust in the Government in the first quarter of the Covid-19 pandemic. The research result is expected to be used as a reference for the public policy stakeholders to determine future policies.
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Leduc, Timothy. "Fuelling America's Climatic Apocalypse." Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology 11, no. 3 (2007): 255–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156853507x230555.
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AbstractThis paper examines the powerful intersection of Christian fundamentalism and fossil fuel interests in the United States' Republican administration's policy response to climate change. Of particular interest is the increasing recognition that apocalyptic Christian beliefs are informing America's political economic and public understanding of environmental issues, thus allowing climate change to be interpreted from a religious frame of reference that could impact a viable response in a country whose GHG emissions are amongst the highest in the world. While liberal secularists may think the Christian apocalypse to be a misguided belief, scientific discourses on the potential interacting impacts of climatic changes and energy shortages offer an almost complementary rational depiction of apocalypse. By bringing these Christian and secular revelations into dialogue, the following interdisciplinary analysis offers a unique perspective on the way in which apocalyptic thought can both negatively and positively inform a political economic response to climate change.
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Banaszak, Lee Ann, and Heather L. Ondercin. "Public Opinion as a Movement Outcome: The Case of the U.S. Women's Movement*." Mobilization: An International Quarterly 21, no. 3 (September 1, 2016): 361–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.17813/1086-671x-21-3-361.
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We demonstrate that an important outcome of social movements is public opinion change, particularly in the case of the U.S. women's movement. We argue that contentious events associated with the women's movement provide informational cues that prime the public. This process then leads to changes in attitudes regarding gender. We use quarterly time series data on contentious events of the U.S. women's movement ranging from 1960 to 1992 and public opinion about gender attitudes in the United States to examine whether public opinion moves in response to social movement events. Using an error correction model, we demonstrate that social movement events have a significant effect on gender attitudes. Citizens adopt more liberal gender attitudes as the U.S. women's movement increases its activity. These results suggest that social movement scholars should be paying more attention to public opinion when assessing the outcomes of social movements.
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Levy, Morris, Matthew Wright, and Jack Citrin. "Mass Opinion and Immigration Policy in the United States: Re-Assessing Clientelist and Elitist Perspectives." Perspectives on Politics 14, no. 3 (August 31, 2016): 660–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1537592716001110.
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We argue that widely accepted elitist and “clientelist” models of immigration policy in the United States unduly minimize popular pressure on policy-making. These models portray majority opinion in ways that fail to recognize divergence between the public’s abstract goals for immigration policy and its support for the concrete policy changes needed to achieve them. As a result, they obscure many important instances in which immigration policy accords with public preferences despite counter-pressure from elites and organized lobbies. We demonstrate this point by identifying and explaining gaps between generalized attitudes and beliefs about specific policies in the domains of both legal and illegal immigration, showing that status quo legal admissions policies are not starkly at odds with majority preferences and that, contrary to interpretations of most commercial polling on the topic, majorities reject specific aspects of legalization programs that organized lobbies insist on as components of a “grand bargain” to overhaul an immigration system widely viewed as “broken.” Appreciating the nuance in mass opinion toward immigration policy helps explain policy stagnation that confounds elitist models and suggests that forging ahead with immigration reform will require persuading the public and not only successful bargaining among elites and interest groups.
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Hicks, William D., Kevin J. Mullinix, and Robert J. Norris. "The Politics of Wrongful Conviction Legislation." State Politics & Policy Quarterly 21, no. 3 (March 22, 2021): 306–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/spq.2020.4.
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AbstractWrongful convictions are an increasing salient feature of criminal justice discourse in the United States. Many states have adopted reforms to mitigate the likelihood of wrongful convictions, discover errors, and provide redress in the wake of exonerations, yet we know little about why some are seemingly more committed to reducing such errors than others. We argue that public opinion is consequential for policy reform, but its effects are contingent on the electoral vulnerability of state lawmakers. We also suggest that advocacy organizations play a critical role in policy adoption. Incorporating data from all 50 states from 1989 to 2018, we investigate the adoption of five types of wrongful conviction reforms: (1) changes to eyewitness identification practices, (2) mandatory recording of interrogations, (3) the preservation of biological evidence, (4) access to postconviction DNA testing, and (5) exoneree compensation. Our results highlight a more nuanced view of how public opinion shapes policy.
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Gueorguiev, Dimitar, Daniel McDowell, and David A. Steinberg. "The Impact of Economic Coercion on Public Opinion: The Case of US–China Currency Relations." Journal of Conflict Resolution 64, no. 9 (March 24, 2020): 1555–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022002720912323.
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In recent years, the United States has increasingly tried to change other governments’ economic policies by threatening to punish those countries if they do not change course. To better understand the political consequences of these tactics, this paper examines how external threats influence public support for policy change in targeted states. We consider three mechanisms through which economic coercion might alter public opinion: by changing individuals’ interests, by activating their national identities, and by providing them with new information about a policy’s distributive effects. To test these rival explanations, we focus on the case of China–US currency relations. Using data from a survey experiment of Chinese internet users, we find strong support for the informational updating theory. Our evidence suggests that economic coercion can reduce support for policy change because it leads individuals to update their beliefs about who wins and loses from economic policy changes.
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Habel, Philip, and J. Tobin Grant. "Demand for God and Government: The Dynamics of Religion and Public Opinion." Politics and Religion 6, no. 2 (January 3, 2013): 282–302. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1755048312000570.
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AbstractWe explore the relationship between religiosity and public support for greater government services. We theorize that increases in religiosity and public opinion both reflect demands from citizens in the face of insecurity. We argue that religiosity is comprised of two factors: responses to insecurity; and long-held preferences for religion, or secularity. We show that previous studies that have observed increased religiosity leading to decreased support for government spending have not distinguished among religiosity as driven by secularity versus insecurity. To test our theory, we first estimate a series of simulations, and we then turn to the dynamics of aggregate religiosity and public opinion in the United States over the past fifty years, an environment where long-held preferences for religious goods have remained relatively stable. Consistent with our theory, religiosity and public opinion respond to insecurity; the series are positively correlated, move together through time, and react in similar ways to changes in GDP per capita. Our findings indicate that during times when there is greater insecurity, both religiosity and demand from government increase.
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Wohlers, Anton E. "Labeling of genetically modified food: Closer to reality in the United States?" Politics and the Life Sciences 32, no. 1 (2013): 73–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.2990/32_1_73.
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Within the broader context of several related biotech developments, including the proliferation of GM food in American grocery stories, the recent decision by Whole Foods Market, Inc. to require the labeling of all genetically modified (GM) organism products sold in its stores by 2018, and the development of GM animals for consumption, this essay asks whether the United States is inching towards a policy of mandatory GM food labeling. The analysis highlights aspects of the biotechnology policy debate in the United States and European Union, and traces public opinion as well as grassroots and legislative efforts aimed at GM food labeling. Findings show that activities at the federal level do not suggest any major regulatory changes regarding labeling in the near future; however, a growing number of individual states are considering GM food labeling legislation and political momentum in favor of labeling has picked up in recent years. Voluntary labeling by food companies may also become increasingly common.
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Schofer, Morgan. "Human Rights and National Security Post 9/11." Security and Human Rights 26, no. 2-4 (December 7, 2015): 294–307. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18750230-02602012.
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This article seeks to examine the relationship between human rights and national security within the context of counter-terrorism legislation in the United States following 11 September 2001. Working from a constructivist point of view and using discourse analysis and public-opinion data, I aim to determine whether changes have been made to the right to privacy and the anti-torture norm under the administrations of presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
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Kastellec, Jonathan P. "How Courts Structure State-Level Representation." State Politics & Policy Quarterly 18, no. 1 (January 23, 2018): 27–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1532440017745522.
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I examine how courts condition the relationship between state-level public opinion and policy. The system of federalism in the United States allows federal and state courts to establish the types of policies that states are constitutionally allowed to implement. In particular, federal courts can set “federal floors” for policy, below which no states can go. State courts, in turn, can raise the level of this floor. Thus, both federal and state courts shape whether state policy can match the preferences of the median voter in a given state. Analyzing data on public opinion, judicial decisions, and state-level policy on the issue of abortion, from 1973 to 2012, I show that changes in the set of allowable abortion restrictions, according to the combined decisions of state and federal courts, significantly affect whether states implement majority-preferred policies. I also show that ignoring the influence of courts on the policymaking environment significantly affects the estimated level of policy congruence and thus conclusions about the scope of representation. These results demonstrate the importance of placing courts in the larger study of state-level representation.
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Lipset, Seymour Martin. "The Elections, the Economy and Public Opinion: 1984." PS: Political Science & Politics 18, no. 01 (1985): 28–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1049096500021260.
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Many commentaries on the recent American elections conclude that the United States has taken a long-term move to the right. This shift seemingly began in the late sixties as a reaction to the turmoil occasioned by militant, sometimes violent protest tactics used by the civil rights and antiwar movements, and by the sharp challenge to traditional values encompassed in the changes in family and sex behavior, dress styles, the increased use of drugs, and the like. The Republicans have been victorious in four out of the last five presidential elections, those held from 1968 on. Only one of these, that in 1968, was close, but in that contest a right-wing and racist candidate, George Wallace, received 13 percent. The one election of the five which the Democrats won, that in 1976, was the first one after Richard Nixon's resignation following the Watergate scandal.Yet the conclusion that America has been in a conservative mood for some time is challenged by the results of the races for Congress and state offices and by the findings of the opinion polls. In 1984, in the same election in which Ronald Reagan received 59 percent of the vote, eight percent more than in 1980, his party lost two seats in the Senate and gained only 14 in the much larger House, leaving it behind the Democrats by 252 to 183. The Democrats still hold 34 of the 50 governorships, down by only one. Judged by which party holds most electoral offices, the Democrats remain the majority party.
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Lipset, Seymour Martin. "The Elections, the Economy and Public Opinion: 1984." PS 18, no. 1 (1985): 28–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0030826900622919.
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Many commentaries on the recent American elections conclude that the United States has taken a long-term move to the right. This shift seemingly began in the late sixties as a reaction to the turmoil occasioned by militant, sometimes violent protest tactics used by the civil rights and antiwar movements, and by the sharp challenge to traditional values encompassed in the changes in family and sex behavior, dress styles, the increased use of drugs, and the like. The Republicans have been victorious in four out of the last five presidential elections, those held from 1968 on. Only one of these, that in 1968, was close, but in that contest a right-wing and racist candidate, George Wallace, received 13 percent. The one election of the five which the Democrats won, that in 1976, was the first one after Richard Nixon's resignation following the Watergate scandal.Yet the conclusion that America has been in a conservative mood for some time is challenged by the results of the races for Congress and state offices and by the findings of the opinion polls. In 1984, in the same election in which Ronald Reagan received 59 percent of the vote, eight percent more than in 1980, his party lost two seats in the Senate and gained only 14 in the much larger House, leaving it behind the Democrats by 252 to 183. The Democrats still hold 34 of the 50 governorships, down by only one. Judged by which party holds most electoral offices, the Democrats remain the majority party.
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Gleick, Peter H. "The effects of future climatic changes on international water resources: the Colorado River, the United States, and Mexico." Policy Sciences 21, no. 1 (1988): 23–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf00145120.
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Karol, David. "Has Polling Enhanced Representation? Unearthing Evidence from the Literary Digest Issue Polls." Studies in American Political Development 21, no. 1 (March 2007): 16–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0898588x07000144.
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How has representation changed over time in the United States? Has responsiveness to public opinion waxed or waned among elected officials? What are the causes of such trends as we observe? Scholars have pursued these crucial questions in different ways. Some explore earlier eras in search of the “electoral connection”, i.e. the extent to which voters held office-holders accountable for their actions and the degree to which electoral concerns motivated politicians' behavior. Others explore the effects of institutional changes such as the move to direct election of senators or the “reapportionment revolution.”
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Agran, Martin, and Dmitriy Boykov. "A Preliminary Survey of Professional and Student Opinion of Special Education Practice in Contemporary Russia." Research and Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities 28, no. 2 (June 2003): 91–100. http://dx.doi.org/10.2511/rpsd.28.2.91.
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Despite pervasive political, economic, and social changes in Russia since the collapse of Soviet rule, it remains uncertain what changes have occurred in special education in the last decade. The purpose of this study was to survey the perceptions of a sample of special educators about the status of special education in contemporary Russia. In addition, the respondents were asked what factors needed to be addressed to produce systems change. Results indicated that the majority of respondents were knowledgeable of and in support of inclusion practices advocated in the United States and Western Europe. However, belief in traditional practices of placing individuals with disabilities in more segregated settings that are somewhat in conflict with contemporary values was also evident. The implications of these findings are discussed.
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Hoadley, John F. "Health Care in the United States: Access, Costs, and Quality." PS: Political Science & Politics 20, no. 02 (1987): 197–201. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1049096500026007.
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Fact: As a nation, medical care expenditures represent 10.6% of the gross national product. The portion of the nation's medical care dollar coming from federal sources declined slightly (42.6% to 41.4%) between 1981 and 1984, but this share is more than 15 percentage points above the comparable figure from the years prior to 1965 (Anderson, 1985).As these numbers illustrate, paying for health care is a very expensive proposition in the United States, consuming a higher proportion of our nation's resources than is true for most developed nations. While we have strongly resisted any move to a government-run system of health care delivery, the above numbers also show clearly that the federal government pays for a substantial share of all health care in this country.Three major themes have dominated the health policy agenda during recent years: access to health care, cost containment, and quality of care. The fates of these issues have waxed and waned over the years as changes in health care delivery, federal budgetary politics, and shifting public opinion have altered the environment over time. In the 1960s, access was the key issue, as Democratic administrations used government programs to make health care more readily available to all Americans. As inflation levels soared in the 1970s, cost containment was forced onto the agenda, resulting in a series of attempts to reduce federal expenditures on hospital care. Finally, by the mid-1980s, cost containment pressures were modifying slightly; we have recently witnessed a return to access issues and the emergence of quality as a new political issue.
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Hoadley, John F. "Health Care in the United States: Access, Costs, and Quality." PS 20, no. 2 (1987): 197–201. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0030826900627868.
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Fact: As a nation, medical care expenditures represent 10.6% of the gross national product. The portion of the nation's medical care dollar coming from federal sources declined slightly (42.6% to 41.4%) between 1981 and 1984, but this share is more than 15 percentage points above the comparable figure from the years prior to 1965 (Anderson, 1985).As these numbers illustrate, paying for health care is a very expensive proposition in the United States, consuming a higher proportion of our nation's resources than is true for most developed nations. While we have strongly resisted any move to a government-run system of health care delivery, the above numbers also show clearly that the federal government pays for a substantial share of all health care in this country.Three major themes have dominated the health policy agenda during recent years: access to health care, cost containment, and quality of care. The fates of these issues have waxed and waned over the years as changes in health care delivery, federal budgetary politics, and shifting public opinion have altered the environment over time. In the 1960s, access was the key issue, as Democratic administrations used government programs to make health care more readily available to all Americans. As inflation levels soared in the 1970s, cost containment was forced onto the agenda, resulting in a series of attempts to reduce federal expenditures on hospital care. Finally, by the mid-1980s, cost containment pressures were modifying slightly; we have recently witnessed a return to access issues and the emergence of quality as a new political issue.
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Hoffman, Bernadette, and Vincent Smith. "AN ANALYSIS OF UTILITY COMPANY CUSTOMER SERVICE DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC." International Journal of Advanced Research 10, no. 09 (September 30, 2022): 581–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.21474/ijar01/15394.
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Many companies have fared badly in service due to COVID-19 restrictions and changes in the lifestyle around the United States. Consumers within the United States are potentially faced with service interruptions and the inability to resolve issues for services that are necessary for daily life this is exacerbated by many Americans working from home during the pandemic. The purpose of this research is to analyze the public opinion of Americans living with these service issues via social media. Through the collection and interpretation of this data, we hope that changes may be brought to light. The data was analyzed using natural language processing utilities, and finally, using various inferential statistical methods. The potential implications of the results will be practical for companies moving forward in a post-COVID-19 society. We aimed to show the overall satisfaction of customers during this adjustment period. The research conducted reflected the minimal effect presented by moratoriums ending during our capture dates. Significant results were found between utility types and the overall polarity of customer satisfaction, and possible conclusions are discussed.
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Timm, Kristin M. F., Edward W. Maibach, Maxwell Boykoff, Teresa A. Myers, and Melissa A. Broeckelman-Post. "The Prevalence and Rationale for Presenting an Opposing Viewpoint in Climate Change Reporting: Findings from a U.S. National Survey of TV Weathercasters." Weather, Climate, and Society 12, no. 1 (January 2020): 103–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/wcas-d-19-0063.1.
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AbstractThe journalistic norm of balance has been described as the practice of giving equal weight to different sides of a story; false balance is balanced reporting when the weight of evidence strongly favors one side over others—for example, the reality of human-caused climate change. False balance is problematic because it skews public perception of expert agreement. Through formative interviews and a survey of American weathercasters about climate change reporting, we found that objectivity and balance—topics that have frequently been studied with environmental journalists—are also relevant to understanding climate change reporting among weathercasters. Questions about the practice of and reasons for presenting an opposing viewpoint when reporting on climate change were included in a 2017 census survey of weathercasters working in the United States (N = 480; response rate = 22%). When reporting on climate change, 35% of weathercasters present an opposing viewpoint “always” or “most of the time.” Their rationale for reporting opposing viewpoints included the journalistic norms of objectivity and balanced reporting (53%), their perceived uncertainty of climate science (21%), to acknowledge differences of opinion (17%), to maintain credibility (14%), and to strengthen the story (7%). These findings show that climate change reporting from weathercasters sometimes includes opposing viewpoints, and possibly a false balance, but further research is necessary. Moreover, prior research has shown that the climate reporting practices among weathercasters are evolving rapidly and so the problem of false-balance reporting may already be self-correcting.
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Christopher Olds. "Infectious Diseases, Stock Market Volatility, and Public Opinion on Home Buying in the United States: Implications from COVID-19 and Beyond." Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal 7, no. 7 (August 7, 2020): 859–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.77.8731.
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The study evaluates whether there are limits to an excess in consumptive behaviors during periods where infectious disease outbreaks produce unpredictable changes in equity markets. While there is evidence of panic buying in these periods such that people increasingly acquire goods that they do not actually need, this does not mean that people will acquire items if their purchase has significant risk tied to them. Using time series information across 35 years, the empirical analyses show that people are less likely to think buying a home is a good idea due to change in the level of equity market volatility brought about by infectious diseases. Even though panic buying occurs during epidemics and pandemics, this is not an indication that decision-making about purchases is wholly irrational. In uncertain times when infectious disease outbreaks make equity markets unpredictable, people rationally seek to minimize the level of personal losses they experience as much as possible.
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Johnson, Erik W., and Philip Schwadel. "Political Polarization and Long-Term Change in Public Support for Environmental Spending." Social Forces 98, no. 2 (January 22, 2019): 915–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/sf/soy124.
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Abstract Public support for environmental protection has evinced declines in recent years that are widely attributed to growing antipathy among self-identified Republicans. Fractures in what was long considered broad and enduring support for the environment in the United States have called attention to the broader socio-political context in which individual opinion on the environment is formed, and especially the role of political parties and their leaders in shaping opinion. Empirical analyses of environmental support, however, remain strongly focused on individual-level correlates of support. We apply recent methodological advances in age-period-cohort models to scrutinize changes in Americans’ willingness to pay more for environmental protection between 1973 and 2014. Analyses distinguish the importance of individual traits, such as political identification, from cohort and especially period-based fluctuations that result from changing economic and political conditions. Individual-level covariate results are reflective of previous research on environmental opinion (e.g., age is negatively and education positively associated with environmental support). We further find that political context across time periods matters as much as, and interacts with, individual political affiliation to influence support for the environment. Americans of all political stripes demonstrate decreases in support for environmental spending during Democratic presidential administrations and during difficult economic times. Declines during Democratic presidencies are especially pronounced among Republicans. Analyses also highlight parallels between the high levels of political polarization in environmental support found at the end of the Obama Presidency and the end of the Carter era.
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Valentino, Benjamin. "Moral Character or Character of War? American Public Opinion on the Targeting of Civilians in Times of War." Daedalus 145, no. 4 (September 2016): 127–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/daed_a_00417.
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Since the end of the Vietnam War, the United States has refrained from the widespread, intentional targeting of civilian populations in times of war. Public opinion polls seem to reflect a marked decline in American support for targeting foreign civilians since that time. Drawing on original public opinion surveys, as well as other historical material, this essay explores several explanations for these changes. Although there is some evidence that the public's views about the morality of civilian targeting have shifted, I argue that two other explanations also play an important role in the changes in the conduct of American wars. First, a mounting skepticism, especially within the U.S. military, about the efficacy of killing civilians, has undercut the primary motivation to even consider such tactics. Indeed, many U.S. military leaders now perceive that killing adversary civilians in large numbers – intentionally or unintentionally – usually backfires, making the adversary fight harder or driving more civilians to join or support the adversary's forces. Second, due to the lower stakes, and especially the dramatically lower fatality rates suffered by American troops in recent wars, the temptation to attempt to end wars quickly with a “death blow” against adversary cities has become less potent. Under certain conditions, however, a majority of Americans would still support today the kind of population bombing last practiced during World War II.
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Ji, Kaixi, Zitong Yang, and Mengqian Zhou. "Cognitive Attitudes of International Mainstream Media to China during the Contaminated Water and Human Health Under Big Data." Journal of Environmental and Public Health 2022 (September 12, 2022): 1–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2022/9033781.
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The water pollution affecting human health is a crisis and big test, which tests the mainstream news media’s ability and level of communication to respond to major public opinions and public emergencies. The contaminated water is a crisis and a major test, which tests the ability and level of communication of major news outlets to respond to important common views and emergencies. It aims to understand the perception and attitude of the international mainstream media towards China during the contaminated water. The work sorted out the mainstream media’s reporting of China from the contaminated water to the present and selected the New York Times, The Times, and the Guardian as examples. We could understand the changes in China’s international image during the water pollution through these mainstream media reports on China. The results show that these media reports on water pollution in China mainly focused on negative public opinion, which accounted for more than 70% of the total number of reports. Western developed countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States are out of consideration for their national interests. Using mainstream media to create public opinion that is not conducive to China, advocating “neo-colonialism”, “China threat theory” and other false statements, trying to limit China’s influence, due to the difference in cognitive habits and the influence of British and American media hegemony also affects the country The communication and understanding between the two have brought obstacles.
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Stokes, Mary M. P. "Petitions to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from Local Governments, 1867–1877: A Case Study in Legislative Participation." Law and History Review 11, no. 1 (1993): 145–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/743602.
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In late twentieth-century English-speaking western democracies, the petition is almost exclusively a sporadic, exceptional, and marginal mode of political expression, its legitimacy as an instrument and indicator of public opinion superceded by elected professionals and ubiquitous polls; a tenuous survival from its origin as the universal form of civic supplication. Part and parcel of the democratic revolution that reached its apogee in the nineteenth century, this transition may not have been neatly contemporaneous with the constitutional changes to which it seems collateral. In a recent article in this review, David C. Frederick posited that petitioning effectively disappeared in the United States after the imposition of a “gag-rule” by Congress, imposed in the 1830s as a response to anti-slavery agitation by petition.
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Wu, F., and N. J. Mitchell. "How climate change and regulations can affect the economics of mycotoxins." World Mycotoxin Journal 9, no. 5 (November 2, 2016): 653–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.3920/wmj2015.2015.
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In the decades to come, the one factor that will likely have the greatest effect on the economics of the mycotoxin problem is climate change. This article reviews the current state of known science on how the global climate has been changing in recent decades, as well as likely climate change trends in the near future. The article focuses in depth on how climatic variables affect fungal infection and production of specific mycotoxins in food crops, and how near-future climatic changes will shape the prevalence of these mycotoxins in crops in different parts of the world. Because of regulatory limits set on maximum allowable levels of mycotoxins in food and feed, growers will experience economic losses if climatic factors cause certain mycotoxins to become more prevalent. A case study is presented of how maize growers in the United States will experience increased economic losses due to slightly higher aflatoxin levels in maize, even if those levels may still be below regulatory limits. We discuss the overall expected economic impacts of climate change-induced mycotoxin contamination worldwide – not just market-related losses, but also losses to human and animal health and risks to food security. Aflatoxin is the mycotoxin that is most likely to increase under near-future climate scenarios; and thus is likely to pose the greatest amount of economic risk of all the mycotoxins.
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Santos, Siméia de Azevedo, and Alexandre Luzzi Las Casas. "The Practice of Marketing in Law Offices: Professionals Opinion." Journal of Business and Economics 10, no. 8 (August 20, 2019): 751–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.15341/jbe(2155-7950)/08.10.2019/006.
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Brazil is one of the countries that, in proportion to its population, has one of the largest numbers of lawyers, losing only to the United States and India. In this scenario of demand for the profession, and given a large number of corporate law firms in Brazil, and especially in the south-east of the country, this research aims to explore the practice of marketing in lawyer’s office based on concepts of service marketing. To reach the objective of the study, the first part of the research aims to clarify the functioning and some particularity of law firms, as well as the disclosure and marketing restrictions that the sector has. The research presented is made up of two studies: a market study conducted in 2015 on legal marketing of corporate-oriented offices, and the other by a survey conducted with professionals from the same market research field, law firms focused on corporate service, updating part of the issues raised and confronting possible changes in the perception of this public. The main analyzes point to the importance of all tools or a set of tools working together, but in the research done with professionals in 2018 reveals a perception that staying present in the events is a more effective way to do marketing in this sector, reinforcing the concept of relationship in service marketing.
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Qin, Yingzuo, Yan Li, Ru Xu, Chengcheng Hou, Alona Armstrong, Eviatar Bach, Yang Wang, and Bojie Fu. "Impacts of 319 wind farms on surface temperature and vegetation in the United States." Environmental Research Letters 17, no. 2 (February 1, 2022): 024026. http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac49ba.
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Abstract The development of wind energy is essential for decarbonizing energy production. However, the construction of wind farms changes land surface temperature (LST) and vegetation by modifying land surface properties and disturbing land–atmosphere interactions. In this study, we used moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer satellite data to quantify the impacts on local climate and vegetation of 319 wind farms in the United States. Our results indicated insignificant impacts on LST during the daytime but significant warming of 0.10 °C of annual mean nighttime LST averaged over all wind farms, and 0.36 °C for those 61% wind farms with warming. The nighttime LST impacts exhibited seasonal variations, with stronger warming in winter and autumn, up to 0.18 °C, but weaker effects in summer and spring. We observed a decrease in peak normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) for 59% of wind farms due to infrastructure construction, with an average reduction of 0.0067 compared to non-wind farm areas. The impacts of wind farms depended on wind farm size, with winter LST impacts for large and small wind farms ranging from 0.21 °C to 0.14 °C, and peak NDVI impacts ranging from −0.009 to −0.006. The LST impacts declined with the increasing distance from the wind farm, with detectable impacts up to 10 km. In contrast, the vegetation impacts on NDVI were only evident within the wind farm locations. Wind farms built in grassland and cropland showed larger warming effects but weaker vegetation impact than those built on forests. Furthermore, spatial correlation analyses with environmental factors suggest limited geographical controls on the heterogeneous wind farm impacts and highlight the important role of local factors. Our analyses based on a large sample offer new evidence for wind farm impacts with improved representativeness compared to previous studies. This knowledge is important to fully understand the climatic and environmental implications of energy system decarbonization.
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Bhattarai, Keshab, Jonathan Haughton, Michael Head, and David G. Tuerck. "Simulating Corporate Income Tax Reform Proposals with a Dynamic CGE Model." International Journal of Economics and Finance 9, no. 5 (April 5, 2017): 20. http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ijef.v9n5p20.
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Opinion leaders and policy makers in the United States have turned their focus to the corporate income tax, which now has the highest statutory rate in the developed world. Using a dynamic computable general equilibrium model (the “NCPA-DCGE Model”), we simulate alternative policies for reducing the U.S. corporate income tax. We find that reductions in the corporate income tax rate result in significant positive impacts on output, investment, capital formation, employment, and household well-being (for almost all deciles). All of the hypothesized reforms also result in a more-streamlined public sector. These results are plausible insofar as the DCGE model from which they are obtained is parameterized by plausible elasticity assumptions, and incorporates the adjustments in prices, output, employment and investment that result from changes in tax policy.
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Moore, Frances C., Nick Obradovich, Flavio Lehner, and Patrick Baylis. "Rapidly declining remarkability of temperature anomalies may obscure public perception of climate change." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116, no. 11 (February 25, 2019): 4905–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1816541116.
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The changing global climate is producing increasingly unusual weather relative to preindustrial conditions. In an absolute sense, these changing conditions constitute direct evidence of anthropogenic climate change. However, human evaluation of weather as either normal or abnormal will also be influenced by a range of factors including expectations, memory limitations, and cognitive biases. Here we show that experience of weather in recent years—rather than longer historical periods—determines the climatic baseline against which current weather is evaluated, potentially obscuring public recognition of anthropogenic climate change. We employ variation in decadal trends in temperature at weekly and county resolution over the continental United States, combined with discussion of the weather drawn from over 2 billion social media posts. These data indicate that the remarkability of particular temperatures changes rapidly with repeated exposure. Using sentiment analysis tools, we provide evidence for a “boiling frog” effect: The declining noteworthiness of historically extreme temperatures is not accompanied by a decline in the negative sentiment that they induce, indicating that social normalization of extreme conditions rather than adaptation is driving these results. Using climate model projections we show that, despite large increases in absolute temperature, anomalies relative to our empirically estimated shifting baseline are small and not clearly distinguishable from zero throughout the 21st century.
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Yi, Guolin. "The “Propaganda State” and Sino-American Rapprochement: Preparing the Chinese Public for Nixon’s Visit." Journal of American-East Asian Relations 20, no. 1 (2013): 5–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18765610-02001005.
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Studies of Sino-American rapprochement in 1972 have not sufficiently explored how the Chinese public, which had been taught to hate the American “imperialists,” learned (or was instructed) about the dramatic change. By analyzing Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily) and Cankao Xiaoxi (Reference News), an internal (neibu) newspaper circulated only among Chinese Communist Party cadres, this article examines how the Chinese government prepared the party and its people for rapprochement from 1969 through 1971. Reference News kept cadres posted about Washington’s overtures, Nixon’s expressed wish to visit China, and Mao’s willingness to receive him, among other items not shared with the wider public. Before official exchanges were agreed, the Chinese government conducted “people-to-people diplomacy” by inviting American “friends” and displaying them to the Chinese public through banquets, receptions, and ceremonies. People’s Daily, which offered intensive coverage to these visitors, was particularly important in promoting the atmosphere of friendship. Party leaders did not need the approval of the public and party workers, but they did take their response into account in making foreign policy, especially on dramatic changes. By evaluating the Chinese communication system and its handling of public opinion on relations with the United States, this article presents a more nuanced picture of the “propaganda state.”
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Kosheliev, Artem. "Biographical Traditions in European Countries and the USA During the Modern and Contemporary Times." European Historical Studies, no. 12 (2019): 92–106. http://dx.doi.org/10.17721/2524-048x.2019.12.92-106.
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The article investigates the process of formation of modern direction in historical researches – biographical studies. In particular, attention is focused on the development of a biographical genre in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States. The biographical genre is being considered in the context of various historical processes during the modern and contemporary times. The research is dedicated to the substantiation of the interconnection between socio-cultural reality, which formed certain norms and value orientations in Western societies. On the example of listed countries, the author demonstrates that the culture of creating biographies has both common and distinct roots of origin in different historical and social conditions. Biographical research in this context serves as an indicator of social values and their changes. In order to demonstrate the interrelation of social norms with the promotion of certain personalities through their biographies author turn to the historical roots of the development of this genre. Also it allows revealing the theoretical and methodological approaches to writing biographies. The article traces the connection between the value orientations of different categories of the population and the formation of their heroes and antiheroes. In this direction journalistic investigations played an important role in various countries of Europe and the United States. These investigations have been and continue to influence the public opinion, describing the lifestyle of different individuals in the past and present. In the article also assumes the existence of a phenomenon of a broad “biographical culture” within which developed specialized academic fields of research.
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Wilms-Crowe, Momo. "Technology and Scientific Authority in United States Abortion Policy: Concerns Over a Mechanistic Approach and a Better Way Forward." Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal 16, no. 1 (2020): 15–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.5399/uo/ourj/16.1.3.
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Building on the pragmatist philosophical tradition and work done by scholars in the field of feminist technological studies, this paper considers abortion as a case study to examine how science and technology interact with systems of knowledge, truth, and power. Paying special attention to how technological authority and notions of expertise have influenced public policy and legislative agendas, I consider the role of technological artifacts in shaping our realities and our legal frameworks. Through a historical review of changes in abortion policy and in conversation with various social philosophers, I make the argument that scientific information has not objectively informed abortion opinion and policy, but rather always been a tool of power, reflective of and contributing to larger systemic inequalities. Moreover, because the fundamentally nuanced biology of human fetal development directly conflicts with the legal and moral urge to clearly demarcate personhood from non-personhood, I outline why any attempts to define personhood or viability based purely on biological evidence is arbitrary, deceptive, and ultimately inappropriate. For this reason, I conclude by advocating for the use of a more contextual approach to policy making, considering larger sociopolitical dynamics of gendered power and oppression as well as the lived experiences of those impacted directly by the legislation. In the current political moment, technology is playing an increasingly large role in our lives, and access to abortion and reproductive rights are being actively threatened by those in the highest ranks in the US government. This paper attempts to provide a deeper understanding of the philosophical journey our society took to reach this junction and suggest a better path forward, centering the values of democracy, dignity, and justice.
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Tortajada, Cecilia, and Sunil Nambiar. "Communications on Technological Innovations: Potable Water Reuse." Water 11, no. 2 (January 31, 2019): 251. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/w11020251.
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Water scarcity has prompted an increasing number of cities to look for non-conventional sources of clean water. One of these sources is reused water, or highly treated reclaimed or recycled wastewater, a worthy addition to the portfolio of water-resource alternatives that increasing cities are considering in view of demographic and environmental changes. In this paper, we analyse communications from the media, policymakers and utility managers on the technology used to produce reused water for potable purposes. The focus of our analysis is technology as a means for producing safe and reliable water supply in the long-term. Three places were selected because of their differing experiences with social acceptance: Singapore, Orange County (California, United States), and Queensland (Australia). We found distinct differences in the communications used in the three places, which we believe have strongly influenced public opinion on the provision of clean water through potable water reuse. In communicating technological innovations to the public, it is essential to also discuss the broader framework affecting reliable water supplies. In this light, planning, legal and regulatory frameworks, institutional coordination, financial sustainability, and operational aspects should also be communicated.
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Dumic, Igor, and Edson Severnini. "“Ticking Bomb”: The Impact of Climate Change on the Incidence of Lyme Disease." Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology 2018 (October 24, 2018): 1–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2018/5719081.
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Lyme disease (LD) is the most common tick-borne disease in North America. It is caused by Borrelia burgdorferi and transmitted to humans by blacklegged ticks, Ixodes scapularis. The life cycle of the LD vector, I. scapularis, usually takes two to three years to complete and goes through three stages, all of which are dependent on environmental factors. Increases in daily average temperatures, a manifestation of climate change, might have contributed to an increase in tick abundance via higher rates of tick survival. Additionally, these environmental changes might have contributed to better host availability, which is necessary for tick feeding and life cycle completion. In fact, it has been shown that both tick activity and survival depend on temperature and humidity. In this study, we have examined the relationship between those climatic variables and the reported incidence of LD in 15 states that contribute to more than 95% of reported cases within the Unites States. Using fixed effects analysis for a panel of 468 U.S. counties from those high-incidence states with annual data available for the period 2000–2016, we have found sizable impacts of temperature on the incidence of LD. Those impacts can be described approximately by an inverted U-shaped relationship, consistent with patterns of tick survival and host-seeking behavior. Assuming a 2°C increase in annual average temperature—in line with mid-century (2036–2065) projections from the latest U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA4)—we have predicted that the number of LD cases in the United States will increase by over 20 percent in the coming decades. These findings may help improving preparedness and response by clinicians, public health professionals, and policy makers, as well as raising public awareness of the importance of being cautious when engaging in outdoor activities.
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Brown, Kevin. "Revisiting the Supreme Court's Opinion in Brown v. Board of Education from a Multiculturalist Perspective." Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education 96, no. 4 (June 1995): 644–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/016146819509600420.
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This article looks back at the Supreme Court's school desegregation opinions, including Brown v. Board of Education, from the perspective of a multiculturalist. A multiculturalist prefers an American society that has learned to appreciate and value the existence of multiple racial and ethnic cultures. A prerequisite to accomplishing this multicultural vision of a utopian American society is to bring diverse racial and ethnic students together in public schools. But for this appreciation to occur, more than the physical presence of a racially and ethnically diverse student body is required. Thus a multiculturalist also wants to foster meaningful cross-cultural understanding, though not necessarily cross-cultural agreement. The Supreme Court's opinionin Brown produced significant positive changes in American society. Nevertheless, with the beginning of the termination of over 500 school desegregation decrees, the United States has entered a post desegregation era. Racial and ethnic segregation in public schools is likely to increase. Thus the utopian vision of a multiculturalist is not where our society is currently headed. After reexamining the Supreme Court's school desegregation opinions, I conclude by stating the reason the multicultural vision is not the one our society is moving toward. This vision was simply not part of the vision of public schools articulated by the Supreme Court in the school desegregation cases. If local school systems decide to engage in further efforts to bring racially and ethnically diverse students together, it must not be on the ideological basis of the Supreme Court's school desegregation opinions. The very kind of thinking about the issues of cultural diversity that Brown I was based upon is the very kind of thinking that must be overcome in order for true multicultural education to occur.
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Baughn, Robert E., and Daniel M. Musher. "Secondary Syphilitic Lesions." Clinical Microbiology Reviews 18, no. 1 (January 2005): 205–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/cmr.18.1.205-216.2005.
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SUMMARY An important theme that emerges from all early historical accounts is that in addition to the decreased virulence of Treponema pallidum, the incidence of secondary syphilis has decreased drastically over the past three centuries. Even in the early 20th century, most syphilologists were of the opinion that the disease had undergone changes in its manifestations and that they were dealing with an attenuated form of the spirochete. Such opinions were based primarily on the observations that violent cutaneous reactions and fatalities associated with the secondary stage had become extremely rare. The rate of primary and secondary syphilis in the United States increased in 2002 for the second consecutive year. After a decade-long decline that led to an all-time low in 2000, the recent trend is attributable, to a large extent, by a increase in reported syphilis cases among men, particularly homosexual and bisexual men having sex with men. The present review addresses the clinical and diagnostic criteria for the recognition of secondary syphilis, the clinical course and manifestations of the disease if allowed to proceed past the primary stage of disease in untreated individuals, and the treatment for this stage of the disease.
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Willinger, Marian, Howard J. Hoffman, and Robert B. Hartford. "Infant Sleep Position and Risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: Report of Meeting Held January 13 and 14, 1994, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD." Pediatrics 93, no. 5 (May 1, 1994): 814–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1542/peds.93.5.814.
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Objective. To evaluate the current knowledge on the relationship between infant sleep position and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and to determine how the information can be used to guide further activities in the United States. Methods. Data from international vital statistics, epidemiologic studies of SIDS risk factors, and studies of outcomes of public health interventions that advocated nonprone sleeping to reduce the risk for SIDS were discussed at a meeting held by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) with cosponsorship from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) on January 13, and 14, 1994. Results. Trends in postneonatal mortality and SIDS rates from 1980 through 1992 were evaluated for Australia, Britain, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United States. All of the countries that experienced a rapid decline in prone sleeping also had reductions of approximately 50% in their SIDS rates. Postneonatal mortality rates dropped as well, with the reduction in SIDS being the primary contributor to the reported declines. The major behavioral change in all targeted populations was in sleep position. No significant changes were observed in the proportion of parents who smoked cigarettes, or in breast-feeding. Preliminary data from population-based studies showed there were no reported adverse outcomes associated with a change to side or back sleep position, such as an increase in deaths due to aspiration or in apparent life-threatening events. Conclusion. The overwhelming opinion of the assembled experts was that the evidence justified greater effort to reach parents with the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendation that healthy infants, when being put down to sleep, be positioned on their side or back.
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Diamond, Howard J., Thomas R. Karl, Michael A. Palecki, C. Bruce Baker, Jesse E. Bell, Ronald D. Leeper, David R. Easterling, et al. "U.S. Climate Reference Network after One Decade of Operations: Status and Assessment." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 94, no. 4 (April 1, 2013): 485–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/bams-d-12-00170.1.
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The year 2012 marks a decade of observations undertaken by the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) under the auspices of NOAA's National Climatic Data Center and Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division. The network consists of 114 sites across the conterminous 48 states, with additional sites in Alaska and Hawaii. Stations are installed in open (where possible), rural sites very likely to have stable land-cover/use conditions for several decades to come. At each site a suite of meteorological parameters are monitored, including triple redundancy for the primary air temperature and precipitation variables and for soil moisture/temperature. Instrumentation is regularly calibrated to National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) standards and maintained by a staff of expert engineers. This attention to detail in USCRN is intended to ensure the creation of an unimpeachable record of changes in surface climate over the United States for decades to come. Data are made available without restriction for all public, private, and government use. This article describes the rationale for the USCRN, its implementation, and some of the highlights of the first decade of operations. One critical use of these observations is as an independent data source to verify the existing U.S. temperature record derived from networks corrected for nonhomogenous histories. Future directions for the network are also discussed, including the applicability of USCRN approaches for networks monitoring climate at scales from regional to global. Constructive feedback from end users will allow for continued improvement of USCRN in the future and ensure that it continues to meet stakeholder requirements for precise climate measurements.
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Reed, James W. "The Birth Control Movement BeforeRoe v. Wade." Journal of Policy History 7, no. 1 (January 1995): 22–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0898030600004139.
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Beginning in the 1970s, historians and social scientists published a great deal on the birth-control movement in the United States, a subject that had been neglected. They were seeking perspective on the issues raised by profound changes in society that rendered problematic the gender system and family values of previous generations. It is no fluke that these scholars began to write the history of the effort to promote the separation of sex from procreation during the same decade that Congress removed contraception from the practices and information prohibited by the national obscenity laws (1971), and the Supreme Court ruled that married couples had a constitutionally protected right to practice contraception (1965), that the unmarried had a similar right of “privacy” (1972), and that pregnant women had the right to induced abortions performed by physicians during the first trimester of their pregnancies (1973). The Court's affirmation of a limited right to “abortion on demand” in Roev. Wadefollowed a decade of intense political struggle and judicial action at the state level, and Justice Harry A. Blackmun, who wrote the majority opinion, was self-consciously attempting to forge a consensus in areas of human behavior and public policy where conflicts were literally lethal and threatened the social order. In turn, much of the vitality of the scholarship on reproductive history that coincides with changes in the law sprang from the self-consciousness of women.