Tea Party movement, the conservative establishment and the collapse of climate change legislation

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 42-53).The Tea Party movement, which derives its name and revolutionary zeal from the 1773 Boston Tea Party anti-tax protest, emerged in response to the Obama Administration's economic stimulus package and later coalesced around opposition to universal health care, union collective bargaining rights, and raising the debt ceiling. In a less visible fashion, however, the movement has also set its sights on another target-environmental regulation. In fact, the Tea Party played an important but little-noticed role in preventing the passage of comprehensive energy and climate change legislation. Tea Party campaigns against the Senate's American Power Act 2010, or Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill, pressured Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to withdraw support for the bill, demonized the cap-and- trade approach to regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and reinvigorated skepticism about climate-change science. A closer examination of these campaigns reveals that the Tea Party is motivated by an antiregulatory ethos, rooted in response to anti-New Deal liberalism and anti- Communism, that is not marginal or extreme, but consistent with that of the Republican Party. The uprising is, therefore, a manifestation of the conservative establishment's rightward shift-a move propelled by a network of entrenched free-market advocacy groups, think tanks, charitable foundations, industry interests, and mainstream conservative media. This dynamic conservative network-defined by the unique role of Koch Industries and the climate change "denial machine"-has largely enabled the Tea Party's success. The future of the Tea Party is uncertain and several factors suggest that the wave of populist fervor may have crested. However, even if protests subside, the Tea Party's antiregulatory ethos is likely to endure as part of the Republican Party's increasing conservatism.by Kathryn P. Dineen.M.C.P

Pancreatoduodenectomy with or without Pyloric Preservation: A Clinical Outcomes Comparison

Pyloric preservation (PP) can frequently be performed at the time of pancreatoduodenectomy (PD), although some reports have linked it to inferior outcomes such as delayed gastric emptying (DGE). We reviewed records in a single-surgeon practice to assess outcomes after PD with or without PP. There were 133 PDs with 67 PPPDs and 66 PDs. Differences between PPPD and PD groups included cancer frequency, tumor size, OR time, blood loss, and transfusion rate. However, postoperative morbidity rate and grade, NG tube duration, NGT reinsertion rate, DGE, and length of stay were similar. There was no difference among patients with pancreatic cancer. No detrimental outcomes are associated with pyloric preservation during PD. Greater intraoperative ease and superior survival in the PPPD group are due to confounding, tumor-related variables in this nonrandomized comparison. Nevertheless, we intend to continue the use of PP with our technique in patients who meet the stated criteria

Graph Theoretic Analysis of Brain Connectomics in Multiple Sclerosis: Reliability and Relationship to Cognition

Research suggests that disruption of brain networks might explain cognitive deficits in multiple sclerosis (MS). The reliability and effectiveness of graph-theoretic network metrics as measures of cognitive performance were tested in 37 people with MS and 23 controls. Specifically, relationships to cognitive performance (linear regression against the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test [PASAT-3], Symbol Digit Modalities Test [SDMT] and Attention Network Test [ANT]) and one-month reliability (using the intra-class correlation coefficient [ICC]) of network metrics were measured using both resting-state functional and diffusion MRI data. Cognitive impairment was directly related to measures of brain network segregation and inversely related to network integration (prediction of PASAT-3 by small-worldness, modularity, characteristic path length, R2=0.55; prediction of SDMT by small-worldness, global efficiency and characteristic path length, R2=0.60). Reliability of the measures over one month in a subset of 9 participants was mostly rated as good (ICC>0.6) for both controls and MS patients in both functional and diffusion data but was highly dependent on the chosen parcellation and graph density, with the 0.2-0.5 density range being the most reliable. This suggests that disrupted network organisation predicts cognitive impairment in MS and its measurement is reliable over a 1-month period. These new findings support the hypothesis of network disruption as a major determinant of cognitive deficits in MS and the future possibility of the application of derived metrics as surrogate outcomes in trials of therapies for cognitive impairment

Functionally relevant white matter degradation in multiple sclerosis: a tract-based spatial meta-analysis

Purpose To identify statistical consensus between published studies for distribution and functional relevance of tract white matter (WM) degradation in multiple sclerosis (MS). Materials and Methods By systematically searching online databases, tract-based spatial statistics studies were identified that compared fractional anisotropy (FA; a marker for WM integrity) in MS patients to healthy control subjects, correlated FA in MS patients with physical disability, or correlated FA in MS patients with cognitive performance. Voxelwise meta-analysis was performed by using the Signed Differential Mapping method for each comparison. Moderating effects of mean age, mean physical disability score, imager magnet strength, lesion load, and number of diffusion directions were assessed by means of meta-regression. Results Meta-analysis was performed on data from 495 patients and 253 control subjects across 12 studies. MS diagnosis was significantly associated with widespread lower tract FA (nine studies; largest cluster, 4379 voxels; z = 7.1; P < .001). Greater physical disability was significantly associated with lower FA in the right posterior cingulum, left callosal splenium, right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, and left fornix crus (six studies; 323 voxels; z = 1.7; P = .001). Impaired cognition was significantly associated with lower FA in the callosal genu, thalamus, right posterior cingulum, and fornix crus (seven studies; largest cluster, 980 voxels; z = 2.5; P < .001). Conclusion WM damage is widespread in MS with differential and only minimally overlapping distributions of low FA that relates to physical disability and cognitive impairment. The higher number of clusters of lower FA in relation to cognition and their higher z scores suggest that cerebral WM damage may have a greater relevance to cognitive dysfunction than physical disability in MS, and that low anterior callosal and thalamic FA have specific importance to cognitive status

Lesion topography and microscopic white matter tract damage contribute to cognitive impairment in symptomatic carotid artery disease

Purpose: To investigate associations between neuroimaging markers of cerebrovascular disease, including lesion topography and extent and severity of strategic and global cerebral tissue injury, and cognition in carotid artery disease (CAD). Materials and Methods: All participants gave written informed consent to undergo brain magnetic resonance imaging and the Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination–Revised. One hundred eight patients with symptomatic CAD but no dementia were included, and a score less than 82 represented cognitive impairment. Group comparison and interrelations between global cognitive and fluency performance, lesion topography, and ultrastructural damage were assessed with voxel-based statistics. Associations between cognition, medial temporal lobe atrophy (MTA), lesion volumes, and global white matter ultrastructural damage indexed as increased mean diffusivity were tested with regression analysis by controlling for age. Diagnostic accuracy of imaging markers selected from a multivariate prediction model was tested with receiver operating characteristic analysis. Results: Cognitively impaired patients (n = 53 [49.1%], classified as having probable vascular cognitive disorder) were older than nonimpaired patients (P = .027) and had more frequent MTA (P<.001), more cortical infarctions (P = .016), and larger volumes of acute (P = .028) and chronic (P = .009) subcortical ischemic lesions. Lesion volumes did not correlate with global cognitive performance (lacunar infarctions, P = .060; acute lesions, P = .088; chronic subcortical ischemic lesions, P = .085). In contrast, cognitive performance correlated with presence of chronic ischemic lesions within the interhemispheric tracts and thalamic radiation (P< .05, false discovery rate corrected). Skeleton mean diffusivity showed the closest correlation with cognition (R2 = 0.311, P< .001) and promising diagnostic accuracy for vascular cognitive disorder (area under the curve, 0.82 [95% confidence interval: 0.75, 0.90]). Findings were confirmed in subjects with a low risk of preclinical Alzheimer disease indexed by the absence of MTA (n = 85). Conclusion: Subcortical white matter ischemic lesion locations and severity of ultrastructural tract damage contribute to cognitive impairment in symptomatic CAD, which suggests that subcortical disconnection within large-scale cognitive neural networks is a key mechanism of vascular cognitive disorder

Faraday Rotation as a diagnostic of Galactic foreground contamination of CMB maps

The contribution from the residuals of the foreground can have a significant impact on the temperature maps of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Mostly, the focus has been on the galactic plane, when foreground cleaning has taken place. However, in this paper, we will investigate the possible foreground contamination, from sources outside the galactic plane in the CMB maps. We will analyze the correlation between the Faraday rotation map and the CMB temperature map. The Faraday rotation map is dependent on the galactic magnetic field, as well as the thermal electron density, and both may contribute to the CMB temperature. We find that the standard deviation for the mean cross correlation deviate from that of simulations at the 99.9% level. Additionally, a comparison between the CMB temperature extrema and the extremum points of the Faraday rotation is also performed, showing a general overlap between the two. Also we find that the CMB Cold Spot is located at an area of strong negative cross correlation, meaning that it may be explained by a galactic origin. Further, we investigate nearby supernova remnants in the galaxy, traced by the galactic radio loops. These super nova remnants are located at high and low galactic latitude, and thus well outside the galactic plane. We find some correlation between the Faraday Rotation and the CMB temperature, at select radio loops. This indicate, that the galactic foregrounds may affect the CMB, at high galactic latitudesComment: 13 pages, 22 figures, 6 table

Strain evolution in GaN Nanowires: from free-surface objects to coalesced templates

Top-down fabricated GaN nanowires, 250 nm in diameter and with various heights, have been used to experimentally determine the evolution of strain along the vertical direction of 1-dimensional objects. X-ray diffraction and photoluminescence techniques have been used to obtain the strain profile inside the nanowires from their base to their top facet for both initial compressive and tensile strains. The relaxation behaviors derived from optical and structural characterizations perfectly match the numerical results of calculations based on a continuous media approach. By monitoring the elastic relaxation enabled by the lateral free-surfaces, the height from which the nanowires can be considered strain-free has been estimated. Based on this result, NWs sufficiently high to be strain-free have been coalesced to form a continuous GaN layer. X-ray diffraction, photoluminescence and cathodoluminescence clearly show that despite the initial strain-free nanowires template, the final GaN layer is strained

Cross-correlation of the CMB and foregrounds phases derived from the WMAP data

We present circular and linear cross-correlation tests and the "friend-of-friend" analysis for phases of the Internal Linear Combination Map (ILC) and the WMAP foregrounds for all K--W frequency bands at the range of multipoles $\ell\le100$. We compare also Tegmark, de Oliveira-Costa and Hamilton (2003) and Naselsky et al. (2003) cleaned maps with corresponding foregrounds. We have found significant deviations from the expected Poissonian statistics for all the cleaned maps and foregrounds. Our analysis shows that, for a low multipole range of the cleaned maps, power spectra contains some of the foregrounds residuals mainly from the W band.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures. Submitted to MNRA