As a Matter of Factions: The Budgetary Implications of Shifting Factional Control in Japan’s LDP

For 38 years, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) maintained single-party control over the Japanese government. This lack of partisan turnover in government has frustrated attempts to explain Japanese government policy changes using political variables. In this paper, we look for intraparty changes that may have led to changes in Japanese budgetary policy. Using a simple model of agenda-setting, we hypothesize that changes in which intraparty factions “control” the LDP affect the party’s decisions over spending priorities systematically. This runs contrary to the received wisdom in the voluminous literature on LDP factions, which asserts that factions, whatever their raison d’être, do not exhibit different policy preferences. We find that strong correlations do exist between which factions comprise the agenda-setting party “mainstream” and how the government allocates spending across pork-barrel and public goods items

Hydroxy-PCBs, PBDEs, and HBCDDs in serum from an elderly population of Swedish fishermen's wives and associations with bone density

Lack of human exposure data is frequently reported as a critical gap in risk assessments of environmental pollutants, especially regarding "new" pollutants. The objectives of this study were to assess serum levels of the persistent 2,2',4,4',5,5'-hexachlorobiphenyl (CB-153), hydroxylated polychlorinated biphenyl metabolites (OH-PCBs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), and hexabromocyclododecanes (HBCDDs) in a group of Swedish middle-aged and elderly women expected to be relatively highly exposed, and to evaluate the impact of potential determinants (e.g., fish intake, age) for the inter-individual variation, as well as to investigate the association between these pollutants and bone density. No associations were found between bone mineral density or biochemical markers of bone metabolism and the analyzed environmental pollutants. Relatively high levels of CB-153 (median 260 ng/g fat) and Sigma(3)-OH- PCBs (median 1.7 ng/mL serum), and low concentrations of Sigma 6PBDEs (median 3.6 ng/g fat) were determined. Total level of HBCDDs in serum was quantified by gas chromatography with mass spectrometric detection (median 0.5 ng/g fat). HBCDD diastereomeric and enantiomeric patterns were determined by liquid chromatography with mass spectrometric detection. The dominating stereoisomer was (-)alpha-HBCDD, but 1-3% of gamma-HBCDD was also detected in the serum samples

Simulated retreat of Jakobshavn Isbræ since the Little Ice Age controlled by geometry

Rapid retreat of Greenland's marine-terminating glaciers coincides with regional warming trends, which have broadly been used to explain these rapid changes. However, outlet glaciers within similar climate regimes experience widely contrasting retreat patterns, suggesting that the local fjord geometry could be an important additional factor. To assess the relative role of climate and fjord geometry, we use the retreat history of Jakobshavn Isbræ, West Greenland, since the Little Ice Age (LIA) maximum in 1850 as a baseline for the parameterization of a depth- and width-integrated ice flow model. The impact of fjord geometry is isolated by using a linearly increasing climate forcing since the LIA and testing a range of simplified geometries.We find that the total length of retreat is determined by external factors – such as hydrofracturing, submarine melt and buttressing by sea ice – whereas the retreat pattern is governed by the fjord geometry. Narrow and shallow areas provide pinning points and cause delayed but rapid retreat without additional climate warming, after decades of grounding line stability. We suggest that these geometric pinning points may be used to locate potential sites for moraine formation and to predict the long-term response of the glacier. As a consequence, to assess the impact of climate on the retreat history of a glacier, each system has to be analyzed with knowledge of its historic retreat and the local fjord geometry.</p

Subtrochanteric fractures after long-term treatment with bisphosphonates: a European Society on Clinical and Economic Aspects of Osteoporosis and Osteoarthritis, and International Osteoporosis Foundation Working Group Report

Summary: This paper reviews the evidence for an association between atypical subtrochanteric fractures and long-term bisphosphonate use. Clinical case reports/reviews and case-control studies report this association, but retrospective phase III trial analyses show no increased risk. Bisphosphonate use may be associated with atypical subtrochanteric fractures, but the case is yet unproven. Introduction: A Working Group of the European Society on Clinical and Economic Aspects of Osteoporosis and Osteoarthritis and the International Osteoporosis Foundation has reviewed the evidence for a causal association between subtrochanteric fractures and long-term treatment with bisphosphonates, with the aim of identifying areas for further research and providing recommendations for physicians. Methods: A PubMed search of literature from 1994 to May 2010 was performed using key search terms, and articles pertinent to subtrochanteric fractures following bisphosphonate use were analysed. Results: Several clinical case reports and case reviews report a possible association between atypical fractures at the subtrochanteric region of the femur in bisphosphonate-treated patients. Common features of these ‘atypical' fractures include prodromal pain, occurrence with minimal/no trauma, a thickened diaphyseal cortex and transverse fracture pattern. Some small case-control studies report the same association, but a large register-based study and retrospective analyses of phase III trials of bisphosphonates do not show an increased risk of subtrochanteric fractures with bisphosphonate use. The number of atypical subtrochanteric fractures in association with bisphosphonates is an estimated one per 1,000 per year. It is recommended that physicians remain vigilant in assessing their patients treated with bisphosphonates for the treatment or prevention of osteoporosis and advise patients of the potential risks. Conclusions: Bisphosphonate use may be associated with atypical subtrochanteric fractures, but the case is unproven and requires further research. Were the case to be proven, the risk-benefit ratio still remains favourable for use of bisphosphonates to prevent fracture

Behavior of the diffractive cross section in hadron-nucleus collisions

A phenomenological analysis of diffractive dissociation of nuclei in proton-nucleus and meson-nucleus collisions is presented. The theoretical approach employed here is able to take into account at once data of the HELIOS and EHS/NA22 collaborations that exhibit quite different atomic mass dependences. Possible extensions of this approach to hard diffraction in nuclear processes are also discussed.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Direct Photon Production in Heavy Ion Reactions at SPS and RHIC

A review on experimental results for direct photon production in heavy ion reactions is given. A brief survey of early direct photon limits from SPS experiments is presented. The first measurement of direct photons in heavy ion reactions from the WA98 collaboration is discussed and compared to theoretical calculations. An outlook on the perspective of photon measurements at RHIC is given.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, invited talk at ICPA-QGP 2001, Jaipur, India, to be published in PRAMAN

Determination of the LEP beam energy using radiative fermion-pair events

We present a determination of the LEP beam energy using “radiative return” fermion-pair events recorded at centre-of-mass energies from 183 to 209 GeV. We find no evidence of a disagreement between the OPAL data and the LEP Energy Working Group's standard calibration. Including the energy-averaged 11 MeV uncertainty in the standard determination, the beam energy we obtain from the OPAL data is higher than that obtained from the LEP calibration by View the MathML source0±34(stat.)±27(syst.)MeV

Correlations and Fluctuations in High-Energy Nuclear Collisions

Nucleon correlations in the target and projectile nuclei are shown to reduce significantly the fluctuations in multiple nucleon-nucleon collisions, total multiplicity and transverse energy in relativistic heavy-ion collisions, in particular for heavy projectile and target. The interplay between cross-section fluctuations, from color transparency and opacity, and nuclear correlations is calculated and found to be able to account for large fluctuations in transverse energy spectra. Numerical implementation of correlations and cross-section fluctuations in Monte-Carlo codes is discussed.Comment: 30 pages, in Revtex, plus 4 figures. Figures and preprint can be obtained by mailing address to: [email protected]