A spatial interaction model of vote dispersion

How do votes disperse through a territory? Studies of spatial voting patterns have largely focused on the influence of local factors on voting. The “Friends and Neighbors” model (Key (1949)) explains the advantage of candidates running for office in the locality with which they are associated (Arzheimer and Evans (2012, 2014): Collignon and Sajuria (2018); Horiuchi et al. (2018); Jankowski (2016); Hunt (2020); Munis (2021)), and the “neighbor” effect helps to explain why votes spread. More recent studies have found that the dispersion of votes decreases with distance (Put et al. (2020); Arzheimer and Evans (2012)). However, we know little about how spatial patterns of voting emerge or the mechanism behind the neighbor effect. We argue that this effect depends on the neighbors’ access to information about a candidate, which is constrained by the way information flows. Although scholars have argued that information is a relevant driver explaining the dispersion of votes (Bowler et al. (1993); Arzheimer and Evans (2012); Evans et al. (2017); Campbell, Cowley, Vivyan, and Wagner (2019)), no research has examined the relevance of the network through which information flows. We propose that a spatial interaction model (Wilson (1971)) allows us to predict where this information flows or the voting pattern that will form. Taking advantage of a quasi-natural experiment in Brazilian legislative elections in 1974 and 1978, we show that votes spread through areas of influence created by a hierarchy of cities based on the flows of exchanges among them, including information. We then use our spatial interaction model to predict voting patterns in the elections of 1978 using data from the 1974 elections. Our findings show that the spatial interaction model results fit the data quite well and can help predict spatial patterns of voting.     

Campaign Promises,Democratic Governance,and Environmental Policy in the U.S. Congress

One important criterion for assessing the quality of democratic governance is the extent to which the policy process effectively translates citizen preferences into collective choices. Several scholars have observed a discrepancy between citizen preferences for strong environmental protection and weak policies adopted in the United States, indicating that the United States may fall short on this criterion. We examine one possible mechanism contributing to this discrepancy—legislator defection from campaign promises. Our data indicate that legislators in the U.S. Congress routinely defect from their campaign promises in environmental protection, undermining the link between citizen preferences and policy choice. We also find that legislators are much more likely to defect from pro‐environmental campaign promises, which moves government policy toward less stringent environmental programs. Finally, the propensity of legislators to defect from their campaign promises is systematic, with defection affected by partisanship, constituency influence, the influence of the majority party, and the likely consequences of defection for policy choice. These findings contribute empirical evidence relevant to the “mandate theory” perspective on how citizen preferences are translated into collective choices through the policy process. These findings may also complement research in comparative politics concluding that legislatures selected through single member districts adopt less stringent environmental policies than do legislatures chosen via proportional representation in that the mechanism for this effect may go through legislator defection from campaign promises.     

丙烯酸树脂非水分散体加固剂在泥河湾古象足痕迹提取中的应用

泥河湾遗址出土的古象足迹有非常重要的研究价值,而组成足迹印痕的泥土为层状河湖相沉积物,失水容易出现收缩剥离现象导致破坏。为了保护古象足痕迹,采用丙烯酸树脂非水分散体对表面层进行了加固处理,保护处理后的表面层外观改变小,强度提高,不出现收缩开裂和粉碎现象,得到加固处理的象足痕迹通过套箱提取成功地得到搬迁。     

丙烯酸非水分散体等几种土遗址防风化加固剂的效果比较

对丙烯酸树脂非水分散体等几种土遗址防风化加固剂进行了加固效果对比检验,包括加固前后土样各种性能的变化,如：重量、颜色、孔隙率变化,抗压强度的提高,耐水、耐冻融、耐盐能力的增加等。通过检验发现,在所试材料中丙烯酸树脂非水分散体加固刑在浓度非常低的情况下对土体就有加固作用,使土体具有很好的耐水性、耐冻触能力,耐盐破坏能力也有提高,并且不影响土体的外观和透气性。而其它材料如正硅酸乙酯、丙烯酸树脂、聚氨酯、聚酯等虽在一些性能上能满足需要,但还有一些方面不能满足要求。对比表明,丙烯酸非水分散体是一类优良的土遗址防风化加固剂。     

有机硅改性丙烯酸树脂非水分散体的制备及在土遗址保护中的试用

为找到耐候性良好并对土遗址有良好保护效果的材料,以工业品的有机硅改性丙烯酸树脂乳液为原料,采用转化法制备了有机硅改性丙烯酸树脂非水分散体材料。对形成的非水分散体进行了外观检验和老化性能检验。通过对土样的加固试验和实地应用发现,浓度为0.8％的加固剂251M具有良好的固结效果,表面颜色基本不变,证明这种材料是一种有应用前景的土遗址防风化加固保护材料。     

一体化条件下的空间经济集聚

空间经济集聚是经济地理学研究重点,并且渐渐被经济学所重视。本文以经济地理学的理论为基础,借鉴主流经济学的有关理论,探讨了区域经济一体化导致的空间经济集聚的机理,即经济集聚与经济扩散同时并存,空间上以经济集聚为主导,以扩散为辅;提出了经济集聚的本质是规模经济、范围经济和外部经济共同作用的过程。规模经济导致经济集聚产业点,再加上范围经济产生集聚产业区,规模经济、范围经济和外部经济共同作用产生经济集聚产业核心区。指出经济扩散的原因是纯粹的集聚不经济、区域分工共同作用的结果。     

ARTIFICIAL ACCELEROGRAMS REPRESENTATIVE OF THE DAMAGE DISTRIBUTION ON A LOW-RISE SHEAR WALL

This study attempts to reproduce in an artificial way, at a given magnitude-distance couple, the statistical characteristics of damage caused by real accelerograms. The structure adopted is a low-rise shear wall, modelled as a nonlinear, one degree of freedom system with a degrading frequency as a function of a non-cumulative damage variable. Strong-motion records, contained in a large database, are characterised in terms of seismological and seismic parameters. Artificial accelerograms are generated from response spectra representative of real accelerograms belonging to different magnitude-distance zones. Although the mean damage is consistent, the low dispersion of damage caused by the artificial accelerograms with respect to that caused by the real accelerograms is highlighted. In order to reproduce the damage dispersion in addition to the mean damage, a generation method of representative artificial accelerograms is proposed. This method introduces the standard deviation drawn from attenuation relationships into a dispersion pre-process with respect to the regressed spectrum at a given magnitude-distance point. The method turns out to be capable of reproducing the statistical features of damage produced by real strong-motion records.     

Symbolic versus material concerns of rural consciousness in the United States

A potential explanation for the U.S. urban-rural political divide is a definition of rural consciousness comprised of three subdimensions: a feeling that ruralites are underrepresented in decision-making (“Representation”) and that their way of life is disrespected (“Way of Life”) – both symbolic concerns – and a more materialistic concern that rural areas receive less resources (“Resources”). However, it is unclear whether these different aspects of rural consciousness predict expected political preferences nationally, or whether they uniquely explain these preferences when evaluated alongside similar symbolic concepts like rural identity and moral traditionalism. We expect symbolic concerns (especially Way of Life) to particularly predict rural support for Donald Trump, Republican partisanship, and conservative ideology. Using a novel survey measure developed and tested across three original survey data sets, we find that only the symbolic subdimensions of rural consciousness positively and significantly correlate with Trump support, while the material subdimension either negatively correlates with Trump support or is not statistically significant. A similar tendency occurs when predicting symbolic ideology, except when controlling for moral traditionalism. Rural consciousness and its subdimensions do not significantly predict partisanship. These relationships hold for all respondents and for rural-only respondents. We conclude that rural consciousness may matter politically along symbolic dimensions, rather than materialistic grievances, for recent anti-establishment political support as opposed to standard left-right measures. We recommend that survey analyses of rural consciousness should separately analyze symbolic and materialistic aspects. Future studies should further investigate traditionalism vis-a-vis rural consciousness and explore non-rural people high in rural consciousness.