선거는 여론을 파악하여 다수결을 통해 대다수의 국민을 위한 대표자 를 선출하는 효과적인 대의민주주의적 수단이지만, 때로는 한 명의 우세 한 당선자를 가리기 어려울 때도 있다. 만약 당선자가 2위 후보와 적은 표차수로 경합을 벌인다면 진정한 다수의 여론을 파악하는 것은 쉽지 않 다. 이는 비단 선거의 경쟁 수준을 의미하는 것을 넘어서 선거 후 선출 직 공직자들의 행태에 영향을 미칠 수 있다. Frant의 정치적 인센티브 이론을 바탕으로, 본 논문은 지방자치단체의 예산에 영향을 줄 수 있는 국회의원 및 지방선거 경쟁 수준이 개발 분야의 예산 지출에 어떠한 영 향을 미치는지를 검토하고자 한다. 분석 결과, 국회의원 선거에서의 경쟁 이 치열할 때, 지방정부의 개발 정책 예산은 감소하는 반면, 지방선거의 경합도는 개발 예산에 통계적으로 유의미한 변화를 주지 못하는 것으로 나타났다. 이러한 양상은 정치인들의 권력 유인 형태에 대한 선행연구와 일치한다. 이 연구는 선거가 대의민주주의의 대표적인 기능을 하는 그것 뿐 아니라, 지방정부의 개발 정책에 실질적인 영향을 줄 수 있다는 것을 시사한다.

The auroral observation has been started at Jang Bogo Station (JBS), Antarctica by using a visible All-sky camera (v-ASC) in 2018 to routinely monitor the aurora in association with the simultaneous observations of the ionosphere, thermosphere and magnetosphere at the station. In this article, the auroral observations are introduced with the analysis procedure to recognize the aurora from the v-ASC image data and to compute the auroral occurrences and the initial results on their spatial and temporal distributions are presented. The auroral occurrences are mostly confined to the northern horizon in the evening sector and extend to the zenith from the northwest to cover almost the entire sky disk over JBS at around 08 MLT (magnetic local time; 03 LT) and then retract to the northeast in the morning sector. At near the magnetic local noon, the occurrences are horizontally distributed in the northern sky disk, which shows the auroral occurrences in the cusp region. The results of the auroral occurrences indicate that JBS is located most of the time in the polar cap near the poleward boundary of the auroral oval in the nightside and approaches closer to the oval in the morning sector. At around 08 MLT (03 LT), JBS is located within the auroral oval and then moves away from it, finally being located in the cusp region at the magnetic local noon, which indicates that the location of JBS turns out to be ideal to investigate the variabilities of the poleward boundary of the auroral oval from long-term observations of the auroral occurrences. The future plan for the ground auroral observations near JBS is presented.

At the suggestion of the NASA Meteoroid Environment Office (NASA/MEO), which promotes lunar impact monitoring worldwide during NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) mission period (launched Sept. 2013), we set up a video observation system for lunar impact flashes using a 16-inch educational telescope at Chungnam National University. From Oct. 2013 through Apr. 2014, we recorded 80 hours of video observation of the unilluminated part of the crescent moon in the evening hours. We found a plausible candidate impact flash on Feb. 3, 2014 at selenographic longitude 2.1° and latitude 25.4°. The flash lasted for 0.2 s and the light curve was asymmetric with a slow decrease after a peak brightness of 8.7 ± 0.3 mag. Based on a star-like distribution of pixel brightness and asymmetric light curve, we conclude that the observed flash was due to a meteoroid impact on the lunar surface. Since unequivocal detection of an impact flash requires simultaneous observation from at least two sites, we strongly recommend that other institutes and universities in Korea set up similar inexpensive monitoring systems involving educational or amateur telescopes, and that they collaborate in the near future.