1,177 research outputs found
When do political parties prioritize labour?:Issue attention between party competition and interest group power
This article analyses the conditions under which political parties pay attention to labour issues. It compares the dominant partisan perspective, which proposes that attention to issues is shaped by party competition, to an interest group perspective, which proposes that strong interest groups, in particular when their power is institutionalized in corporatist systems, can force parties to pay attention to their issue. We use the Comparative Agenda Project data set of election manifestos to examine these patterns in seven West European countries and corroborate our findings in the Comparative Manifesto Project data set for 25 countries. The evidence supports the interest group perspective over the partisan perspective. This shows that the study of party attention to issues should not isolate party competition from the influence of other political actors
When do political parties prioritize labour? Issue attention between party competition and interest group power
This article analyses the conditions under which political parties spend attention to labour issues. This article compares the dominant partisan perspective, which proposes that attention to issues is shaped by party competition, to an interest group perspective, which proposes that strong interest groups, in particular when their power is institutionalized in corporatist systems, can force parties to spend attention to their issue. We use the Comparative Agenda Project data set of election manifestos to examine these patterns in seven West-European countries and corroborate our findings in the Comparative Manifesto Project data set for 25 countries. The evidence supports the interest group perspective over the partisan perspective. This shows that the study of party attention to issues should not isolate party competition from the influence of other political actors.Institutions, Decisions and Collective Behaviou
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Issue evolution and the remaking of partisan alignments in a European multiparty system: elite and mass repositioning in Denmark 1968-2011
Issue evolution is a well-established theoretical perspective in the analysis of long-term party competition and partisanship in the US. However, this perspective has rarely been used to analyze political elite effects on partisan polarization in European multiparty systems. Consequently, I apply the issue evolution perspective to polarization in a European multiparty system. I find an emergence of cultural issues in Denmark, where mass level polarization on cultural issues followed elite level polarization. Unlike two-party systems, niche parties drive issue evolution on the elite level, which is then followed by niche partisan polarization and, finally, mainstream party adaption. The findings illustrate the mechanisms of issue evolution in a European-style multiparty system and the role of niche parties
"Wet-to-Dry" Conformational Transition of Polymer Layers Grafted to Nanoparticles in Nanocomposite
The present communication reports the first direct measurement of the
conformation of a polymer corona grafted around silica nano-particles dispersed
inside a nanocomposite, a matrix of the same polymer. This measurement
constitutes an experimental breakthrough based on a refined combination of
chemical synthesis, which permits to match the contribution of the neutron
silica signal inside the composite, and the use of complementary scattering
methods SANS and SAXS to extract the grafted polymer layer form factor from the
inter-particles silica structure factor. The modelization of the signal of the
grafted polymer on nanoparticles inside the matrix and the direct comparison
with the form factor of the same particles in solution show a clear-cut change
of the polymer conformation from bulk to the nanocomposite: a transition from a
stretched and swollen form in solution to a Gaussian conformation in the matrix
followed with a compression of a factor two of the grafted corona. In the
probed range, increasing the interactions between the grafted particles (by
increasing the particle volume fraction) or between the grafted and the free
matrix chains (decreasing the grafted-free chain length ratio) does not
influence the amplitude of the grafted brush compression. This is the first
direct observation of the wet-to-dry conformational transition theoretically
expected to minimize the free energy of swelling of grafted chains in
interaction with free matrix chains, illustrating the competition between the
mixing entropy of grafted and free chains, and the elastic deformation of the
grafted chains. In addition to the experimental validation of the theoretical
prediction, this result constitutes a new insight for the nderstanding of the
general problem of dispersion of nanoparticles inside a polymer matrix for the
design of new nanocomposites materials
Privacy-Preserving Observation in Public Spaces
One method of privacy-preserving accounting or billing in cyber-physical systems, such as electronic toll collection or public transportation ticketing, is to have the user present an encrypted record of transactions and perform the accounting or billing computation securely on them. Honesty of the user is ensured by spot checking the record for some selected surveyed transactions. But how much privacy does that give the user, i.e. how many transactions need to be surveyed? It turns out that due to collusion in mass surveillance all transactions need to be observed, i.e. this method of spot checking provides no privacy at all. In this paper we present a cryptographic solution to the spot checking problem in cyber-physical systems. Users carry an authentication device that authenticates only based on fair random coins. The probability can be set high enough to allow for spot checking, but in all other cases privacy is perfectly preserved. We analyze our protocol for computational efficiency and show that it can be efficiently implemented even on plat- forms with limited computing resources, such as smart cards and smart phones
Relationship between Structure, Entropy and Diffusivity in Water and Water-like Liquids
Anomalous behaviour of the excess entropy () and the associated scaling
relationship with diffusivity are compared in liquids with very different
underlying interactions but similar water-like anomalies: water (SPC/E and
TIP3P models), tetrahedral ionic melts (SiO and BeF) and a fluid with
core-softened, two-scale ramp (2SRP) interactions. We demonstrate the presence
of an excess entropy anomaly in the two water models. Using length and energy
scales appropriate for onset of anomalous behaviour, the density range of the
excess entropy anomaly is shown to be much narrower in water than in ionic
melts or the 2SRP fluid. While the reduced diffusivities () conform to the
excess entropy scaling relation, for all the systems
(Y. Rosenfeld, Phys. Rev. A {\bf 1977}, {\it 15}, 2545), the exponential
scaling parameter, , shows a small isochore-dependence in the case of
water. Replacing by pair correlation-based approximants accentuates the
isochore-dependence of the diffusivity scaling. Isochores with similar
diffusivity scaling parameters are shown to have the temperature dependence of
the corresponding entropic contribution. The relationship between diffusivity,
excess entropy and pair correlation approximants to the excess entropy are very
similar in all the tetrahedral liquids.Comment: 24 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Journal of Physical Chemistry
Mapping an atlas of tissue-specific drosophila melanogaster metabolomes by high resolution mass spectrometry
Metabolomics can provide exciting insights into organismal function, but most work on simple models has focussed on the whole organism metabolome, so missing the contributions of individual tissues. Comprehensive metabolite profiles for ten tissues from adult Drosophila melanogaster were obtained here by two chromatographic methods, a hydrophilic interaction (HILIC) method for polar metabolites and a lipid profiling method also based on HILIC, in combination with an Orbitrap Exactive instrument. Two hundred and forty two polar metabolites were putatively identified in the various tissues, and 251 lipids were observed in positive ion mode and 61 in negative ion mode. Although many metabolites were detected in all tissues, every tissue showed characteristically abundant metabolites which could be rationalised against specific tissue functions. For example, the cuticle contained high levels of glutathione, reflecting a role in oxidative defence; the alimentary canal (like vertebrate gut) had high levels of acylcarnitines for fatty acid metabolism, and the head contained high levels of ether lipids. The male accessory gland uniquely contained decarboxylated S-adenosylmethionine. These data thus both provide valuable insights into tissue function, and a reference baseline, compatible with the FlyAtlas.org transcriptomic resource, for further metabolomic analysis of this important model organism, for example in the modelling of human inborn errors of metabolism, aging or metabolic imbalances such as diabetes
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