Corruption and support for decentralisation

Existing explanations of individual preferences for decentralisation and secession focus on collective identity, economic considerations and party politics. This paper contributes to this literature by showing that preferences for fiscal and political decentralisation are also driven by concern about the quality of government in the face of corruption. It makes two claims. Firstly, information on national‐level corruption decreases satisfaction with national politicians, and subsequently increases preferences for decentralisation and secession. Secondly, information on regional‐level corruption pushes citizens of highly corrupt regions to prefer national retrenchment and unitary states. The effects of this political compensation mechanism crosscut national identities and involve regions that are not ethnically or economically different from the core. We test our argument using a survey experiment in Spain and confirm its cross‐national generalisability with data from the European Values Study

How political parties adjust to fixed voter opinions

We propose a new version of the spatial model of voting. Platforms of five parties are evolving in a two-dimensional landscape of political issues so as to get maximal numbers of voters. For a Gaussian landscape the evolution leads to a spatially symmetric state, where the platform centers form a pentagon around the Gaussian peak. For a bimodal landscape the platforms located at different peaks get different numbers of voters.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures. Accepted in Int. J. Modern Phys.

Successful removal of a giant intrathoracic lipoma: a case report and review of the literature

We report a case of a 44-year old female who presented to her physician complaining of mild dyspnea. A follow-up chest X-ray and chest computed tomography scan revealed a giant bilateral intrathoracic mass, filling the right thoracic cavity and extending across the anterior mediastinum into the left chest cavity. This large mass caused a marked shift in the midline structures, displacing the heart to the left hemi-thorax. The patient underwent surgical removal of the thoracic and breast mass, with histologic examination confirming the diagnosis of a giant intrathoracic lipoma, weighing 4,320 grams and measured 34 × 28 × 11 cm. It is the largest intrathoracic lipoma documented in the modern literature

BEPCP: Media Campaign to Promote Smoke-Free Facilities

Kentucky continues to have the highest lung cancer rate in the nation and is in the top 10 states for heart disease. Despite progress in local smoke-free policies, rural populations remain disproportionately affected by secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure. Due to the longstanding cultural heritage of tobacco, many rural residents think of SHS as a nuisance rather than a serious health hazard

Carcinosarcoma of the breast: two case reports and review of the literature

Carcinosarcoma of the breast, often referred to as metaplastic carcinoma of the breast, is a rare malignancy with two distinct cell lines described as a breast carcinoma of ductal type with a sarcoma-like component. Clinically, carcinosarcoma of the breast is an aggressive breast cancer. The prognosis for carcinosarcoma of the breast is less favorable compared to more common types of breast cancer such as infiltrating ductal or lobular carcinoma. Currently, the evaluation of breast carcinoma includes hormone receptor analysis of the tumor tissue, with those positive for estrogen or progesterone responding better to both hormonal and chemotherapy

Atmospheric Turbulence Compensation of Point Source Images Using Asynchronous Stochastic Parallel Gradient Descent Technique on AMOS 3.6 m Telescope

The Stochastic Parallel Gradient Descent Technique-based Adaptive Optics (SPGD-AO) system described in this presentation does not use a conventional wavefront sensor. It uses a metric signal collected by a single pixel detector placed behind a pinhole in the image plane to drive three deformable mirrors (DMs). The system is designed to compensate the image for turbulence effects. The theory behind this method is described in detail in [1]. However this technique, while widely simulated and tested in the laboratory, was not yet verified in astronomical field site experiments. During the month of May 2007, a series of experiments with SPGD-AO compensation on stars at several elevation angles and turbulence levels were conducted successfully at the US Air Force Maui Optical and Supercomputing Site (AMOS) using the 3.6 m telescope. Some of the results of these experiments are described in this paper. This is the first time SPGD-AO systems have been tested and verified in astronomical field site experiments

U.S. Multinationals and Competition from Low Wage Countries

It is often argued that the globalization of production places workers in industrialized countries in competition with their counterparts in low wage countries. We examine a firm-level panel of foreign manufacturing affiliates owned by U.S. multinationals between 1983 and 1992 and find evidence to the contrary. Affiliate activities in developing countries appear to be complementary to rather than substituting for affiliate activities in industrialized countries. Workers do compete across affiliates, but the competition is between affiliates in countries with similar workforce skill levels. The results suggest that multinationals with affiliates in countries at different stages of development decompose production across borders into complementary stages that differ by skill intensity. The implied complementarity of traded intermediate inputs has important implications for the empirical debate over trade, employment, and wages.

Are U.S. Multinationals Exporting U.S. Jobs?

Many allege multinationals are exporting' U.S. jobs when they expand operations abroad. This paper investigates the extent to which expansion of offshore production by U.S. multinationals reduces labor demand at home and at other offshore locations, using a panel on U.S. multinationals and their foreign affiliates between 1983 and 1992. The results suggest that foreign affiliate employment substitutes modestly at the margins for U.S. parent employment. There is much stronger substitution between workers at affiliates in alternative low wage locations. In contrast, activities performed by affiliates at locations with different workforce skill levels in the same region appear to be complements. The results suggest a vertical division of activities among countries with different workforce skill levels, where workers in developing countries compete with each other to perform the activities most sensitive to labor costs. When wages in developing countries, such as Mexico, fall 10 percent, U.S. parent employment falls 0.17 percent, while affiliates in other developing countries, such as Malaysia, lay off 1.6 percent of their workforce.

Neurocardiac risk stratification 6 hours after resuscitation from cardiac arrest

Introduction: • An increasing number of patients are resuscitated from out-ofhospital cardiac arrest. Triage to optimal treatment pathways could improve and increase the efficacy of post-resuscition care. • Despite great variability in etiology, duration, and patterns of injury from cardiac arrest, post-resuscitation treatment guidelines emphasize standard treatments. We hypothesize that by categorizing competing risks very early after resuscitation, it may be possible to improve the efficacy and efficiency of care. • When measured very early after resuscitation, suppression ratio (SR, the percentage of suppressed EEG), correlates with severity of brain injury and the likelihood of poor neurological outcome. • The CREST score2 is a validated model to predict circulatoryetiology death (CED) based on: Coronary artery disease, initial nonshockable Rhythm, Ejection fraction25 minutes