Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: For most substantive relevant ecological inference problems scholars face a R x C table from which only the marginals
can be observed. We argue that most frequent used ecological inference methods are computationally demanding and are inefficient since they do not make use of all the information that is available. We take a fresh look at an estimator that was precisely developed for these kinds of problems: EMax. This estimator utilizes more available information at the estimation stage than previous ecological inference estimators in the literature. As methodological innovation that remedy the main disadvantage of EMax in substantive applications, we derive model-based standard errors. Further we examine their validity by means of a simulation study and demonstrate their use in an application to the estimation of split-ticket voting in New Zealand voting districts.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: With the latent structure method for ecological inference the estimation of individual-level tables for the association between social categories and voting behavior seems quite valid, even for large tables, when one has access to data from many geographical units on a low level of aggregation. This is illustrated in this article for the 1992 presidential vote in California with voting data and social data about race, education and age from 5,532 census tracts. Interesting findings concern especially the estimation of turnout within different social groups and the fact that the overall estimates are not much affected by making separate estimates within homogenous political regions or within counties.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In each phase of conflict resolution (pre-negotiation, negotiation, and implementation), success or failure in large part rests on the role of the moderates. The paper examines the role of the Israeli-Palestinian moderates in the peace process.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: American historians tend to emphasize rupture rather than continuity when describing the years surrounding the American Revolution, particularly the emergent society’s fascination with nationalist novelty, political experiment, and natural possibility. Recent scholarship on consumerism and to a lesser extent the Atlantic world suggests that individuals’ interests in buying products from the world over offers a potential counter-narrative that stresses stability rather than change. Indeed, one of the continuities of life across the American Revolution was the desire, among the colonial and early national elites at the very least, to be as European as they could be in certain manners, dress, and consumption habits. Emulation, not experiment, was in vogue.

This proposal uses table wines as a test case to evaluate the emerging consumerist thesis in explaining the origins of the American Revolution and directing the course of early national society. This paper includes findings from both the exhaustively studied Madeira trade—which is predominantly concerned with production and exchange, not its consumption and attendant protocols—and the largely unexamined trade and consumption of still and sparkling table wine. The paper is necessarily focused on the economic elite, those who were most able to afford the high prices and uncertain quality of table wines imported from Europe. Still, the paper suggests that the importation of table wines increased in the years following the resolution of the dispute and that those who purchased and consumed these wines used them to establish class definition, to grease the wheels of politics, and to enjoy the company of others in ways that echoed their cousins across the Atlantic.

If a shared experience of consumption fused Americans into collective action and allowed them to trust one another from afar, then table wines (like other luxury items) undermined those feelings of camaraderie and challenged the dictates of republican virtue by highlighting the differentiating power of such items. Thus, studying table wine importation and consumption raises intriguing questions about whether luxury items fit the consumption patterns suggested by more readily available items; whether early republic historians may have over-emphasized Franophobia in the 1790s and beyond; and the extent to which consumer-driven causes can explain the contours and character of early national society.

Publication Type: Poster Presentation
Abstract: Preliminary soil and sub-soil hydraulic parameter estimates needed for SWAT simulations to determine sub-surface water movement were collected using downhole geophysical measurements. Gamma-ray logs are useful for distingishing sandstone from shales by measuring natural-gamma radiation emitted from rocks penetrated by a borehole. Downhole gamma-ray measurements can be related to a watershed soil and rock formation by analyzing corresponding drill-core and cuttings collected at the drill site. Correlation of gamma-ray measurements of sub-soil texture and density can be used to provide an estimate of textural data for different layers within the soil and sub-soil profile needed by two FORTRAN programs (WTCHARTETA and WTDRAINVR). These programs are used to determine parameters needed for new water table routine that recently has been incorporated in SWAT. Use of gamma-ray downhole logging methods can be in cased or uncased drill holes and can provide useful and reasonably inexpensive methods to obtain parameters needed to calculate the water table.