bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Institutions and Representational Roles in American State Legislatures
Authors: Cooper Christopher A. , Richardson Lilliard E. 
Published: January 2011

AbstractWhat is the impact of a legislature's institutions on the representational roles its members adopt? We address this question by examining the role orientation of state legislators in eight states, explaining why some legislators identify more with a trustee model of representation and others identify more with the delegate model. Using ordinal logistic regression analysis on data from a survey of 447 legislators, we test for the effects of multimember districts and term limits, along with several other factors. First, we find that representational roles and behavior are related; legislators who think of themselves as delegates are much more likely to hold frequent district office hours than their counterparts who think of themselves as trustees. Second, we find that, overall, legislators are more likely to consider themselves trustees than delegates. Third, we find that multimember districts and term limits increase the likelihood that legislators think of themselves as trustees. Thus, legislative institutions can influence the representational roles legislators adopt.
Influence over State Agency Activities: A Test of Two Survey-Based Measures
Authors: Baranowski Michael , Gross Donald A. 
Published: January 2011

AbstractThe valid and reliable measurement of perceived influence over executive agencies is vital to understanding bureaucratic behavior. Using a survey of 540 state agency heads in 15 states, we evaluate two such measures—a standard free-standing measure and a paired-comparison measure—in terms of conceptual clarity, theoretical utility, and susceptibility to systematic measurement error. Our results indicate that while a paired-comparison measure may be theoretically superior to a free-standing measure, missing responses, intransitivities, and respondent fatigue make the paired-comparison method less practical.
State Party Context and Norms among Delegates to the 2000 National Party Conventions
Authors: Carsey Thomas M. , Green John C. , Herrera Richard , Layman Geoffrey C. 
Published: January 2011

AbstractPolitical scientists have increasingly viewed party activists as important catalysts for party behavior and change in American politics. Understanding the decisionmaking norms of these activists should help inform scholars' broader understanding of party performance. We examine the norms of party decisionmaking expressed by a select group of party activists: delegates to both parties' 2000 national conventions. We focus on how state contextual factors shape the norms these activists hold regarding the proper balance between ideological purity and the pragmatic pursuit of electoral success. The contextual factors we consider include the rules for delegate selection, the financial capacity of state parties, electoral competitiveness between the two parties, party polarization, and state political culture. We find evidence that norms respond as expected to some elements of state party context, but not to others.
The Effect of State Legislative Term Limits on Voter Turnout
Authors: Nalder Kimberly 
Published: January 2011

AbstractTerm limits advocates argued that the reform would revitalize the electorate and spur increased voter participation. They suggested two main mechanisms by which term limits would do this: (1) term limits would increase the number of open-seat races, which tend to be more competitive, and the increased competition would inspire more voting, and (2) the removal of entrenched incumbents would inspire more trust and confidence in government, thereby encouraging voter enthusiasm in a more diffuse way, increasing turnout for all races. I evaluate these hypotheses empirically using data from California state legislative races from 1976 to 2004; incorporating a variety of methods, including pooled cross-sectional time-series regression. I find evidence that state legislative term limits not only fail to achieve the reformers' goals, but they, in fact, decrease voter turnout.
Democratic Responsiveness and Policy Shock: The Case of State Abortion Policy
Authors: Camobreco John F. , Barnello Michelle A. 
Published: January 2011

AbstractPast research has shown that elected officials are generally responsive to the public's attitudes on policy, particularly in domains such as morality policy. But will this responsiveness survive an externally imposed, non-incremental policy “shock”? The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade represents such a shock regarding abortion policy. We examine the responsiveness of state lawmakers to mass abortion attitudes in the post-Roe period through a longitudinal analysis of state abortion policies. We find that the connection between mass abortion attitudes and abortion policies has grown stronger over time, and that mass preferences have become the primary determinant of such policies. Mass abortion attitudes are now a stronger predictor of abortion policies than elite abortion attitudes, and certain elite abortion attitudes that once moderated the link between mass abortion attitudes and policy no longer do so. These findings suggest that lawmakers will attempt to respond to public preferences about contentious morality policies despite the imposition of an external policy constraint.
Measuring the Professionalization of U.S. State Courts of Last Resort
Authors: Squire Peverill 
Published: January 2011

AbstractElsewhere I have argued that measures of U.S. state legislative professionalization assess individual and organizational capacity to generate and evaluate information in the policymaking process. In this article, I adapt my measure of state legislative professionalization to state courts of last resort, attempting to assess the informational capacity of those bodies in making legal decisions. Specifically, I examine judicial salaries, a court's level of control over its docket, and the number of law clerks employed by the justices. After presenting four variants of the court professionalization measure and investigating their validity, I examine explanations for their observed variance across the states. I conclude by comparing my indices with existing indices and speculating about the utility of such measures.
Leave the Rascals In? Explaining the Poor Prospects of Term Limit Extensions
Authors: Parry Janine , Donovan Todd 
Published: January 2011

AbstractVoters in nearly half the states adopted term limits between 1990 and 2000, and recent efforts to repeal or extend these caps generally have suffered sound defeats. Past research demonstrates that while robust majorities approved of limiting the terms of elected officials, support was strongest among government cynics and minority-party identifiers. Here, we investigate the impact of trust and partisanship on attitudes toward a 2004 Arkansas proposal to extend term limits; we further test our findings using survey data on a related 2002 measure in California. Relying on statewide samples of likely voters, we find that Democrats and those with more trust in government demonstrate greater support for such measures than Republicans and cynics, controlling for other factors. Trust exerts the strongest substantive effect.
U.S. State Legislative Committee Assignments and Encouragement of Party Loyalty: An Exploratory Analysis
Authors: Kanthak Kristin 
Published: January 2011

AbstractAlthough political parties in U.S. legislatures cannot compel discipline with the threat of expulsion from the legislature, they can encourage greater party loyalty by strategically bestowing benefits upon favored members. This article explores the use of plum committee assignments to encourage legislators' loyalty to their parties. I outline a theory of how party leaders can use committee assignments strategically to encourage more loyal legislative behavior. This occurs when legislative rules meet two criteria: (1) parties and their leaders can determine who serves on committees and (2) committees have real authority over policy outcomes. I test the theory using data from five state legislatures that differ on the relevant set of legislative rules, finding more party loyalty shown by legislators who receive plum committee assignments when rules meet both criteria and no effect when they do not.
Public Opinion, Organized Interests, and Policy Congruence in Initiative and Noninitiative U.S. States
Authors: Monogan James , Gray Virginia , Lowery David 
Published: January 2011

AbstractWe consider the impact of direct democracy on state public policy by examining whether initiatives alter the effects of predictors in models of general state policy liberalism. These analyses are couched in Erikson, Wright, and McIver's (1993) opinion liberalism model of state public policy, as augmented by Gray et al.'s (2004) inclusion of measures of organized interests. After presenting our theoretical expectations, we test the different ways that public opinion, organized interests, and initiatives can interact in the determination of public policy with a variety of models. We find little evidence that initiatives alter the congruence between opinion and policy.
Representation in U.S. Legislatures: The Acquisition and Analysis of U.S. State Legislative Roll-Call Data
Authors: Clark Jennifer Hayes , Osborn Tracy , Winburn Jonathan , Wright Gerald C. 
Published: January 2011

AbstractRoll-call data have become a staple of contemporary scholarship on legislative behavior. Recent methodological innovations in the analysis of roll-call data have produced a number of important theoretical insights, such as understanding the structure of congressional decisionmaking and the role of parties and ideology in Congress. Many of the methodological innovations and theoretical questions sparked by congressional scholarship have been difficult to test at the state level because of the lack of comprehensive data on various forms of state legislative behavior, including roll-call voting. TheRepresentation in America's Legislaturesproject rectifies that problem through collection of comprehensive state legislative roll-call votes across all 99 state legislative chambers for the 1999–2000 and 2003–04 legislative sessions. In this article, we describe the data available through this project as well as our data acquisition procedures, including Stata and Perl programming and OCR of paper documents, with suggestions about how to use these methods to collect a wide range of state-level data.
The Pennsylvania Policy Database Project: A Model for Comparative Analysis
Authors: McLaughlin Joseph P. , Wolfgang Paul , Leckrone J. Wesley , Gollob Justin , Bossie Jason , Jennings Jay , Atherton Michelle J. 
Published: January 2011

AbstractTemple University led a six-university effort that built a comprehensive public policy database for Pennsylvania, modeled on the national Policy Agendas Project created by Frank Baumgartner and Bryan Jones (1993). The Pennsylvania database (www.temple.edu/papolicy) enables users to integrate data from all three branches of government and the news media organized into 20 major and 249 minor policy topics since 1979. This article discusses the value of these data, their potential uses in state policy research, and the lessons learned over the four years invested in building the database. Our hope is that interested readers might undertake similar projects in their states to create a standardized national network of state policy databases.
Biomarkers of splenic function in infants with sickle cell anemia: baseline data from the BABY HUG Trial
Authors: Rogers Zora R. , Wang Winfred C. , Luo Zhaoyu , Iyer Rathi V. , Shalaby-Rana Eglal , Dertinger Stephen D. , Shulkin Barry L. , Miller John H. , Files Bea , Lane Peter A. , Thompson Bruce W. , Miller Scott T. , Ware Russell E. ,   for the BABY HUG Investigators
Published: January 2011

AbstractWe evaluated spleen function in 193 children with sickle cell anemia 8 to 18 months of age by 99mTc sulfur-colloid liver-spleen scan and correlated results with clinical and laboratory parameters, including 2 splenic biomarkers: pitted cell counts (PIT) and quantitative Howell-Jolly bodies (HJB) enumerated by flow cytometry. Loss of splenic function began before 12 months of age in 86% of infants in association with lower total or fetal hemoglobin and higher white blood cell or reticulocyte counts, reinforcing the need for early diagnosis and diligent preventive care. PIT and HJB correlated well with each other and liver-spleen scan results. Previously described biomarker threshold values did define patients with abnormal splenic function, but our data suggest that normal spleen function is better predicted by PIT of ≤ 1.2% or HJB ≤ 55/106 red blood cells and absent function by PIT ≥ 4.5% or HJB ≥ 665/106. HJB is methodologically advantageous compared with PIT, but both are valid biomarkers of splenic function. This trial was registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as #NCT00006400.
The nerve growth factor reduces APOBEC3G synthesis and enhances HIV-1 transcription and replication in human primary macrophages
Authors: Souza Thiago Moreno L. , Rodrigues Diego Q. , Passaes Caroline P. B. , Barreto-de-Souza Victor , Aguiar Renato S. , Temerozo Jairo R. , Morgado Mariza G. , Fontes Carlos Frederico L. , Araujo Elizabeth G. , Bou-Habib Dumith Chequer 
Published: January 2011

AbstractMacrophages infected with HIV-1 sustain viral replication for long periods of time, functioning as viral reservoirs. Therefore, recognition of factors that maintain macrophage survival and influence HIV-1 replication is critical to understanding the mechanisms that regulate the HIV-1–replicative cycle. Because HIV-1–infected macrophages release the nerve growth factor (NGF), and NGF neutralization reduces viral production, we further analyzed how this molecule affects HIV-1 replication. In the present study, we show that NGF stimulates HIV-1 replication in primary macrophages by signaling through its high-affinity receptor Tropomyosin-related Kinase A (TrKA), and with the involvement of reticular calcium, protein kinase C, extracellular signal-regulated kinase, p38 kinase, and nuclear factor-κB. NGF-induced enhancement of HIV-1 replication occurred during the late events of the HIV-1–replicative cycle, with a concomitant increase in viral transcription and production. In addition, NGF reduced the synthesis of the cellular HIV-1 restriction factor APOBEC3G and also overrode its interferon-γ–induced up-regulation, allowing the production of a well-fitted virus. Because NGF-TrKA signaling is a crucial event for macrophage survival, it is possible that NGF-induced HIV-1 replication plays a role in the maintenance of HIV-1 reservoirs. Our study may contribute to the understanding of the immunopathogenesis of HIV-1 infection and provide insights about approaches aimed at limiting viral replication in HIV-1 reservoirs.
Factor VIII A3 domain substitution N1922S results in hemophilia A due to domain-specific misfolding and hyposecretion of functional protein
Authors: Summers Ryan J. , Meeks Shannon L. , Healey John F. , Brown Harrison C. , Parker Ernest T. , Kempton Christine L. , Doering Christopher B. , Lollar Pete 
Published: January 2011

AbstractA point mutation leading to amino acid substitution N1922S in the A3 domain of factor VIII (fVIII) results in moderate to severe hemophilia A. A heterologous expression system comparing N1922S-fVIII and wild-type fVIII (wt-fVIII) demonstrated similar specific coagulant activities but poor secretion of N1922S-fVIII. Immunocytochemical analysis revealed that intracellular levels of N1922S-fVIII were similar to those of wt-fVIII. The specific activity of intracellular N1922S-fVIII was 10% of that of wt-fVIII, indicating the presence of large amounts of a nonfunctional N1922S-fVIII–folding intermediate. wt-fVIII colocalized with both endoplasmic reticulum (ER)– and Golgi-resident proteins. In contrast, N1922S-fVIII colocalized only with ER-resident proteins, indicating a block in transit from the ER to the Golgi. A panel of conformation-dependent monoclonal antibodies was used to determine native or nonnative folding of N1922S-fVIII. Intracellular N1922S-fVIII but not secreted N1922S-fVIII displayed abnormal folding in the A3 and C1 domains, indicating that the A1, A2, and C2 domains fold independently into antigenically intact tertiary structures, but that folding is stalled in the mutant A3 and its contiguous C1 domain. In summary, the N1922S substitution results in poor secretion of a functional protein, and the domain-specific defect in folding and intracellular trafficking of N1922S-fVIII is a novel mechanism for secretion defects leading to hemophilia A.
Strand-specific PCR of UV radiation-damaged genomic DNA revealed an essential role of DNA-PKcs in the transcription-coupled repair
Authors: An Jing , Yang Tianyi , Huang Yuecheng , Liu Feng , Sun Jingfen , Wang Yu , Xu Qingzhi , Wu Dechang , Zhou Pingkun 
Published: January 2011

Abstract

Background
In eukaryotic cells, there are two sub-pathways of nucleotide excision repair (NER), the global genome (gg) NER and the transcription-coupled repair (TCR). TCR can preferentially remove the bulky DNA lesions located at the transcribed strand of a transcriptional active gene more rapidly than those at the untranscribed strand or overall genomic DNA. This strand-specific repair in a suitable restriction fragment is usually determined by alkaline gel electrophoresis followed by Southern blotting transfer and hybridization with an indirect end-labeled single-stranded probe. Here we describe a new method of TCR assay based on strand-specific-PCR (SS-PCR). Using this method, we have investigated the role of DNA-dependent protein kinase catalytic subunit (DNA-PKcs), a member of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase-related protein kinases (PIKK) family, in the TCR pathway of UV-induced DNA damage.

Results
Although depletion of DNA-PKcs sensitized HeLa cells to UV radiation, it did not affect the ggNER efficiency of UV-induced cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPD) damage. We postulated that DNA-PKcs may involve in the TCR process. To test this hypothesis, we have firstly developed a novel method of TCR assay based on the strand-specific PCR technology with a set of smart primers, which allows the strand-specific amplification of a restricted gene fragment of UV radiation-damaged genomic DNA in mammalian cells. Using this new method, we confirmed that siRNA-mediated downregulation of Cockayne syndrome B resulted in a deficiency of TCR of the UV-damaged dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) gene. In addition, DMSO-induced silencing of the c-myc gene led to a decreased TCR efficiency of UV radiation-damaged c-myc gene in HL60 cells. On the basis of the above methodology verification, we found that the depletion of DNA-PKcs mediated by siRNA significantly decreased the TCR capacity of repairing the UV-induced CPDs damage in DHFR gene in HeLa cells, indicating that DNA-PKcs may also be involved in the TCR pathway of DNA damage repair. By means of immunoprecipitation and MALDI-TOF-Mass spectrometric analysis, we have revealed the interaction of DNA-PKcs and cyclin T2, which is a subunit of the human transcription elongation factor (P-TEFb). While the P-TEFb complex can phosphorylate the serine 2 of the carboxyl-terminal domain (CTD) of RNA polymerase II and promote transcription elongation.

Conclusion
A new method of TCR assay was developed based the strand-specific-PCR (SS-PCR). Our data suggest that DNA-PKcs plays a role in the TCR pathway of UV-damaged DNA. One possible mechanistic hypothesis is that DNA-PKcs may function through associating with CyclinT2/CDK9 (P-TEFb) to modulate the activity of RNA Pol II, which has already been identified as a key molecule recognizing and initializing TCR.
Mesenteric lymph node transcriptome profiles in BALB/c mice sensitized to three common food allergens
Authors: Husain Mainul , Boermans Herman J , Karrow Niel A 
Published: January 2011

AbstractBackgroundFood allergy is a serious health concern among infants and young children. Although immunological mechanism of food allergy is well documented, the molecular mechanism(s) involved in food allergen sensitization have not been well characterized. Therefore, the present study analyzed the mesenteric lymph node (MLN) transcriptome profiles of BALB/c mice in response to three common food allergens.ResultsMicroarray analysis identified a total of 1361, 533 and 488 differentially expressed genes in response to β-lactoglobulin (BLG) from cow's milk, ovalbumin (OVA) from hen's egg white and peanut agglutinin (PNA) sensitizations, respectively (p < 0.05). A total of 150 genes were commonly expressed in all antigen sensitized groups. The expression of seven representative genes from microarray experiment was validated by real-time RT-PCR. All allergens induced significant ear swelling and serum IgG1 concentrations, whereas IgE concentrations were increased in BLG- and PNA-treated mice (p < 0.05). Treatment with OVA and PNA significantly induced plasma histamine concentrations (p < 0.05). The PCA demonstrated the presence of allergen-specific IgE in the serum of previously sensitized and challenged mice.ConclusionsImmunological profiles indicate that the allergen dosages used are sufficient to sensitize the BALB/c mice and to conduct transcriptome profiling. Microarray studies identified several differentially expressed genes in the sensitization phase of the food allergy. These findings will help to better understand the underlying molecular mechanism(s) of food allergen sensitizations and may be useful in identifying the potential biomarkers of food allergy.