Have Women State Legislators In the United States Become More Conservative?: A Comparison of State Legislators in 2001 and 1988

Women state legislators in the United States in 2001 are more liberal in their political ideology and policy attitudes than their male colleagues, just as they were in 1988. Nevertheless, a notable change is evident in the ideological predispositions of Republican Party women, especially in the lower houses of the legislatures. Republican women representatives in 2001 are more conservative and more like their male counterparts than they were in the late 1980s.En 2001, Les legislatrices d'etat aux Etats-Unis sont plus liberates dans leur ideologic politique et leur attitude envers les politiques que leurs collegues du sexe oppose, tout comme elles l'etaient en 1988. Cependant, un changement notable est evident dans les predispositions ideologiques. Les representantes Republicaines en 2001 sont plus conservatrices et plus comme leurs homologues masculins qu'elles ne l'etaient vers la fin des annees 80

Gender and Election to the State Legislatures: Then and Now

Abstract: Much has changed for women in American society and politics over the past several decades. The social, economic, and political roles of women and men have been transformed. Today, a record number of women hold elective office. Yet, we do not know if the factors that shape candidacy for women and men have remained the same over this time period. We compare the background characteristics and experiences of women and men state legislators in 2008 with state legislators in 1981 using studies conducted by the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP). The investigation of the paths that women and men take to office is a pressing research agenda in light of the plateau in women's state legislative officeholding that has occurred in recent years. Paper prepared for delivery at the Ninth Annual State Politics and Policy conference, May 22-23, 2009, Chapel Hill, NC. We thank Kelly Dittmar and Janna Ferguson for research assistance. 2 Gender and Election to the State Legislatures: Then and Now Much has changed for women in American society and politics over the past several decades. The social, economic, and political roles of women and men have been transformed in dramatic ways. In 1981, the first woman was nominated to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. In contrast, a record number of women hold elective office today. A total of 90 women serve in Congress, making up 16.7% of members. The gender gap in voting behavior is now widely recognized as a feature of American politics. Women earn a majority of post-secondary degrees, and while women earned only about 30% of law degrees in 1980, today they earn nearly half (U.S. Census Bureau 2008). Women still bear more responsibility than men for care-giving within the family, but there is much more flexibility in gender roles than there was several decades ago. Such changes suggest that gender may have become less relevant to elective officeholding over time. There is debate among scholars about the extent to which gender affects candidacy and elections today. Several studies have demonstrated that women candidates fare as well as men with voters when they are running in similar circumstances (e.g., Recent scholarship has revisited these questions in order to understand the persistence of In order to understand whether and how gender is related to officeholding, we need to know if the factors that shape candidacy for women and men have remained the same over time. In this paper, we compare state legislators in 2008 with state legislators in 1981, using surveys conducted by the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) about the factors that affect state legislators' entry into office. Because the 2008 CAWP Recruitment Study largely replicates the 1981 CAWP study, together the two surveys provide a unique research opportunity to study changes in the relationship between gender and candidacy over the past quarter century. No other study contains such detailed information on the backgrounds and recruitment of state legislators. We expect to find that gender differences in the factors that affect women's and men's entry into public office have diminished since 1981. Gains in women's officeholding and changes in women's status in society suggest that gender should matter less to shaping the factors that affect entry into office in 2008 compared to 1981. Thus, we expect that women's and men's paths to the legislature have converged to some extent. However, the recent plateau in women's officeholding and the continued underrepresentation of women in elective office lead us to hypothesize that we will still observe gender differences in how women and men reach the legislature. The 1981 and 2008 CAWP Recruitment Studies Data for each CAWP study were gathered through a survey instrument sent to legislators in all fifty states consisting primarily of questions concerning the decision to seek office, 5 previous political experience, and personal background. 7 play a larger role in women's candidacies. At the same time, we find some evidence of convergence due to changes among men. We asked legislators to rate the importance of various factors in influencing the decision to run the first time for their current office. Response options were "very important," "somewhat important," "not important," or "not applicable." In both time periods, women were less likely than men to respond that "approval of my spouse or partner" was "very important," although overwhelming majorities of legislators of both genders said spousal support was "very important" to their decision When we turn to the importance of spousal support to officeholding, gender differences are more apparent and in the direction one might expect. Among legislators who were currently married (or living as married), women in both 1981 and 2008 were more likely than men to say that their spouse or partner was "very supportive" of their officeholding 8 supportive spouse in 2008 than in 1981, suggesting that family plays a greater role in men's career decisions today than in previous decades. [Insert In addition, women representatives were less likely than their male colleagues in both 1981 and 2008 to have young children [Insert Other Factors in the Decision to Seek Office Of course, family is not the only consideration that shapes the decision to seek elective office. [Insert In contrast to the pattern for occupational flexibility, women continued in 2008 to be more likely than men to rate "My concern about one or two particular public policy issues" as a "very important" factor in their decision to run for the legislatur

Water Challenges for Geologic Carbon Capture and Sequestration

Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) has been proposed as a means to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions with the continued use of fossil fuels. For geologic sequestration, the carbon dioxide is captured from large point sources (e.g., power plants or other industrial sources), transported to the injection site and injected into deep geological formations for storage. This will produce new water challenges, such as the amount of water used in energy resource development and utilization and the “capture penalty” for water use. At depth, brine displacement within formations, storage reservoir pressure increases resulting from injection, and leakage are potential concerns. Potential impacts range from increasing water demand for capture to contamination of groundwater through leakage or brine displacement. Understanding these potential impacts and the conditions under which they arise informs the design and implementation of appropriate monitoring and controls, important both for assurance of environmental safety and for accounting purposes. Potential benefits also exist, such as co-production and treatment of water to both offset reservoir pressure increase and to provide local water for beneficial use

International Migration of Doctors, and Its Impact on Availability of Psychiatrists in Low and Middle Income Countries

Background:Migration of health professionals from low and middle income countries to rich countries is a large scale and long-standing phenomenon, which is detrimental to the health systems in the donor countries. We sought to explore the extent of psychiatric migration. Methods: In our study, we use the respective professional databases in each country to establish the numbers of psychiatrists currently registered in the UK, US, New Zealand, and Australia who originate from other countries. We also estimate the impact of this migration on the psychiatrist population ratios in the donor countries. Findings: We document large numbers of psychiatrists currently registered in the UK, US, New Zealand and Australia originating from India (4687 psychiatrists), Pakistan (1158), Bangladesh (149) , Nigeria (384) , Egypt (484), Sri Lanka (142), Philippines (1593). For some countries of origin, the numbers of psychiatrists currently registered within high-income countries' professional databases are very small (e.g., 5 psychiatrists of Tanzanian origin registered in the 4 high-income countries we studied), but this number is very significant compared to the 15 psychiatrists currently registered in Tanzania). Without such emigration, many countries would have more than double the number of psychiatrists per 100, 000 population (e.g. Bangladesh, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon); and some countries would have had five to eight times more psychiatrists per 100,000 (e.g. Philippines, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Liberia, Nigeria and Zambia). Conclusions: Large numbers of psychiatrists originating from key low and middle income countries are currently registered in the UK, US, New Zealand and Australia, with concomitant impact on the psychiatrist/ population ratio n the originating countries. We suggest that creative international policy approaches are needed to ensure the individual migration rights of health professionals do not compromise societal population rights to health, and that there are public and fair agreements between countries within an internationally agreed framework. © 2010 Jenkins et al

Landscape Features Affecting Northern Bobwhite Predator-Specific Nest Failures in Southeastern USA

Nest predation is a critical component in avian productivity and typically is the leading cause of nest failure for most birds. Several landscape features are thought to drive the behavioral interaction between northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus; e.g., nest placement) and their predators (e.g., search methods for food acquisition). In order to understand habitat characteristics influencing predation, we studied bobwhite nests using 24-hour near-infrared video cameras. We monitored 675 bobwhite nests with cameras on 3 properties in northern Florida and southern Georgia, USA, during 2000–2006. To test the association between nest failures and specific failure causes with landscape structure, we calculated a suite of landscape metrics and examined these at 3 spatial scales (3.1 ha, 19.6 ha, and 50.3 ha). We found increased probability of nest success with greater proportions of, and proximity to, fallow and annually disked fields at larger scales (50.3 ha), but we found no landscape metrics to be important predictors of bobwhite nest failures at small scales (,20 ha). Fallow and disked fields may provide alternative prey items (e.g., rodents) important in buffering nest predation. Relative to meso-mammal predation, we observed increases in proportion of the landscape in field to be related to lower incidental nest failures at the smallest scale (3.1 ha). Nests closer to feed lines were more likely depredated by meso-mammals than ants at the 2 larger spatial scales. Interestingly, the fate of a nest was independent of the fate of neighboring nests, suggesting bobwhite nest predation may be primarily incidental

Landscape Features Affecting Northern Bobwhite Predator-Specific Nest Failures in Southeastern USA

Nest predation is a critical component in avian productivity and typically is the leading cause of nest failure for most birds. Several landscape features are thought to drive the behavioral interaction between northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus; e.g., nest placement) and their predators (e.g., search methods for food acquisition). In order to understand habitat characteristics influencing predation, we studied bobwhite nests using 24-hour near-infrared video cameras. We monitored 675 bobwhite nests with cameras on 3 properties in northern Florida and southern Georgia, USA, during 2000–2006. To test the association between nest failures and specific failure causes with landscape structure, we calculated a suite of landscape metrics and examined these at 3 spatial scales (3.1 ha, 19.6 ha, and 50.3 ha). We found increased probability of nest success with greater proportions of, and proximity to, fallow and annually disked fields at larger scales (50.3 ha), but we found no landscape metrics to be important predictors of bobwhite nest failures at small scales (\u3c20 \u3eha). Fallow and disked fields may provide alternative prey items (e.g., rodents) important in buffering nest predation. Relative to meso-mammal predation, we observed increases in proportion of the landscape in field to be related to lower incidental nest failures at the smallest scale (3.1 ha). Nests closer to feed lines were more likely depredated by meso-mammals than ants at the 2 larger spatial scales. Interestingly, the fate of a nest was independent of the fate of neighboring nests, suggesting bobwhite nest predation may be primarily incidental

A new multivariate measurement error model with zero-inflated dietary data, and its application to dietary assessment

In the United States the preferred method of obtaining dietary intake data is the 24-hour dietary recall, yet the measure of most interest is usual or long-term average daily intake, which is impossible to measure. Thus, usual dietary intake is assessed with considerable measurement error. Also, diet represents numerous foods, nutrients and other components, each of which have distinctive attributes. Sometimes, it is useful to examine intake of these components separately, but increasingly nutritionists are interested in exploring them collectively to capture overall dietary patterns. Consumption of these components varies widely: some are consumed daily by almost everyone on every day, while others are episodically consumed so that 24-hour recall data are zero-inflated. In addition, they are often correlated with each other. Finally, it is often preferable to analyze the amount of a dietary component relative to the amount of energy (calories) in a diet because dietary recommendations often vary with energy level. The quest to understand overall dietary patterns of usual intake has to this point reached a standstill. There are no statistical methods or models available to model such complex multivariate data with its measurement error and zero inflation. This paper proposes the first such model, and it proposes the first workable solution to fit such a model. After describing the model, we use survey-weighted MCMC computations to fit the model, with uncertainty estimation coming from balanced repeated replication.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-AOAS446 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Avian tail ontogeny, pygostyle formation, and interpretation of juvenile Mesozoic specimens

The avian tail played a critical role in the evolutionary transition from long- to short-tailed birds, yet its ontogeny in extant birds has largely been ignored. This deficit has hampered efforts to effectively identify intermediate species during the Mesozoic transition to short tails. Here we show that fusion of distal vertebrae into the pygostyle structure does not occur in extant birds until near skeletal maturity, and mineralization of vertebral processes also occurs long after hatching. Evidence for post-hatching pygostyle formation is also demonstrated in two Cretaceous specimens, a juvenile enantiornithine and a subadult basal ornithuromorph. These findings call for reinterpretations of Zhongornis haoae, a Cretaceous bird hypothesized to be an intermediate in the long- to short-tailed bird transition, and of the recently discovered coelurosaur tail embedded in amber. Zhongornis, as a juvenile, may not yet have formed a pygostyle, and the amber-embedded tail specimen is reinterpreted as possibly avian. Analyses of relative pygostyle lengths in extant and Cretaceous birds suggests the number of vertebrae incorporated into the pygostyle has varied considerably, further complicating the interpretation of potential transitional species. In addition, this analysis of avian tail development reveals the generation and loss of intervertebral discs in the pygostyle, vertebral bodies derived from different kinds of cartilage, and alternative modes of caudal vertebral process morphogenesis in birds. These findings demonstrate that avian tail ontogeny is a crucial parameter specifically for the interpretation of Mesozoic specimens, and generally for insights into vertebrae formation

Impaired lymphocyte function in depressive illness

Mood states and immunity may be related. To investigate the immune status of patients with primary depressive illness, we compared lymphocytic responses to three different mitogens in 26 drug-free depressed patients and 20 normal controls of comparable age and sex. We observed a generalized and marked decrease in the lymphocyte mitogenic activity among the depressive group. This defect in lymphocyte function may be indicative of an impairment in cell-mediated immunity in patients with primary depressive illness.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/25160/1/0000596.pd