Strategy and Choice in the 1988 Presidential Primaries

In recent years, thinking about the American Presidential primaries has been dominated by the image of Carter's victory in 1976. Conventional wisdom in the eighties has advised Presidential candidates to focus on the early contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, and to at least match, or better yet, exceed the expectations that the press, pollsters, and pundits have for them in those states. The successful campaign, it was thought, had to force the competition out by the end of March in order to lock up the nomination before the convention. This common wisdom - the so-called "momentum theory" - will now have to be revised as a result of what happened in the 1988 primaries. While one candidate from each patty did eventually emerge victorious in 1988, no one followed the Carter script as closely as expected. The Democratic race was not clearly resolved until Dukakis managed consecutive victories over Jackson in Wisconsin (April 5), New York (April 19) and Pennsylvania (April 26). On the Republican side, even though the race was over after Super Tuesday, the conventional "momentum" story was still marred by the odd-and in the end, meaningless-­outcome in Iowa Republican caucuses. Bush exceeded expectations in Iowa, but in a negative direction, and both Dole and Robertson were unable to convert their successes into any advantage in New Hampshire and the South. In this paper, we use data from a series of 12 exit polls conducted by the Los Angeles Times to explain the course of the 1988 Democratic and Republican presidential primary campaigns. The Los Angeles Times sample of primaries includes the critical early Democratic and Republican contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, six Super Tuesday states, and the Democratic primaries in Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania and California. The story we tell is quite simple. Momentum in both races was slowed by regionalism, and in the Democratic contest specifically, by the non-strategic support that blacks and affluent liberal whites gave Jesse Jackson. Momentum accelerated in the New York and Pennsylvania primaries as moderate and Jewish voters strategically switched to Dukakis in order to block Jesse Jackson's nomination. Both Bush and Dukakis staked out positions for themselves near the center of the ideological spectrum in their respective parties. As it turned out, the distribution of voter preferences, combined with strategic complications typical of multicandidate races, served to make the middle an advantageous spot for the victorious candidates

Inflation Pressure Effects in the Nondimensional Tire Model

Inflation pressure affects every aspect of tire performance. Most tire models, including the Radt/Milliken Nondimensional Tire Model, are restricted to modeling a single inflation pressure at a time. This is a reasonable limitation, in that the Nondimensional model forms an input/output relationship between tire operating conditions and force & moment outputs. Traditional operating conditions are normal load, slip angle, inclination angle, slip ratio and road surface friction coefficient. Tire pressure is more like a tire parameter than a tire operating condition. Since the Nondimensional Tire Model is semi-empirical it does not specifically deal with tire parameters like sidewall height or tread compound. Still, tire pressure is the easiest tire parameter to change, and as the air temperature within the tire varies during use so does the inflation pressure. Thus, it is desirable to incorporate inflation pressure into the Nondimensional Tire Model as an input. This paper discusses the effects of tire pressure on tire force and moment output. Effects on lateral force and aligning torque are investigated in detail. Additionally, the effects on cornering stiffness, friction coefficients, peak aligning torque coefficient and peak shape are reviewed. New techniques to implement pressure effects in the Nondimensional Model are presented. Applications of these techniques are shown on a Formula SAE tire and a full-size radial racing tire. Additionally, the effects of inflation pressure on tire spring rate and loaded radius are investigated. While these are not modeled using Nondimensional techniques, they are important variables accompanying any tire model

Data Mining for Gene Networks Relevant to Poor Prognosis in Lung Cancer Via Backward-Chaining Rule Induction

We use Backward Chaining Rule Induction (BCRI), a novel data mining method for hypothesizing causative mechanisms, to mine lung cancer gene expression array data for mechanisms that could impact survival. Initially, a supervised learning system is used to generate a prediction model in the form of “IF <conditions> THEN <outcome>” style rules. Next, each antecedent (i.e. an IF condition) of a previously discovered rule becomes the outcome class for subsequent application of supervised rule induction. This step is repeated until a termination condition is satisfied. “Chains” of rules are created by working backward from an initial condition (e.g. survival status). Through this iterative process of “backward chaining,” BCRI searches for rules that describe plausible gene interactions for subsequent validation. Thus, BCRI is a semi-supervised approach that constrains the search through the vast space of plausible causal mechanisms by using a top-level outcome to kick-start the process. We demonstrate the general BCRI task sequence, how to implement it, the validation process, and how BCRI-rules discovered from lung cancer microarray data can be combined with prior knowledge to generate hypotheses about functional genomics

Observational Results of a Multi-Telescope Campaign in Search of Interstellar Urea [(NH2_2)2_2CO]

In this paper, we present the results of an observational search for gas phase urea [(NH$_2$)$_2$CO] observed towards the Sgr B2(N-LMH) region. We show data covering urea transitions from $\sim$100 GHz to 250 GHz from five different observational facilities: BIMA, CARMA, the NRAO 12 m telescope, the IRAM 30 m telescope, and SEST. The results show that the features ascribed to urea can be reproduced across the entire observed bandwidth and all facilities by best fit column density, temperature, and source size parameters which vary by less than a factor of 2 between observations merely by adjusting for telescope-specific parameters. Interferometric observations show that the emission arising from these transitions is cospatial and compact, consistent with the derived source sizes and emission from a single species. Despite this evidence, the spectral complexity, both of (NH$_2$)$_2$CO and of Sgr B2(N), makes the definitive identification of this molecule challenging. We present observational spectra, laboratory data, and models, and discuss our results in the context of a possible molecular detection of urea.Comment: 38 pages, 9 Figures, accepted in the Astrophysical Journa

Strategy and Choice in the 1988 Presidential Primaries

In recent years, thinking about the American Presidential primaries has been dominated by the image of Carter's victory in 1976. Conventional wisdom in the eighties has advised Presidential candidates to focus on the early contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, and to at least match, or better yet, exceed the expectations that the press, pollsters, and pundits have for them in those states. The successful campaign, it was thought, had to force the competition out by the end of March in order to lock up the nomination before the convention. This common wisdom - the so-called "momentum theory" - will now have to be revised as a result of what happened in the 1988 primaries. While one candidate from each patty did eventually emerge victorious in 1988, no one followed the Carter script as closely as expected. The Democratic race was not clearly resolved until Dukakis managed consecutive victories over Jackson in Wisconsin (April 5), New York (April 19) and Pennsylvania (April 26). On the Republican side, even though the race was over after Super Tuesday, the conventional "momentum" story was still marred by the odd-and in the end, meaningless-­outcome in Iowa Republican caucuses. Bush exceeded expectations in Iowa, but in a negative direction, and both Dole and Robertson were unable to convert their successes into any advantage in New Hampshire and the South. In this paper, we use data from a series of 12 exit polls conducted by the Los Angeles Times to explain the course of the 1988 Democratic and Republican presidential primary campaigns. The Los Angeles Times sample of primaries includes the critical early Democratic and Republican contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, six Super Tuesday states, and the Democratic primaries in Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania and California. The story we tell is quite simple. Momentum in both races was slowed by regionalism, and in the Democratic contest specifically, by the non-strategic support that blacks and affluent liberal whites gave Jesse Jackson. Momentum accelerated in the New York and Pennsylvania primaries as moderate and Jewish voters strategically switched to Dukakis in order to block Jesse Jackson's nomination. Both Bush and Dukakis staked out positions for themselves near the center of the ideological spectrum in their respective parties. As it turned out, the distribution of voter preferences, combined with strategic complications typical of multicandidate races, served to make the middle an advantageous spot for the victorious candidates

Transcriptional profiling reveals extraordinary diversity among skeletal muscle tissues

Skeletal muscle comprises a family of diverse tissues with highly specialized functions. Many acquired diseases, including HIV and COPD, affect specific muscles while sparing others. Even monogenic muscular dystrophies selectively affect certain muscle groups. These observations suggest that factors intrinsic to muscle tissues influence their resistance to disease. Nevertheless, most studies have not addressed transcriptional diversity among skeletal muscles. Here we use RNAseq to profile mRNA expression in skeletal, smooth, and cardiac muscle tissues from mice and rats. Our data set, MuscleDB, reveals extensive transcriptional diversity, with greater than 50% of transcripts differentially expressed among skeletal muscle tissues. We detect mRNA expression of hundreds of putative myokines that may underlie the endocrine functions of skeletal muscle. We identify candidate genes that may drive tissue specialization, including Smarca4, Vegfa, and Myostatin. By demonstrating the intrinsic diversity of skeletal muscles, these data provide a resource for studying the mechanisms of tissue specialization