bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The House GOP's Civil War: A Political Science Perspective
Authors: Connelly William F. , Pitney John J.
Published: May 2006

In 1997, just two years after their impressive show of unity on the Contract With America, the House Republicans were apparently turning into the House of Atreus. Squabbles high and low divided their leadership, demoralized their rank and file, and delighted their Democratic opponents. Many political commentators blamed this turmoil on the personal shortcomings of Speaker Gingrich and other top lawmakers. Such explanations did make some sense. At least part of the trouble stemmed from the Speaker's ethics problems and the leadership's poor political judgments about disaster-relief legislation.

But the House GOP's summer of discontent was neither a purely personal affair nor a total departure from the party's history: House Republicans suffered from serious factionalism during their long journey in the political wilderness (Connelly and Pitney 1994, ch. 2). While lacking in liberals and ethnic minorities, they still found many things to fight about, such as political strategy, institutional loyalty, and generational outlook. As Rohde (1991, 152–53) demonstrated in detail, House Republicans consistently had lower party-unity scores than Democrats throughout the Reagan years.

After they won their majority, swift House Republican action on the Contract left the widespread impression that they had turned into a lean, mean, quasi-military machine. That impression was misleading. According to an excellent analysis by James G. Gimpel (1996, 18), the Contract was a consensus document: party leaders included only items that already commanded broad agreement within the party (e.g., a balanced-budget amendment) and they excluded items that would stir dissent (e.g., anti-abortion legislation).
Cooperation Through Threats: The Northern Ireland Case
Authors: Brams Steven J. , Togman Jeffrey M.
Published: May 2006

On February 9, 1996, after a seventeen-month cease-fire, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) set off a bomb in East London. Less than a week later, the London police found and destroyed a bomb that the IRA had left in a telephone booth in the West End. A few days later, another IRA bomb went off on a doubledecker bus. The British government, under the leadership of John Major, asserted that it would have no official contact with Sinn Féin, the political arm of the IRA, until the paramilitary activities stopped. The government also deployed 500 additional troops in Northern Ireland. In October 1996, the IRA detonated two bombs at the British Army's headquarters in Lisburn, bringing the violent conflict back to Northern Ireland for the first time since the cease-fire.

On May 1, 1997, Tony Blair was elected Great Britain's prime minister. His election brought a renewed sense of optimism and good will to the conflict in Northern Ireland. Responding to Blair's overtures, including his warning that “the settlement train is leaving, with or without them” (Hoge 1997a, A7), the IRA announced on July 19, 1997, that they had “ordered the unequivocal restoration of the cease-fire” (Clarity 1997c, 1). Soon thereafter, Sinn Féin was invited to participate in the peace talks, which reconvened on September 15, 1997.
Can the Rational Choice Framework Cope with Culture?
Authors: Shapiro Ian
Published: May 2006

Editor's Note: This essay is drawn from a 1997 APSA Annual Meeting roundtable entitled “Can the Rational Choice Framework Cope with Culture?” It was presented by the Comparative Politics Division, chaired by Nancy Bermeo of Princeton University, and included, in addition to Ian Shapiro, Robert H. Bates of Harvard University, Ronald Inglehart of the University of Michigan, and Ian Lustick of the University of Pennsylvania.

I do not believe it is fruitful to try to answer the question, “Can the rational choice framework cope with culture?” Asking it implies that the rational choice approach founders due to its inattention to cultural variables, and (depending on how dire one takes the diagnosis to be), that this defect would be remedied if the rational choice framework was replaced, modified, or supplemented by what might be thought of as a “culturalist” one. Consider each of these prescriptions.
From Social Security to Health Security? Opinion and Rhetoric in U.S. Social Policy Making
Authors: Skocpol Theda
Published: May 2006

How does public opinion in American democracy relate to policy making, particularly in Washington, D.C.? This question has a special pertinence right now, and not just for political scientists. As I write, it is a little over a month after President Bill Clinton delivered a major televised address on the health care crisis, and only a few days after he and Hillary Rodham Clinton went up to Capitol Hill to introduce a 1,342 page “Health Security bill” into Congress. Clearly, Clinton is staking his presidency—not to mention the immediate prospects of the Democratic Party—on an attempt to respond to a certain reading of public opinion. By wading into a policy arena already staked out by many resourceful vested interests, Clinton is undertaking to mobilize and influence broad public support for what is arguably the most ambitious federal social policy initiative since the Social Security Act of 1935.

Consideration of various aspects of the relationship of public opinion to the current round of health insurance policy making in Washington, D.C., can, in my view, underline the value of a historically grounded and institutionally mediated analysis of the roots and effects of public opinion. The approach I shall illustrate builds upon Lawrence Jacobs's (1993) recent book, The Health of Nations: Public Opinion and the Making of American and British Health Policy. One major undertaking of that work is to make sense of the role of U.S. public opinion in the enactment of Medicare in 1965.
Henry Jones Ford: The Political Science of Forecasting
Authors: Pious Richard M.
Published: May 2006

Henry Jones Ford published The Rise and Growth of American Politics in 1898, and in it he looked back into the eighteenth century to find meaning in the developments of the nineteenth and provide material for his forecasts of the twentieth. So, too, do we look back for meaning in our own era, and use what we find to forecast about things to come. It is worthwhile, then, to reexamine the final section of Ford's work, “Tendencies and Prospects of American Politics,” because doing so helps us to understand the opportunities and pitfalls awaiting political scientists who forecast.

Ford began his prophesying venture with the bold statement that there are no new ideas. In America, he claimed, we seem to be bound by the Whig theory of governance: with us, it is all separation of powers and checks and balances. We tinker with them, and we bind the constitutional fabric ever tighter to prevent abuses of power by vile politicos. “The belief that the Constitution could be tinkered into some sort of mechanical excellence” hampered British thinkers and ours as well (1898, 355). In the late eighteenth century, the British concentrated on institutional reforms, but nothing could help, because men entered politics in order to gain wealth and position.
A Brief History of the Political Science of AIDS Activism
Authors: Siplon Patricia
Published: May 2006

In the early stages of my study of the political movements surrounding the advent of AIDS and HIV, my first concern was not maintaining, or even achieving, objectivity. Rather, I found myself exploring many of the same questions as other scholars who focused on the human side of the emerging pandemic. Many of us puzzled over why AIDS had been such a strong mobilizing force. An intriguing political science question was why certain subgroups of AIDS activists enjoyed such success once the larger affected communities mobilized. Many of the people at the forefront of AIDS activism seemed to have been remarkably successful both in having their policy demands met and in incorporating themselves into the decision-making bodies that would formulate future policies. These successes seemed all the more amazing when one considered that a majority of Americans associated the epidemic with groups of people they perceived as, at best, marginally parts of American society—the diseased (hemophiliacs), the unwelcome (Haitian immigrants), and, most especially, the morally suspect (gay men and injection drug users).

This paradox of unprecedented success for disempowered actors has spawned a vast literature spanning a variety of disciplines. Early books on the subject, beginning with Randy Shilts's unequaled classic, And the Band Played On, focused on the manifold obstacles facing early activists and government officials attempting to deal with the impending crisis.
Death, Where Is Thy Sting? The Senate as a Ponce (de Leon) Scheme
Authors: Wuffle A , Brunell Thomas , Koetzle William
Published: May 2006

Maltzman, Sigelman and Binder (1996), in what we regard as monumental work, have reinvigorated the study of death in office. But their data analysis is incomplete. First, they fail to project realistically the trends in actual and expected congressional deaths illustrated in Figure 1 of their paper. Second, like many congressional scholars, they do not pay sufficient attention to the Senate. We provide new evidence that the U.S. Senate may offer the solution to mankind's oldest quest, the fountain of youth (Gilgamesh n.d.; de Leon 1460–1521).

Table 1 presents data on the proportion of U.S. Senators who died in office, by decade, from 1910 to 1990 (CQ 1995).

We plotted the senatorial mortality rate data reported in Table 1 versus year (for data grouped by decade) as shown in Figure 1.

The r2 for the regression of mortality rates on time is an astonishingly large .87. Rarely have we seen such a clear time trend. Senators are increasingly not dying in office.

However, as our colleague, Bernard Grofman, pointed out to us (personal communication, April 2, 1995), projecting this equation past 1990 would give us negative estimates of mortality rates as early as the year 2000. Given the strength of our empirical results and the scholarly commitment we share with Gelman and King (1990) to investigating incumbency effects without a priori bias, we do not reject the idea of revenants out of hand.
Rational Choice and Biopolitics: A (Darwinian) Tale of Two Theories
Authors: Somit Albert , Peterson Steven A.
Published: May 2006

In a recent paper (Somit and Peterson 1998), we discussed the relative successes and failures of “biopolitics” since it emerged as an identifiable subfield within political science during the mid-1960s (see also Degler 1991). Toward that end, we addressed two questions. First, we assessed the extent to which biopolitics has established itself organizationally as a field within the parent discipline. Second, and substantively surely more important, we measured the extent to which evolutionary concepts and the methods and research questions of the biological sciences have been incorporated within mainstream political science.

Although obviously interrelated, these are clearly quite distinct issues. The resulting balance sheet, we reluctantly concluded, makes at best bittersweet reading.
Vote For Me: Politics in America
Authors: Stekler Paul
Published: May 2006

Just what do you have to do to successfully run for public office in the United States?

• In her first try at public office, a North Carolina musician and television personality with no prior political experience is steeling herself for the morning's round of “money calls” to potential contributors to her congressional congressional campaign, none of whom she's ever met.

• On the streets of Honolulu, savvy candidates for governor on down, know that the best way to reach their voters is to put on a colorful lei, grab as big a sign as they can carry, and stake out the corner with the busiest rush hour traffic passing by, to “sign wave.” If they don't do it, they'll never get elected.

• On the Crow Indian reservation in Montana—where one candidate for tribal leader describes local politics as cutthroat, “just like Mayor Daley's Chicago”—winning may be determined by which candidate throws the best venison feast or has the largest extended family of voters. And 80% of eligible voters will turn out on election day at the one polling place for 1700 square miles.
Black Power in 1996 and the Demonization of African Americans
Authors: Dawson Michael C.
Published: May 2006

The cry of “Black Power” shook American society three decades ago. “Black Power” was a slogan that energized a generation of young African Americans, troubled their elders such as Dr. King (who agreed with many of the goals, but saw the slogan itself as divisive), and appalled the great majority of whites. As seriously as the slogan divided blacks, the intra-racial gap was small compared to the inter-racial gap as Aberbach and Walker documented in the pages of the APSR decades ago (1970). Blacks and whites understood black power to represent very different concepts. Where blacks understood the concept to mean either fairness or black unity, whites saw the slogan as representing blacks' demand that white supremacy be replaced with black supremacy.

It has been nearly thirty years since our colleague Charles V. Hamilton co-authored the extremely influential Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America with Stokely Charmichael (1967). They forcibly argued that “before a group can enter the open society, it must first close ranks.” (Charmichael and Hamilton 1967, 44, emphasis in original). However, blacks generally rejected nationalist programs and opted as they had in the past for what many such as Guinier have labeled a civil rights agenda (Guinier 1994). Instead of rejecting traditional politics, black empowerment strategies embraced during the 1970s by both integrationist and nationalist forces concentrated on the electoral arena. Black power moved from confrontations in the streets and on college campuses into the electoral arena during this period. This “New Black Politics” was celebrated by many blacks and whites inside the academy. The “new” electoral successes were heralded as representing true black power, the institutionalization of the mass movement, the exercise of power in the real policy forums of the nation.
The Political Power of Lesbians, Gays, and Bisexuals
Authors: Sherrill Kenneth
Published: May 2006

In the United States, as in most of the world, lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals are outnumbered and despised. Unlike most other potentially political groups, gay people are further disempowered by virtue of being born as if into a diaspora—probably randomly distributed about the population at birth. Their quest for political power is disadvantaged by barriers to the formation of political community as well as by lack of access to significant power resources. The relative political powerlessness of gay people stands in a contradistinction to their depiction by advocates of “traditional values” as a powerful movement advancing a “gay agenda” in American politics.

Similarly, the attention paid to the occasional electoral victories of openly lesbian and gay candidates distorts the reality that fewer than one tenth of 1% of all elected officials in the United States are openly lesbian, gay, or bisexual. With only two exceptions—Wisconsin and Minnesota—every state that has passed legislation banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is either on the Atlantic Coast or on the Pacific Coast (including Hawaii). Political scientists long have understood that rare local victories—whether they be the enactment of nondiscrimination legislation or the election to office of a member of a group—do not translate into national political power for the group.

In the pages that follow, I will attempt to measure the access gay people have to meaningful political resources and to discuss how differential access to these resources disadvantages gay people in the political process.
Political Science and Political Philosophy: Return to the Classics—No, Not Those!
Authors: McCormick John P.
Published: May 2006

Political philosophy as we know it blossomed with the arrival of European immigrants like Hannah Arendt, Leo Strauss, and Eric Vogelin after World War II. These refugee scholars challenged their American colleagues in at least three important ways. They dared political scientists to be more morally conscientious, to focus on matters of real importance, and to develop a more refined historical sensibility.

These authors suggested that the fact/value distinction at the center of the social scientific enterprise was indicative of a moral decay at the center of Western civilization. This decay paved the way for Nazism in the twenties and thirties, and possibly would contribute to Soviet victory in the Cold War if changes were not made. Less Cassandra-like was their charge that political scientists were primarily interested in refining the study of the insignificant. What they could measure through their dominant methods—public opinion, voting patterns, etc.—was trivial in comparison to the classical analysis of regime types, or the nature of man, or the purpose of the common life.

As a result, these philosophers offered history, unabashedly Western history, as a resource for studying these timeless questions of political inquiry. To their minds, questioning the nature of tyranny, or the status of authority, was still worthwhile; fundamental, in fact. They encouraged other political scientists to incorporate these themes into their practice. Indeed, Steven Smith's contribution to this colloquy represents a renewed effort in this vein.
Using Statistical Sampling to Estimate the U.S. Population: The Methodological and Political Debate over Census 2000
Authors: Brunell Thomas L.
Published: May 2006

One of the most hotly debated issues of the past four years has been the method to be used to count the population in Census 2000. Broadly, the debate is over whether to incorporate statistical sampling in the decennial census for the purposes of enumerating the population. Each of the previous 21 U.S. censuses has failed to count all persons. Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were certain that the state population totals tallied for the first census in 1790 were wrong (Skerry 1992). To make matters worse, the census must do more than simply tally the number of people in the country; it must also report exactly where each of these people live. By any metric, this is a Herculean task. Indeed, enumerating and fixing geographically 100% of the population without some error is impossible.

In this article I outline the plan for Census 2000, define the political debate, and offer an assessment of the plan itself. I argue that deciding how to conduct the census has been, and will continue to be, an inherently political process, and that there are reasonable, scientific arguments against adjusting the census. I became interested in this issue during my tenure as an APSA Congressional Fellow, when I staffed the Subcommittee on the Census in the House of Representatives. Before I began my fellowship on Capitol Hill, I was suspicious of the argument against adjusting the census statistically. How could anyone possibly be against adjusting the census with statistical methods?
Membrane leakage induced by dynorphins
Authors: Hugonin Loïc , Vukojević Vladana , Bakalkin Georgy , Gräslund Astrid
Published: May 2006

Dynorphins, endogeneous opioid peptides, function as ligands to the opioid kappa receptors and induce non‐opioid excitotoxic effects. Here we show that big dynorphin and dynorphin A, but not dynorphin B, cause leakage effects in large unilamellar phospholipid vesicles (LUVs). The effects parallel the previously studied potency of dynorphins to translocate through biological membranes. Calcein leakage caused by dynorphin A from LUVs with varying POPG/POPC molar ratios was promoted by higher phospholipid headgroup charges, suggesting that electrostatic interactions are important for the effects. A possibility that dynorphins generate non‐opioid excitatory effects by inducing perturbations in the lipid bilayer of the plasma membrane is discussed.
Redox‐responsive in vitro modulation of the signalling state of the isolated PrrB sensor kinase of Rhodobacter sphaeroides NCIB 8253
Authors: Potter Christopher A. , Jeong Eun-Lee , Williamson Michael P. , Henderson Peter J.F. , Phillips-Jones Mary K.
Published: May 2006

Prr is a global regulatory system that controls a large and diverse range of genes in Rhodobacter sphaeroides in response to changing conditions of environmental redox potential. PrrB is the membrane‐bound sensor kinase and previously we showed that the purified, detergent‐solubilised intact membrane protein is functional in autophosphorylation, phosphotransfer and phosphatase activities. Here we confirm that it also senses and responds directly to its environmental signal, redox potential; strong autophosphorylation of PrrB occurred in response to dithiothreitol (DTT)‐induced reducing conditions (and levels increased in response to a wide 0.1–100 mM DTT range), whilst under oxidising conditions, PrrB exhibited low, just detectable levels of autophosphorylation. The clear response of PrrB to changes in reducing conditions confirmed its suitability for in vitro studies to identify modulators of its phosphorylation signalling state, and was used here to investigate whether PrrB might sense more than one redox‐related signal, such as signals of cell energy status. NADH, ATP and AMP were found to exert no detectable effect on maintenance of the PrrB–P signalling state. By contrast, adenosine diphosphate produced a very strong increase in PrrB–P dephosphorylation rate, presumably through the back‐conversion of PrrB–P to PrrB.
Closed-loop controlled vortex-airfoil interactions
Authors: Zhang M. M. , Cheng L. , Zhou Y.
Published: May 2006

Closed-loop controlled interactions between an airfoil and impinging vortices were experimentally investigated. This work aims to minimize the fluctuating flow pressure (p) at the leading edge of the airfoil, which is a major source of the blade-vortex interaction noises commonly seen in rotorcrafts. Piezoceramic actuators were used to create a local surface perturbation near the leading edge of the airfoil in order to alter the airfoil-vortex interaction. Two closed-loop control schemes were investigated, which deployed p and the streamwise fluctuating flow velocity (u) as the feedback signal, respectively. As the control effect on p was measured using a fast response pressure transducer, the oncoming vortical flow was monitored using a particle image velocimetry and a hot wire. It was found that the control scheme based on the feedback signal u led to a pronounced impairment in the strength of oncoming vortices and meanwhile a maximum reduction in p by 39%, outperforming the control scheme based on the feedback signal p. Physics behind the observations is discussed.
Characteristics of reflected gas molecules at a solid surface
Authors: Yamamoto Kyoji , Takeuchi Hideki , Hyakutake Toru
Published: May 2006

The Couette flow and a thermal problem of a rarefied nitrogen gas between two platinum walls are considered to investigate the characteristics of the reflected gas molecule at a solid surface. The analysis is based on the molecular dynamics (MD) method for the gas-wall interaction together with the direct simulation Monte-Carlo (DSMC) method for the motion of gas molecules. The accommodation coefficients of momentum, translational, and rotational energies of the molecule are obtained. The velocity and rotational energy distributions of the molecule at the wall surface are also obtained. It is found that the Maxwell-type distribution function consisting of specular and diffuse reflections well describes the distribution function of the reflected molecules if the accommodation coefficient involved is chosen properly. It is also found that the flow and temperature fields subject to the Maxwell-type reflection conditions decomposed into each direction of the space coordinates result in good agreements with those of the DSMC combined with the MD calculation.
Production of knockout mice by random or targeted mutagenesis in spermatogonial stem cells
Authors: Kanatsu-Shinohara Mito , Ikawa Masahito , Takehashi Masanori , Ogonuki Narumi , Miki Hiromi , Inoue Kimiko , Kazuki Yasuhiro , Lee Jiyoung , Toyokuni Shinya , Oshimura Mitsuo , Ogura Atsuo , Shinohara Takashi
Published: May 2006

Stem cells represent a unique population of cells with self-renewal capacity. Although they are important therapeutic targets, the genetic manipulation of tissue-specific stem cells has been limited, which complicates the study and practical application of these cells. Here, we demonstrate successful gene trapping and homologous recombination in spermatogonial stem cells. Cultured spermatogonial stem cells were transfected with gene trap or gene targeting vectors. Mutagenized stem cells were expanded clonally by drug selection. These cells underwent spermatogenesis and produced heterozygous offspring after transplantation into the seminiferous tubules of infertile mouse testes. Heterozygous mutant mice were intercrossed to produce homozygous gene knockouts. Using this strategy, the efficiency of homologous recombination for theoccludingene locus was 1.7% using a nonisogenic DNA construct. These results demonstrate the feasibility of altering genes in tissue-specific stem cells in a manner similar to embryonic stem cells and have important implications for gene therapy and animal transgenesis.
Video-Assisted Global Positioning in Terrain Navigation with Known Landmarks
Authors: Seetharaman Guna , Le Ha V.
Published: May 2006

We present a rigorous geometric analysis of the computation of the global positions of an airborne video camera and ground based objects using aerial images of known landmarks. This has also been known as the perspective-n-point (PnP) problem. A robust Hough transform-like method, facilitated by a class of CORDIC-structured computations is developed to find the camera position followed by a method of computing the position of a ground object from images of that object and three known landmarks. The results enable fast and effective visual terrain navigation of aerial surveillance systems when the global positioning and inertial navigation sensors become faulty, inaccurate, or dysfunctional. These new hardware implementable algorithms can also be used with MEMS based INS sensors through a multisensory fusion process.
Elastic Properties of Mullite Single Crystals up to 1400°C
Authors: Schreuer Jürgen , Hildmann Bernd , Schneider Hartmut
Published: May 2006

Elastic constants and their temperature derivatives of orthorhombic 2/1‐mullite single crystals were determined using resonant ultrasound spectroscopy between ambient temperature and 1400°C in air. The values at room temperature given in GPa were c11=279.5(4), c22=234.9(2), c33=360.6(3), c44=109.49(7), c55=74.94(4), c66=79.89(4), c12=103.1(2), c13=96.1(3), and c23=135.6(1). The high temperature ultrasound data sets were corrected for thermal expansion effects using the coefficients, which were measured in the range −170° to 1400°C by means of dilatometry. Up to about 1000°C, the temperature evolution of the elastic stiffnesses was linear and the corresponding thermoelastic constants Tij=d log cij/dT given in 10−6°C−1 were T11=−100(2), T22=−126(2), T33=−78.2(6), T44=−75.3(7), T55=−81.3(9), T66=−113(1), T12=−153(3), T13=−94(4), and T23=−47(2). While the temperature derivatives of the longitudinal stiffnesses and the transverse interaction coefficients remained linear, the shear resistances c44, c55, and c66 displayed an increased softening above about 1000°C, which was accompanied by a rapidly increasing ultrasound dissipation. In the same temperature region, small, but clearly recognizable discontinuities in the longitudinal and in the volume thermal expansion coefficients occurred. Taking into account the behavior of the heat capacity, the observed anomalies may indicate a glass‐like transition of mullite above about 1000°C. An unexpected peak in the ultrasound dissipation at about 70°C was most likely caused by anelastic point defect relaxations.
External quality assurance of molecular analysis of haemochromatosis gene mutations
Authors: Hertzberg M , Neville S , McDonald D
Published: May 2006

Background:The Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia Quality Assurance Programs has conducted an external quality assurance programme for the testing of the haemochromatosis gene (HFE) mutationsC282YandH63D.

Methods:A total of 10 surveys have been undertaken over a period of 6 years from 2000 to 2005.

Results:Of the 3016 responses received, the overall success rate was found to be 99.47% (3000/3016). A total of 16 errors were found, 6 forC282Yand 10 forH63D. Only one sample was associated with more than one error, in which 2 of 23 respondents classified a normal sample as heterozygotic forH63D. Overall performance was observed to vary minimally between surveys, from a low of 91.3% correct (21/23 responses) for a normal sample to 100% correct in most (85/100) samples. Of the 10 complete surveys, four returned a 0% error rate. In one survey in 2004, seven incorrect responses were returned by one laboratory, all of which were secondary to transcriptional errors. Overall success rates per assay were 99.61% (1532/1538) forC282Yand 99.32% (1468/1478) forH63D. Over a period of 6 years from 2000 to 2005, the proportion of respondents using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and restriction enzyme analysis fell from 85% to around 30%, whereas the proportion of laboratories using real-time PCR rose from 5% to around 55%, as indicated by the questionnaire surveys of methods used by participants.

Discussion:Encouraging levels of testing proficiency for two common genetic mutations are indicated by these data, but they also confirm the need for participation of molecular diagnostic laboratories in external quality assurance programmes to ensure the ongoing provision of high-quality genetic testing services.
Growth factor- and heparin-dependent regulation of constitutive and agonist-mediated human endothelial barrier function
Authors: Moy Alan B. , Blackwell Ken , Wu Mack H. , Granger Harris J.
Published: May 2006

We report functional differences in constitutive and agonist-mediated endothelial barrier function between cultured primary and Clonetics human umbilical vein endothelial cells (pHUVEC and cHUVEC) grown in soluble growth factors and heparin. Basal transendothelial resistance (TER) was much lower in pHUVEC than in cHUVEC grown in medium supplemented with growth factors, such as basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and human epithelial growth factor (EGF), and heparin. On the basis of a numerical model of TER, the increased basal TER in cHUVEC was due to effects on cell-matrix adhesion and membrane capacitance. Heparin and bFGF increased constitutive TER in cultured pHUVEC, and heparin mediated additional increases in constitutive TER in pHUVEC supplemented with bFGF. EGF attenuated bFGF-mediated increases in TER. On the basis of the numerical model, in contrast to cHUVEC, heparin and bFGF augmented TER through effects on cell-cell adhesion and membrane capacitance in pHUVEC. Thrombin mediated quantitatively greater amplitude and a more sustained decline in TER in cultured cHUVEC than pHUVEC. Thrombin-mediated barrier dysfunction was attenuated in pHUVEC conditioned in EGF in the presence or absence of heparin. Thrombin-mediated barrier dysfunction was also attenuated when monolayers were exposed to low concentrations of heparin and further attenuated in the presence of bFGF. cAMP stimulation mediated differential attenuation of thrombin-mediated barrier dysfunction between pHUVEC and cHUVEC. VEGF displayed differential effects in TER in serum-free medium. Taken together, these data demonstrate marked differential regulation of constitutive and agonist-mediated endothelial barrier function in response to mitogens and heparin stimulation.
Towards an Appropriate Privacy Regime for Medical Data Research
Authors: Ploem
Published: May 2006

In this article, first the relevant human rights and their main implications for privacy regulations within the field of medical data research will be outlined. Hereafter, an overview of the international privacy rules that apply to the use of medical data for research purposes is given, followed by an impression of possible problems in research practice which can be related to or associated with the legal framework. In the subsequent section, the legal status of encoded (research) data is analyzed, since this issue is of particular relevance when a privacy regime for using medical data for research purposes is to be discussed. Finally, in the author addresses the main theme of this article: 'an appropriate privacy regime' for medical data research.
Evaluation of pulse-oximetry oxygen saturation taken through skin protective covering
Authors: James Jyotsna , Tiwari Lokesh , Upadhyay Pramod , Sreenivas Vishnubhatla , Bhambhani Vikas , Puliyel Jacob M
Published: May 2006

Background

The hard edges of adult finger clip probes of the pulse oximetry oxygen saturation (POOS) monitor can cause skin damage if used for prolonged periods in a neonate. Covering the skin under the probe with Micropore surgical tape or a gauze piece might prevent such injury. The study was done to see if the protective covering would affect the accuracy of the readings.

Methods

POOS was studied in 50 full-term neonates in the first week of life. After obtaining consent from their parents the neonates had POOS readings taken directly (standard technique) and through the protective covering. Bland-Altman plots were used to compare the new method with the standard technique. A test of repeatability for each method was also performed.

Results

The Bland-Altman plots suggest that there is no significant loss of accuracy when readings are taken through the protective covering. The mean difference was 0.06 (SD of 1.39) and 0.04 (SD 1.3) with Micropore and gauze respectively compared to the standard method. The mean difference was 0.22 (SD 0.23) on testing repeatability with the standard method.

Conclusion

Interposing Micropore or gauze does not significantly affect the accuracy of the POOS reading. The difference between the standard method and the new method was less than the difference seen on testing repeatability of the standard method.
Recent Political Developments: Progress or Change?
Authors: Garfield Harry A.
Published: May 2006

It used to be said by a certain learned professor opposed to departure from old and familiar paths, “Gentlemen, all progress is change, but not all change is progress.”

In every department of human affairs, in every quarter of the civilized world, the contrast between conditions in the late eighties and the present time is amazing—not conditions only but the difference in attitudes, in beliefs, in human relations. We may well ask ourselves, Whither? Certainly it is incumbent upon us to consider the character of these changes—whether they are making for progress—and what steps we are taking or can take to meet them. I ask you to consider with me two aspects of this question, one affecting industrial and the other international relations. In each case the proposals heretofore offered to meet the situation appear to fall into one of two categories, the first mechanistic, the second educative; the first, an attempt to meet a new situation by introducing new devices of control; the second by a process of education to modify or change men's attitude and belief.
Constitutional Law in 1922–1923: The Constitutional Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the October Term, 1922
Authors: Corwin Edward S.
Published: May 2006

The opening paragraph of Section 8 of Article 1 of the Constitution reads as follows: “Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes‥‥ to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.” For what purposes may Congress, in light of this phraseology, spend money raised by national taxation? Hamilton answered, for any purposes which Congress itself found to be promotive of the general welfare. Madison, on the contrary, held the power thus granted to be only instrumental—Congress might spend money only as a means of carrying into effect its other granted powers. So far as the practice of Congress is concerned, Hamilton's view has long since prevailed, but the Supreme Court has never had occasion so far to develop its theory on the subject. Its failure, therefore, to seize the opportunity proferred it in the Maternity Act cases is somewhat disappointing.

By the Maternity Act of November 23, 1921 Congress extends financial aid, in the work of reducing maternal and infant mortality, and protecting the health of mothers and infants, to such states as shall accept and comply with the provisions of the act. The act was attacked on two grounds; first, that the appropriations voted were “for purposes not national, but local to the states,” and secondly, that the acceptance by a state of the terms of the act would constitute a surrender by it of its reserved powers.
Montesquieu and De Tocqueville and Corporative Individualism
Authors: George William Henry
Published: May 2006

Article 16 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, prefixed to the French Constitution of 1791, reads as follows: “Every society in which a guarantee of rights is not assured nor a separation of powers determined does not have a constitution.” Without question the men of 1789 had come under the influence of Montesquieu as well as of John Locke. It is true that a separation of powers is to be found in the Two Treatises of Government; but that doctrine is set out in bolder relief and more sharply defined by Montesquieu than by Locke. However, the men of 1789 took only one half the teachings of Montesquieu; the other half they rejected. The exclusive, oligarchical, tyrannical spirit of the corporations of the ancient régime, the abuse of the principle of aristocracy—privileges without services, as Taine puts it—the growth of the spirit of equality as a result of the industrial revolution, all set men stoutly against a “corporative” (in contrast with a pulverized) structure of society. Rousseau, Turgot and the Physiocrats demanded a leveling of hierarchized society: the mountains must be brought low, the valleys filled up and a highway made for the plain man to walk thereon. It was only with the Restoration that the value of an aristocratic element—from Montesquieu's point of view a corporative element—came into prominence. It was widely discussed during that period, and Montesquieu was the authority of the day.
Pan-American Coöperation in Pan-American Affairs
Authors: Pezet F. Alfonso
Published: May 2006

A complete and thorough study of the question should embrace the following points:

A. The Pan-American idea: its inception, and its development up to the present time.

B. The need of an international Pan-American understanding that shall create the desire for Pan-American conciliation.

C. The promotion of Pan-American conciliation leading to the promulgation of an international Pan-American policy of coöperation in all affairs of the Americas.

Under “A” we have to consider: The movement for political emancipation in the Americas; the early and subsequent attempts to establish unions, leagues and federations among the republics; the attitude of the political leaders in America toward closer relations; the conditions obtaining in the several sections of America, and their influence for or against the realization of the ideals upon which the commonwealths were established; the congresses, conferences, and meetings of every nature, held in the Americas to promote Pan-American policies; the evolution of the Pan-American idea since Bolivar and Henry Clay, through Blaine up to the present day.
The Reorganization of State Government in Kansas
Authors: Dykstra C. A.
Published: May 2006

During March of 1913 Governor George H. Hodges of Kansas was the most talked-of and written-about governor in the United States. His message of March 11 to the Kansas legislature was probably the most quoted message of the year. To students of state government this message presented nothing new. It probably would be just as true to say that much of this message presented little that was new to the great majority of intelligent voters. It certainly suggested nothing unfamiliar to most thinking legislators in Kansas. Nevertheless it was a unique message and it merited all the publicity it received. That this should be true is one of the paradoxes of American politics.

For years editors, students, and legislators themselves have been making the same criticism of our American methods of lawmaking that Governor Hodges makes. And from many quarters had come practically the same proposal for reform that the governor advocates. One of our American States had attempted the year before by direct popular action, to adopt a much more thorough going scheme of state reorganization. But we are a conservative people, and for some reason or another, we are but slightly stirred by criticism or suggestion for change in our governmental machinery unless it comes from an official source. Let congress suddenly discover that there is an insidious lobby at Washington and we all demand immediate house cleaning.
Administrative Reorganization in Minnesota
Authors: Young Jeremiah S.
Published: May 2006

The governor of Minnesota, Hon. A. O. Eberhart, in his message to the state legislature in 1911, made an exhaustive statement concerning the defective and expensive administrative system of the state, pointing out the lack of adequate centralization, responsibility and coöperation, suggesting a definite plan of reorganization, and making an earnest plea for legislative action; but his plea fell upon deaf ears. Again in 1913 he reargued the case but restricted his suggestions to the reorganization and systematization of only two departments: (1) the department of public domain and (2) the department of agriculture. These departments were not reorganized; instead the House of Representatives appointed a committee on public accounts. This committee made a partial study of the situation and filed a report. Nothing further was done except to introduce more than half a hundred bills dealing with state economy and efficiency, one of which passed, an act providing for an educational commission for investigation purposes.

Perhaps one reason the legislature did not undertake a thoroughgoing reorganization of the administrative machinery of the state government is because the members wanted a scientific, impartial investigation of the whole subject made so that action might be taken only after full knowledge. However, the legislature did not provide for a general committee to study the whole situation but went at it piecemeal by providing for a commission to study a single problem.
Constitutional Law in 1926-1927: The Constitutional Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the October Term, 1926
Authors: Cushman Robert E.
Published: May 2006

The most conspicuous constitutional decision rendered by the Supreme Court during its 1926 term, or for many a preceding term, was in the case of Myers v. United States. It is here held that the power of the President to remove executive officers appointed by him with the consent of the Senate cannot be restricted by Congress. On the question of the removal of such officers the Constitution is entirely silent. It is an interesting commentary on the process by which we make constitutional law that a problem as important as this, a problem which was debated at length in 1789, upon which presidents have acted and congresses have passed statutes, should now, after 137 years, be definitely settled for the first time, and be settled now only because the late Mr. Myers saw fit to sue the government in the Court of Claims for his salary.

The facts in the case are simple. In 1917 President Wilson appointed Myers to a first-class postmastership at Portland, Oregon, for a term of four years. In 1920, by direction of the President, he was removed from office. A statute passed in 1876 and still in force provides that “postmasters of the first, second, and third classes shall be appointed and may be removed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and shall hold their offices for four years unless sooner removed or suspended according to law.” The removal of Myers was never referred to the Senate for its consent.
Some Aspects of Regional Planning
Authors: Beard Charles A.
Published: May 2006

The subject of regional planning now stands high on the calendar of American social thinking. Miss Kimball, in compiling her admirable manual of information three years ago, was able to make a fair display of papers and documents on regional, rural, state, and national planning. Since that time the sheaf of materials has grown substantially in bulk and variety. This increase of interest in the topic was inevitable. As in the world of abstract ideas every attempt to cut through to the heart of a problem lands us in metaphysics, to use the penetrating observation of William James, so in the field of municipal development any effort to follow the filaments of city planning to their roots leads us beyond the immediate urban area into the large and indefinite region of which it is a part. Anyone who has for a moment got away from the political aspects of a specific city government and taken up some particular question, such as transportation, knows how quickly he is carried beyond the legal boundaries of his municipality into its regional, state, national, and even international, relations. If anyone, perchance, has doubts on the point, let him spend a few hours with the 1920 report of the New York-New Jersey Port and Harbor Development Commission. Of course to adepts this is all trite enough, but it is an indication of what must be the inexorable drift in the thinking of those who are concerned with anything more than the decorative aspects of municipal design.
Family Voting in France
Authors: Gooch Robert K.
Published: May 2006

One of the results of the federal form of government of the United States, under which suffrage and elections are made primarily the concern of the several states, has been the comparatively small part played in practical national politics by controversies relating to voters and voting. The great reform bills and representation of the people acts in England, as well as the conditions in that country under which the acts were adopted, have no close parallels in American political history. Still less closely does the history of this country in these matters resemble that of France. The experience of the Third Republic has been filled with controversy concerning the organization of the electoral power. The limits to this organization are indeed set by the stipulation of the constitution that “the Chamber of Deputies shall be elected by universal suffrage”; but within these limits considerable latitude for change is assured by the qualifying phrase, “in the conditions determined by electoral law.” Change has been frequent, and change has been attended by the controversy mentioned. Thus, there have been since 1875 no fewer than five alternate adoptions of scrutin uninominal and scrutin de liste; and since the separation of church and state was consummated in the beginning of the present century, the question of electoral reform has probably been the chief single issue of internal French politics.