Media Coverage and Charitable Giving After the 2004 Tsunami

Media coverage of humanitarian crises is widely believed to influence charitable giving, yet this assertion has received little empirical scrutiny. Using Internet donations after the 2004 tsunami as a case study in a tobit framework, we show that media coverage of disasters increases charitable donations, with an additional minute of nightly news coverage increasing donations by 0.036 standard deviations from the mean. We repeat the analysis using instrumental variables in a tobit model to account for endogeneity, and the estimates are unchanged. We also show that the magnitude and sign of media impact vary by news source and relief agency.

Socio-cultural Degeneration and State Patronage of the Arts: Mapplethorpe, Cultural Crisis, and the NEA

The goal of this paper is to investigate how the Untied States federal government, specifically through the National Endowment for the Arts, or NEA, has acted in the position of an arts patron in the past few decades. Specifically, this paper will focus on the past decade and a half since the 'arts crisis' of the late 1980s and the social and political backlash against the art community in the 1990s, which was only against ‘offensive’ art that was seen as morally and culturally corruptive. I explore the political, social, and economic forms the backlash took, particularly rooted in a perceived fear of degenerative arts as a corruption of and a catalyst for the eventual collapse of American culture and values. Additionally, I analyse the role the federal government played in ‘ameliorating’ the situation. I investigate how state arts patronage has affected and continues to affect both the concepts behind and the manifestations of art, as well as who is encouraged, sanctioned, or neglected in the production of art. To accomplish this, I explore how and why the federal government employs the arts to define and redefine morality and culture, and how does it express/allow the expressions of these through art.

Non-Participatory Poverty

In a capitalistic market society, all individuals should have an equal opportunity to participate, with varying extents, in consumerism. Democracy entitles one to political participation but people have come to value consumer participation as having more importance as shopping and the exchange of goods and services have become an important part of everyday living. Yet not everyone can participate in consumerism and they end up suffering, especially the children living in poverty. These children internalize the message that since they cannot participate in a society based on material consumption, they cannot belong. Poverty not only causes individuals to experience their lives differently, but also affects the development of one’s physical, cognitive, social, and emotional identity. Many of the consequences of poverty have been scrutinized and studied to try to explain the experiences of such children. What has not been closely examined however is the relationship between the inability to participate in a consumer society and the bodily being, thoughts, actions, and feelings of impoverished children. I will discuss how these effects of poverty result in the inability of children to participate in society.

A Pollen Chase Experiment; Examining Varying Levels of Embryonic Inbreeding Depression

A pollen chase experiment was performed upon three Costa Rican populations of Witheringia solanacea to examine the breakdown of genetically enforced self incompatibility (SI) and the extent of embryonic inbreeding depression. Self-pollen was applied in the bud, with outcross pollen applied one day later, and outcross pollinations at both intervals as a control. A variety of responses were found among the populations. BOHS readily accepted self pollen and suffered from very low inbreeding depression. Monteverde and Las Cruces both have lower fruit set with self-pollination precedence indicating that bud pollinations can overcome the self-incompatibility response and that embryonic death due to inbreeding depression causes fruit failure. The treatment:control fruit set is higher for the Las Cruces plants indicating stronger SI response Self-precedence seeds from the Las Cruces plants are likely to be outcrossed. Self-precedence seeds from Monteverde are likely selfed.

Incumbency Reconsidered: Prospects, Strategic Entry, and Incumbent Quality in U.S. House Elections

Efforts to estimate the magnitude of the incumbency effect in U.S. House elections and assess its political meaning have been complicated by two omitted-variables problems. First, in the absence of an adequate measure of incumbent prospects, estimates of the magnitude of the incumbency effect fail to control for selection effects associated with the decision incumbents make about whether to run for reelection. Strategic incumbents enter races they think they can win and withdraw when they expect to lose. The consequence is an upward bias in estimates of incumbents’ electoral advantages. Second, the normative implications of high reelection rates cannot be assessed without measuring incumbent quality, since a possible explanation for their electoral success is that incumbents are of high quality and doing a good job. We propose a strategy for measuring incumbent prospects and quality, demonstrate the strategic nature of incumbent and challenger entry, re-estimate the incumbency effect, and show that incumbent quality has an impact on electoral outcomes. Our conclusion is that incumbents’ advantages in House elections have been over estimated while the positive basis of incumbent safety is typically under appreciated.

State Political Action Committee Financing and the 2008 Presidential Election: A Detailed Look at Mitt Romney and the Commonwealth PACs

This study looks at the historical context in which PACs developed, as well as the current legal environment in which they operate. It will also briefly discuss the legal and procedural challenges that candidates face and the ways in which PACs alleviate some of these pressures in ways that presidential committees cannot. An understanding of the strategic dilemmas which cause candidates to seek extraneous structures through which to establish campaign networks is essential to extrapolating the potential future of campaign finance strategy. Furthermore, this study provides an in-depth analysis of the state Commonwealth PACs both in terms of fundraising and spending, and discusses the central issues this state PAC strategy raises with respect to campaign finance law. The study will conclude with a look into the future of campaign financing and the role these state-level PACs may play if current rules are not revised.

Synthesis of 2-oxo-16-(3', 4'-methylenedioxyphenyl)-trans-15-hexadecene

This work presents the progress made towards synthesizing 2-oxo-16-(3', 4'methylenedioxyphenyl)-trans-15-hexadecene, an antimycobacterial compound that was originally isolated from the leaves of Piper Sanctum. The hydrocarbon chain of the molecule was synthesized first by opening a 15-pentadecanolactone ring by means of HI, and performing an E2 elimination reaction on the molecule followed by an organolithium reaction with CH3Li. Hexadec-15-en-2-one that was afforded this way was later reacted with 5-bromobenzo[d][1,3]dioxole following the appropriate Heck reaction protocol that allows for the formation of a palladium catalyzed carbon-carbon bond. The modes of action of 2-oxo-16-(3', 4'-methylenedioxyphenyl)-trans-15hexadecene are comparable to the ones of rifampicin, a marketable drug that has been successfully used in the treatment of tuberculosis in the past. Additionally, this compound can serve as an intermediate towards the synthesis of 2-oxo-16-(3', 4' methylenedioxyphenyl)-hexadecane and 2-oxo-14-(3', 4' -methylenedioxyphenyl) tetradecane, both strong inhibitors of the growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Lastly, due to Multi-Drug Resistant tuberculosis, there has been an increasing need to find alternative cures for tuberculosis. Therefore, the work on 2-qxo-16-(3', 4'methylenedioxyphenyl)-trans-15-hexadecene is not only chemically interesting but it is also biologically important.

Farm Size and Lymphoma Cancer in Maine

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Population Density and Dams in Maine

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Woodlot Ownership in Maine

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