<p> Previous policy studies have demonstrated that affordable housing residents who live in neighborhoods with racial and economic integration, community investment, and access to amenities are more likely to experience improved well-being. The Moving To Opportunity (MTO), Gautreaux, and Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) programs have best practices to increase neighborhood opportunity at affordable housing sites. This thesis analyzes primary policy documents to compare national best practices with those presented by an advocacy report and a Housing Element for Long Beach, California. The potential outcomes of applying such best practices in Long Beach are compared using GIS. The study finds policies conflict and converge in both guidelines and spatial outcomes. Finally, modifiable area unit problems may affect demographic-based guidelines. More research on amenities quality and neighborhood integration is needed.</p>

<p>This analysis evaluates three tax and expenditure limitation (TEL) policies in Colorado: the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights (TABOR), the Statewide Limitation on Property Tax Revenue (SLPTR), and the Gallagher Amendment (GA). It extends previous research in two novel ways. First, it enables analysis of overlapping policies while incorporating county-specific characteristics, by abstracting away from specific policies. Rather, the focus rests on the impacts of these policies on property tax levies. Second, it incorporates spatial dependency to account for overlapping populations and economic activity. Econometric and machine learning techniques are employed to analyze county-level panel data from Colorado over the 1993-2009 time period. Within this framework, the revenue and expenditure implications of TEL policies are evaluated, and TELs are found to have material impacts in both cases. TELs are associated with depressed revenues and measurable changes in expenditure behavior. With this context, the final empirical section evaluates the drivers of successful "deBrucing" efforts, in which localities are able to exempt themselves from components of TABOR and SLPTR. The analysis demonstrates that socioeconomic factors are the dominant determinant of voting outcomes.

No description available.

No description available.

<p> The history of unemployment in Saudi Arabia has been a decades-long struggle, and is considered among the biggest challenges facing the Saudi Arabian government. The youth and women, unfortunately, have been the most affected groups of the high unemployment rate in Saudi Arabia. In an effort to decrease the number of unemployed, the government of Saudi Arabia introduced the Saudization program in an attempt to create jobs for Saudi job seekers. The Saudization policy was created by the government and implemented through the Ministry of Labor. The main objective of this program was to maximize efforts in decreasing labor opportunities for foreign workers, while increasing the number of opportunities for Saudis in the private sector. However, the Saudization policy was not as successful as had been anticipated. Therefore, new efforts to alter the policy were rolled out under the Nitaqat scheme in the year 2011. Despite the government&rsquo;s efforts to improve the employment situation in Saudi Arabia, research indicates that progress to reduce unemployment levels during the past 5 years since Nitaqat was implemented by the Ministry of Labor have been minimal. The main purpose of this research paper was to investigate and draw practical solutions to the unemployment challenges facing Saudi Arabia. This study was based on quantitative method using 2 online surveys: (a) Ministry of Labor employees, and (b) Saudi business owners. The most important findings for this study were a need of reforming the employment policy, changing the education system, and implement and/ or edit policy to create middle-class jobs. Additionally, the study found that there was a mismatch between the market needs and educational outcomes. The study also recommended the need for creating more jobs for women. Last, the study findings called for increasing the cooperation between the private sector and Ministry of Labor to create a more effective employment policy that will generate jobs for the Saudi job seekers.</p>

<p> Many researchers and political experts have commented on the disenfranchisement of the citizenry caused by irresponsible use of power by the government that potentially violates the 4^th Amendment rights of millions of people through secret mass surveillance programs. Disclosures of this abuse of power are presumably protected by the 1^st Amendment, though when constitutional protections are not followed by the government, the result can be prosecution and imprisonment of whistleblowers. Using a critical autoethnographic approach, the purpose of this study was to examine the devolution of democratic governance and constitutional rights in the United States since 9/11. Using the phenomena of my signature indictment (the first whistleblower since Daniel Ellsberg was charged under the Espionage Act) and prosecution by the U.S. government, data were collected through interviews with experts associated with this unique circumstance. These data, including my own recollections of the event, were inductively coded and subjected to a thematic analysis procedure. The findings revealed that the use of national security as the primary grounds to suppress democracy and the voices of whistleblowers speaking truth to, and about, power increased authoritarian tendencies in government. These tendencies gave rise to extra-legal autocratic behavior and sovereign state control over the institutions of democratic governance. Positive social change can only take place in a society that has robust governance and social structures that strengthen democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, and do not inhibit or suppress them.</p>

<p> The U.S. electricity industry is being restructured to increase competition. Although existing policies may lead to efficient wholesale institutions, designing policies for the retail level is more complex because of intricate interactions between individuals and quasi-monopolistic institutions. It is argued that Hirshman's ideas of "exit" and "voice" (Hirshman, 1970) provide powerful abstractions for design of retail institutions. While competition is a known mechanism of "exit," a novel design of the "voice" mechanism is demonstrated through an artificial intelligence (AI) based software process model. The process model of "voice" in retail institutions is designed within the economic context of electricity distribution &mdash; a common property resource (CPR), characterized by technological uncertainty and path-dependency. First, it is argued that participant feedback (voice) has to be used effectively to manage the CPR. Further, it is noted that the decision process, of using participant feedback (voice) to incrementally manage uncertainty and path-dependencies, is non-monotonic because it requires the decision makers to often retract previously made assumptions and decisions. An AI based process model of "voice" is developed using an assumption-based truth maintenance system. The model can emulate the non-monotonic decision making process and therefore assist in decision support. Such a systematic framework is flexible, consistent, and easily reorganized as assumptions change. It can provide an effective, formal "voice" mechanism to the retail customers and improve institutional performance.</p>

<p> Multiple studies have documented the growing controversies in school nutrition public policy. Less is known about the political ideologies, beliefs and diverse perspectives coming from conflicting values and their influence on policy acceptance. Key issues examined are: Does the average US citizen filter their impressions of policies through their core beliefs, values and politics? And, in general, what policies, interventions, and regulations do conservatives and liberals favor?</p><p> Utilizing a sequential mixed methods design, Phase I included a survey given to 201 people with both a multi-item closed ended section and an open-ended section. Statistical analysis was performed on the quantitative survey data, with pattern matching and documentation of outliers providing analysis of qualitative data. Findings in Phase I were used to develop questions for Phase II where 8 focus groups--California, North Dakota, Iowa, Connecticut and Florida--shared perspectives on nutrition public policies.</p><p> Regression analysis showed political ideology statistically significantly predicts perceptions toward ease of implementation, (<i>p</i> &lt; .001) and efficacy, (<i>p</i> &lt; .001). Beliefs and values about personal responsibility versus government responsibility is at the heart of the debate. This research shows core beliefs, values and political ideology affects preference for more or less government regulations and acceptance of local versus public policies. This is some of the first research to suggest the theory of <i>Politics of Values</i> for how people view nutrition public policies through a lens of core beliefs, values and political ideology. Evidence presented suggests this is one way people make sense of nutrition public policies, affecting perceptions and acceptance of nutrition and other policies.</p><p> Implications from this study include, regardless of political ideology, the general public sees local as better. Public policy makers are not perceived as agreeing with the consensus toward local proposals for improving school lunch nutrition. Findings suggest a general consensus for strong evidence-based research on which to build nutrition policy.</p>

<p> With the goal of improving the integration of multiple travel modes into traditional roadway designs, many jurisdictions have considered road diets, characterized by reductions in vehicular traffic lanes and reallocation of right-of-way for other modes. Studies show that road diets can improve safety without slowing automobile traffic, but benefits for pedestrians and bicyclists have not been widely documented. Furthermore, the potential for our built environment, specifically roadway redesign, to promote the integration of more inclusive design remains open for further exploration. To address this gap, the effects of a road diet project in Davis, CA were examined. Data were collected on the number of bicyclists and pedestrians at key intersections and automobile travel times along the corridor before and after the road diet treatment. The analysis shows that every intersection studied experienced a statistically significant increase in the number of bicyclists during either or both the morning and evening peak periods. On average across all intersections studied along the corridor, the number of bicyclists using Fifth Street increased by 243%, but the change in pedestrian volumes was not statistically significant. Contrary to common fears about road diets, automobile travel times decreased a statistically significant amount during the evening peak. A nearly 10 percentage point change in bicyclist gender distribution was recorded after the road diet, providing insight towards an increased perception of safety and comfort among Fifth Street bicyclists and the expanded potential of roadway designs for inclusionary social planning. As demonstrated by this study, the reconfiguration of our roadways towards multimodality has definite potential to not only address health, environmental, and safety concerns but also to move roadways towards more balanced gender accessibility.</p>

<p> The forces driving the prescription opioid epidemic currently raging across the United States include aggressive marketing, weak regulation, addiction, freely prescribing doctors, a glut of pills available for sharing, and easy access to illicit drugs like heroin. This thesis aims to quantitatively analyze the interactions between these drivers through construction of a System Dynamics model, in order to determine the efficacy of policy intervention through Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs. The System Dynamics model simulates the flow of doctors&rsquo; prescriptions to the two very different classes of prescription opioid patients. One class is the long-term pain patients whose tolerance and appetite for opioids grows over time, leading them to higher doses, often dangerously high, and yet also frequently to feeling under-medicated; the other is those patients prescribed opioids for short-term pain, who typically find that they have been given more pills than they need.</p><p> These &ldquo;extra&rdquo; pills find their way into the hands of friends and family who, in common with the patients who received prescriptions, are in jeopardy of addiction to the opioids. Those addicted repeatedly visit doctors, shopping for more. Sensitivity analysis results reveal that drug diversion is a major contributor to the opioid death rate; that mandatory PDMP use will slow but not stop opioid proliferation, and will cause long term pain patients to be under-treated in larger numbers; that a significant number of people addicted to prescription opioids will transition to heroin use for reasons of price and availability; and that the rate of opioid overdose deaths will remain high until and unless society is better educated about the risks of addiction. Overall, the study helps conclude that the efforts of state governments and the FDA will be insufficient to stem the flow of opioids, and that there is no simple intervention to thwart drug diversion and sharing of pills.</p>