bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Legislatures, Initiatives, and Representation: The Effects of State Legislative Institutions on Policy
Authors: Gerber Elisabeth R.
Published: January 2007

Policy advocates in many states may pursue their policy agendas either by traditional legislative politics or by direct legislation. I show that this choice matters: policy outcomes resulting from direct legislation often reflect dif ferent interests than policy outcomes resulting from the legislative process, even on similar issues. Using data from California statewide elections, I analyze policies that were considered in both the legislative process and the direct legislation process, and for which the two processes led to differ ent outcomes. I demonstrate that features of the legislature, especially party organization, can induce individual legislators to vote against their district majority preference. In the aggregate, these influences are shown to lead legislative and direct legislation outcomes to diverge.
A Reassessment of Voter Mobilization
Authors: Jackson Robert A.
Published: January 2007

This study reexamines influences on individual turnout. Assessing the effects of the short-term campaign environment on turnout behavior, previous schol arship has failed to account for the fact that voting in the United States is a two-stage process: the preliminary act of registration followed by the act of voting. The findings from this analysis suggest that this failure has tilted exist ing research away from discovering substantively impressive campaign influ ences. While citizen characteristics are the principal determinants of registration status, campaign factors emerge as quite important in explaining the turnout of those individuals who have surmounted the registration hurdle.
More on the Origins of the Fuller Court's Jurisprudence: Reexamining the Scope of Federal Power Over Commerce and Manufacturing in Nineteenth-Century Constitutional Law
Authors: Gillman Howard
Published: January 2007

Recent scholarship calls into question the traditional realist-behavioralist interpretation of the justices of the Fuller Court as motivated by a desire to promote their policy preferences for laissez-faire economics. This essay extends the assault on what might be referred to as the Holmesian para digm of the tum-of-the-century Court by exploring the jurisprudential origins of that Court's decision in the infamous Knight case, in which the justices ruled that Congress had no authority under the commerce clause to regulate production. By demonstrating that the Court's distinction be tween commerce and manufacturing was a commonplace of nineteenth- century constitutional law and not an "activist" innovation, I hope to underscore the advantages of situating Supreme Court decision making in the context of distinctive jurisprudential traditions. Revisiting this earlier commerce clause jurisprudence also sheds light on the contemporary Court's dramatic resurrection of this contentious pre-New Deal tradition in the recent case of U.S. v. Lopez (1995).
"What's New in the Federalist Papers?"
Authors: Abbott Philip
Published: January 2007

The Federalist Papers is regarded by both American political theorists and scientists as the ur-text of the polity, an assessment which is derived in large part from the belief in the causal relationship between the essays and the founding act itself. It is this fascination with what is old and new in the Federalist Papers that is the key to interpreting this exceptional text for it is on precisely these terms that Publius himself framed his arguments as did those who opposed the second founding. The thesis of this essay is that these defenses and critiques of things both old and new in the Federalist Papers are explored through a set of "stories" or narratives about America. Thus Publius' success in winning the debate over oldness/newness can be seen in his excellence as a storyteller. His stories are a mixture of historical foundings both ancient and modem, scripts of the convention and the ratification and futuristic scenarios. When we read the Federalist Papers, we participate in his acts of story telling, appreciating and replicating the pairings of old and new he created, as we attempt to add chapters to his narratives. Since as Americans we must all begin with Publius' stories, if only because of his authority as founder, he forces us to (re)conceive America as an exceptional ("new") narrative of old and new.
The Opportunity Structure for Women's Candidacies and Electability in Britain and the United States
Authors: Welch Susan , Studlar Donley T.
Published: January 2007

The influence of the social and political environment on candidacies and electability is an important element of political recruitment structures. We investigate several contextual factors that may affect the likelihood of women becoming candidates to, and members of, the British House of Commons and the U.S. House of Representatives. Using data from the 1992 British General Election and the 1992 U.S. congressional elections, we find both similarities and differences in the contexts promoting women's candidacies in the two countries. Overall, there is not an especially distinctive pattern in either country to women's candidacies or electability. Women have moved beyond "sacrificial lamb" status, but incumbency remains the most formi dable electoral barrier in both countries.
Tracking the Elusive Green Women: Sex, Environmentalism, and Feminism in the United States and Europe
Authors: Somma Mark , Tolleson-Rinehart Sue
Published: January 2007

Ecofeminism is a set of theories variously claiming that, because of bio logical determinism, reproductive and maternal roles, the oppression of patriarchy and women's more holistic spiritual connection to nature, or the alternative perspective that feminism can provide, women are more concerned about the environment than are men. Apart from ecofeminist theory, "green" and liberal political parties and candidates in Western na tions appear also to assume that women view pro-environmentalist poli cies more favorably But can "ecofeminism" be identified in Western mass publics? Analyses of EuroBarometer 37, the 1992 American National Elec tion Study, and the 1990-1993 World Values Study all reject biological contentions in ecofeminism, but do generate evidence for a connection between feminist orientations and support for pro-environmentalist posi tions on the part of both women and men.
Prior Beliefs and Voter Turnout in the 1986 and 1988 Congressional Elections
Authors: Nicholson Stephen P , Miller Ross A.
Published: January 2007

The costs of political information differ between and among elections. In those elections where information costs are high, voters should rely on information from previous elections. Although research on voter choice has long recognized that voters use past information in their assessments of candidates, studies of voter turnout are solely concerned with informa tion available in the current election. Specifically, the closeness of elections is a central concern in rational actor models of voter turnout. As such, these studies neglect the effects of prior electoral competitiveness on citi zens' decisions to vote. In this study we propose that actors rely on prior beliefs when deciding to vote in information-poor elections. Controlling for information available in the current election, we explore this possibility in the 1986 and 1988 House elections and find that prior beliefs have a significant effect on turnout.
Residential Mobility, Voter Registration, and Electoral Participation in Canada
Authors: Brians Craig Leonard
Published: January 2007

This paper tests two propositions advanced to explain reduced voter turnout among the residentially mobile: (1) when citizens have a personal responsibility to re-register following a move, this poses a participation barrier and reduces turnout; (2) the act of moving severs the social net works that normally provide citizens with the information and support to make political choices, thereby reducing turnout. These alternative expla nations are evaluated using Canadian national election data. The analysis reinforces previous research asserting the importance of registration barri ers in reducing the turnout of those who have recently moved. Addition ally, I find that movers' social ties play an independent role in their turnout, with moving particularly attenuating unmarried citizens' turnout. These findings are extended to suggest that recent U.S. initiatives facilitating voter registration may produce less than previously predicted turnout gains among the mobile.
A Dynamic Model of Candidate Fundraising: The Case of Presidential Nomination Campaigns
Authors: Damore David F.
Published: January 2007

Despite the scholarly interest in presidential nomination campaigns, existing research has given limited attention to the role of fundraising in these campaigns. I attempt to fill this void by developing a model based upon the hypothesized relationship between candidates' electoral suc cess and increases in their subsequent fundraising. Using data from three recent nomination campaigns and pooled cross-sectional time-series analy ses, I present results suggesting that success and media coverage have a strong impact upon the subsequent fundraising of long-shot candidates, while the subsequent fundraising of established candidates is attribut able to their viability The observed differences in the relationship are due to the expectations associated with the two candidate types.
Amicus Curiae and the Role of Information at the Supreme Court
Authors: Spriggs James F. , Wahlbeck Paul J.
Published: January 2007

Conventional wisdom holds that amicus briefs provide the Supreme Court with information that is not otherwise supplied by litigants and that the Court finds this information useful. While several studies explore the information that amici contribute to the Court in certain notable cases, judicial scholars have no systematic knowledge regarding the nature of information furnished by amici or the Court's use of it in its opinions. We argue that amici curiae briefs are important because they reduce informa tion problems at the Court by helping the justices anticipate the impact of their opinions. To test conventional wisdom, we examined all party briefs on the merits and amicus briefs filed in the 1992 term. We found that the conventional wisdom is largely inaccurate. First, amicus briefs often con tribute unique arguments, but they also commonly reiterate their party's brief. Second, the Court's majority opinions are not more likely to use ar guments from amicus briefs that offer new information. In fact, the Court is much less likely to adopt arguments from amicus briefs that exclusively add arguments not found in their party briefs, even after controlling for a variety of alternative explanations. The implication is that amici influence is not a function of the independent information they convey
Toward an Explanation of the Racial Liberalism of American Jews
Authors: Glaser James M.
Published: January 2007

Jews are more likely to be liberal on racial-political issues than non- Jewish whites, even after controlling for factors such as educational achievement and ideology. Propositions derived from attribution theory are used to explain the residual difference between Jews and non-Jews. I argue that Jews are less likely than other whites to attribute Black circum stances to their personal characteristics, which, according to attribution theory, is a very natural response to outgroups, and more likely to explain the Black condition as the product of external forces. These attributions, in turn, have a liberalizing effect on Jewish racial attitudes. Finally, I specu late that Jews characterize Blacks differently because of their experience as part of an often ostracized minority. It is those Jews most likely to have experienced this status (older Jews) who are most distinctive in their at tributions and their racial-political attitudes.
The (Re)Emergence of Regional Economic Integration In the Former Soviet Union
Authors: Metcalf Lee Kendall
Published: January 2007

This study examines the consequences of the collapse of the unified Soviet market at the end of 1991, the dilemmas of choice generated by the economic and political costs and benefits of reintegration with differ ent states, and the resulting attempts to create new forms of economic cooperation. A gravity model is used to determine whether these new forms of cooperation have had a positive impact on the members' bilat eral trade. This reveals that in the first few years of its existence member ship in the Commonwealth of Independent States has not generally had a positive impact on trade, while membership in the Baltic Free Trade As sociation and the Central Asian Commonwealth have, although they are composed of small states which produce similar products and, in the case of the Central Asian Commonwealth, are at a lower level of development.
Friends and Competitors: Policy Interactions between Local Governments in Metropolitan Areas
Authors: Park Keeok
Published: January 2007

This article explores intergovernmental policy interactions between cen tral city, county, and suburban city governments in 186 metropolitan ar eas. Two hypotheses are developed to test the existence and shape of intergovernmental policy interactions between these governments. A com petition hypothesis, based on Tiebout's 1956 concept of interjurisdictional competition, posits that counties and cities compete in the developmen tal policy area by matching what other cities and counties do. A coopera tion hypothesis, based on the notion of the functional arrangements between local governments, posits that counties and cities cooperate in the public safety and education policy areas by supplementing others' policies or by substituting their policies with others' policies. The results of an analysis of local government expenditures indicate that local gov ernments compete as well as cooperate at the intergovernmental level and that intergovernmental policy competition is weaker than interjuris dictional policy competition. The article ends with a series of discussions on possible changes in the current local government system to mitigate the competition between cities and their counties.
Exports, Outward-Oriented Development, and Economic Growth
Authors: Moon Bruce E.
Published: January 2007

The World Bank has urged poor nations to adopt development strate gies which emphasize export expansion, dismissing the caution against excessive trade dependence voiced by political economists. In reexamin ing the Bank's much-cited analyses which suggest that "outward-oriented" nations have experienced more rapid growth, this study uncovers three findings which challenge its apparent implications. First, nations charac terized as following outward-oriented development do not trade notably more than those regarded as inward-oriented. Second, outward-oriented nations do not expand their trade at a rate strikingly different from other countries. Third, it is not apparent that export expansion is the principal source of the superior macro-economic performance of so-called "out ward-oriented" nations. These findings raise questions about what is meant by "outward-oriented development." Moreover, because the structural claims of political economists concerning the dangers of trade depen dence cannot be easily refuted, the counsel that nations should focus development efforts on expanding exports needs to be very carefully circumscribed.
Putting Up With Fellow Russians: An Analysis of Political Tolerance in the Fledgling Russian Democracy
Authors: Gibson James L.
Published: January 2007

Research from the early days of Russian democratization has suggested that political tolerance among the mass public was in terribly short sup ply Several questions remain, however. Has intolerance persisted since the late 1980s and early 1990s? Further, how intolerant are the Russians when compared with the mass publics of other Central and Eastern Eu ropean democratizing countries; how intolerant are the Russians when compared with Western Europeans and Americans? Most importantly, is Russian intolerance likely to become pernicious? That is, does it have the attributes that make it likely to result in political repression? I answer these questions by theoretically specifying and investigating empirically four attributes of Russian public opinion that presage whether political consequences are likely to flow from political intolerance. My overriding conclusion is that Russian intolerance has several traits that may indeed make it pernicious, especially for unpopular political minorities.
Gender and the Electoral Opportunity Structure in the Canadian Provinces
Authors: Matland Richard E. , Studlar Donley T.
Published: January 2007

We use multivariate analyses to test hypotheses concerning the elec toral opportunity structure for women across a twenty-year period of Canadian provincial elections. We find that party, political context, and social variables affect the likelihood that a woman is elected to a provin cial parliament. While similarities between U.S. state legislative elections and Canadian provincial elections are found, there are distinct differences across the two polities, especially concerning where women first made inroads in winning representation. While women first gained a beach- head in small amateur legislatures in rural states in the United States, in Canada they first won significant numbers of seats in metropolitan areas. We find there continues to be great differences across riding types with women doing much worse in rural ridings than either urban or metro politan ridings. The implications of these differences for redistricting are considered. Canadian courts have generally been sympathetic to plans that insure representation of geographic "communities of interest," even when this has meant overrepresentation of rural areas and under- representation of urban areas. We argue that a consequence of this policy is that Canadian provinces risk underrepresenting women, a nonterritorial "community of interest."
Peasants or Bankers in Venezuela? Presidential Popularity and Economic Reform Approval, 1989-1993
Authors: Weyland Kurt
Published: January 2007

How do people's assessments of past and future economic conditions affect their political judgments and choices, especially their evaluation of drastic market-oriented reform and its initiator? Drawing on survey re sults from Venezuela for the period from 1989 to 1993, this article finds that prospective pocketbook assessments of the economy had a signifi cant impact on presidential popularity and on public approval of neoliberal adjustment. Venezuelans acted like egocentric "bankers" (cf. MacKuen, Erikson, and Stimson 1992), basing their political judgments on expec tations about the future, yet with a clear focus on their own pocketbooks. These findings suggest that painful economic reforms can be politically viable if they inspire in people confidence in future improvements. Ag gregate macro-economic success, however, is not sufficient for making structural adjustment acceptable; rather, people have to foresee a "trickle- down" of benefits to their own families.
Regulatory Enforcement Styles
Authors: Gormley William T.
Published: January 2007

The enforcement styles of inspectors are particularly important when a regulatory agency deals with issues that are low in salience and low in complexity In this article, based on interviews with 104 child care in spectors in four states, I distinguish between individual-level and state- level variations in regulatory stringency, regulatory flexibility, and technical support. The evidence suggests a breakdown of democratic accountabil ity but also techniques for restoring it.
Attack Politics in Presidential Nomination Campaigns: An Examination of the Frequency and Determinants of Intermediated Negative Messages Against Opponents
Authors: Haynes Audrey A. , Rhine Staci L.
Published: January 2007

This article explores the negative campaign messages made by presi dential nomination candidates on their opponents. Using a compilation of national and state media accounts of candidate attack activity from the 1992 Democratic nomination race, we seek to answer the questions -- are the intermediated attacks made by presidential nomination candidates random events or are they predictable consequences of measurable vari ables ? Moreover, when candidates attack, who is their likely target? We find that intermediated candidate attacks can be predicted based on a number of conditions. Among these conditions are competitive position ing, reward factors and media-related conditions. Moreover, the general foci of attacks appear to be limited to attacking those who are competi tively in the top tier. Attacks vary both in their frequency and in their nature depending on the competitive stage of the campaign. The system atic evaluation of these opponent-focused negative messages and their role in candidate strategy and voter evaluation is important for under standing presidential nomination politics and strategic communication in elections in general.
Explaining State Variation in Interparty Ideological Differences
Authors: Paddock Joel
Published: January 2007

This article uses two measures of state party ideology—a 1994 survey of state party committee members and a content analysis of state party platforms between 1990 and 1996—to determine variation between states in interparty ideological differences. These interparty ideological differ ences are compared to David Mayhew's scale measuring the historical presence of traditional party organizations in the American states. As hy pothesized, there is a strong tendency for states with histories of tradi tional party organization to have less ideologically polarized parties than those states without such traditions. This association holds up when we control for state-level measures of education, income, mass polarization, electoral competition, and party control. State environments that histori cally encouraged or discouraged the formation of traditional party orga nizations help explain variation in patterns of party activism in the contemporary era.
Reexamining the Impact of the Bork Nomination to the Supreme Court
Authors: Ogundele Ayo , Keith Linda Camp
Published: January 2007

This research note expands on the work of Guliuzza, Reagan, and Barrett (1994) by reexamining the impact of the Bork nomination on the confirmation criteria that the Senate Judiciary Committee applies to Supreme Court nominees. In a multivariate analysis we examine empirically whether the Bork nomination did, in fact, mark a change in the level of constitutional questions to which the nominees are subjected. Contrary to Guliuzza et al., we find that the Bork nomination did produce a substantively and statistically significant impact on the Committee's probe of the nominee's constitutional views. However, further study suggests that the extra focus on the judicial philosophies of Supreme Court nominees by the Judiciary Committee began earlier, with the first Rehnquist nomination, and that the Bork nomination simply continued this process. Additionally, we find that the level of constitutional questioning is significantly affected by the individual characteristics of the nominees (qualification and political closeness to the President) and one element of the political environment the President's fourth year in office.
State Policy Components of Interstate Migration in the United States
Authors: Preuhs Robert R.
Published: January 2007

This article examines the effects of state policy on net interstate migration. Using Ordinary Least Squares regression on aggregate cross-sectional data, state policy factors are found to be significant determinants of the net interstate migration levels of the states. In addition, two previously untested variables, state ideology and an investment-consumption ratio, are found to be significant. The analysis indicates that states with low taxation levels, high investment-consumption ratios, and more liberal ideologies relative to other states, tend to experience more population growth via interstate migration. The results suggest that a consumer-voter model explains a significant portion of the variation in aggregate migration behavior.
Forcing Them To Be Free
Authors: Peceny Mark
Published: January 2007

Is it possible to force other states to be free by imposing democracy on them during military interventions? This article analyzes the histori cal relationship between U.S. military intervention and the democratiza tion of target states from 1898-1992 using the Polity III data set to meas ure democracy It argues that U.S. military intervention in and of itself does not have a positive impact on democracy Active support for “free and fair” elections during those military interventions, however, has often had a profound and positive impact on the democratization of target states. The relationship between American-sponsored elections and democracy remains positive and statistically significant when interven tion cases are compared with states that have not experienced U.S. mili tary intervention in multivariate models controlling for the prior demo cratic experience and war participation of target states and American opposition to the government of the target state.
Midterm Elections and Divided Government:An Information-Driven Theory of Electoral Volatility
Authors: Nicholson Stephen P , Segura Gary M.
Published: January 2007

Divided government affects individual choices over how to vote in midterm elections because it increases uncertainty in the minds of voters. Particularly, divided control of government makes blame attribution more difficult by obscuring causal connections and reducing the overall amount of usable information. As a result, we argue that under divided government, voters are less likely to vote for the House candidate not of the President's party. Using both NES and election-specific contextual data, we examine divided government's effect on the voters' political knowledge and candidate preferences in all midterm elections from 1978 to 1994, controlling for well identified factors that shape outcomes in House elections. We find, first, that divided government reduces the amount of political information held by voters. Second, divided govern ment helps the President's party by lowering the probability that an indi vidual votes for the out-party candidate.
Coordinating Restraint:Deimocratization, Fiscal Policy and Money Creation in Latin America
Authors: Reich Gary M.
Published: January 2007

Although previous studies have posited a link between new democracies and economic policy, theoretical justification for this hypothesis has been sketchy, while econometric tests have been lacking. This article explores the link between public finance and democratic age via the notion of “competitive externalities” and their effect upon monetary financing of expenditures (seignorage). The argument is that transitions to democratic rule heighten the challenge of coordinating fiscal decisionmaking in the short term by dispersing fiscal authority and reordering institutional relationships among policymakers. In the long term, asymmetries generated by elections and/or crises attenuate the external costs of democratization. This hypothesis is tested econometrically, using a timeseries cross-sectional analysis of monetary financing of deficits (seignorage) for ten Latin American countries, which shows that new democracies are indeed associated with a short-term bias toward seignorage.
Identification of SH2B2β as an Inhibitor for SH2B1- and SH2B2α-Promoted Janus Kinase-2 Activation and Insulin Signaling
Authors: Li Minghua , Li Zhiqin , Morris David L. , Rui Liangyou
Published: January 2007

The SH2B family has three members (SH2B1, SH2B2, and SH2B3) that contain conserved dimerization (DD), pleckstrin homology, and SH2 domains. The DD domain mediates the formation of homo- and heterodimers between members of the SH2B family. The SH2 domain of SH2B1 (previously named SH2-B) or SH2B2 (previously named APS) binds to phosphorylated tyrosines in a variety of tyrosine kinases, including Janus kinase-2 (JAK2) and the insulin receptor, thereby promoting the activation of JAK2 or the insulin receptor, respectively. JAK2 binds to various members of the cytokine receptor family, including receptors for GH and leptin, to mediate cytokine responses. In mice, SH2B1 regulates energy and glucose homeostasis by enhancing leptin and insulin sensitivity. In this work, we identify SH2B2β as a new isoform of SH2B2 (designated as SH2B2α) derived from the SH2B2 gene by alternative mRNA splicing. SH2B2β has a DD and pleckstrin homology domain but lacks a SH2 domain. SH2B2β bound to both SH2B1 and SH2B2α, as demonstrated by both the interaction of glutathione S-transferase-SH2B2β fusion protein with SH2B1 or SH2B2α in vitro and coimmunoprecipitation of SH2B2β with SH2B1 or SH2B2α in intact cells. SH2B2β markedly attenuated the ability of SH2B1 to promote JAK2 activation and subsequent tyrosine phosphorylation of insulin receptor substrate-1 by JAK2. SH2B2β also significantly inhibited SH2B1- or SH2B2α-promoted insulin signaling, including insulin-stimulated tyrosine phosphorylation of insulin receptor substrate-1. These data suggest that SH2B2β is an endogenous inhibitor of SH2B1 and/or SH2B2α, negatively regulating insulin signaling and/or JAK2-mediated cellular responses.
Topical buparvaquone formulations for the treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis
Authors: Garnier Tracy , Mäntylä Antti , Järvinen Tomi , Lawrence M Jayne , Brown Marc B , Croft Simon L
Published: January 2007

As the part of a study to develop buparvaquone (BPQ) formulations for the treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis, the topical delivery of BPQ and one of its prodrugs from a range of formulations was evaluated. In previous studies, BPQ and its prodrugs were shown to be potent antileishmanials in-vitro, with ED50 values in the nanomolar range. 3-Phosphono-oxymethyl-buparvaquone (3-POM-BPQ) was the most potent antileishmanial and was chosen, together with the parent drug, for further investigation. The ability of the parent and prodrug formulations to cross human and murine skin was tested in-vitro using the Franz diffusion cells. Formulations intended for topical application containing either BPQ or 3-POM-BPQ were developed using excipients that were either acceptable for topical use (GRAS or FDA inactive ingredients) or currently going through the regulatory process. BPQ was shown to penetrate both human epidermal membranes and full thickness BALB/c skin from a range of formulations (gels, emulsions). Similarly, 3-POM-BPQ penetrated full-thickness BALB/c skin from several gel formulations. In-vitro binding studies showed that BPQ bound melanin in a dose-dependent manner and preferably bound to delipidized skin over untreated BALB/c skin (on a weight to weight basis). The results confirm that BPQ and its prodrug 3-POM-BPQ can penetrate the skin from several formulations, making them potentially interesting candidates for further investigation of topical formulations using in-vivo models of cutaneous leishmaniasis.
Efflux of baicalin, a flavone glucuronide of Scutellariae Radix, on Caco-2 cells through multidrug resistance-associated protein 2
Authors: Akao Teruaki , Hanada Masato , Sakashita Yoko , Sato Keisuke , Morita Masashi , Imanaka Tsuneo
Published: January 2007

Baicalin and its aglycone, baicalein, being are strong antioxidants and have various pharmacological actions. Baicalein has shown a unique metabolic fate in rat intestine, being excreted into the intestinal lumen from mucosal (epithelial) cells following glucuronidation of baicalein absorbed after oral administration. The purpose of this study was to examine the absorption and excretion of baicalin and baicalein in a Caco-2 cell monolayer model to evaluate the disposition of baicalin and baicalein in the human intestine. When baicalein at 5μM was loaded on the apical side of the Caco-2 cell monolayer, baicalein was not transferred to the basolateral side, but more baicalin was excreted onto the apical side than was being absorbed onto the basolateral side. The amount of baicalin recovered on both sides accounted for more than 90% of the baicalein absorbed from the apical surface. This was supported by the fact that Caco-2 cell microsomes showed UDP-glucuronate glucuronosyl-transferase activity towards baicalein to form baicalin. On the other hand, when baicalein was loaded at higher concentrations, baicalin excretion became saturated, and then baicalein was transferred to the basolateral side. Furthermore, baicalin efflux was not inhibited by MDR1/P-glycoprotein substrates such as ciclosporin and vinblastine, but significantly inhibited by multidrug resistance-associated protein 2 (MRP2, ABCC2) substrates such as probenecid and genistein. MRP2 was also detected in Caco-2 cells by Western blotting using specific antibodies. In addition, baicalin, but not baicalein, enhanced dose-dependently the vanadate-sensitive ATPase activity of human MRP2. These results indicated that, in Caco-2 cells, any baicalein absorbed after loading at low concentrations of baicalein was not transferred to the basolateral side, but was first transformed into baicalin in the cells and excreted through the action of MRP2, mainly to the apical side.
Uranium Concentration of Coals in China
Authors: Yanga Jiangye
Published: January 2007

Representative coal uranium concentrations are essential not only to better estimate the environmental and health effects associated with the uranium emissions from coal utilization but also to utilize the potentially valuable uranium in coal combustion byproducts. The average uranium concentrations of coals in China are estimated based on uranium analyses of 1319 coal samples and coal reserves tonnage. The results reveal that the estimated average weighted uranium concentrations of Carboniferous and Early Permian (C-P1), Late Permian (P2), Late Triassic (T3), Early and Middle Jurassic (J1–2), Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous (J3-K1), and Eogene and Neogene (E-N) coals are 2.892 μ/g, 5.135 μ/g, 3.855 μ/g, 1.202 μ/g, 1.718 μ/g, and 3.923 μ/g, respectively. The overall average weighted uranium concentration of coals in China is 2.28 μ/g.
Fracture Mechanics Approach to Geometrically Nonlinear Debonding Problems in RC Beams Strengthened with Composite Materials
Authors: Rabinovitch Oded , Frostig Yeoshua
Published: January 2007

The geometrically nonlinear debonding mechanism in reinforced concrete beams strengthened with externally bonded FRP strips is analytically investigated. The paper focuses on cases in which various loading scenarios yield compressive stresses in the bonded strip. Under these conditions, the FRP strip tends to buckle, and, in turn, to trigger and accelerate the unstable growth of the debonded region. A high order geometrically nonlinear model of the strengthened beam is developed and combined with the fracture mechanics concept of the energy release rate to provide a quantitative criterion for the initiation, propagation, and stability or instability of the debonding growth process. Numerical results that demonstrate the capabilities of the proposed modeling approach and throw light on some of the physical phenomena associated with the structural response of the strengthened beam are presented. The analysis reveals the response through the loading process and through the debonding growth process, highlights the localized effects near the debonded region, quantifies its tendency to grow, and describes the stability characteristics of the debonding mode of failure. A summary and conclusions are included in the sequel.
FRP Plates Adhesively Bonded to Reinforced Concrete Beams: Generic Debonding Mechanisms
Authors: Oehlers D. J.
Published: January 2007

Retrofitting reinforced concrete members by adhesively bonding fibre reinforced polymer plates to their surfaces is now a well established technique as there has been substantial and much good research on the numerous individual plate debonding mechanisms which has allowed safe designs. In this paper, it is shown how the apparently numerous and individual debonding mechanisms can be categorised into a few distinct generic debonding mechanisms, which should help to simplify the problem and consequently, in the long term, allow the development of generic design rules.
An Investigation of the Need for Sign Language Assessment in Deaf Education
Authors: Mann Wolfgang , Prinz Philip M
Published: January 2007

The attitudes of educators of the deaf and other professionals in deaf education concerning assessment of the use of American Sign Language (ASL) and other sign systems was investigated. A questionnaire was distributed to teachers in a residential school for the deaf in California. In addition to questions regarding the availability of sign language assessment at their schools, participants responded to items concerning their motivation to use a test for sign language measurement. Of the 100 distributed surveys, 85 were completed and returned. Results showed overwhelming agreement among respondents concerning the importance of sign language assessment, along with the need for tools that appropriately measure signing skills.
Fingerspelling and Sign Language as Alternative Codes for Reading and Writing Words for Chilean Deaf Signers
Authors: Puente Anibal , Alvarado Jesus M , Herrera Valeria
Published: January 2007

The study examined the role of sign language and fingerspelling in the development of the reading and writing skills of deaf children and youth. Twenty-six deaf participants (13 children, 13 adolescents), whose first language was Chilean Sign Language (CHSL), were examined. Their dactylic abilities were evaluated with tasks involving the reading and writing of dactylic and orthographic codes. The study included three experiments: (a) the identification of Chilean signs and fingerspelled words, (b) the matching of fingerspelled words with commercial logos, and (c) the decoding of fingerspelled words and the mapping of these words onto the writing system. The results provide convergent evidence that the use of fingerspelling and sign language is related to orthographic skills. It is concluded that fingerspelling can facilitate the internal representation of words and serve as a supporting mechanism for reading acquisition.
Tradition and Truth in Postmodern Times: Everyday Life, the Academy, and Psychoanalysis
Authors: Ahumada Jorge L. , Carneiro Inês N. E
Published: January 2007

What the terms tradition and truth convey is far from simple and merits being examined in detail. They coincide in the ideal model of the rural, tradition-bound community, exemplified by Ferdinand Toennies's Gemeinschaft, where relationships are understood as a totality living in intimate coexistence. This is counterpoised to urban society as Gesellschaft, where individuals are essentially separate and isolated in spite of all uniting factors, and relationships take the nature of self-interested exchanges. Truth-as-affect in the Gemeinschaft can be compared to truth-as-transaction characterizing the Gesellschaft.

The Romantic movement brought into general use the term unconscious and the priority of the dream as privileged knowledge, as well as notions of truth-as-self-expression and truth-as-self-assertion. These latter notions differ sharply from the Freudian idea of truth-as-enquiry, and also from the Cartesian assumption of truth-as-certainty that plagues most current epistemologies. In late Romanticism, especially in Nietzsche, the primacy of the festival leads to an idea of truth-as-histrionics, which provides the link to the postmodernist abrogation of the idea of truth and finds ready expression in media culture. Finally, the impact of such developments is investigated by way of two clinical vignettes.
Cycles with local coefficients for orthogonal groups and vector-valued Siegel modular forms
Authors: Funke Jens , Millson John
Published: January 2007

The purpose of this paper is to generalize the relation between intersection numbers of cycles in locally symmetric spaces of orthogonal type and Fourier coefficients of Siegel modular forms to the case where the cycles have local coefficients. Now the correspondence will involve vector-valued Siegel modular forms.
D 4 modular forms
Authors: Weissman Martin H.
Published: January 2007

In this paper, we study modular forms on two simply connected groups of type D 4 over Q. One group, G s , is a globally split group of type D 4 , viewed as the group of isotopies of the split rational octonions. The other, G c , is the isotopy group of the rational (nonsplit) octonions. We study automorphic forms on G s in analogy to the work of Gross, Gan, and Savin on G 2 ; namely we study automorphic forms whose component at infinity corresponds to a quaternionic discrete series representation. We study automorphic forms on G c using Gross's formalism of "algebraic modular forms." Finally, we follow work of Gan, Savin, Gross, Rallis, and others, to study an exceptional theta correspondence connecting modular forms on G c and G s . This can be thought of as an octonionic generalization of the Jacquet-Langlands correspondence.
Linear conditions imposed on flag varieties
Authors: Tymoczko Julianna S.
Published: January 2007

We study subvarieties of the flag variety called Hessenberg varieties, defined by certain linear conditions. These subvarieties arise naturally in applications including geometric representation theory, number theory, and numerical analysis. We describe completely the homology of Hessenberg varieties over GL n (C) and show that they have no odd-dimensional homology. We provide an explicit geometric construction which partitions each Hessenberg variety into pieces homeomorphic to affine space. We characterize these affine pieces by fillings of Young tableaux and show that the dimension of the affine piece can be computed by combinatorial rules generalizing the Eulerian numbers. We give an equivalent formulation of this result in terms of roots. We conclude with a section on open questions.
Feminine Strength: Reflections on Power and Gender in Israeli-Palestinian Culture
Authors: Sa'ar Amalia
Published: January 2007

This article explores a particular discourse on women's power among Palestinians inside Israel. I present ethnographic documentation of resourceful women who are commonly referred to as qawiyyi (strong), and offer the term "feminine strength" to talk about what I see as a normative script for "proper"handling of femininity and power. I argue that feminine strength encourages women to channel their achievements back to the home, and discourages them from vying with men over public status and official prestige. Personal strength that is amenable to transformation into public, political status is primarily a male prerogative and I therefore call this type "masculine power." However, dwelling on the gap between official and embodied representations reveals a range of creative negotiations that make the local articulations of gender and power more complex than they may seem. Looking at the broader context in which femininities and masculinities are produced, I show that "feminine strength" vividly echoes some of the major concerns of Israeli Palestinians generally, notably their preoccupation with modernity, cultural morality, and collective identity. By walking a fine line between conflicting demands and possibilities, women who are called qawiyyi embody the ongoing attempts of their community to uphold a moral existence, while balancing formidable
constraints and new opportunities.
W. E. B. DuBois, Anthropometric Science, and the Limits of Racial Uplift
Authors: Farland Maria
Published: January 2007

This essay recovers a lost scientific study by W.E.B. DuBois, "Negro Labor in Lowndes County," through readings of his 1911 novel, The Quest of the Silver Fleece. DuBois's study of the predominantly-black Lowndes County sought to refute the dominant belief in blacks' mental and physical inferiority—sometimes called the "retrogression hypothesis"—by amassing extensive empirical evidence of black American vitality and health through anthropometric research. In the wake of the U.S. government's destruction of his 500-page Lowndes County study, DuBois would undertake Quest in the effort to circulate his scientific findings through the medium of popular domestic fiction. Against retrogressionist claims that the black "race is undoubtedly dying out," as seen in their "diminished brain capacity," Quest highlights the findings of DuBois's fieldwork in the rural south, with the Lowndes study's empirical data furnishing the details and incidents of the novel's depiction of a flourishing utopian community. Deftly employing the conventions of domestic and plantation fiction, DuBois's fictional account of the dramas of sharecropping and sexual morality offers a powerful refutation of the claims of racialist brain science, as well as providing an alternative venue for DuBois's controversial findings in the wake of his thwarted efforts to gain a foothold in professional scientific culture.
The War of “Who Is Who”: Autochthony, Nationalism, and Citizenship in the Ivoirian Crisis
Authors: Marshall-Fratani Ruth
Published: January 2007

Over the past four years the Ivoirian crisis has seen as its central dynamic the mobilization of the categories of autochthony and territorialized belonging in an ultranationalist discourse vehicled by the party in power. More than just a struggle to the death for state power, the conflict involves the redefinition of the content of citizenship and the conditions of sovereignty. The explosion of violence and counterviolence provoked and legitimated by the mobilization of these categories does not necessarily signify either the triumph of those monolithic identities “engineered” during the colonial occupation, nor the disintegration of the nation-state in the context of globalization. The Ivoirian case shows the continued vitality of the nation-state: not only as the principal space in terms of which discourses of authochtony are constructed, but also in terms of the techniques and categories that the political practice of autochthony puts into play. While in some senses the Ivoirian conflict appears to be a war without borders—in particular with the “spillover” of the Liberian war in the west during 2003—it is above all a waraboutborders, crystallizing in liminal spaces and social categories and on emerging practices and ways of life.
Biological Responses to Change in Prehistoric Viet Nam
Authors: Oxenham Marc
Published: January 2007

A bioarchaeological analysis of human remains from Con Co Ngua, a Da But culture period cemetery site in northern Viet Nam (n = 96), and an aggregated sample from 11 sites, mostly from the Red River delta region (n = 96) representing the emerging Metal period in the same region, is carried out. This study focuses on a range of skeletal and dental signatures of both health and behavior, including carious lesions, antemortem tooth loss, alveolar defects of pulpal origin, dental task wear facets, cribra orbitalia, linear enamel hypoplasia, trauma, and chronic infectious disease. The findings of reasonably good oral health may be reflective of a lack of agricultural products in the diet and/or the low cariogenicity of rice. The physiological health of the samples was found to be compromised, with an elevated mortality among younger individuals that expressed evidence of physiological disturbance as measured by cribra orbitalia and/or linear enamel hypoplasia. The nature and frequency of trauma in both periods was not necessarily indicative of specific behaviors, with general misadventure and interpersonal violence as competing causes. The evidence for chronic infectious disease is apparent only in the Metal period and may be related to a range of factors, some of which include the effects of migration, changes to land use patterns, and/or the evolution of increased pathogen virulence.