Explaining the Riddle of America: What Europeans Should Know about Madisonian Democracy

Long a puzzle to both its admirers and detractors across the world, the United States of America has, in the second decade of the twenty-first century, become more puzzling than ever. A variety of explanations has been proposed for America’s paradoxical combination of apparent "statelessness" and its capability to produce positive policy outcomes. This essay will argue that, properly understood, the structural features of America’s constitutional scheme of governance, largely credited to founder James Madison, provide a necessary but insufficient explanation of the "riddle of America". The success of America's "compound republic" (in Madison's words), was intended to depend not only on the capacities of its basic governing structures - separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism, and pluralism - but, in extremis, on the inherent fairness of "the people", both of which have been achieved in American history but neither of which can be guaranteed. The source of authority and, of equal importance, the legitimacy of American governing institutions and their outcomes is the faith placed in them by citizens, elected officials, and judges, requiring a sense of responsibility on the part of all to the principles that protect all. That the sense of responsibility on the part of some, as America’s recent political crises demonstrates, can fail, jeopardizes not only domestic liberty and justice but threatens the well being of peoples far distant

Bureaucracy and its Critics in America and Germany: In Defense of the "Bureaucratic Paradigm"

Contemporary critiques of traditional government in both America and Germany are based on serious distortions and misunderstandings of the rationale and the dynamics of its creation. This misunderstanding concerns how and why governing institutions evolved, the essential path dependence of national institutional development, and the purposes bureaucracy has and continues to serve on behalf of liberal democracy. The consequence is misguided efforts at administrative modernization that are doomed to failure. The historical reality is that both the American administrative state and the German Rechtsstaat were devised to serve liberal, republican purposes. That such institutions endure is less a reflection of the well-known pathologies of bureaucracy - although such pathologies are always present as institutions evolve - as of their continuing value to the preservation of civil society, an endurance that has accommodated change within flexible frameworks of law and practice

Global clinical response in C ushing's syndrome patients treated with mifepristone

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106755/1/cen12332.pd

Introducing Change in Public Service Organizations under Austerity: The Complex Case of the Governance of the Defence in the United Kingdom

Introducing, managing, and sustaining change in public service organizations is challenging for policy makers to implement and for scholars to theorize. In 2010, the U.K. Government introduced policy changes to help bring down the national deficit. The executive's planned reforms aimed to deliver a so‐called battle‐winning military force, a smaller and more professional Ministry of Defence, and an affordable overall defence organization. The article borrows from theories of management and public policy to help enlighten our understanding of change under New Public Management and governance approaches. The article's central claim is that the U.K. Government sought to correct cost‐efficiency processes in public service organizations trying to reshape organizational and managerial structures dependent on many internal and external pressures. The article examines the executive's purpose in developing a need for change and the ways to implement it. I question whether the U.K. Government's prescriptive and hierarchical approach to organizational change in public administration is sustainable in the long term

Myths and misconceptions about hypnosis and suggestion: Separating fact and fiction

We present 21 prominent myths and misconceptions about hypnosis in order to promulgate accurate information and to highlight questions for future research. We argue that these myths and misconceptions have (a) fostered a skewed and stereotyped view of hypnosis among the lay public, (b) discouraged participant involvement in potentially helpful hypnotic interventions, and (c) impeded the exploration and application of hypnosis in scientific and practitioner communities. Myths reviewed span the view that hypnosis produces a trance or special state of consciousness and allied myths on topics related to hypnotic interventions; hypnotic responsiveness and the modification of hypnotic suggestibility; inducing hypnosis; and hypnosis and memory, awareness, and the experience of nonvolition. By demarcating myth from mystery and fact from fiction, and by highlighting what is known as well as what remains to be discovered, the science and practice of hypnosis can be advanced and grounded on a firmer empirical footing

A viscoelastic deadly fluid in carnivorous pitcher plants

Background : The carnivorous plants of the genus Nepenthes, widely distributed in the Asian tropics, rely mostly on nutrients derived from arthropods trapped in their pitcher-shaped leaves and digested by their enzymatic fluid. The genus exhibits a great diversity of prey and pitcher forms and its mechanism of trapping has long intrigued scientists. The slippery inner surfaces of the pitchers, which can be waxy or highly wettable, have so far been considered as the key trapping devices. However, the occurrence of species lacking such epidermal specializations but still effective at trapping insects suggests the possible implication of other mechanisms. Methodology/Principal Findings : Using a combination of insect bioassays, high-speed video and rheological measurements, we show that the digestive fluid of Nepenthes rafflesiana is highly viscoelastic and that this physical property is crucial for the retention of insects in its traps. Trapping efficiency is shown to remain strong even when the fluid is highly diluted by water, as long as the elastic relaxation time of the fluid is higher than the typical time scale of insect movements. Conclusions/Significance : This finding challenges the common classification of Nepenthes pitchers as simple passive traps and is of great adaptive significance for these tropical plants, which are often submitted to high rainfalls and variations in fluid concentration. The viscoelastic trap constitutes a cryptic but potentially widespread adaptation of Nepenthes species and could be a homologous trait shared through common ancestry with the sundew (Drosera) flypaper plants. Such large production of a highly viscoelastic biopolymer fluid in permanent pools is nevertheless unique in the plant kingdom and suggests novel applications for pest control

Alcohol Intake and Breast Cancer Risk in African American Women from the AMBER Consortium

Alcohol is a recognized risk factor for invasive breast cancer, but few studies involve African American women

Bridging Alone: Religious Conservatism, Marital Homogamy, and Voluntary Association Membership

This study characterizes social insularity of religiously conservative American married couples by examining patterns of voluntary associationmembership. Constructing a dataset of 3938 marital dyads from the second wave of the National Survey of Families and Households, the author investigates whether conservative religious homogamy encourages membership in religious voluntary groups and discourages membership in secular voluntary groups. Results indicate that couples’ shared affiliation with conservative denominations, paired with beliefs in biblical authority and inerrancy, increases the likelihood of religious group membership for husbands and wives and reduces the likelihood of secular group membership for wives, but not for husbands. The social insularity of conservative religious groups appears to be reinforced by homogamy—particularly by wives who share faith with husbands

Activation of the GLP-1 receptor by a non-peptidic agonist

Class B G-protein-coupled receptors are major targets for the treatment of chronic diseases, including diabetes and obesity1. Structures of active receptors reveal peptide agonists engage deep within the receptor core, leading to an outward movement of extracellular loop 3 and the tops of transmembrane helices 6 and 7, an inward movement of transmembrane helix 1, reorganization of extracellular loop 2 and outward movement of the intracellular side of transmembrane helix 6, resulting in G-protein interaction and activation2,3,4,5,6. Here we solved the structure of a non-peptide agonist, TT-OAD2, bound to the glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor. Our structure identified an unpredicted non-peptide agonist-binding pocket in which reorganization of extracellular loop 3 and transmembrane helices 6 and 7 manifests independently of direct ligand interaction within the deep transmembrane domain pocket. TT-OAD2 exhibits biased agonism, and kinetics of G-protein activation and signalling that are distinct from peptide agonists. Within the structure, TT-OAD2 protrudes beyond the receptor core to interact with the lipid or detergent, providing an explanation for the distinct activation kinetics that may contribute to the clinical efficacy of this compound series. This work alters our understanding of the events that drive the activation of class B receptors

Psychedelics and hypnosis: Commonalities and therapeutic implications

Background Recent research on psychedelics and hypnosis demonstrates the value of both methods in the treatment of a range of psychopathologies with overlapping applications and neurophenomenological features. The potential of harnessing the power of suggestion to influence the phenomenological response to psychedelics toward more therapeutic action has remained unexplored in recent research and thereby warrants empirical attention. Aims Here we aim to elucidate the phenomenological and neurophysiological similarities and dissimilarities between psychedelic states and hypnosis in order to revisit how contemporary knowledge may inform their conjunct usage in psychotherapy. Methods We review recent advances in phenomenological and neurophysiological research on psychedelics and hypnosis and we summarize early investigations on the coupling of psychedelics and hypnosis in scientific and therapeutic contexts. Results/Outcomes We highlight commonalities and differences between psychedelics and hypnosis that point to the potential efficacy of combining the two in psychotherapy. We propose multiple research paths for coupling these two phenomena at different stages in the preparation, acute phase, and follow-up of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy in order to prepare, guide, and integrate the psychedelic experience with the aim of enhancing therapeutic outcomes. Conclusions/Interpretation Harnessing the power of suggestion to modulate response to psychedelics could enhance their therapeutic efficacy by helping to increase the likelihood of positive responses, including mystical type experiences