Testing Models of Distributive Politics using Exit Polls to Measure Voters Preferences and Partisanship

This paper tests various hypotheses about distributive politics by studying the distribution of federal spending across U.S. states over the period 1978-2002. We improve on previous work by using survey data to measure the share of voters in each state that are Democrats, Republicans, and independents, or liberals, conservatives and moderates. We find no evidence that the allocation of federal spending to the states is distorted by strategic manipulation to win electoral support. States with many swing voters are not advantaged compared to states with more loyal voters, nor do “battleground states” attract more federal funds. Moreover, we find that spending has little or no effect on voters’ choices, whereas partisanship and ideology have massive effects.Ideological attitudes, partisanship, distributive politics, federal budget

TESTING MODELS OF DISTRIBUTIVE POLITICSUSING EXIT POLLS TO MEASURE VOTERPREFERENCES AND PARTISANSHIP

This paper tests various hypotheses about distributive politics by studying the distributionof federal spending across U.S. states over the period 1978-2002. We improve onprevious work by using survey data to measure the share of voters in each state that areDemocrats, Republicans, and independents, or liberals, conservatives and moderates. Wefind no evidence for the "swing voter" hypothesis { that is, no significant associationbetween the amount of federal funds a state receives and the fraction of independents ormoderates in the state. We also find no evidence for the "battleground state" hypothesis -no significant association between the amount of federal funds and the degree of partisanbalance in a state. Modest support is found for the \partisan supporters" hypothesis, whichconjectures that politicians will favour areas that contain a large percentage of their coresupporters.Electoral competition, swing voter, partisanship, election closeness, USFederal Spending.

Corruption and bicameral reforms

During the last decade unicameral proposals have been put forward in fourteen US states. In this paper we analyze the effects of the proposed constitutional reforms, in a setting where decision making is subject to ‘hard time constraints’, and lawmakers face the opposing interests of a lobby and the electorate. We show that bicameralism might lead to a decline in the lawmakers’ bargaining power vis-a-vis the lobby, thus compromising their accountability to voters. Hence, bicameralism is not a panacea against the abuse of power by elected legislators and the proposed unicameral reforms could be effective in reducing corruption among elected representatives

Targeting the αvβ3/NGR2 Pathway in Neuroendocrine Prostate Cancer

Highly aggressive, metastatic, neuroendocrine prostate cancer, which typically develops from prostate cancer cells acquiring resistance to androgen deprivation therapy, is associated with limited treatment options and hence poor prognosis. We have previously demonstrated that the αVβ3 integrin is over-expressed in neuroendocrine prostate cancer. We now show that LM609, a monoclonal antibody that specifically targets the human αVβ3 integrin, hinders the growth of neuroendocrine prostate cancer patient-derived xenografts in vivo. Our group has recently identified a novel αVβ3 integrin binding partner, NgR2, responsible for regulating the expression of neuroendocrine markers and for inducing neuroendocrine differentiation in prostate cancer cells. Through in vitro functional assays, we here demonstrate that NgR2 is crucial in promoting cell adhesion to αVβ3 ligands. Moreover, we describe for the first time co-fractionation of αVβ3 integrin and NgR2 in small extracellular vesicles derived from metastatic prostate cancer patients\u27 plasma. These prostate cancer patient-derived small extracellular vesicles have a functional impact on human monocytes, increasing their adhesion to fibronectin. The monocytes incubated with small extracellular vesicles do not show an associated change in conventional polarization marker expression and appear to be in an early stage that may be defined as adhesion competent . Overall, these findings allow us to better understand integrin-directed signaling and cell-cell communication during cancer progression. Furthermore, our results pave the way for new diagnostic and therapeutic perspectives for patients affected by neuroendocrine prostate cancer

Trabajo, empleo, calificaciones profesionales, relaciones de trabajo e identidades laborales. Vol. I

CLACSO ha apoyado desde sus inicios la constitución y desarrollo de grupos de reflexión centrados en la problemática del mundo del trabajo. Los temas abordados sucesivamente han sido el empleo y el desempleo, los movimientos laborales, las relaciones de trabajo, las condiciones y medio ambiente de trabajo. Las reuniones y seminarios se han desarrollado en las principales ciudades del continente: México DF, La Habana, Medellín, Santiago de Chile, Río de Janeiro, San Pablo, Buenos Aires y Montevideo. Los objetivos son facilitar los encuentros, el debate y las acciones de cooperación entre los especialistas mas reconocidos y con los jóvenes investigadores, becarios, maestrandos y doctorandos y nutrir una comunidad muy diversa, y pluralista de científicos sociales que no han cesado de crecer. Los grupos han reunido a destacados especialistas de la casi totalidad de países de la región, con una composición multidisciplinaria y pluralista que abarca a sociólogos del trabajo y de la educación, cientistas políticos, economístas del trabajo y del desarrollo, abogados laboralistas y psicólogos del trabajo, entre otras. Sus estudios han dado lugar a numerosas publicaciones editadas por CLACSO, la UAM, el PREALC de la OIT, el CEIL PIETTE del CONICET y Trabajo y Sociedad de Argentina, y forman parte de las bibliografías de aquellas disciplinas. Desde 2007 se constituyó el actual grupo "Trabajo, empleo, calificaciones profesionales, relaciones de trabajo e identidades laborales" con sede en la UNAM, sede Iztapalapa y en el CEIL-PIETTE del CONICET. Los dos volúmenes que ofrecemos a la comunidad académica y a los actores sociales contienen la mayoría de las ponencias presentadas en el Seminario de Buenos Aires, realizado en noviembre de 2007.INDICE Presentación del Grupo de Trabajo: Trabajo, empleo, calificaciones profesionales, relaciones de trabajo e identidades laborales Julio César Neffa y Enrique de la Garza Toledo 11 Presentación de la obra: Nuevos y viejos escenarios en el mundo laboral latinoamericano: distintas miradas para su estudio Leticia Muñiz Terra 15 Primera parte Dimensiones teóricas y metodológicas Diez tesis sobre el trabajo del presente (y el futuro del trabajo) Ricardo Antunes 29 Aportes a una teoría del cambio: gubernamentalidad, fuerzas productivas y praxis de sujetos colectivos en nueva época Alberto L. Bialakowsky, María Ignacia Costa y M. Mercedes Patrouilleau 45 um ensaio sobre inércia social Adalberto Cardoso 83 Hacia un concepto ampliado de trabajo Enrique de la Garza Toledo 111 Comentarios: Del trabajo esclavo a las nuevas formas de esclavitud en el trabajo Irene Vasilachis de Gialdino 141 Segunda parte Trabajo, identidad y subjetividad Cuando el trabajo informal es espacio para la construcción de identificaciones colectivas. Un estudio sobre ferias comerciales urbanas Mariana Busso 159 Construcción del sujeto de trabajo en la condición de precariedad Karina Arellano, Diego Baccarelli, Cecilia Dallacia, Lucía De Gennaro, Soraya Giradles y Emilio Sadier 193 Comentarios: Comentarios críticos de las ponencias presentadas en la Mesa Trabajo, identidad y subjetividad Juan Montes Cató 203 Tercera parte Educación, calificación profesional, productividad y salarios Fuentes de la valorización del capital: la relación entre productividad y salarios. Argentina 1993-2006 Javier Lindenboim, Juan M. Graña y Damián Kennedy 215 Demandas empresariales en las estrategias de formación de los ingenieros en dos zonas argentinas Marta Panaia 243 Saberes, intervenciones profesionales y clasificaciones profesionales: nuevos requerimientos a idóneos, técnicos e ingenieros Julio Testa; Claudia Figari y Martín Spinosa 275 Pautas de desigualdad en el mundo social productivo uruguayo. Aportes para el debate en torno a la gestión por competencias Mariela Quiñones Montoro 309 Cuarta parte La nueva dinámica empresarial. Innovación y flexibilización en la industria Trabajo de organización y cadenas de valor. El caso de la vestimenta uruguaya Marcos Supervielle y Emiliano Rojido 337 Potencialidades y limitaciones de sectores dinámicos de alto valor agregado: la industria aeroespacial en México, Jorge Carrillo y Alfredo Hualde 373 La industria del salmón en Chile: ¿crecimiento social o explotación laboral?, Antonio Aravena 397 Rasgos posfordistas en el paisaje laboral de la gran industria del Valle del Cauca colombiano Carlos Mejía Sanabria 42

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Mortality and pulmonary complications in patients undergoing surgery with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection: an international cohort study

Background: The impact of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) on postoperative recovery needs to be understood to inform clinical decision making during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. This study reports 30-day mortality and pulmonary complication rates in patients with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods: This international, multicentre, cohort study at 235 hospitals in 24 countries included all patients undergoing surgery who had SARS-CoV-2 infection confirmed within 7 days before or 30 days after surgery. The primary outcome measure was 30-day postoperative mortality and was assessed in all enrolled patients. The main secondary outcome measure was pulmonary complications, defined as pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, or unexpected postoperative ventilation. Findings: This analysis includes 1128 patients who had surgery between Jan 1 and March 31, 2020, of whom 835 (74·0%) had emergency surgery and 280 (24·8%) had elective surgery. SARS-CoV-2 infection was confirmed preoperatively in 294 (26·1%) patients. 30-day mortality was 23·8% (268 of 1128). Pulmonary complications occurred in 577 (51·2%) of 1128 patients; 30-day mortality in these patients was 38·0% (219 of 577), accounting for 81·7% (219 of 268) of all deaths. In adjusted analyses, 30-day mortality was associated with male sex (odds ratio 1·75 [95% CI 1·28–2·40], p\textless0·0001), age 70 years or older versus younger than 70 years (2·30 [1·65–3·22], p\textless0·0001), American Society of Anesthesiologists grades 3–5 versus grades 1–2 (2·35 [1·57–3·53], p\textless0·0001), malignant versus benign or obstetric diagnosis (1·55 [1·01–2·39], p=0·046), emergency versus elective surgery (1·67 [1·06–2·63], p=0·026), and major versus minor surgery (1·52 [1·01–2·31], p=0·047). Interpretation: Postoperative pulmonary complications occur in half of patients with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection and are associated with high mortality. Thresholds for surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic should be higher than during normal practice, particularly in men aged 70 years and older. Consideration should be given for postponing non-urgent procedures and promoting non-operative treatment to delay or avoid the need for surgery. Funding: National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland, Bowel and Cancer Research, Bowel Disease Research Foundation, Association of Upper Gastrointestinal Surgeons, British Association of Surgical Oncology, British Gynaecological Cancer Society, European Society of Coloproctology, NIHR Academy, Sarcoma UK, Vascular Society for Great Britain and Ireland, and Yorkshire Cancer Research