Occupational Imbalance in Activity-Restricted Pregnancy

Evidence shows that maternal stress, pain and change in activity levels have significant effects on birth outcome and infant health. Activity restriction is associated with negative impact on maternal mental health, including increases in stress and anxiety. Activity restriction is also associated with chronic or frequent pain and a decrease in physical activity. There is no current research with women experiencing activity-restricted pregnancies from an occupational focus. The purpose of this study was to explore the occupational experiences of women who are pregnant and prescribed activity restriction. Further, this study aimed to identify areas in which occupational therapy intervention may be appropriate and effective in addressing occupational imbalances and consequently tempering negative maternal health factors. Occupational science was used as the theoretical background for the study. Two basic assumptions of occupational science guided the investigation. The first assumption is that individuals, occupations contribute to a balanced or unbalanced lifestyle. The second assumption was that occupational balance is essential for wellbeing and exists on a spectrum ranging from deprivation to overload. There were four expected outcomes. The participants were expected to have instances of occupational deprivation and of occupational overload. The women were expected to experience more negative emotions during activity restriction. This study was conducted using a phenomenological design\u27 Extensive interviews were conducted with two women. The initial interviews were guided by the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure. Additional interview questions and measures were added to elicit information about the participants\u27 experiences and feelings. Fourteen common themes were identified from the interview transcripts. The themes are explained in detail. The implications for occupational science, occupational therapy and the wider health community are discussed

Electoral Cycle Fluctuations in Partisanship: Global Evidence from Eighty-Six Countries

Elections are defining elements of democracy but occur infrequently. Given that elections evoke mass mobilization, we expect citizen attachments to political parties to wax during election season and wane in between. By leveraging data from 86 countries across the globe to investigate the effect of the electoral cycle on partisanship, we find that the predicted probability of being close to a political party rises 6 percentage points from cycle midpoint to an election—an effect rivaling traditional key determinants of partisanship. Further, fluctuations are larger where the persistence of party presence throughout the cycle is weaker and socioeconomic development is lower. These findings challenge the discipline to introduce dynamic political events into the study of partisanship, alongside “static” individual-level and country-level determinants. Additionally, presumed cross-country or temporal differences in mass partisanship levels, long used as indicators of democratic consolidation or party system institutionalization, may be confounded by electoral cycle effects

Multisite Phosphorylation of the Guanine Nucleotide Exchange Factor Cdc24 during Yeast Cell Polarization

BACKGROUND:Cell polarization is essential for processes such as cell migration and asymmetric cell division. A common regulator of cell polarization in most eukaryotic cells is the conserved Rho GTPase, Cdc42. In budding yeast, Cdc42 is activated by a single guanine nucleotide exchange factor, Cdc24. The mechanistic details of Cdc24 activation at the onset of yeast cell polarization are unclear. Previous studies have suggested an important role for phosphorylation of Cdc24, which may regulate activity or function of the protein, representing a key step in the symmetry breaking process. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:Here, we directly ask whether multisite phosphorylation of Cdc24 plays a role in its regulation. We identify through mass spectrometry analysis over thirty putative in vivo phosphorylation sites. We first focus on sites matching consensus sequences for cyclin-dependent and p21-activated kinases, two kinase families that have been previously shown to phosphorylate Cdc24. Through site-directed mutagenesis, yeast genetics, and light and fluorescence microscopy, we show that nonphosphorylatable mutations of these consensus sites do not lead to any detectable consequences on growth rate, morphology, kinetics of polarization, or localization of the mutant protein. We do, however, observe a change in the mobility shift of mutant Cdc24 proteins on SDS-PAGE, suggesting that we have indeed perturbed its phosphorylation. Finally, we show that mutation of all identified phosphorylation sites does not cause observable defects in growth rate or morphology. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:We conclude that lack of phosphorylation on Cdc24 has no overt functional consequences in budding yeast. Yeast cell polarization may be more tightly regulated by inactivation of Cdc42 by GTPase activating proteins or by alternative methods of Cdc24 regulation, such as conformational changes or oligomerization

A Survey of Experimental Research on Contests, All-Pay Auctions and Tournaments

Many economic, political and social environments can be described as contests in which agents exert costly efforts while competing over the distribution of a scarce resource. These environments have been studied using Tullock contests, all-pay auctions and rankorder tournaments. This survey provides a review of experimental research on these three canonical contests. First, we review studies investigating the basic structure of contests, including the contest success function, number of players and prizes, spillovers and externalities, heterogeneity, and incomplete information. Second, we discuss dynamic contests and multi-battle contests. Then we review research on sabotage, feedback, bias, collusion, alliances, and contests between groups, as well as real-effort and field experiments. Finally, we discuss applications of contests to the study of legal systems, political competition, war, conflict avoidance, sales, and charities, and suggest directions for future research. (author's abstract

Candidate coethnicity, rural/urban divides, and partisanship in Africa

Why do some citizens in new democracies attach to parties while others do not? We investigate the determinants of partisanship in Africa by theorizing the role of parties’ group mobilization tactics and testing our arguments alongside existing explanations from new democracies. First, using original data on candidate ethnicity, we evaluate a debate as to whether coethnicity with presidential and/or vice presidential candidates is associated with greater partisanship. Contrary to traditional wisdom, we find no continent-wide relationship—prominently studied cases (e.g. Kenya, Ghana) may be falsely overgeneralized. Second, we propose that partisanship is more likely among rural citizens. We find robust, continent-wide support for this relationship, which we show is partially driven by citizens’ links to traditional authorities, who often act as opinion leaders and/or brokers for parties. As in other new democracies, partisanship is positively associated with experience with multiparty democracy, the electoral cycle, age, male gender, and education

Replication Data for: Information Dissemination, Competitive Pressure, and Politician Performance between Elections: A Field Experiment in Uganda

Abstract: Politicians shirk when their performance is obscure to constituents. We theorize that when politician performance information is disseminated early in the electoral term, politicians will subsequently improve their performance in anticipation of changes in citizens’ evaluative criteria and possible challenger entry in the next election. However, politicians may only respond in constituencies where opposition has previously mounted. We test these predictions in partnership with a Ugandan civil society organization in a multiyear field experiment conducted in 20 district governments between the 2011 and 2016 elections. While the organization published yearly job duty performance scorecards for all incumbents, it disseminated the scorecards to constituents for randomly selected politicians. These dissemination efforts induced politicians to improve performance across a range of measures, but only in competitive constituencies. Service delivery was unaffected. We conclude that, conditional on electoral pressure, transparency can improve politicians’ performance between elections but not outcomes outside of their control

Replication Data for: Capturing the Airwaves, Capturing the Nation? A Field Experiment on State-Run Media Effects in the Wake of a Coup

Investigating the media's effect on citizens immediately after a non-democratic regime transition has thus far remained elusive to scholars, despite the frequency of such transitions. This study examines the effect of putschist-controlled broadcasting in the wake of Mali's 2012 coup and separatist insurgency. We leverage a field experiment of a radio (versus flashlight) distribution program in an area where citizens' only form of mass media is state-run radio. The putschists waged a campaign infused with nationalism to attempt to legitimize their rule. We find that, while radio exposure boosted national identity salience and willingness to delay elections, it did not elevate explicit approval for the junta---which suggests non-democratic regimes are less able to win approval using state broadcasting than previously thought, even while such broadcasting may affect citizens' attitudes and identity