Measuring cost escalation in the formative era of U.S. higher education, 1875–1930

ABSTRACT

Cost escalation in higher education in the United States prior to 1930 has scarcely been studied, even though the period from the 1870s to the 1920s was formative for U.S. higher education. This article develops and explains a method to measure the cost during this period. The authors then compile more accurate cost data than have been available, calculate new cost indexes for higher education from 1875 to 1930, and compare these indexes to economy-wide indexes. The striking findings inform the two leading economic theories of cost escalation, advanced by economists Howard R. Bowen and William G. Bowen. Cost escalation in total expenses of higher education occurred consistently between 1875 and 1930, and exceeded the worrisome rate that economist Howard Bowen found for the period from 1930 to 1977. Cost escalation did not occur in the more salient per capita terms. This latter finding, combined with recent historical research, supports the “revenue theory of cost” of Howard Bowen and challenges the “cost disease theory” of William Bowen.     

The Influence of Organizations and Institutions on Wetland Policy Stability: The Rapanos Case

This paper uses a case study of wetland regulation in the United States to develop elements of a theory about institutional stability and change in policy processes involving large public organizations. This theoretical approach draws on the Institutional Analysis and Development framework to understand events that are not well explained by other policy theories. Our approach accounts for the theoretically unexpected outcomes of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Rapanos v. United States, which stood to change the way the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulate the filling of wetlands. We propose a typology of institutional types that operate inside public organizations, and use process tracing to show how tacit institutions, those created informally within public organizations, can play key roles in determining the outcomes of policy processes. In the Rapanos case, informal coordination mechanisms enabled regulators and members of the regulated community to preserve substantially the pre‐ruling status quo. The key role of these microlevel interactions in shaping the macrolevel behaviors of public organizations underscores the importance of further research investigating how, in similar cases, different behavioral mechanisms interact in often complex and unexpected ways to determine the outcomes of policy processes.     

A Geospatial Analysis of China's Exports, 1991-2008

Three Taiwan-based economists employ a range of exploratory spatial data analysis tools (e.g., Moran's I and LISA statistics) to investigate trends in the growth of China's exports over the period 1991-2008. A particular focus is on the detection of spatial correlations between China and 40 export destination countries in major world regions. Emphasis in the paper on the key years of 1991, 2001, 2006, and 2008 has enabled the authors to analyze the impacts on China's trade of such major events as the country's accession to the World Trade Organization and the global economic crisis of 2008-2009. The results of the spatial analysis reveal the continuing importance of the U.S. and Asian countries in China's export trade (despite changes in the character of trade relations) and identify the spatial outliers (e.g., in Latin America) that may serve as the basis for new export markets for China in the future.     

To binarize or not to binarize: relational data and the construction of archaeological networks

Over the last several years, network methods and models from the social and physical sciences have gained considerable popularity in archaeology. Many of the most common network methods begin with the creation of binary networks where links among some set of actors are defined as either present or absent. In most archaeological cases, however, the presence or absence of a specific kind of relationship between actors is not straightforward as we must rely on material proxies for assessing connections. A common approach in recent studies has been to define some threshold for the presence of a tie by partitioning continuous relational data among sites (e.g., artifact frequency or similarity data). In this article, using an example from the U.S. Southwest, we present a sensitivity analysis focused on the potential effects of defining binary networks from continuous relational data. We show that many key network properties that are often afforded social interpretations are fundamentally influenced by the assumptions used to define connections. We suggest that, although network graphs provide powerful visualizations of network data, methods for creating and analyzing weighted (non-binarized) networks often provide a better characterization of specific network properties.     

“We knew no North,no South”: U.S.–Mexican War Veterans and the Construction of Public Memory in the Post-Civil War United States, 1874–1897

In 1874, American veterans of the U.S.–Mexican War 1846–1848 formed the National Association of Veterans of the Mexican War (NAVMW). Until the organization’s demise in 1897, NAVMW members crafted and celebrated a vision of their war with Mexico as a national triumph which had united Americans from all sections of the Union in a common cause. This article examines how, by promoting this particular memory of the war to the American public, NAVMW members sought to remind their countrymen of their shared national history, and so aid the process of reconciliation between North and South in the post-Civil War era.     

The Danzón,North American Racial Discourses,and Reflections on Early Jazz

This essay proposes a way of understanding the formation of jazz as part of a broader transnational exchange of culture. It argues that the processes by which jazz came into being closely resemble others taking place in Cuba and elsewhere, and thus calls for analysis that positions jazz as part of a hemispheric exchange of cultural influences that extend beyond the United States. Second, it reviews and critiques existing scholarship on New Orleans jazz from a transnationalist perspective. It suggests that such literature presents turn-of-the-twentieth-century New Orleans culture as insular, with little or no recognition of the international movement of artists and musical forms. Finally, it suggests that the cultural projects associated with jazz in the United States have necessitated a strong emphasis on the contributions of black US artists to the exclusion of Hispanics.     

对日媾和与美菲同盟条约的缔结

冷战之初,面对中国内战局势的变化和美国改变对日政策可能导致的日本重新军国主义化威胁,菲律宾将确保国家安全的希望寄托于美国,积极寻求与之订立"太平洋公约",但该构想不符合当时美国的战略考虑,屡遭拒绝。朝鲜战争的爆发,促使美国加快对日媾和。由于媾和方案在安全和赔偿方面未能满足菲律宾等国需求,遭到反对。为平息盟国不满,美国改变对"太平洋公约"的态度并提出自己的方案,但该方案将日本包括其中,被菲否定。经过博弈,在美国提供正式安全保证的前提下,菲律宾最终接受了媾和方案。     

Transitions in U.S. Higher Education: implications for geography learning

In the United States, higher education institutions and structures governing higher education are going through dramatic change. The implications of new technology and changing modes of course structure, and evolving federal and state policies have the potential for significant impact on higher education. The historic federal mandates regarding university systems, including land-grants, and renewal of the U.S. Higher Education Act, for example, have impacts related to higher education regulations, performance expectations, accreditation, and student success. In addition, there are new research questions related to student learning. Several of the key themes impacting higher education also have implications and expectations for university geography programs. Geographers and geography programs in many universities are contributing toward addressing these changes in ways that contribute toward programs and universities that are more committed to new learning paradigms, as well as curricula that enhance engagement, concepts of sustainability, innovation, entrepreneurship, and efforts at more integrated scholarship, among others.     

美国旅游地游客信息中心免费信息研究

本文详细介绍了美国旅游地游客信息中心提供的各类免费信息,根据出版者和版权属性将他们区分为官方与非官方信息,根据内容将他们区分为地图信息和图文信息。作者深入分析了这些信息的特点和作用,阐述了这些旅游信息对我国旅游业发展的启示意义。     

BLOOD AS A BINDING MEDIUM IN A CHUMASH INDIAN PIGMENT CAKE

As part of a study of Chumash Indian pigments, some black pigment cakes have been examined. One pigment cake was characterized as soot by polarized light microscopy, and Fourier transform infrared microscopy showed that the binder was proteinaceous. Protein determination was followed by examination using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis which showed a characteristic suite of amino acids to be present, proportionally similar to blood. The blood identification was confirmed by immunological analysis. The binder was shown to be a mixture of human and animal blood, the animal being pronghorn antelope. This is the first successful identification of a binding medium from a Chumash Indian pigment cake.