Campaign effects on voter choice in the German election of 1990

'Anhand von Panel-Daten, die bei einer Umfrage in Deutschland während des Bundestagswahlkampfs 1990 erhoben wurden, entwickeln wir ein Modell zur Beurteilung der Wirkung des Wahlkampfes auf das individuelle Wahlverhalten und das Wahlergebnis. Unsere Ergebnisse entsprachen den Untersuchungen von Lazarsfeld et al. aus den 40er Jahren und der neueren amerikanischen Forschung. Wir fanden heraus, daß die Wirkung des Wahlkampfes auf deutsche Wähler vor allem in der Verstärkung früherer Präferenzen und der Aktivierung latenter Wahl-Dispositionen bestand, die auf grundlegenden individuellen Einstellungen wie Parteizugehörigkeit und Rechts-Links-Ideologie beruhen. Zugleich zeigt die Analyse, daß die Anzahl der Personen, die entgegen ihren Dispositionen und früheren Präferenzen ihre Stimme abgaben, annähernd 14 Prozent der Wählerschaft ausmacht. Davon war der Anteil der Pro-Regierungs-Entscheidungen überwältigend groß. Deshalb nehmen wir an, daß der Bundestagswahlkampf von 1990 den von der ursprünglichen Disposition der Wählerschaft aus gesehen gleichstarken Wettstreit in einen soliden Sieg der Regierungskoalition umwandelte. Die Ergebnisse werden hinsichtlich ihrer theoretischen und normativen Implikationen diskutiert.' (HSübers)'Using national survey panel data collected in Germany during the 1990 Bundestag election campaign, we develop a model to assess the effect of the campaign on individual votes and the election outcome. We find that the dominant effects of the campaign on German voters, as in the Lazarsfeld et al. studies from the 1940s and in more recent U.S. research, were the 'reinforcement' of earlier preferences and the 'activation' of latent vote dispositions based on fundamental individual attitudes such as party affiliation and left-right ideology. At the same time, the analysis shows that the number of campaign converts, those who vote against their dispositions and prior preferences, was approximately 14 percent of the electorate. The vote division among these individuals was overwhelmingly pro-government, suggesting that the 1990 German campaign altered a sufficient number of votes to turn what was an even contest, based on the electorate's initial political dispositions, into a solid government coalition victory. The results are discussed in terms of their theoretical as well as normative implications.' (authotr's abstract

Wählerstimmen durch Wahlkämpfe? Eine Analyse der Bundestagswahl 1990

'Mit Paneldaten zur Bundestagswahl 1990 testen wir ein Modell, das entwickelt wurde, um Wahlkampfeffekte auf das individuelle Wahlverhalten und den Wahlausgang zu messen. Die dominanten Effekte im deutschen Wahlkampf sind einerseits die 'Verstärkung' von vorhandenen Präferenzen und andererseits die 'Aktivierung' latenter Wahldispositionen, die auf solch fundamentalen individuellen Eigenschaften wie Parteieneingang und Links-Rechts-Einschätzung basieren. Diese Befunde bestätigen die Lazarsfeld et. al. Studien der frühen vierziger Jahre und auch neuere Wahlstudien in den USA. Gleichzeitig zeigen die Analysen, daß immerhin 13 Prozent der Wähler im Laufe des Wahlkampfes 'konvertierten', d. h. anders als bei ihren ursprünglichen politischen Einstellungen und Wahlabsichten stimmten. Diese Verschiebung war zugunsten der Regierung und wohl dafür verantwortlich, daß ein anfängliches Kopf-an-Kopf-Rennen in einem soliden Sieg der Regierungskoalition mündete.' (Autorenreferat)'Using national survey panel data collected in Germany during the 1990 federal election campaign, we develop a model to assess the effect of the campaign on individual votes and the election outcome. We find that dominant effects of the campaign on German voters were the 'reinforcement' of earlier preferences and the 'activation' of latent vote dispositions based on fundamental individual attitudes such as party affiliations and left-right ideology. At the same time, the analysis shows that the number of campaign converts, those who vote against their dispositions and prior preferences, was approximately 13 per cent of the electorate. The vote division among these individuals was overwhelmingly pro-government, suggesting that the 1990 German campaign altered a sufficient number of votes to turn what was an even contest, based on the electrorate's initial dispositions, into a solid government coalition victory. The results are discussed in terms of their theoretical as well as normative implications.' (author's abstract)

Surface velocity fields of active rock glaciers and ice-debris complexes in the Central Andes of Argentina

Rock glaciers and transitional ice-debris complexes predominate the Central Andean landform assemblage, yet regional studies on their state of activity and their kinematics remain sparse. Here we utilize the national glacier inventory of Argentina to quantify surface velocity fields of 244 rock glaciers and 51 ice-debris complexes, located in the Cordón del Plata range, Argentina. Applying a feature-tracking approach to repeated RapidEye satellite imagery acquired between 2010 and 2017/18, we find mean displacement rates between 0.37 and 2.61 m year−1 for 149 landforms, while for the remaining 146 features, surface movement remains below our level of detection. We compare our satellite-derived velocity fields with ground-truth data from two local field sites and find closely matching results in magnitude and spatial distribution. With average displacement of one-third of the active rock glaciers and ice-debris complexes exceeding 1 m year−1, the region hosts an exceptional number of fast-flowing periglacial landforms, compared to other mountain belts. Using a random forest model, we test the predictive power of 25 morphometric and topoclimatic candidate predictors for modelling the state of activity of rock glaciers and ice-debris complexes on two different scales. For entire landforms and individual landform segments, constructed along displacement centrelines, we can predict the state of activity with overall accuracies of 70.08% (mean AUROC = 0.785) and 74.86% (mean AUROC = 0.753), respectively. While topoclimatic parameters such as solar radiation and elevation are most important for entire landforms, geometric parameters become more important at the scale of landform segments. Despite tentative correlations between local slope and surface kinematics, our results point to factors integrating slope and distance to the source to govern local deformation. We conclude that feature tracking in optical imagery is feasible for regional studies in remote regions and provides valuable insight into the current state of the Andean cryosphere.Fil: Blöthe, Jan Henrik. Universitat Bonn; AlemaniaFil: Halla, Christian. Universitat Bonn; AlemaniaFil: Schwalbe, Ellen. Technische Universität Dresden; AlemaniaFil: Bottegal, Estefania Laura. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales. Provincia de Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales; ArgentinaFil: Trombotto, Dario Tomas. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales. Provincia de Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales; ArgentinaFil: Schrott, Lothar. Universitat Bonn; Alemani

Contemporary geomorphological activity throughout the proglacial area of an alpine catchment

Quantification of contemporary geomorphological activity is a fundamental prerequisite for predicting the effects of future earth surface process and landscape development changes. However, there is a lack of high-resolution spatial and temporal data on geomorphological activity within alpine catchments, which are especially sensitive to climate change, human impacts and which are amongst the most dynamic landscapes on Earth. This study used data from repeated laser scanning to identify and quantify the distribution of contemporary sediment sources and the intensity of geomorphological activity within the lower part of a glaciated alpine catchment; Ödenwinkelkees, central Austria. Spatially, geomorphological activity was discriminated by substrate class. Activity decreased in both areal extent and intensity with distance from the glacier, becoming progressively more restricted to the fluvially-dominated valley floor. Temporally, geomorphological activity was identified on annual, seasonal, weekly and daily timescales. Activity became more extensive with increasing study duration but more intense over shorter timescales, thereby demonstrating the importance of temporary storage of sediment within the catchment. The mean volume of material moved within the proglacial zone was 4400m.yr, which suggests a net surface lowering of 34mm.yr in this part of the catchment. We extrapolate a minimum of 4.8mm.yr net surface lowering across the whole catchment. These surface lowering values are approximately twice those calculated elsewhere from contemporary measurements of suspended sediment flux, and of rates calculated from the geological record, perhaps because we measure total geomorphological activity within the catchment rather than overall efflux of material. Repeated geomorphological surveying therefore appears to mitigate the problems of hydrological studies underestimating sediment fluxes on decadal-annual time-scales. Further development of the approach outlined in this study will enable the quantification of geomorphological activity, alpine terrain stability and persistence of landforms

Trends in Metal Oxide Stability for Nanorods, Nanotubes, and Surfaces

The formation energies of nanostructures play an important role in determining their properties, including the catalytic activity. For the case of 15 different rutile and 8 different perovskite metal oxides, we find that the density functional theory (DFT) calculated formation energies of (2,2) nanorods, (3,3) nanotubes, and the (110) and (100) surfaces may be described semi-quantitatively by the fraction of metal--oxygen bonds broken and the bonding band centers in the bulk metal oxide

A new tool to ensure the fluorescent dye labeling stability of nanocarriers: A real challenge for fluorescence imaging

International audienceNumerous studies on nanocarriers use fluorescent dye labeling to investigate their biodistribution or cellular trafficking. However, when the fluorescence dye is not grafted to the nanocarrier, the question of the stability of the labeling arises. How can it be validated that the fluorescence observed during an experiment corresponds to the nanocarriers, and not to the free dye released from the nanocarriers? Studying the integrity of the labeling is challenging. Therefore, an innovative approach to confirm the labeling stability was developed, based on the transfer of a fluorescent dye from its hosting nanocarrier to a lipophilic compartment. Lipid nanocapsules (LNC) and triglyceride oil were used as models. The protocol involved mixing of LNC suspension and oil, and then separation by centrifugation. The quality of the separation was controlled by light scattering, using the derived count rate tool. Dye transfer from loaded LNCs to the lipophilic compartment or from a lipophilic compartment containing dye to non-loaded LNC was investigated by varying the nature of the dye and the oil, the oil volume and the LNC dilution. Tensiometry was used to define the dye location in the nanocarrier. Results showed that when dyes such as Nile Red and Coumarin-6 are located in oily core, the transfer occurred in a partition-dependent manner. In contrast, when the dye was entrapped in the surfactant shell of LNCs such as lipophilic indocarbocyanines (i.e. DiO, DiI and DiD), no transfer was observed. Dye diffusion was also observed in cell culture, with Nile Red inside lipid bodies of HEI-OC1 cells, without uptake of LNCs. In contrast, DiO-loaded LNCs had to be internalized to observe fluorescence inside the cells, providing a further confirmation of the absence of transfer in this case, and the stability of fluorescence labeling of the LNCs