Why Local Party Leaders Don't Support Nominating Centrists

Would giving party leaders more influence in primary elections in the United States decrease elite polarization? Some scholars have argued that political party leaders tend to support centrist candidates in the hopes of winning general elections. In contrast, the authors argue that many local party leaders - especially Republicans - may not believe that centrists perform better in elections and therefore may not support nominating them. They test this argument using data from an original survey of 1,118 county-level party leaders. In experiments, they find that local party leaders most prefer nominating candidates who are similar to typical co-partisans, not centrists. Moreover, given the choice between a more centrist and more extreme candidate, they strongly prefer extremists: Democrats do so by about 2 to 1 and Republicans by 10 to 1. Likewise, in open-ended questions, Democratic Party leaders are twice as likely to say they look for extreme candidates relative to centrists; Republican Party leaders are five times as likely. Potentially driving these partisan differences, Republican leaders are especially likely to believe that extremists can win general elections and overestimate the electorate's conservatism by double digits

Density-Dependence as a Size-Independent Regulatory Mechanism

The growth function of populations is central in biomathematics. The main dogma is the existence of density dependence mechanisms, which can be modelled with distinct functional forms that depend on the size of the population. One important class of regulatory functions is the $\theta$-logistic, which generalises the logistic equation. Using this model as a motivation, this paper introduces a simple dynamical reformulation that generalises many growth functions. The reformulation consists of two equations, one for population size, and one for the growth rate. Furthermore, the model shows that although population is density-dependent, the dynamics of the growth rate does not depend either on population size, nor on the carrying capacity. Actually, the growth equation is uncoupled from the population size equation, and the model has only two parameters, a Malthusian parameter $\rho$ and a competition coefficient $\theta$. Distinct sign combinations of these parameters reproduce not only the family of $\theta$-logistics, but also the van Bertalanffy, Gompertz and Potential Growth equations, among other possibilities. It is also shown that, except for two critical points, there is a general size-scaling relation that includes those appearing in the most important allometric theories, including the recently proposed Metabolic Theory of Ecology. With this model, several issues of general interest are discussed such as the growth of animal population, extinctions, cell growth and allometry, and the effect of environment over a population.Comment: 41 Pages, 5 figures Submitted to JT

Overcoming status quo bias in the human brain

Humans often accept the status quo when faced with conflicting choice alternatives. However, it is unknown how neural pathways connecting cognition with action modulate this status quo acceptance. Here we developed a visual detection task in which subjects tended to favor the default when making difficult, but not easy, decisions. This bias was suboptimal in that more errors were made when the default was accepted. A selective increase in subthalamic nucleus (STN) activity was found when the status quo was rejected in the face of heightened decision difficulty. Analysis of effective connectivity showed that inferior frontal cortex, a region more active for difficult decisions, exerted an enhanced modulatory influence on the STN during switches away from the status quo. These data suggest that the neural circuits required to initiate controlled, nondefault actions are similar to those previously shown to mediate outright response suppression. We conclude that specific prefrontal-basal ganglia dynamics are involved in rejecting the default, a mechanism that may be important in a range of difficult choice scenarios

Correction: Martínez-González, M.A. et al. Transferability of the Mediterranean Diet to Non-Mediterranean Countries. What Is and What Is Not the Mediterranean Diet. Nutrients 2017, 9, 1226

The authors have requested that the following changes be made to their paper [1]

Will to live in older people’s medical decisions: immediate and delayed effects of aging stereotypes

This research explores the duration of age stereotype priming effects on individuals’ will to live when faced with a medical terminal illness decision. Study 1 established the content of the stereotype of the older age group in Portugal. Study 2 tested the effects of priming positive or negative age stereotypes on older and younger individuals’ will to live, immediately after priming or after a delay. Results showed significant effects of stereotype valence on older people’s will to live. As expected, immediate and delayed will-to-live scores were both lower in the negative than in the positive condition. In contrast, among younger people there were no significant effects of stereotype valence. These findings demonstrate the robustness of these types of unconscious influences on older people’s fundamental decisions

The risk of incident depression when assessed with the Lifestyle and Well-Being Index.

OBJECTIVES Novel findings indicate links between unhealthy lifestyles and depression based on active inflammatory processes. Thus, identifying participants with poor habits could reveal differences in trends of incident depression. This study aimed to examine the association between an objective lifestyle assessment, as measured by the Lifestyle and Well-Being Index (LWB-I), and incident depression in healthy participants of a Spanish cohort. STUDY DESIGN This was a longitudinal analysis of a subsample of 10,063 participants from the Seguimiento Universidad de Navarra cohort study. METHODS Group comparisons and Cox proportional hazard models were conducted using the LWB-I, which categorizes the sample into groups with healthy and unhealthy lifestyles and well-being. The main outcome was incident depression as well as secondary outcomes. RESULTS Those classified to the transition category of LWB-I were associated with a hazard ratio of 0.67 (95% confidence interval: 0.52-0.87), and those in the excellent category showed a hazard ratio of 0.44 (95% confidence interval: 0.33-0.58), which in both groups reflects a significantly lower risk of incident depression compared with the group including those classified in the poor LWB-I level. Moreover, the available sensitivity analyses concerning time of depression diagnosis or antidepressant treatment further supported the role of nutrition and physical activity on incident depression. Interestingly, throughout the follow-up, incident depression was inversely related to healthier daily habits as measured by the LWB-I. CONCLUSIONS A global assessment of lifestyles such as the LWB-I provides valuable insight into the complex relationship between lifestyle factors and their link to depression risk

Forces During Bacteriophage DNA Packaging and Ejection

The conjunction of insights from structural biology, solution biochemistry, genetics and single molecule biophysics has provided a renewed impetus for the construction of quantitative models of biological processes. One area that has been a beneficiary of these experimental techniques is the study of viruses. In this paper we describe how the insights obtained from such experiments can be utilized to construct physical models of processes in the viral life cycle. We focus on dsDNA bacteriophages and show that the bending elasticity of DNA and its electrostatics in solution can be combined to determine the forces experienced during packaging and ejection of the viral genome. Furthermore, we quantitatively analyze the effect of fluid viscosity and capsid expansion on the forces experienced during packaging. Finally, we present a model for DNA ejection from bacteriophages based on the hypothesis that the energy stored in the tightly packed genome within the capsid leads to its forceful ejection. The predictions of our model can be tested through experiments in vitro where DNA ejection is inhibited by the application of external osmotic pressure

Association between an oxidative balance score and mortality: a prospective analysis in the SUN cohort

We aimed to prospectively investigate the association of an overall oxidative balance score (OBS) with all-cause death and cause-specifc mortality among participants in the Seguimiento Universidad de Navarra (SUN) Study, a Mediterranean cohort of Spanish graduates. Methods Using baseline information on 12 a priori selected dietary and non-dietary lifestyle pro- and antioxidants exposures—vitamins C and E, β-carotenes, selenium, zinc, heme iron, polyphenols, total antioxidant capacity, body mass index, alcohol, smoking, and physical activity—we constructed an equally weighted OBS categorized into quartiles, with higher scores representing greater antioxidant balance. Cox proportional hazards models were ftted to evaluate the association between the OBS and mortality. Results A total of 18,561 participants (mean [SD] age, 38.5 [12.4] years; 40.8% males) were included in the analysis. During a median follow-up of 12.2 years (interquartile range 8.3–14.9), 421 deaths were identifed, including 80 deaths from cardiovascular disease (CVD), 215 from cancer, and 126 from other causes. After adjustment for potential confounders, the hazard ratios and 95% confdence interval (CIs) between the highest quartile (predominance of antioxidants) vs. the lowest quartile (reference category) were 0.35 (95% CI 0.22–0.54, P-trend<0.001) for all-cause mortality, 0.18 (95% CI 0.06–0.51, P-trend=0.001) for CVD mortality, 0.35 (95% CI 0.19–0.65, P-trend=0.002) for cancer mortality, and 0.45 (95% CI 0.20–1.02, P-trend=0.054) for other-cause mortality. Conclusion Our fndings suggest a strong inverse association between the OBS and all-cause, CVD, and cancer mortality. Individuals exposed to both antioxidant dietary and lifestyle factors may potentially experience the lowest mortality riskOpen Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. The SUN Project has received funding from the Spanish Government-Instituto de Salud Carlos III, and the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) (RD 06/0045, CIBER-OBN, Grants PI10/02658, PI10/02293, PI13/00615, PI14/01668, PI14/01798, PI14/01764, PI17/01795, and G03/140), the Navarra Regional Government (27/2011, 45/2011, 122/2014), the Government Delegation for the National Drug Plan (2020/ 021) and the University of Navarra. Maria Soledad Hershey receives ERC traininggrant support (T42 OH008416

The risk of incident depression when assessed with the lifestyle and well-being index

Objectives: Novel findings indicate links between unhealthy lifestyles and depression based on active inflammatory processes. Thus, identifying participants with poor habits could reveal differences in trends of incident depression. This study aimed to examine the association between an objective lifestyle assessment, as measured by the Lifestyle and Well-Being Index (LWB-I), and incident depression in healthy participants of a Spanish cohort. Study design: This was a longitudinal analysis of a subsample of 10,063 participants from the Seguimiento Universidad de Navarra cohort study. Methods: Group comparisons and Cox proportional hazard models were conducted using the LWB-I, which categorizes the sample into groups with healthy and unhealthy lifestyles and well-being. The main outcome was incident depression as well as secondary outcomes. Results: Those classified to the transition category of LWB-I were associated with a hazard ratio of 0.67 (95% confidence interval: 0.52-0.87), and those in the excellent category showed a hazard ratio of 0.44 (95% confidence interval: 0.33-0.58), which in both groups reflects a significantly lower risk of incident depression compared with the group including those classified in the poor LWB-I level. Moreover, the available sensitivity analyses concerning time of depression diagnosis or antidepressant treatment further supported the role of nutrition and physical activity on incident depression. Interestingly, throughout the follow-up, incident depression was inversely related to healthier daily habits as measured by the LWB-I. Conclusions: A global assessment of lifestyles such as the LWB-I provides valuable insight into the complex relationship between lifestyle factors and their link to depression risk.Funding was received from the Spanish Government-Instituto de Salud Carlos III , the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER; RD 06/0045, CIBER-OBN, grants PI10/02658, PI10/02293, PI13/00615, PI14/01668, PI14/01798, PI14/01764, PI17/01795, PI20/00564 and G03/140), the Navarra Regional Government (27/2011, 45/2011, 122/2014), the National Plan on Drugs (2020/021), and the University of Navarra