The opinion‐policy nexus in Europe and the role of political institutions

A strong link between citizen preferences and public policy is one of the key goals and criteria of democratic governance. Yet, our knowledge about the extent to which public policies on specific issues are in line with citizen preferences in Europe is limited. This article reports on the first study of the link between public opinion and public policy that covers a large and diverse sample of concrete public policy issues in 31 European democracies. The findings demonstrate a strong positive relationship and a substantial degree of congruence between public opinion and the state of public policy. Also examined is whether political institutions, including electoral systems and the horizontal and vertical division of powers, influence the opinion-policy link. The evidence for such effects is very limited, which suggests that the same institutions might affect policy representation in countervailing ways through different mechanisms.NWOVIDI-452-12-008The politics and administration of institutional chang

MTSS1 is a critical epigenetically regulated tumor suppressor in CML

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is driven by malignant stem cells that can persist despite therapy. We have identified Metastasis suppressor 1 (Mtss1/MIM) to be downregulated in hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells from leukemic transgenic SCLtTA/Bcr-Abl mice and in patients with CML at diagnosis, and Mtss1 was restored when patients achieved complete remission. Forced expression of Mtss1 decreased clonogenic capacity and motility of murine myeloid progenitor cells and reduced tumor growth. Viral transduction of Mtss1 into lineage depleted SCLtTA/Bcr-Abl bone marrow cells decreased leukemic cell burden in recipients, and leukemogenesis was reduced upon injection of Mtss1 overexpressing murine myeloid 32D cells. Tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) therapy and reversion of Bcr-Abl expression increased Mtss1 expression but failed to restore it to control levels. CML patient samples revealed higher DNA methylation of specific Mtss1 promoter CpG sites that contain binding sites for Kaiso and Rest transcription factors. In summary, we identified a novel tumor suppressor in CML stem cells that is downregulated by both Bcr-Abl kinase-dependent and -independent mechanisms. Restored Mtss1 expression markedly inhibits primitive leukemic cell biology in vivo, providing a therapeutic rationale for the Bcr-Abl-Mtss1 axis to target TKI resistant CML stem cells in patients

Agency in Fertility Decisions in Western Europe During the Demographic Transition:A Comparative Perspective

We use a set of linked reproductive histories taken from Sweden, the Netherlands, and Spain for the period 1871–1960 to address key issues regarding how reproductive change was linked specifically to mortality and survivorship and more generally to individual agency. Using event-history analysis, this study investigates how the propensity to have additional children was influenced by the number of surviving offspring when reproductive decisions were made. The results suggest that couples were continuously regulating their fertility to achieve reproductive goals. Families experiencing child fatalities show significant increases in the hazard of additional births. In addition, the sex composition of the surviving sibset also appears to have influenced reproductive decisions in a significant but changing way. The findings offer strong proof of active decision-making during the demographic transition and provide an important contribution to the literature on the role of mortality for reproductive change

Reconstructing the impact of human activities in a NW Iberian Roman mining landscape for the last 2500 years

This article was made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Little is known about the impact of human activities during Roman times on NW Iberian mining landscapes beyond the geomorphological transformations brought about by the use of hydraulic power for gold extraction. We present the high-resolution pollen record of La Molina mire, located in an area intensely used for gold mining (Asturias, NW Spain), combined with other proxy data from the same peat core to identify different human activities, evaluate the strategies followed for the management of the resources and describe the landscape response to human disturbances. We reconstructed the timing and synchronicity of landscape changes of varying intensity and form occurred before, during and after Roman times. An open landscape was prevalent during the local Late Iron Age, a period of relatively environmental stability. During the Early Roman Empire more significant vegetation shifts took place, reflected by changes in both forest (Corylus and Quercus) and heathland cover, as mining/metallurgy peaked and grazing and cultivation increased. In the Late Roman Empire, the influence of mining/metallurgy on landscape change started to disappear. This decoupling was further consolidated in the Germanic period (i.e., Visigothic and Sueve domination of the region), with a sharp decrease in mining/metallurgy but continued grazing. Although human impact was intense in some periods, mostly during the Early Roman Empire, forest regeneration occurred afterwards: clearances were local and short-lived. However, the Roman mining landscape turned into an agrarian one at the onset of the Middle Ages, characterized by a profound deforestation at a regional level due to a myriad of human activities that resulted in an irreversible openness of the landscape. © 2014 The Authors

Realizing Dynamic and Efficient Bipedal Locomotion on the Humanoid Robot DURUS

© 2016 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.DOI: 10.1109/ICRA.2016.7487325This paper presents the methodology used to achieve efficient and dynamic walking behaviors on the prototype humanoid robotics platform, DURUS. As a means of providing a hardware platform capable of these behaviors, the design of DURUS combines highly efficient electromechanical components with “control in the loop” design of the leg morphology. Utilizing the final design of DURUS, a formal framework for the generation of dynamic walking gaits which maximizes efficiency by exploiting the full body dynamics of the robot, including the interplay between the passive and active elements, is developed. The gaits generated through this methodology form the basis of the control implementation experimentally realized on DURUS; in particular, the trajectories generated through the formal framework yield a feedforward control input which is modulated by feedback in the form of regulators that compensate for discrepancies between the model and physical system. The end result of the unified approach to control-informed mechanical design, formal gait design and regulator-based feedback control implementation is efficient and dynamic locomotion on the humanoid robot DURUS. In particular, DURUS was able to demonstrate dynamic locomotion at the DRC Finals Endurance Test, walking for just under five hours in a single day, traveling 3.9 km with a mean cost of transport of 1.61-the lowest reported cost of transport achieved on a bipedal humanoid robot

Recensiones [Revista de Historia Económica Año III Invierno 1985 n. 1 pp. 157-191]

Antonio Domínguez Ortiz. Política fiscal y cambio social en la España del siglo (Por Juan Zafra Oteyza). -- Guillermo Céspedes del Castillo. América Hispánica (1492-1898) (Por Zacarías Moutoukias). -- Carmelo Mesa Lago. La economía en Cuba socialista. Una evaluación de dos décadas (Por Juan Carlos Jiménez). -- Louis Henry. Manual de demografía histórica (Por David-Sven Reher). -- Ezequiel Gallo. La Pampa Gringa (Por Carlos Rodríguez Braun). -- Javier García Fernández. El origen del Municipio Constitucional: Autonomía y Centralización en Francia y España (Por Concepción de Castro). -- David E. Vassberg. La venta de tierras baldías. El comunitarismo agrario y la Corona de Castilla durante el siglo XVI (Por Bartolomé Yun Casalilla). -- José Manuel Mutiloa. Guipúzcoa en el siglo XIX (Por Luis Castells). -- Diego Azqueta Oyarzun. Teoría económica de la acumulación socialista (Por Alfons Barceló). -- T. H. Hollingsworth. Demografía histórica (Por Francisco Bustelo). -- Ricardo Calle Sáiz. La Hacienda en la II República española (Por Juan Hernández Andréu). -- Jordi Nadal ; Carles Sudriá. Historia de la Caja de Pensiones (La «Caixa» dentro del sistema financiero catalán) (Por Rafael Castejón). -- Daniel Peña ; Nicolás Sánchez-Albornoz. Dependencia dinámica entre precios agrícolas: El trigo en España, 1857-1890. Un estudio empírico (Por Agustín Maravall).Publicad

Recensiones [Revista de Historia Económica Año V Invierno 1987 n. 1 pp. 143-187]

J.A. García de Cortázar; E. Portera ; E. Cabrera ; M. González Jiménez ; J.E. López de Coca. Organización social del espacio en la España medieval. La Corona de Castilla, siglos VIII-XV (Por Miguel Santamaría Lancho).-- Alberto Marcos Martín. Economía, sociedad y pobreza en Castilla: Palencia, 1500-1814 (Por Enrique Llopis).-- Peguerto Saavedra. Economía, Política y Sociedad en Galicia: La provincia de Mondoñedo, 1480-1830 (Por Anamaría Calavera Vaya).-- John J. Mccusker ; R.R. Menard:. The Economy of British America, 1607-1789 (Por Agustín Guimerá Ravina).-- Carlos D. Malamud Rikles. Cádiz y Saint Malo en el comercio colonial peruano (1698-1725) (Por Carlos Martínez Shaw).-- Scarlet O. Godoy. Rebellions and Revolts in Eighteenth Century Perú and Upper Perú (Por Carlos Malamud Rikles).-- M. Ortega. La lucha por la tierra en la Corona de Castilla al final del Antiguo Régimen. El expediente de la Ley Agraria (Por José Antonio Alvarez Vázquez).-- C. Lis ; H. Soly:. Pobreza y capitalismo en la Europa preindustrial (1350-1850) (Por Rafael Dobado).-- J.M. Delgado ; J.M. Pradera ; C. Martínez Shaw. El comerç entre Catalunya i América (segles XVIII y XIX) (Por Pedro Pérez Herrero).-- Manuel González Portilla. Estado, capitalismo y desequilibrios regionales (1845-1900) (Por Sebastián Coll Martín).-- Peter Hertner y Geoffrey Jones (eds.). Mulíinationals: Theory and History (Por Gabriel Tortella).-- Germán Ojeda ; José Luis San Miguel. Campesinos, emigrantes, indianos. Emigración y economía en Asturias, 1830-1930 (Por David Reher)Publicad

Search for Narrow Diphoton Resonances and for gamma-gamma+W/Z Signatures in p\bar p Collisions at sqrt(s)=1.8 TeV

We present results of searches for diphoton resonances produced both inclusively and also in association with a vector boson (W or Z) using 100 pb^{-1} of p\bar p collisions using the CDF detector. We set upper limits on the product of cross section times branching ratio for both p\bar p\to\gamma\gamma + X and p\bar p\to\gamma\gamma + W/Z. Comparing the inclusive production to the expectations from heavy sgoldstinos we derive limits on the supersymmetry-breaking scale sqrt{F} in the TeV range, depending on the sgoldstino mass and the choice of other parameters. Also, using a NLO prediction for the associated production of a Higgs boson with a W or Z boson, we set an upper limit on the branching ratio for H\to\gamma\gamma. Finally, we set a lower limit on the mass of a `bosophilic' Higgs boson (e.g. one which couples only to \gamma, W, and Z$ bosons with standard model couplings) of 82 GeV/c^2 at 95% confidence level.Comment: 30 pages, 11 figure

Measurement of the Strong Coupling Constant from Inclusive Jet Production at the Tevatron pˉp\bar pp Collider

We report a measurement of the strong coupling constant, $\alpha_s(M_Z)$, extracted from inclusive jet production in $p\bar{p}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=$1800 GeV. The QCD prediction for the evolution of $\alpha_s$ with jet transverse energy $E_T$ is tested over the range 40<$E_T$<450 GeV using $E_T$ for the renormalization scale. The data show good agreement with QCD in the region below 250 GeV. In the text we discuss the data-theory comparison in the region from 250 to 450 GeV. The value of $\alpha_s$ at the mass of the $Z^0$ boson averaged over the range 40<$E_T$<250 GeV is found to be $\alpha_s(M_{Z})= 0.1178 \pm 0.0001{(\rm stat)}^{+0.0081}_{-0.0095}{\rm (exp. syst)}$. The associated theoretical uncertainties are mainly due to the choice of renormalization scale (^{+6%}_{-4%}) and input parton distribution functions (5%).Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, using RevTeX. Submitted to Physical Review Letter