Supreme Court Voting Behavior: 1995 Term

This Article, the eleventh in a series, attempts through statistical analysis to determine whether individual Justices on the United States Supreme Court (as well as the Court as a whole) voted more conservatively, more liberally, or about the same in the 1995 Terms as compared with past terms. The 1995 figures reveal a Court in ideological tension. Although some statistical measures suggest conservatism on the High Bench, there are notable contrary liberal indicators as well (principally in the areas of state criminal cases, federal jurisdiction, and First Amendment claims). Indeed, regression analysis demonstrates that the 1995 liberal movement in state criminal cases by the Court\u27s three most conservative members (the Chief Justice and Justices Scalia and Thomas) is statistically significant. Perhaps the most important (although least surprising) statistics are those that demonstrate the Court\u27s identifiable division into two wings: a liberal coalition composed of Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer, and a conservative bloc composed of the Chief Justice and Justices Scalia and Thomas. Justices Kennedy and O\u27Connor remain between these two factions, casting the deciding votes in the most hotly contested cases. The voting behavior of these moderate swing voters has caused the Court to vacillate markedly between liberal and conservative outcomes during the past four Terms. This ideological dynamic is likely to be altered only by resignations and replacements on the Court

Supreme Court Voting Behavior: 1999 Term

This Study, the fourteenth in a series, tabulates and analyzes the voting behavior of the United States Supreme Court during the 1999 Term. The analysis is designed to determine whether individual Justices and the Court as a whole are voting more conservatively, more liberally, or about the same as compared with past Terms. This Term\u27s survey suggests a reversal of the Court\u27s liberal trend over the past two Terms, with conservative movement in six of the ten categories. Specifically, the Court\u27s support of statutory civil rights claims plummeted to an all time low, while the Court exhibited a dramatic conservative shift in cases decided by one vote. Furthermore, the Study\u27s second most reliable category for indicating liberal/conservative trends, Civil/ State Party, showed solid conservative movement in all types of decisions. Yet, this apparent conservative movement is counterbalanced somewhat by the fact that the Study\u27s most reliable category for indicating conservative/liberal trends, Criminal/Federal Party, demonstrated some liberal movement. A more in-depth analysis for each category is set forth in Part IV-B of this Study

Supreme Court Voting Behavior: 1994 Term

This Article attempts, through statistical analysis, to identify the ideological leanings of the United States Supreme Court during the October 1994 Term. Although generally perceived as a conservative institution, the Court this Term adopted a more liberal stance in its approach to First Amendment, statutory civil rights, jurisdictional and federalism issues, and in litigation involving the federal government. Furthermore, in close cases that were decided by a one-Justice majority, the Court overwhelmingly adopted a more liberal result. Justice Kennedy remained the most influential Justice, his vote determining the outcome in over 80% of these close cases. While some of this liberal movement may be attributed to the nature of the agenda pursued by the Clinton administration, it is too broad-based to be discounted entirely. Regression analysis, moreover, reveals that there are several positive correlations (and one negative correlation) in the voting patterns of the five longest-tenured Justices

Lidar Remote Sensing Variables Predict Breeding Habitat of a Neotropical Migrant Bird

A topic of recurring interest in ecological research is the degree to which vegetation structure influences the distribution and abundance of species. Here we test the applicability of remote sensing, particularly novel use of waveform lidar measurements, for quantifying the habitat heterogeneity of a contiguous northern hardwoods forest in the northeastern United States. We apply these results to predict the breeding habitat quality, an indicator of reproductive output of a well-studied Neotropical migrant songbird, the Black-throated Blue Warbler (Dendroica caerulescens). We found that using canopy vertical structure metrics provided unique information for models of habitat quality and spatial patterns of prevalence. An ensemble decision tree modeling approach (random forests) consistently identified lidar metrics describing the vertical distribution and complexity of canopy elements as important predictors of habitat use over multiple years. Although other aspects of habitat were important, including the seasonality of vegetation cover, the canopy structure variables provided unique and complementary information that systematically improved model predictions. We conclude that canopy structure metrics derived from waveform lidar, which will be available on future satellite missions, can advance multiple aspects of biodiversity research, and additional studies should be extended to other organisms and regions

First-Pass Meconium Samples from Healthy Term Vaginally-Delivered Neonates : An Analysis of the Microbiota

Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the parents who consented to provide samples with limited notice at an emotional and stressful time. This work was supported entirely from personal donations to the neonatal endowments fund at Aberdeen Maternity Hospital and we thank families for their continued generosity, year-on-year. The Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health receives funding from the Scottish Government (SG-RESAS). Funding: This work was funded from NHS Grampian Neonatal Endowments. The Rowett Institute receives funding from the Rural and Environmental Science and Analytical Services programme of the Scottish Government. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

An N-terminal alpha-Synuclein fragment binds lipid vesicles to modulate lipid induced aggregation

Misfolding and aggregation of alpha-synuclein (αS) into toxic conformations is involved in numerous neurodegenerative diseases. In Parkinson's disease (PD), this occurs within dopaminergic neurons, causing cell death and disease symptoms. During αS aggregation, many protein-protein interactions (PPIs) form over broad and flat protein surfaces, limiting potential for small-molecule intervention. Peptides, however, harbor great therapeutic promise since they can selectively engage with and modulate the large surface areas involved yet are small enough to function as druggable agents if suitably structured. Here, we explore the first 25 residues of αS (αS 1–25) as a template for peptide-based αS aggregation antagonists. We report that αS 1–25 inhibits lipid-induced αS aggregation in a dose-dependent manner. αS 1–25 functions by binding to lipids to prevent αS binding, with both αS and peptide requiring lipid for inhibition to occur. These findings present a potential mechanistic route for the treatment or prevention of PD.</p

The role of ion-molecule reactions in the growth of heavy ions in Titan's ionosphere

This is the published version. Copyright 2014 American Geophysical UnionThe Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) and Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) have observed Titan's ionospheric composition and structure over several targeted flybys. In this work we study the altitude profiles of the heavy ion population observed by the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer-Ion Beam Spectrometer (CAPS-IBS) during the nightside T57 flyby. We produce altitude profiles of heavy ions from the C6–C13 group (Ci indicates the number, i, of heavy atoms in the molecule) using a CAPS-IBS/INMS cross calibration. These altitude profiles reveal structure that indicates a region of initial formation and growth at altitudes below 1200 km followed by a stagnation and dropoff at the lowest altitudes (1050 km). We suggest that an ion-molecule reaction pathway could be responsible for the production of the heavy ions, namely reactions that utilize abundant building blocks such as C2H2 and C2H4, which have been shown to be energetically favorable and that have already been identified as ion growth patterns for the lighter ions detected by the INMS. We contrast this growth scenario with alternative growth scenarios determining the implications for the densities of the source heavy neutrals in each scenario. We show that the high-mass ion density profiles are consistent with ion-molecule reactions as the primary mechanism for large ion growth. We derive a production rate for benzene from electron recombination of C6H7+ of 2.4 × 10−16 g cm−2 s−1 and a total production rate for large molecules of 7.1 × 10−16 g cm−2 s−1