Clinton performed very well in most urban areas relative to Obama, despite losin the Rustbelt — and the Presidency with it

Despite talk of collapsed Democrat support for Clinton, her performance in urban areas was very strong this presidential election. As Joshua D. Ambrosius argues however, her loss to Donald Trump highlights the weakness of Democrats’ urban-centric appeal, given the new-found GOP capacity to mobilise masses of rural working class and suburban Americans

Why Urbanists Need Religion

This essay summarizes a conference paper presented at the October 2008 Society for the Scientific Study of Religion meeting in Louisville, Kentucky. The paper was reviewed by several leading scholars

Religion and regionalism : congregants, culture and city-county consolidation in Louisville, Kentucky.

Literature on religious involvement in public affairs typically examines the national scene, particularly public opinion and political behavior in presidential elections. Few scholars examine religious actors in urban politics and policymaking. Those who do study local politics emphasize morality policy and ignore issues of metropolitan governance and institutional design, central concerns of the urban politics field. This dissertation fills that gap by studying Louisville, Kentucky, site of the first large-scale city-county consolidation since 1969. I ask: does religion affect how people vote in a consolidation referendum and shape their opinions about merged government? I employ a survey instrument (N=807), collected randomly across Louisville Metro in 2006, and use multiple linear and binary logistic regression to predict religiosity, “culture war” stances, and consolidation referendum participation and support. I control for socio-economic status, demographics, residence, and political ideology. I operationalize religion as a variable in two ways: as a factor score index measuring level of religiosity, combining behavior, belief, and salience items; and as religious affiliation, predominately Roman Catholic and Southern Baptist in Louisville. I also employ the 2006 General Social Survey for comparison with the nation and several additional religion databases to better understand Louisville’s religious ecology. I find that religiosity did not significantly affect one’s turnout or vote but is positively related to opinions of the merged government. Religious affiliation did not significantly affect turnout but significantly affected one’s vote and opinions. Regression results show that Catholics were 37 percent more likely to support consolidation than Southern Baptists. I downplay theories that differences over redistribution to central cities and political trust may be driving differences over consolidation. I posit a theory labeled “polity replication” based in the institutional and organizational theory and sociology of religion literatures. I argue that participation in a religious denomination’s organizational structure conditions members to prefer similar structures in other societal institutions. Two forms of metropolitan governance, monocentrism and polycentrism, parallel the poles of church polity (i.e., denominational governance): episcopal/centralized (Catholic) and congregational/decentralized (Baptist). In conclusion, I present recommendations and implications for research, religious practice, and politics/policymaking

Religion, Politics, and Polity Replication: Religious Differences in Preferences for Institutional Design

This article presents a theory of polity replication in which religious congregants prefer institutions in other realms of society, including the state, to be structured like their church. Polities, or systems of church governance and administration, generally take one of three forms: episcopal (hierarchical/centralized), presbyterian (collegial/regional), or congregational (autonomous/decentralized). When asked to cast a vote to shape institutions in a centralizing or decentralizing manner, voters are influenced by organizational values shaped by their respective religious traditions‘ polity structures. Past social scientific scholarship has neglected to explicitly connect religious affiliation, defined by polity, with members‘ stances on institutional design. However, previous examples of polity replication in action include the founding of the United States, the perpetuation of authoritarian regimes in Latin America, and the consolidation of the European Union. In this article, I provide original data on Roman Catholic and Southern Baptist support for city-county consolidation, an example of institutional design in metropolitan governance, in Louisville, Kentucky. Logistic regression results show that, other factors being equal, episcopal Catholics were 37 percent more likely to support consolidation in the 2000 referendum than were congregational Southern Baptists. Linear regression results show that Catholics were also more approving of the Louisville Metro government three years after its creation. In addition, Catholics who attend services more frequently were more supportive of consolidation and the consolidated regime. Perhaps owing to their polity structure, the effect of attendance for Baptists was unclear

Reflecting on Michael McQuarrie's 'revolt of the rust belt'

Following Donald Trump's surprise election win in November 2016, Michael McQuarrie of LSE Sociology wrote on the regional nature of Trump's win. His blog article, "Trump and the Revolt of the Rust Belt", has now formed the basis of a new article in the British Journal of Sociology. We asked a several academic experts for their reactions to McQuarrie's new article. McQuarrie demonstrates ..

Quality Assessment of Smoked Selais (Cryptopterus Bicirrhis) Results Using Laban Wood Smoke with Different Methods for the Storage Room Temperature

This research was conducted to determine the quality of smoked selais fish is stored at roomtemperature using different curing methods. five types of smoked selais fish were preserved usingliquid smoke from laban's wood with treatment concentration of 6%, 8% which soaked in liquidsmoke rough, and concentration of 6%, 8% in the distillation of liquid smoke, immersion time 60and 90 minutes as the traditional fumigation control. Smoked selais fish were observed for 10, 20,30, 40 days. The results indicated that the smoked fish have a good and uniform quality of alltreatments, with the organoleptic quality assessment, water contain, pH, and peroxide

Low-optical-loss, low-resistance Ag/Ge based ohmic contacts to n-type InP for membrane based waveguide devices

We present the development of Ag/Ge based ohmic contacts to n-type InP with both low contact resistances and relatively low optical losses. A specific contact resistance as low as 1.5×10-6 O cm2 is achieved by optimizing the Ge layer thickness and annealing conditions. The use of Ge instead of metal as the first deposited layer results in a low optical absorption loss in the telecommunication wavelength range. Compared to Au based contacts, the Ag based metallization also shows considerably reduced spiking effects after annealing. Contacts with different lengths are deposited on top of InP membrane waveguides to characterize the optical loss before and after annealing. A factor of 5 reduction of the propagation loss compared to the conventional Au/Ge/Ni contact is demonstrated. This allows for much more optimized designs for membrane photonic devices

Chemical genetic identification of CDKL5 substrates reveals its role in neuronal microtubule dynamics.

Loss-of-function mutations in CDKL5 kinase cause severe neurodevelopmental delay and early-onset seizures. Identification of CDKL5 substrates is key to understanding its function. Using chemical genetics, we found that CDKL5 phosphorylates three microtubule-associated proteins: MAP1S, EB2 and ARHGEF2, and determined the phosphorylation sites. Substrate phosphorylations are greatly reduced in CDKL5 knockout mice, verifying these as physiological substrates. In CDKL5 knockout mouse neurons, dendritic microtubules have longer EB3-labelled plus-end growth duration and these altered dynamics are rescued by reduction of MAP1S levels through shRNA expression, indicating that CDKL5 regulates microtubule dynamics via phosphorylation of MAP1S. We show that phosphorylation by CDKL5 is required for MAP1S dissociation from microtubules. Additionally, anterograde cargo trafficking is compromised in CDKL5 knockout mouse dendrites. Finally, EB2 phosphorylation is reduced in patient-derived human neurons. Our results reveal a novel activity-dependent molecular pathway in dendritic microtubule regulation and suggest a pathological mechanism which may contribute to CDKL5 deficiency disorder