Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Using data from the 1988-2004 presidential elections, this paper estimates the effect of voting technology on residual votes using difference-in-differences, fixed effects regression models and a propensity score matching method.

Publication Type: Poster Presentation
Abstract: Conservation tillage practices can enhance soil organic carbon content (SOC), improve soil structure, and reduce erosion. However, direct assessment of tillage practice for monitoring SOC change over large regions is difficult. Remote sensing of crop residue cover (CRC) can help assess tillage practices, and thus, model changes in SOC. Our objectives were to evaluate several spectral indices from hyperspectral imagery of Iowa and Indiana during May of 2004, 2005, and May 2006 for measuring CRC and assess surface moisture and mineralogy effects on those indices. CRC was measured in selected corn and soybean fields using line-point transects. CRC was linearly correlated (r2=0.70 ~ 0.85) to the cellulose absorption index (CAI), which measures the relative intensity of cellulose and lignin absorptions near 2100 nm. Soil type and mineralogy effects were evaluated using reflectance spectra libraries of the USGS Spectroscopy Laboratory and the US National Soil Survey Center. Reflectance spectra of crop residues and selected soils at various moisture contents were measured in the laboratory (400-2500 nm wavelength range). Results show that all dry crop residues had positive CAI values, but all dry soils and rocks had negative CAI values. However, certain minerals, when present in significant quantities, could bias CAI either way. Moisture in CRC significantly attenuated CAI but was accountable. This suggests that local adjustment of remotely sensed CRC estimates may be required where soil composition or moisture change significantly. Nevertheless, regional surveys of CRC and soil tillage practices that affect SOC dynamics may be feasible using hyperspectral imaging systems.

Publication Type: Session Paper
Abstract: The starting point for the paper is with a concern that the contemporary use of ‘community’ masks a depoliticisation of once radical projects, or a dilution of their legacy. From this perspective I hope to identify and explore what I think of with only some awkwardness as the non-media side of community media. I consider ways in which ‘community’ has been understood and constructed in arts and media movements concerned with a progressive social change agenda in Britain since the counterculture of the 1960s and early 1970s. I am not so concerned with community media as a contemporary practice and form of organisation of media production and consumption, rather I am interested in viewing it in relation to other forms of cultural and countercultural work which have been (or claimed to be) located in the community.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In some very important respects, the institution of war is clearly in decline. Certain standard, indeed classic, varieties of war have become so rare that they could well be considered to be obsolescent, if not obsolete. Most notable has been the decline of major war war among developed countries. Moreover, what is currently labeled "war" or "new war" (or, most grandly, "clashes of civilizations") is often more nearly opportunistic predation waged by bands often remarkably small ones of criminals, bandits, and thugs. To a substantial and perhaps increasing degree, then, warfare has been reduced to its remnants or dregs and thugs are the residual combatants. The key to its existence is government ineffectiveness, not ethnic tension. Even this kind of armed conflict may be in decline of late.
The argument proceeds from a distinction between disciplined combatants and criminal ones. It maintains that disciplined military and police forces triumphed over essentially criminal ones over the course of the last millennium in Europe, and when attitudes toward war changed, the process was used to establish peace.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Conventional theories of International Relations mostly examined the ways states respond to threats from a perspective of relative power positions of states vis-a-vis each other. Theories of deterrence, balance of power and bandwagoning assume the existence of symmetrically powerful states which have the ability to deter a possible aggression either by forming alliances or building arms. This paper focuses on authoritarian regimes assuming that democracies have a standard mechanism ? elections- to keep their leaders accountable for their decisions and actions. Authoritarian regimes lack an analogous way of holding their leaders accountable for their decisions. There are various ways of punishing the leaders of authoritarian regimes depending on the ?breadth and character of support basis? the autocratic leadership has. An authoritarian leader can be toppled down by military organizations, secessionist groups and rebels, or party-apparatuses (if it is a single-party regime). With this in mind, this paper seeks answers to two main bodies of questions: First, how to evaluate various responses to external security threats: balancing and arms buildup - usual categorization of conventional theories of IR- are not the only types of responses to external threats? Secondly, how does the ability of an authoritarian regime to achieve internal mobilization influence its response to an external threat? The main cases of study are Syria during 1990s, Iran during 1970s, and Lebanon during 1960s. All these cases reveal that when states do not have sufficient ability to achieve internal mobilization to respond to a threat, they seek to disturb internal stability within that state posing an external threat. In the end, this paper provides some insights for understanding why some authoritarian leaders and regimes support violent non-state actors from time to time and for coming up with certain policy-relevant proposals regarding how to make an authoritarian state to comply with certain demands.