Extreme Parties and Political Rents

We study the rent-seeking behaviour of political parties in a proportional representation system, where the final policy choice of the parliament is a weighted average of parties' policy positions, weights being their vote shares. We find that parties' policy preferences and their rent levels are strongly linked. Our main result is that an extreme party chooses a higher rent level than a moderate party, except in some cases of unlikely distributions of parties. An extreme party has more policy influence than a moderate party since it pulls the final policy towards its position more than a moderate party. Hence, a voter is ready to pay more rents to an extreme party in exchange of a greater policy influence. Furthermore, note that the voter does not need to be an extremist to vote for an extreme party. She is acting strategically in order to influence the final policy in her advantage as much as possible. In turn, this strategic behaviour of voters allow more extreme parties to earn higher rent levels

Voting as a Signaling Device

In this paper, citizens vote in order to influence the election outcome and in order to signal their unobserved characteristics to others. The model is one of rational voting and generates the following predictions: (i) The paradox of not voting does not arise, because the benefit of voting does not vanish with population size. (ii) Turnout in elections is positively related to the importance of social interactions. (iii) Voting may exhibit bandwagon effects and small changes in the electoral incentives may generate large changes in turnout due to signaling effects. (iv) Signaling incentives increase the sensitivity of turnout to voting incentives in communities with low opportunity cost of social interaction, while the opposite is true for communities with high cost of social interaction. Therefore, the model predicts less volatile turnout for the latter type of communities

Importance of Status Quo When Lobbying a Coalition Government

Lobbying a coalition government is different from lobbying a single-party government, since in the case of a coalition government, the interest group can intervene in the intragovernmental decision process. In the case where the interest group prefers the status quo to the surplus maximizing policy, the interest group influences the policy without any contribution due to its credible threat to block unfavorable proposals. Furthermore, we show that when, say, a leftist coalition government may be replaced by a rightist coalition government, the final policy reflects a rightist interest group's preferences more heavily due to the interest group's forward-looking considerations.</p

The frequency of Malassezia as a causative agent in folliculitis [Folikülitte etken olarak Malassezia sikli?i]

Objective: It has been known that Malassezia spp. can play role in different dermatologic diseases. The aim of this study is to detect identification of Malassezia spp. species in folliculitis patients. CopyrightMaterial and Methods: One hundred and three patients with folliculitis who attended Ege University Faculty of Medicine Dermatology and Venereology outpatient clinic between January 2010-November 2012 included in the study. The patients were diagnosed as Malassezia folliculitis based on direct microscopic examination and culture of the material taken from the lesion of folliculitis. Samples inoculated in Sabouraud dextrose agar (SDA) with sterile olive oil and modified Dixon agar. Catalase and esculin tests performed to isolated colonies and cultured in Tween-20, 40, 60, and Tween-80 mediums. Species were diagnosed by according to these tests and growth properties.Results: Of 103 patients, 40 (38.8%) female and 63 (61.2%) male. Three of the patients (12.9%), direct microscopic examination was negative but in culture was positive. In eighteen (17.4%) patients not only direct examination but also cultures were found positive. It was determined that in 9 (8.7%) patients, direct examination was positive but no cultural isolation found. 29.1% of the folliculitis patients Malassezia spp. was detected as a causative agent. In all of the cultures, Malassezia globosa was isolated.Conclusion: This is the first study about the frequency of Malassezia species in folliculitis in our region. In this study the only agent isolated is M. globosa. © 2014 by Türkiye Klinikleri

Experimental validation of a model describing the cycle of nitrogen in a Step Sludge Recirculation activated sludge system with denitrification

In this paper, a model describing the cycle of nitrogen in a Step Sludge Recirculation (SSR) reactor, was developed. The SSR reactor is a multistage, continuous stirred tank reactor where the recycled biomass is distributed over all stages. The SSR system provides a uniform treatment of the wastewater and high purification efficiency for both carbon and nitrogen removal. The objective of this work was to develop a mathematical model of the SSR system, based on the analysis of various parameters that are present in the system. The simplified form of the IWA-ASM model was adapted to include the carbon removal, nitrification and denitrification processes. For model validation, a SSR pilot plant fed with synthetic wastewater was operated for approximately four months. The experimental results show that the SSR system seems to be appropriate to attain maximum TOC and nitrogen removal with minimum sludge production. The proposed model seems to be capable of expressing the behavior of carbon removal, nitrification, denitrification and various microorganism species in a SSR configuration of a nitrogen cycle. When the experimental results were compared with those estimated by the proposed model, the model predictions matched well with the experimental results. © Taylor & Francis, 2008

Experimental validation of a model describing the cycle of nitrogen in a Step Sludge Recirculation activated sludge system with denitrification

PubMed ID: 18661743In this paper, a model describing the cycle of nitrogen in a Step Sludge Recirculation (SSR) reactor, was developed. The SSR reactor is a multistage, continuous stirred tank reactor where the recycled biomass is distributed over all stages. The SSR system provides a uniform treatment of the wastewater and high purification efficiency for both carbon and nitrogen removal. The objective of this work was to develop a mathematical model of the SSR system, based on the analysis of various parameters that are present in the system. The simplified form of the IWA-ASM model was adapted to include the carbon removal, nitrification and denitrification processes. For model validation, a SSR pilot plant fed with synthetic wastewater was operated for approximately four months. The experimental results show that the SSR system seems to be appropriate to attain maximum TOC and nitrogen removal with minimum sludge production. The proposed model seems to be capable of expressing the behavior of carbon removal, nitrification, denitrification and various microorganism species in a SSR configuration of a nitrogen cycle. When the experimental results were compared with those estimated by the proposed model, the model predictions matched well with the experimental results. © Taylor & Francis, 2008