Credibility and Policy Convergence: Evidence from U.S. House Roll Call Voting Records

Traditional models of politician behavior predict complete or partial policy convergence, whereby electoral competition compels partisan politicians to choose positions more moderate than their most-preferred policies. Alternatively, if politicians cannot overcome the inability to make binding pre-commitments to policies, the expected result is complete policy divergence. By exploiting a regression discontinuity (RD) design inherent in the Congressional electoral system, this paper empirically tests the strong predictions of the complete divergence hypothesis against the alternative of partial convergence within the context of Representatives' roll call voting behavior in the U.S. House (1946-1994). The RD design implies that which party wins a district seat is quasi-randomly assigned among elections that turn out to be 'close'. We use this variation to examine if Representatives' roll call voting patterns do not respond to large exogenous changes in the probability of winning the election, the strong prediction of complete policy divergence. The evidence is more consistent with full divergence and less consistent with partial convergence, suggestive that the difficulty of establishing credible commitments to policies is an important real-world phenomenon.

Land of woke and glory? The conceptualisation and framing of 'wokeness' in UK media and public discourses. [Presentation]

Though the term originated in the 1960s, it is only relatively recently that the concept of 'woke' became a staple of public discourse in Britain. Often it is alluded to as exemplifying or opposing British values and identity. Particularly where there appears to be a conflict between modernity and aspects of the nation's colonial past, such as was evident in narratives around the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston. It also features during commentaries and exchanges relating to institutional power, censorship, and minority rights/representation, including LGBT issues and the existence of cultural appropriation and structural racism - i.e. 'culture wars' discourses. Curiously, polling shows inconsistency in understanding and relating to the notion of being 'woke' and its implications. The current project aims to combine a critical discourse analysis of posts on a social media platform and coverage in mainstream UK press. We supplement these with a thematic analysis of a questionnaire issued to the public, asking them to personally define and exemplify what is it to be ‘woke'. Across these three data sets, we explore how ‘wokeness' is conceptualised by the press and public to understand better the term's shared meaning and utility

The ultimate test of self-discipline: lockdown and the NoFap community.

NoFap is a community of mostly heterosexual men abstaining from what they see as an addictive cycle of pornography, masturbation, and orgasm, induced by the exploitation of innate male urges by the pornography industry. In the general population, increased masturbation and consumption of pornography are associated with psychological factors including low affect, loneliness, and boredom, all of which may be exacerbated by the lockdown/social distancing measures adopted in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The present study explores how the NoFap community has responded to the pandemic through discourse analysis of an online message board. We identify four key themes: i) I let go in lockdown, ii) the opportunity of lockdown, iii) testing the parameters of NoFap, and iv) community cohesion. Each is defined and discussed. Combined they illustrate a digital community struggling to honor its meritocratic masculine ideals in the face of challenging circumstances

Ligand biological activity predicted by cleaning positive and negative chemical correlations.

Predicting ligand biological activity is a key challenge in drug discovery. Ligand-based statistical approaches are often hampered by noise due to undersampling: The number of molecules known to be active or inactive is vastly less than the number of possible chemical features that might determine binding. We derive a statistical framework inspired by random matrix theory and combine the framework with high-quality negative data to discover important chemical differences between active and inactive molecules by disentangling undersampling noise. Our model outperforms standard benchmarks when tested against a set of challenging retrospective tests. We prospectively apply our model to the human muscarinic acetylcholine receptor M1, finding four experimentally confirmed agonists that are chemically dissimilar to all known ligands. The hit rate of our model is significantly higher than the state of the art. Our model can be interpreted and visualized to offer chemical insights about the molecular motifs that are synergistic or antagonistic to M1 agonism, which we have prospectively experimentally verified

Study on hardness and wear resistance of shot peened AA7075-T6 aluminum alloy

AA7075-T6 aluminum alloy samples were shot peened at various shot peening pressures in the range of 10-70 psi to study their mechanical and tribological properties under dry and mineral oil lubrication conditions. The surface roughness of the shot peened AA7075-T6 samples apparently increased with increased shot peening pressure. The best bearing surface was obtained when the shot peening process was carried out at the highest shot peening pressure of 70 psi. It was found that the increased shot peening pressure increased the hardness and decreased the wear of the shot peened samples. The shot peened samples tested under the mineral oil lubrication condition also had lower wear for higher shot peening pressures due to the combined effects of their higher surface wear resistance and better bearing surfaces. The results clearly showed that using the mineral oil lubricant during sliding apparently decreased the wear of the shot peened samples as a result of the lubricating effect of the lubricant. It could be deduced that the tribological properties of the shot peened AA7075-T6 samples under the dry and lubrication conditions were affected by the shot peening pressur

An investigation of the properties of conventional and severe shot peened low alloy steel

The effects of the conventional shot peening and severe shot peening process on the mechanical and tribological properties of shot peened AISI 4340 high strength steel were systematically investigated. Comparing with the conventional shot peened sample, the ultrafine grain surface layer with a depth of about 20 μm generated by the severe shot peening process can enhance the hardness and wear resistance of the treated material. However, deeper dimples generated by the high media velocity in the severe shot peening process resulted in a higher surface roughness, which is considered as a side effect of this method reducing the fatigue life of the material. Applying a smaller shot size with an appropriate intensity can be used to peen the severe shot peened samples to not only reduce the surface roughness and friction coefficient but also improve the wear resistance for these samples

Transcription factor expression dynamics of early T-lymphocyte specification and commitment

Mammalian T lymphocytes are a prototype for development from adult pluripotent stem cells. While T-cell specification is driven by Notch signaling, T-lineage commitment is only finalized after prolonged Notch activation. However, no T-lineage specific regulatory factor has been reported that mediates commitment. We used a gene-discovery approach to identify additional candidate T-lineage transcription factors and characterized expression of > 100 regulatory genes in early T-cell precursors using realtime RT-PCR. These regulatory genes were also monitored in multilineage precursors as they entered T-cell or non-T-cell pathways in vitro; in non-T cells ex vivo; and in later T-cell developmental stages after lineage commitment. At least three major expression patterns were observed. Transcription factors in the largest group are expressed at relatively stable levels throughout T-lineage specification as a legacy from prethymic precursors, with some continuing while others are downregulated after commitment. Another group is highly expressed in the earliest stages only, and is downregulated before or during commitment. Genes in a third group undergo upregulation at one of three distinct transitions, suggesting a positive regulatory cascade. However, the transcription factors induced during commitment are not T-lineage specific. Different members of the same transcription factor family can follow opposite trajectories during specification and commitment, while factors co-expressed early can be expressed in divergent patterns in later T-cell development. Some factors reveal new regulatory distinctions between αβ and γδ T-lineage differentiation. These results show that T-cell identity has an essentially complex regulatory basis and provide a detailed framework for regulatory network modeling of T-cell specification