Picking Federal Judges: A Note on Policy and Partisan Selection Agendas

The importance of lower federal courts in the policymaking process has stimulated extensive research programs focused on the process of selecting the judges of these courts and the factors influencing their decisions. The present study employs judicial decisionmaking in the U.S. Courts of Appeals as a window through which to reexamine the politics of selection to the lower courts. It differs from previous studies of selection in three ways. First, it takes advantage of recent innovations in measurement to go beyond reliance on political party as a measure of the preferences of actors in the selection process. Second, employing these new measures it examines the relative effects of the operation of policy and partisan agendas in the selection process. Third, a more complex model of selection is assessed than in most previous studies--one that expressly examines the role of senators and senatorial preferences in the selection process

Men’s misperceptions about the acceptability and attractiveness of aggression

Male norms about aggression may be perpetuated in part by the belief that aggression is more expected or socially desirable than it really is. This paper explores the accuracy of people’s beliefs about the acceptability of aggression by examining men’s perceptions of descriptive (what their peers do) and injunctive norms (what their peers approve of or desire). Study 1 found that men (but not women) overestimated the aggressiveness of their peers. Study 2 demonstrated that men (but not women) overestimated peer approval of aggression and disapproval when an affront was not responded to aggressively. Study 3 found that men overestimate how attractive aggression is to women. Study 4 found that greater perceived discrepancies in aggression between self and peers was related to lower self-esteem, a weaker gender identification, and greater feelings of social marginalization, suggesting that men’s misperceptions about aggression norms have negative consequences for self-perceptions

The Etiology of the Occurrence of En Banc Review in the U.S. Court of Appeals

The U.S. Courts of Appeals, working principally through three-judge panels, constitute important final arbiters of the meaning of the federal constitution, laws, and regulations and, hence, significant policymakers within the federal system. En banc rehearing-reconsideration of the decision of a three-judge panel by the full complement of judges appointed to the circuit-is an institutional device that ensures circuit decisions are in line with the established preferences of the circuit. The use of en banc varies in frequency across circuits and within circuits over time. Drawing on legal, attitudinal, and strategic perspectives of judicial behavior, we develop and test a set of integrated expectations regarding the causes of this variation. Our analysis finds support for the operation of all three models and suggests that the influence of ideology on the use of en banc in the recent era is not unique but part of a long-standing pattern

IFT proteins interact with HSET to promote supernumerary centrosome clustering in mitosis.

Centrosome amplification is a hallmark of cancer, and centrosome clustering is essential for cancer cell survival. The mitotic kinesin HSET is an essential contributor to this process. Recent studies have highlighted novel functions for intraflagellar transport (IFT) proteins in regulating motors and mitotic processes. Here, using siRNA knock-down of various IFT proteins or AID-inducible degradation of endogenous IFT88 in combination with small-molecule inhibition of HSET, we show that IFT proteins together with HSET are required for efficient centrosome clustering. We identify a direct interaction between the kinesin HSET and IFT proteins, and we define how IFT proteins contribute to clustering dynamics during mitosis using high-resolution live imaging of centrosomes. Finally, we demonstrate the requirement of IFT88 for efficient centrosome clustering in a variety of cancer cell lines naturally harboring supernumerary centrosomes and its importance for cancer cell proliferation. Overall, our data unravel a novel role for the IFT machinery in centrosome clustering during mitosis in cells harboring supernumerary centrosomes

Theory of the c-Axis Penetration Depth in the Cuprates

Recent measurements of the London penetration depth tensor in the cuprates find a weak temperature dependence along the c-direction which is seemingly inconsistent with evidence for d-wave pairing deduced from in-plane measurements. We demonstrate in this paper that these disparate results are not in contradiction, but can be explained within a theory based on incoherent quasiparticle hopping between the CuO2 layers. By relating the calculated temperature dependence of the penetration depth \lambda_c(T) to the c-axis resistivity, we show how the measured ratio \lambda_c^2(0) / \lambda_c^2(T) can provide insight into the behavior of c-axis transport below Tc and the related issue of ``confinement.''Comment: 4 pages, REVTEX with psfig, 3 PostScript figures included in compressed for

Deletion of SA β-Gal+ Cells Using Senolytics Improves Muscle Regeneration in Old Mice

Systemic deletion of senescent cells leads to robust improvements in cognitive, cardiovascular, and whole-body metabolism, but their role in tissue reparative processes is incompletely understood. We hypothesized that senolytic drugs would enhance regeneration in aged skeletal muscle. Young (3 months) and old (20 months) male C57Bl/6J mice were administered the senolytics dasatinib (5 mg/kg) and quercetin (50 mg/kg) or vehicle bi-weekly for 4 months. Tibialis anterior (TA) was then injected with 1.2% BaCl2 or PBS 7- or 28 days prior to euthanization. Senescence-associated β-Galactosidase positive (SA β-Gal+) cell abundance was low in muscle from both young and old mice and increased similarly 7 days following injury in both age groups, with no effect of D+Q. Most SA β-Gal+ cells were also CD11b+ in young and old mice 7- and 14 days following injury, suggesting they are infiltrating immune cells. By 14 days, SA β-Gal+/CD11b+ cells from old mice expressed senescence genes, whereas those from young mice expressed higher levels of genes characteristic of anti-inflammatory macrophages. SA β-Gal+ cells remained elevated in old compared to young mice 28 days following injury, which were reduced by D+Q only in the old mice. In D+Q-treated old mice, muscle regenerated following injury to a greater extent compared to vehicle-treated old mice, having larger fiber cross-sectional area after 28 days. Conversely, D+Q blunted regeneration in young mice. In vitro experiments suggested D+Q directly improve myogenic progenitor cell proliferation. Enhanced physical function and improved muscle regeneration demonstrate that senolytics have beneficial effects only in old mice

Rapid in vivo measurement of B-amyloid reveals biphasic clearance kinetics in an Alzheimer\u27s mouse model

Accumulation of ?-amyloid peptide is a key step in Alzheimer?s disease pathogenesis. Yuede et al. propose a novel method to track ?-amyloid levels in vivo