bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The construction of US financial power
Authors: KONINGS MARTIJN
Published: January 2009

Critical work in international political economy (IPE) has sought to theorise US financial power through the concept of structural power, intended as a means to go beyond state-centric conceptions of political power and to trace the state’s interaction with socio-economic forces. But due to the tendency to ontologise the distinction between state and market, IPE has not been fully successful in articulating the linkages between structural power and state power. The article then examines literature in the field of cultural political economy (CPE), which emphasises the constitutive importance of the cultural norms and practices situated at the level of everyday life. The CPE literature fails to challenge established IPE accounts in some key respects, and the article relates this to its conception of political power. The article develops an institution-based perspective that is more suitable to theorising the linkages between structural power and state power, and then proceeds to develop an interpretation of the construction of American financial power over the course of the 20th century. It reinterprets some of the key moments in the history of US and global finance and re-examines notions of American financial decline.
Hegemonic transition in East Asia? The dynamics of Chinese and American power
Authors: BEESON MARK
Published: January 2009

The ‘rise of China’ is seen by some observers as a precursor of inevitable hegemonic competition in East Asia. At the very least, it seems likely that China’s influence in East Asia will grow at the expense of the United States. Whether this will eventually amount to a form of ‘hegemonic transition’ is far less clear. It is, therefore, an opportune moment to consider the relative strengths and weaknesses of China and the US in East Asia. This paper suggests that the nature of hegemonic competition and transition is more uncertain and complex than some of the most influential theoretical understandings of hegemony would have us believe.
Conceptualising hegemonic legitimacy
Authors: RAPKIN DAVID P. , BRAATEN DAN
Published: January 2009

What is international legitimacy and whence does it stem? What entities seek it and why, and who grants or withholds it? How might the different meanings of the concept be reconciled? This article argues that Family Resemblance Concept (FRC) methods are particularly well-suited to explicating the complex meanings associated with this multidimensional concept. We start with a basic level definition based on subjective perceptions and beliefs, the normative quality of oughtness, and the idea of consent. We then expand this definition by developing several secondary-level dimensions: shared values, constitutionalism (consisting of two forms of process legitimacy), and outcome legitimacy. At the indicator level, we examine 14 different survey questions asked in international public opinion polls to provide a tentative empirical glimpse of how our FRC version of legitimacy could be operationalised and tested. The paper concludes with a discussion of the usefulness of the FRC scheme in imposing some order on the legitimacy concept and in illuminating the recent legitimacy problems afflicting the United States.
Matrioshka hegemony? Multi-levelled hegemonic competition and security in post-Soviet Central Asia
Authors: DEYERMOND RUTH
Published: January 2009

A multi-levelled hegemonic encounter has developed in Central Asia, in which a global hegemon, the USA; a regional hegemon, the Russian Federation; an aspirant sub-regional hegemon, Uzbekistan; and an emergent regional and global hegemon, China, co-exist within the framework of Central Asian security politics. Where these hegemons’ interests do not conflict this can be characterised as a matrioshka model of hegemony: the different level hegemons can accommodate one another peacefully and where their interests coincide they can form alliances. The model of multi-levelled hegemony developed here highlights the simultaneous presence of competition and cooperation. This article explores the way in which the various bilateral hegemonic relations in the region also indicate that actual and emergent hegemonic states at different levels can cooperate as hegemons in order to challenge, or to respond to challenge, by hegemonic states at other levels. This helps to clarify the question of whether the increasingly competitive interaction between these states is likely to lead to conflict.
Enacting meaning-in-use: qualitative research on norms and international relations
Authors: WIENER ANTJE
Published: January 2009

This article proposes a framework for empirical research on contested meaning of norms in international politics. The goal is to identify a design for empirical research to examine associative connotations of norms that come to the fore when norms are contested in situations of governance beyond-the-state and especially in crises. If cultural practices shape experience and expectations, they need to be identified and made ‘account-able’ based on empirical research. To that end, the proposed qualitative approach centres on individually enacted meaning-in-use. The framework comprises norm-types, conditions of contestation, types of divergence and opposition-deriving as a specific interview evaluation technique. Section one situates the problem of contestation in the field of constructivist research on norms. Section two introduces distinctive conditions of contestation and types of norms. Section three details the methodology of conducting and evaluating interviews and presents the technique of opposition-deriving with a view to reconstructing the structure of meaning-in-use. Section four concludes with an outlook to follow-up research.
Constructivist methods: a plea and manifesto for pluralism
Authors: LUPOVICI AMIR
Published: January 2009

My aim in this article is to improve the methodology of the modernist constructivist approach and to provide a more coherent, rigid, and systematic constructivist framework for research. I do this by combining the methods of process tracing, discourse analysis, and counterfactuals. In addition, I aim to provide clearer methodological criteria for the evaluation of constructivist research by modifying some of the positivist criteria and adding the criterion of contextual validity. I assert that a more coherent methodology will strengthen and improve constructivist study and may contribute to better communication between constructivist and positivist scholars.
British irony, global justice: a pragmatic reading of Chris Brown, Banksy and Ricky Gervais
Authors: BRASSETT JAMES
Published: January 2009

The article provides a critical analysis of the concept of irony and how it relates to global justice. Taking Richard Rorty as a lead, it is suggested that irony can foreground a sense of doubt over our own most heartfelt beliefs regarding justice. This provides at least one ideal sense in which irony can impact the discussion of global ethics by pitching less as a discourse of grand universals and more as a set of hopeful narratives about how to reduce suffering. The article then extends this notion via the particular – and particularly – ethnocentric case of British Irony. Accepting certain difficulties with any definition of British Irony the article reads the interventions of three protagonists on the subject of global justice – Chris Brown, Banksy and Ricky Gervais. It is argued that their considerations bring to light important nuances in irony relating to the importance of playfulness, tragedy, pain, self-criticism and paradox. The position is then qualified against the (opposing) critiques that irony is either too radical, or, too conservative a quality to make a meaningful impact on the discussion of global justice. Ultimately, irony is defended as a critical and imaginative form, which can (but does not necessarily) foster a greater awareness of the possibilities and limits for thinking/doing global justice.

%‘‘The comic frame, in making a man the student of himself, makes it possible for him to ‘transcend’ occasions when he has been tricked or cheated, since he can readily put such discouragements into his ‘assets’ column, under the heading of ‘experience’. . . . In sum, the comic frame should enable people to be observers of themselves, while acting.

Blackadder: Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?

Baldrick: Yes, it’s like goldy and bronzy only it’s made out of iron.’’
Electron injection into laser wakefields by colliding circularly-polarized laser pulses
Authors: Wang W.-M. , Sheng Z.-M. , Zhang J.
Published: January 2009

Electron injection into a laser wakefield by the colliding of two circularly polarized laser pulses is analyzed by the Hamiltonian approach and particle-in-cell simulations. If the pump pulse driving the laser wakefield is right-circularly-polarized, electron injection is found only when the counter-propagating injection pulse is left-circularly-polarized and vice versa. This holds when the injection pulse is at low intensity and has a frequency near the pump pulse frequency ω0. For a moderately intense injection pulse, even if the two pulses have the same polarization, electron injection is found but with less efficiency. It is also found that the injection pulse with the frequency within [0.5ω0,3ω0] can still create electron injection efficiently provided it has the opposite polarization with the pump pulse.
Spatial and temporal characteristics of X-ray emission from hot plasma driven by a relativistic femtosecond laser pulse
Authors: Hong W. , He Y. , Wen T. , Du H. , Teng J. , Qing X. , Huang Z. , Huang W. , Liu H. , Wang X. , Huang X. , Zhu Q. , Ding Y. , Peng H.
Published: January 2009

We present the temporal and spatial characterization of X-ray sources (at ~1 keV) driven by a 200 TW, 30 fs, 800 nm laser pulse on SILEX-I laser facility at Research Center of Laser Fusion. For laser copper foil interaction with laser intensity between 6 × 1018 W/cm2and 3 × 1019 W/cm2, the X-ray images show cone-like jet structures. While the yield of X-rays is strongly dependent on the laser intensity, the plasma expansion length is weakly dependent on the laser intensity, and the open angle of the cone-like jet is not correlated to the laser intensity. The formation of the jet structure is attributed to the plasma transverse confine by the self-induced quasi-static magnetic field. An X-ray pedestal 4 ns preceding the main pulse was observed. The correlation between X-ray pedestal and collimated proton beam generation was found.
Circuit simulation of the behavior of exploding wires for nano-powder production
Authors: Mao Z. , Zou X. , Wang X. , Liu X. , Jiang W.
Published: January 2009

The electrical behavior of exploding wires was obtained by numerically solving the nonlinear differential equation describing the discharge circuit. For metal wires of high conductivity and low sublimation heat, such as copper, aluminum, gold, and silver, the circuit simulation can be well performed based on the resistivity model developed by Tucker in which the resisitivity is expressed by the explicit functions of specific action, i.e., ρ = f(g). For metals such as titanium and zinc with anomalously changing resistivity, i.e., decreasing rather than increasing with the liquid heating, the circuit simulation of the exploding wires can be performed using the implicit relationship between ρ andgthat is read out point by point from the experimentally measured curve. Using the circuit simulation, the rate of the energy deposition in the exploding wires before the explosion can be obtained, which is helpful to choose the right experimental conditions for possible overheating that is desirable for getting smaller nano-powders produced by exploding wires.
Electron bunch injection at an angle into a laser wakefield
Authors: Luttikhof M.J.H. , Khachatryan A.G. , van Goor F.A. , Boller K.-J. , Mora P.
Published: January 2009

External injection of electron bunches longer than the plasma wavelength in a laser wakefield accelerator can lead to the generation of femtosecond ultra relativistic bunches with a couple of percent energy spread. Extensive study has been done on external electron bunch (e.g., one generated by a photo-cathode RF linac) injection in a laser wakefield for different configurations.

In this paper, we investigate a new way of external injection where the electron bunch is injected at a small angle into the wakefield. This way one can avoid the ponderomotive scattering as well as the vacuum-plasma transition region, which tend to destroy the injected bunch. In our simulations, the effect of the laser pulse dynamics is also taken into account. It is shown that injection at an angle can provide compressed and accelerated electron bunches with less than 2% energy spread. Another advantage of this scheme is that it has less stringent requirements in terms of the size of the injected bunch and there is the potential to trap more charge.
Surface modifications of Ti6Al4V by a picosecond Nd:YAG laser
Authors: Trtica M.S. , Radak B.B. , Gakovic B.M. , Milovanovic D.S. , Batani D. , Desai T.
Published: January 2009

Interaction of a Nd:YAG laser, operating at wavelengths of 1064 nm (23.6 J cm−2 fluence) or 532 nm (25.9 J cm−2 fluence), and pulse duration of 40 ps, with a titanium-based medical implant Ti6Al4V alloy was studied. Surface damage thresholds were estimated to be 0.9 J cm−2 and 0.25 J cm−2 at laser wavelengths 1064 nm and 532 nm, respectively. At both laser wavelengths, the energy absorbed was mostly converted into thermal energy, forming craters, albeit about 50 times deeper at 1064 nm than at 532 nm. Periodic surface structures (PSS) were also formed with both laser wavelengths, concentric, and radial at micrometer scale (3 µm to 15 µm period), parallel at nanometer scale (800 nm period with the 1064 nm laser, 400 nm with the 532 nm laser). In the case of the 532 nm laser, the concentric structures enlarge their period with accumulating laser pulse count. These features can help roughening of the implant surface and improve bio-compatibility.
Mean specific intensity of radiation in cylindrical and spherical plasmas
Authors: Fisher V.I. , Almiev I.R. , Weingarten L.L. , Maron Y.
Published: January 2009

We present an easy-to-use formula for mean (space- and direction-average) specific intensity of radiation in uniform spherical and cylindrical plasmas, which are not under external irradiation. This formula has high accuracy in any spectral interval dν taken in continuum as well as within a spectral line of any profile, including overlapping lines and lines on a pedestal of intense continuum in any spectral range. The formula considerably accelerates self-consistent computations of the radiation field and the distribution of ions over their ionization degrees and quantum states. It may also be used for computations of any radiation dependent-quantity, for example, the photoionization probability.
Reforming the Presidential Nomination
Process
Authors: Tolbert Caroline , Squire Peverill
Published: January 2009

The 2008 presidential nomination was marked by the most aggressive
frontloading in recent history; the process was a mess from the
outset. Frontloading is the trend in recent presidential nominations
in which states schedule their primaries and caucuses near the
beginning of the delegate-selection season to have a greater impact
on the process. In 1976, 10% of the delegates had been chosen by
March 2. In 2008, 70% of the delegates had been chosen by that same
date. As part of their ongoing efforts to address frontloading and
other problems, both the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and
Republican National Committee (RNC) revised the schedules and rules
for 2008 presidential primary elections and caucuses.
Making an Impression: New Media in the 2008 Presidential
Nomination Campaigns
Authors: Haynes Audrey A. , Pitts Brian
Published: January 2009

Just as radio and television revolutionized the presidential election
process in earlier decades, today the “new media” are making a
significant imprint on how campaigns are conducted by candidates,
covered by journalists, and evaluated by the voters. While the same
basic goals for campaigns apply, the tools to accomplish these goals
have expanded.
Meaningful Participation and the Evolution of the
Reformed Presidential Nominating System
Authors: Atkeson Lonna Rae , Maestas Cherie D.
Published: January 2009

Forty years ago, violent protests at the Democratic National
Convention captured the attention of the nation as rioters vented
their anger over a nomination process they felt excluded their
voices. The disastrous 1968 convention spawned a cascade of reforms
in the presidential nomination system, many of which were intended
to create greater opportunity for meaningful participation of the
party's rank-and-file members. Forty years later, where do we stand?
Does the nomination process meet the goals of encouraging broad
participation and connecting rank-and-file preferences to nomination
outcomes? We offer some tentative answers to these questions by
tracing the history of the nomination process, its evolution over
the last 40 years, and the implications of several key changes in
the system for citizen participation.
An Incremental Approach to Presidential Nomination Reform
Authors: Mayer William G.
Published: January 2009

In a book published four years ago, Andrew Busch and I divided proposals to reform the presidential nomination process into two categories, which we called comprehensive and incremental (see Mayer and Busch 2004, chapter 5). Like any attempt to classify a complex reality, this distinction blurs a bit at the edges, but the basic idea should be clear. Comprehensive proposals call for major, far-reaching changes in the basic operations of the presidential nomination process; incremental proposals make more limited, marginal changes in the rules, while retaining the fundamental structure of the existing system.
The Content of Political Participation: Letters to the Editor and the People Who Write Them
Authors: Cooper Christopher , Knotts H. Gibbs , Haspel Moshe
Published: January 2009

Letters to the editor are an important but poorly understood form of voluntary political participation. To learn more about the content of letters to the editor and the characteristics of the people who write them we conducted a content analysis of 1,415 randomly selected printed letters from eight newspapers from 2002 to 2005. We also matched the letter writers from our sample to demographic and political information contained in a state voterfile.
Measuring Governance and Corruption through the Worldwide
Governance Indicators: Critiques, Responses, and Ongoing Scholarly
Discussion
Authors: Apaza Carmen R.
Published: January 2009

Since 1996 the World Bank Institute and the Research Department of
the World Bank have been developing six governance indicators called
the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI). The six dimensions of
governance include control of corruption, measuring perceptions on
corruption. Based on the literature review as well as the data
itself, this paper concludes that the conceptual and empirical
issues on building governance indicators constitute an ongoing
project.
Gladiator, Violence, and the Founding of
a Republic
Authors: Thomassen Lasse
Published: January 2009

Ridley Scott's 2000 film
Gladiator presents a view of the transition
from dictatorship to the republic that one also finds in the
discourses of certain political leaders today. I argue that we can
learn about violence and the founding of a republic from an analysis
and, especially, a critique of Gladiator.
Participation by Women in the 2008 APSA Annual
Meeting
Authors: Gruberg Martin
Published: January 2009

In 1970, Victoria Schuck reported in PS on female
participation at our annual meetings from 1959 to 1969. Ever since
1972 I have written on the gender participation balance at our
annual meetings, at first as a letter, later as a regularly
appearing note in this publication. This fall is the thirty-seventh
time I reported to the association membership about the tally.
(Since I retired at the end of the 2007–08 academic year, I hope
someone else will continue the number crunching.)
Creating Political Order: Maintaining Student Engagement
through Reacting to the Past
Authors: Lightcap Tracy
Published: January 2009

Surveys indicate that there is more interest today in politics among
college students than has been the case in the recent past. This
article describes a multidisciplinary freshman seminar aimed at
using that interest to promote student engagement and the Reacting
to the Past simulations at the course's center.
An Interdisciplinary Approach to Teaching International
Law: Using the Tools of the Law School Classroom in Political
Science
Authors: Zartner Dana
Published: January 2009

As the world has grown more interconnected, many political science
programs have added courses on international law, international
organizations, the laws of war and peace, international human
rights, and comparative judicial politics. While in many cases these
are relatively new offerings within international studies, all of
these subjects have long been part of the law school curriculum.
There is, therefore, a long pedagogical history to be examined in
terms of the techniques and content used in law schools to teach
these courses. This paper examines a number of these techniques and
discusses how they may be used in political science courses to
enhance student learning opportunities.
Teaching Wisdom to Interest: Book Five of Plato's
Republic
Authors: Lukes Timothy J. , Scudder Mary F.
Published: January 2009

We suggest that Book Five of the Republic, where
Plato discusses the status of women in the guardian class, is a
superb source of Platonic insight. For it is precisely the
discussion of women that is most vulnerable to co-optation by the
modern vernacular of interest, a vernacular to which the
Republic is vehemently opposed. If students
come to appreciate an alternative perspective regarding this most
sensitive of modern issues, the full impact of the Socratic approach
is available to them.
The Historical Context of Voter Photo-ID
Laws
Authors: Davidson Chandler
Published: January 2009

The issue before the U.S. Supreme Court in the
Crawford case (Crawford v. Marion
County Election Bd. 2008) was whether a law (Indiana
Senate Enrolled Act No. 483) passed by the Indiana legislature
requiring most voters to show a photo ID in order to cast a ballot
violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Plaintiffs argued that
it works an unfair hardship on many people who do not have the
government-issued documents that count as a legitimate ID
(Indiana Democratic Party et al., 12–16). They
argued that the law, in effect, constitutes a poll tax, inasmuch as
there are costs to obtain the right kind of photo ID, costs that
unduly burden many eligible citizens wanting to exercise their right
to vote.
Litigating the Indiana Photo-ID Law: Lessons in Judicial
Dissonance and Abdication
Authors: Groth William R.
Published: January 2009

Following the 2004 elections Republicans assumed ascendancy in
Indiana, capturing the governorship for the first time in 16 years,
retaining control of the Senate and regaining control of the Indiana
House of Representatives after eight years in political exile. This
political development set the stage for the passage in April 2005 of
the Indiana photo-ID law, also known as Senate Enrolled Act 483
(SEA), on a straight party-line vote. Two days after SEA 483 was
signed into law by governor Mitch Daniels the Indiana Democratic
Party (IDP) filed suit in federal district court in Indianapolis
(IDP v. Rokita 2006). The case was assigned in
a blind draw to U.S. district judge Sarah Evans Barker, an appointee
of President Reagan and a former U.S. attorney. The same day the
Indiana chapter of the ACLU filed an action in Marion Superior
Court, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board.
The Indiana attorney general intervened in both cases to defend the
law's constitutionality and removed Crawford to
federal court, where it was immediately consolidated with
Rokita.
Demands for Voter Identification Require a Constitutional
Standard of Reasonable Suspicion of Illegal Activity
Authors: Smith Robert Ellis , Sobel Richard
Published: January 2009

“It is beyond cavil that ‘voting is of the most fundamental
significance under our constitutional structure’” (Burdick
v. Takushi 1992, 433). Voting is particularly
foundational “since the right to exercise the franchise in a free
and unimpaired manner is preservative of other basic civil and
political rights” (Harper v. Virginia Bd. of Educ.
1966, 667). As Justice Kennedy dissented in Burdick
(1992, 434), even depriving one voter of the exercise of the
fundamental right to vote is too substantial an impact to withstand
constitutional scrutiny.
Voter-ID Laws Discourage Participation, Particularly
among Minorities, and Trigger a Constitutional Remedy in Lost
Representation
Authors: Sobel Richard , Smith Robert Ellis
Published: January 2009

Because voter-identification laws discourage voter turnout,
particularly among identifiable minority groups, their
implementation abridges a fundamental constitutional right. The U.S.
Constitution includes a little-known remedy for denying or abridging
the right to vote that reduces a state's congressional
representation in proportion to the extent of the abridgements.
The Disproportionate Impact of Voter-ID Requirements on
the Electorate—New Evidence from Indiana
Authors: Barreto Matt A. , Nuño Stephen A. , Sanchez Gabriel R.
Published: January 2009

On January 8, 2008, the United States Supreme Court heard arguments
in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, a case
related to the discriminatory effects of voter-identification laws
in the state of Indiana. Indiana has one of the most stringent
voting requirements in the nation, as voters are required to present
an up-to-date photo identification issued by the federal or state
government in order to cast a ballot. Plaintiffs argued that the
Indiana requirements prevent significant and unequal obstacles to
the right to vote. The state argued that Indiana had the right to
enforce strict requirements to prevent fraud and uphold confidence
in the electoral process. Similar laws have also been proposed in
many other states, typically related to charges of vote fraud, and
often times tied into the divisive debate regarding undocumented
immigrants or African American felons. Therefore the recent decision
of the Court has tremendous implications to the future of
photo-identification laws across the United States.
The Empirical Effects of Voter-ID Laws: Present or
Absent?
Authors: Mycoff Jason D. , Wagner Michael W. , Wilson David C.
Published: January 2009

The effect of voter-identification (voter-ID) laws on turnout is a
hot-button issue in contemporary American politics. In April of
2008, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed Indiana's voter-ID law, the
nation's most rigorous, which requires voters to arrive at the polls
with a state-issued photo ID containing an expiration date
(Crawford v. Marion County 2008). In a famous
incident highlighting how Hoosiers were dealing with their state's
voter-ID law, representative Julia Carson (D-IN) was initially
blocked from voting during Indiana's 2006 primary election for
failing to comply with Indiana's voter-identification standard.
Carson identified herself with her congressional ID card; since that
card did not include an expiration date and therefore did not meet
Indiana's voter-identification law, she was turned away at the polls
before later being allowed to vote (Goldstein 2006). The rising wave of public, political,
and legal debate crested two years later in the wake of the Supreme
Court ruling and during the Indiana primaries, with reports of a
dozen nuns being denied ballots at the polls due to their lack of
appropriate identification (Urbina 2008).
Effects of Identification Requirements on Voting:
Evidence from the Experiences of Voters on Election
Day
Authors: Ansolabehere Stephen
Published: January 2009

At the heart of the efforts to improve elections in the United States
are two important values: access and integrity. To guarantee the
right to vote, the polls must be accessible to all who wish to vote.
To guarantee legitimate elections, only eligible people should be
allowed to vote, and all votes must be tabulated correctly. These
values have different implications for administrative procedures,
ranging from the implementation of registration systems to the
choice of voting equipment to the set up of polling places and
training of poll workers. Often these values work hand in hand, but
at times they are at odds. Such is the case with the authentication
of voters at the polls (see National Commission on Federal Election
Reform 2002).
Out of Cite! How Reference Managers Are Taking Research
to the Next Level
Authors: Muldrow Jason , Yoder Stephen
Published: January 2009

Times change, and so do research methods; gone are the days of
researching with index cards. While academics may be slow to adopt
emerging citation technology, the reference manager field is blazing
ahead. This article explains what reference managers are, addresses
their emergence in and potential impact on academe, and profiles a
newcomer to the field: Zotero. We close by surveying and contrasting
Zotero's features with those of its staunchest competitors: EndNote
and RefWorks.
International
Authors: Rajaee Bahram
Published: January 2009

The total number of APSA members living outside the United States
reached record numbers this fall—both as a total number and a
proportion of APSA membership. As of November 2008, there were 2,289
international members, up from 2,030 in 2007, 1,977 in 2006, and
1,875 in 2005. This number also represents over 15% of our current
total membership.
THE 2008 CAMPAIGN AND THE FORECASTS
DERAILED
Authors: Campbell James E.
Published: January 2009

The October 2008 issue of PS published a symposium
of presidential and congressional forecasts made in the summer
leading up to the election. This article is an assessment of the
accuracy of their models.

On September 8, 2008, the Trial-heat Forecasting Model predicted that
in-party candidate Senator John McCain would receive 52.7% of the
national two-party popular presidential vote. The forecast of a
victory of modest proportions for Senator McCain reflected his
having a five-percentage-point lead over Senator Barack Obama in
Gallup's early September, post-convention poll (49% to 44%) and the
Bureau of Economic Analysis' August report of a 3.3% GDP growth rate
in the second quarter of the year, about average for a second
quarter election year economy.
THE PRIMARY MODEL IN 2008
Authors: Norpoth Helmut
Published: January 2009

The October 2008 issue of PS published a symposium
of presidential and congressional forecasts made in the summer
leading up to the election. This article is an assessment of the
accuracy of their models.

The Primary Model predicted that Barack Obama would win a narrow
victory with 50.1% of the major-party vote. Obama surpassed that
forecast by just a little more than one standard error (2.5). How
come the model came as close as it did with a forecast issued as
early as January? What prevented it from coming even closer? And
what might be done to improve the model?
RACE BLUNTS THE ECONOMIC EFFECT? THE 2008 OBAMA
FORECAST
Authors: Lewis-Beck Michael S. , Tien Charles
Published: January 2009

The October 2008 issue of PS published a symposium
of presidential and congressional forecasts made in the summer
leading up to the election. This article is an assessment of the
accuracy of their models.

In summer 2008, our Jobs Model forecast a Democratic presidential
candidate two-party popular vote share of 56.6%, which would deliver
the incumbent party the biggest defeat of any post-World War II
contest (Lewis-Beck and Tien 2008). However, we argued, from our analysis of
different experimental and observational evidence, that this
unprecedented victory would be prevented by racially intolerant
voters. We estimated the net racial cost of being a black candidate
and corrected our overall forecast downward to 50.1% for Barack
Obama. The unparalleled economic crisis, initiated after the release
of our summer forecasts, prompted a reconsideration; the unique
shock to the economy was no ordinary campaign perturbation. We
calculated that the ensuing boost to anti-incumbent economic voting
would add approximately two percentage points to the opposition;
therefore, we issued a public revision of our forecast to 52.0 % for
Obama (Lewis-Beck 2008).
We are pleased that this final forecast fell so close to the actual
result of 53.5%. Nevertheless, we contend the actual result should
have been much closer to our original forecast. Given the dismal
state of the polity and the economy prior to the election, the Obama
victory should have been much bigger, as we show below.
THE ECONOMY AND THE PRESIDENTIAL VOTE IN
2008
Authors: Erikson Robert S. , Wlezien Christopher
Published: January 2009

The October 2008 issue of PS published a symposium
of presidential and congressional forecasts made in the summer
leading up to the election. This article is an assessment of the
accuracy of their models.

Prior to the 2008 presidential election we provided forecasts of the
final vote relying on a model containing only two variables: (1) the
cumulated weighted growth in leading economic indicators (LEI)
through the thirteenth quarter of the sitting president's term; and
(2) the incumbent party candidate's share in the most recent
trial-heat polls. The novelty is the reliance on the advanced
reading of the economy from the quarter ending in March of the
election year. (The exact equation and the exact forecast change as
the poll readings get closer to the election.) Our final forecast
(Erikson and Wlezien 2008)
based on trial-heat polls in August was that Barack Obama would win
52.2% of the two-party popular vote. This turned out to be quite
close to the Election Day outcome of 53.5% (as of December 2), a
little more than one percentage point above what we predicted.
INCUMBENCY, NATIONAL CONDITIONS, AND THE 2008
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Authors: Holbrook Thomas
Published: January 2009

The October 2008 issue of PS published a symposium
of presidential and congressional forecasts made in the summer
leading up to the election. This article is an assessment of the
accuracy of their models.

The Incumbency and National Conditions Model predicted that John
McCain would receive 44.3% of the two-party presidential vote; he
ended up with 46.6% (at this writing, November 13, 2008), yielding a
prediction error of 2.4 points. This error is slightly smaller than
the mean absolute value of the out-of-sample forecasts from 1952 to
2004 (2.68), so the 2008 election result is not anomalous in the
context of this model. The addition to the model of the 2008 outcome
does not generate many important changes to the coefficients, except
that the significance of incumbency interaction went from 0.08 to
0.02 and the standard error and adjusted R2 of the model
both indicate a slight improvement in fit.
Ike and the People-to-People Program: Assessing the
Effect of Presidential Leadership in Foreign
Policymaking
Authors: Taupin Samuel
Published: January 2009

The international cooperation initiative established by the
Eisenhower administration (1956–1961), the People to People program,
aimed to support American community leaders from different
fields—such as the arts, education, sports, religion, health, and
the military—in international exchanges to enhance understanding and
good will on the part of citizens around the world.
Timing is everything: Antiretroviral nonadherence is associated with impairment in time-based prospective memory
Authors: WOODS STEVEN PAUL , DAWSON MATTHEW S. , WEBER ERICA , GIBSON SARAH , GRANT IGOR , ATKINSON J. HAMPTON ,   THE HIV NEUROBEHAVIORAL RESEARCH CENTER GROUP
Published: January 2009

Nonadherence to combination antiretroviral (ARV) therapies (cART) is highly prevalent and significantly increases the risk of adverse human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease outcomes. The current study evaluated the hypothesis that prospective memory—a dissociable aspect of episodic memory describing the ability to execute a future intention—plays an important role in successful cART adherence. Seventy-nine individuals with HIV infection who were prescribed at least one ARV medication underwent a comprehensive neuropsychological and neuromedical evaluation prior to completing a 1-month observation of their cART adherence as measured by electronic medication monitoring. Nonadherent individuals (n= 31) demonstrated significantly poorer prospective memory functioning as compared to adherent persons (n= 48), particularly on an index of time-based ProM (i.e., elevated loss of time errors). Deficits in time-based prospective memory were independently predictive of cART nonadherence, even after considering the possible influence of established predictors of adherence, such as general cognitive impairment (e.g., retrospective learning and memory) and psychiatric comorbidity (e.g., depression). These findings extend a nascent literature showing that impairment in time-based prospective memory significantly increases the risk of medication nonadherence and therefore may guide the development of novel strategies for intervention. (JINS, 2009,15, 42–52.)
Emotional incontinence and executive function in ischemic stroke: A case-controlled study
Authors: TANG W.K. , CHEN YANGKUN , LAM WYNNIE W.M. , MOK VINCENT , WONG ADRIAN , UNGVARI GABOR S. , XIANG Y.T. , WONG KA SING
Published: January 2009

Frontal and basal ganglia infarcts and executive dysfunction are thought to be involved in the pathophysiology of poststroke emotional incontinence (PSEI). The study examined whether patients with PSEI have more frontal and/or basal ganglia infarcts and impairment in executive function. A total of 516 Chinese patients with acute ischemic stroke consecutively admitted to the acute stroke unit of a university-affiliated regional hospital in Hong Kong were screened for PSEI 3 months after the index stroke. According to Kim’s criteria, 39 (7.6%) had PSEI. Thirty-nine stroke patients without PSEI served as matched control group. The PSEI group had significantly more frontal and/or basal ganglia infarcts, had lower Chinese Frontal Assessment Battery scores, required more time to complete the Stroop Test, and made more omission and commission errors in the Go–NoGo test. There was no significant correlation between frontal or basal ganglia infarcts and executive function. The correlation between frontal infarct and severity of PSEI was .420. Further follow-up and functional imaging studies are warranted to explore the relationship between PSEI, brain infarcts, and executive dysfunction. (JINS, 2009, 15, 62–68.)
Sustained attention is associated with left ventricular ejection fraction in older adults with heart disease
Authors: JERSKEY BETH A. , COHEN RONALD A. , JEFFERSON ANGELA L. , HOTH KARIN F. , HALEY ANDREANA P. , GUNSTAD JOHN J. , FORMAN DANIEL E. , SWEET LAWRENCE H. , POPPAS ATHENA
Published: January 2009

Poor cardiac pumping efficiency has shown to lead to cognitive impairments in patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD). The current study examined the relationship between left ventricular ejection fraction and sustained attention and inhibitory processes measured by the Adaptive Rate Continuous Performance Task and the Go/No-go test. Participants were 67 older outpatients (age 68.5 ± 7.4) with a range of CVD. Associations between cognition and ejection fraction were examinedvialinear regression analysis. Results were consistent with the hypothesis that lower ejection fraction is significantly associated with decrements in sustained attention and vigilance. Overall, the results provide support for the hypothesis that a change in cardiac pumping leads to decrements in some aspects of attention; however, inhibitory processes are relatively spared. (JINS, 2009,15, 137–141.)
The cognitive effects of hepatitis C in the presence and absence of a history of substance use disorder
Authors: HUCKANS MARILYN , SEELYE ADRIANA , PARCEL TIFFANY , MULL LISA , WOODHOUSE JONATHAN , BJORNSON DANELL , FULLER BRET E. , LOFTIS JENNIFER M. , MORASCO BENJAMIN J. , SASAKI ANNA W. , STORZBACH DANIEL , HAUSER PETER
Published: January 2009

The aim of the study was to determine whether infection with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) is associated with cognitive impairment beyond the effects of prevalent comorbidities and a history of substance use disorder (SUD). Adult veterans were recruited from the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center into three groups: (1) HCV+/SUD+ (n = 39), (2) HCV+/SUD− (n = 24), and (3) HCV−/SUD− (n = 56). SUD+ participants were in remission for ≥90 days, while SUD− participants had no history of SUD. Groups did not significantly differ in terms of rates of psychiatric or medical comorbidities. Procedures included clinical interviews, medical record reviews, and neuropsychological testing. Significant group differences were found in the domains of Verbal Memory, Auditory Attention, Speeded Visual Information Processing, and Reasoning/Mental Flexibility (p ≤ .05). Post hoc comparisons indicated that HCV+/SUD− patients performed significantly worse than HCV−/SUD− controls on tests measuring verbal learning, auditory attention, and reasoning/mental flexibility, but only HCV+/SUD+ patients did worse than HCV−/SUD− controls on tests of speeded visual information processing. Results indicate that chronic HCV is associated with cognitive impairment in the absence of a history of SUD. The most robust deficits appear to be in verbal learning and reasoning/mental flexibility. (JINS, 2009, 15, 69–82.)
Task switching in mild cognitive impairment: Switch and nonswitch costs
Authors: SCHMITTER-EDGECOMBE MAUREEN , SANDERS CHAD
Published: January 2009

The ability to switch rapidly and fluidly between tasks is an important component of many everyday activities. In this study, we used a predictable, externally cued task-switching paradigm to investigate executive control processes in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Participants were 26 individuals with amnestic MCI and 26 healthy older adult (OA) controls. In the mixed-task trials, participants switched between classifying whether a digit was odd/even or a letter was a consonant/vowel on every fourth trial. In the single-task trials, participants completed only the digit task or letter task throughout the entire block. Task switching costs were decomposed intononswitch costs, which reflect the dual nature of the task, andswitch costs, which reflect set-shifting abilities. The results revealed that the MCI group was not affected more than the healthy OAs by the requirement of keeping two tasks sets active in working memory (nonswitch costs). In contrast, the cost of switching between the two tasks was significantly greater for the MCI group compared with the OA controls (switch costs). Future research is needed to better understand the nature and implications for daily living of the greater switch costs found for individuals with MCI. (JINS, 2009,15, 103–111.)
Diagnostic utility of the NAB List Learning test in Alzheimer’s disease and amnestic mild cognitive impairment
Authors: GAVETT BRANDON E. , POON SABRINA J. , OZONOFF AL , JEFFERSON ANGELA L. , NAIR ANIL K. , GREEN ROBERT C. , STERN ROBERT A.
Published: January 2009

Measures of episodic memory are often used to identify Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The Neuropsychological Assessment Battery (NAB) List Learning test is a promising tool for the memory assessment of older adults due to its simplicity of administration, good psychometric properties, equivalent forms, and extensive normative data. This study examined the diagnostic utility of the NAB List Learning test for differentiating cognitively healthy, MCI, and AD groups. One hundred fifty-three participants (age: range, 57–94 years;M= 74 years;SD,8 years; sex: 61% women) were diagnosed by a multidisciplinary consensus team as cognitively normal, amnestic MCI (aMCI; single and multiple domain), or AD, independent of NAB List Learning performance. In univariate analyses, receiver operating characteristics curve analyses were conducted for four demographically-corrected NAB List Learning variables. Additionally, multivariate ordinal logistic regression and fivefold cross-validation was used to create and validate a predictive model based on demographic variables and NAB List Learning test raw scores. At optimal cutoff scores, univariate sensitivity values ranged from .58 to .92 and univariate specificity values ranged from .52 to .97. Multivariate ordinal regression produced a model that classified individuals with 80% accuracy and good predictive power. (JINS, 2009,15, 121–129.)
Dimensions of postconcussive symptoms in children with mild traumatic brain injuries
Authors: AYR LAUREN K. , YEATES KEITH OWEN , TAYLOR H. GERRY , BROWNE MICHAEL
Published: January 2009

The dimensions of postconcussive symptoms (PCS) were examined in a prospective, longitudinal study of 186 8 to 15 year old children with mild traumatic brain injuries (TBI). Parents and children completed a 50-item questionnaire within 2 weeks of injury and again at 3 months after injury, rating the frequency of PCS on a 4-point scale. Common factor analysis with target rotation was used to rotate the ratings to four hypothesized dimensions, representing cognitive, somatic, emotional, and behavioral symptoms. The rotated factor matrix for baseline parent ratings was consistent with the target matrix. The rotated matrix for baseline child ratings was consistent with the target matrix for cognitive and somatic symptoms but not for emotional and behavioral symptoms. The rotated matrices for ratings obtained 3 months after injury were largely consistent with the target matrix derived from analyses of baseline ratings, except that parent ratings of behavioral symptoms did not cluster as before. Parent and child ratings of PCS following mild TBI yield consistent factors reflecting cognitive and somatic symptom dimensions, but dimensions of emotional and behavioral symptoms are less robust across time and raters. (JINS, 2009, 15, 19–30.)
Thaw lake expansion in a two‐dimensional coupled model of heat transfer, thaw subsidence, and mass movement
Authors: Plug L. J. , West J. J.
Published: January 2009

Thaw lakes, widespread in permafrost lowlands, expand their basins by conduction of heat from warm lake water into adjacent permafrost, subsidence of icy permafrost on thawing, and movement of thawed sediment from lake margins into basins by diffusive and advective mass wasting. We describe a cross‐sectional numerical model with thermal processes and mass wasting. To test the model and provide an initial investigation of its utility, the model is driven using historical daily temperatures and permafrost conditions for the northern Seward Peninsula, Alaska (NSP; thick syngenetic ice, mean annual air temperature (MAAT) −6°C) and Yukon coastal plain (YCP; thin epigenetic ice, MAAT −10°C). In the model, lakes develop dynamic equilibrium profiles that are independent of initial morphology. These profiles migrate outward episodically and match the morphology of profiles from lakes that were measured at each site. Modeled NSP lakes expand more rapidly than YCP lakes (0.26 versus 0.10 m a−1) under respective modern climates. When identical climates are imposed, NSP lakes still grow more rapidly because their deeper basins and steeper bathymetric slopes move thawed insulating sediment away from the lake margin. In sensitivity tests, an increase of 3°C in MAAT causes 2.5× (NSP) and 1.6× (YCP) faster expansion of lakes. An 8°C decrease essentially halts expansion for both sites, consistent with paleostudies which attribute basins to postglacial warming. In the model, basins expand monotonically but lakes do not. The 1σ interannual variability of lake expansion is 0.51 (NSP) and 0.44 m a−1 (YCP), with single year rates of up to ±8 m occurring because of instabilities from thermal/mass movement coupling even under a stationary climate. This variability is likely a minimum estimate, compared to natural variability, and suggests that long measurement time series, of basins not lake surfaces, would best detect thermokarst acceleration resulting from a climate change.