The Impact of Race and Ideology on Voting: Does Race Still Matter?

Why do barriers to minority legislative representation persist? This paper asks to what extent low levels of black office-holding are attributable to purely candidate race alone, as opposed to candidate ideology. Using a unique data set that contains information on candidates’ ideological positions coupled with extensive individual voting data, the paper tests whether candidate race exerts an independent and significant influence on vote choice that cannot be explained away by candidate ideology. Estimating a model of individual vote choice, I find that candidate race is largely irrelevant for most white voters when the effects of candidate ideology are taken into account. This is especially the case when the ideological distance between two candidates is large. It implies that when candidates are ideologically distinct, voters are unlikely to cross their party line to support a candidate whom they would not normally support, regardless of their willingness to vote for a black candidate. However, when candidates are ideologically close, white voters are more likely to vote for a white candidate who is pitted against a black candidate. Similarly, I find that the race of candidates works as a strong negative cue for white voters with no party affiliations. This suggests that white voters are likely to use candidate race as a voting cue when the party cue is absent or weak

Prolonged gabapentin analgesia in an experimental mouse model of fibromyalgia

In a new mouse model for generalized pain syndrome, including fibromyalgia, which used intermittent cold stress (ICS), bilateral allodynia in the hindpaw was observed that lasted more than 12 days; thermal hyperalgesia lasted 15 days. During constant cold stress (CCS), mice showed only a transient allodynia. A female prevalence in ICS-induced allodynia was observed in gonadectomized but not in gonad intact mice. Systemic gabapentin showed complete anti-allodynic effects in the ICS model at the one-tenth dose for injury-induced neuropathic pain model, and central gabapentin showed long-lasting analgesia for 4 days in ICS, but not the injury model. These results suggest that the ICS model is useful for the study of generalized pain syndrome

Essays on political representation

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2006.Includes bibliographical references.The central goal of this dissertation is to contribute to our understanding of the link between political representation and policy outcomes. In particular, this collection of essays examines how the institutional arrangements and formal processes that precede and initiate political representation either promote or hinder the representation of various interests in society and thus determine whose interests shape public policies. The first chapter studies the relationship between descriptive representation of traditionally underrepresented minority groups and substantive representation of their interests. Examining the impact of increased African American representation from the early 1970s to the late 1990s, the chapter demonstrates that legislative representation of historically marginalized groups can lead to tangible changes in public policies. The second chapter attempts to understand why legislative representation of minority groups in American society remains low, even to this day. This chapter disentangles the impact of candidates' race on voting decisions from that of candidates' ideology, by focusing on the case of the representation of African Americans.(cont.) Using extensive individual-level voting data as well as a unique data set on candidates' ideological positions, the chapter shows that minority candidates' race negatively influences voting decisions of white voters only when partisan and ideological cues are absent. The third chapter analyzes the impact of electoral institutions on political representation and policy outcomes. It provides empirical evidence that political units receive larger intergovernmental transfers, when represented by at-large delegations than when represented by delegations elected from single-member districts.by Michiko Ueda.Ph.D

The Impact of Minority Representation on Policy Outcomes: Evidence from the U.S. States

Over the last forty years, racial minorities in the United States have made substantial progress in achieving greater representation in legislatures. However, there is surprisingly little empirical evidence as to whether this has had any direct impact on policy outcomes. Exploiting two instances of ‘exogenous shocks’ that led to large increases in the number of African American legislators, this paper empirically tests the relationship between descriptive representation of minorities and substantive representation of their interests. By examining the school district-level data from the 1970s through the late 1990s across the United States, the paper finds statistically robust evidence that the political representation of African Americans is associated with a more equitable allocation of state aid to school districts, which suggests that representation of traditionally underrepresented groups can lead to tangible changes in public policy. The results are robust to controls for the effects of other political and demographic factors

Graph-based open-ended survey on concerns related to COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented public health crisis with broad social and economic consequences. We conducted four surveys between April and August 2020 using the graph-based open-ended survey (GOS) framework, and investigated the most pressing concerns and issues for the general public in Japan. The GOS framework is a hybrid of the two traditional survey frameworks that allows respondents to post their opinions in a free-format style, which can subsequently serve as one of the choice items for other respondents, just as in a multiple-choice survey. As a result, this framework generates an opinion graph that relates opinions and respondents. We can also construct annotated opinion graphs to achieve a higher resolution. By clustering the annotated opinion graphs, we revealed the characteristic evolution of the response patterns as well as the interconnectedness and multi-faceted nature of opinions. Substantively, our notable finding is that "social pressure," not "infection risk," was one of the major concerns of our respondents. Social pressure refers to criticism and discrimination that they anticipate receiving from others should they contract COVID-19. It is possible that the collectivist nature of Japanese culture coupled with the government's policy of relying on personal responsibility to combat COVID-19 explains some of the above findings, as the latter has led to the emergence of vigilantes. The presence of mutual surveillance can contribute to growing skepticism toward others as well as fear of ostracism, which may have negative consequences at both the societal and individual levels.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, 1 tabl

Novel application of yeast molecular display system to analysis of protein functions

This review fundamentally covers the functional analysis of proteins and the preparation of modified proteins for the creation of novel functions using a yeast molecular display system as a molecular tool. Yeast molecular display is a genetic technique of producing proteins or peptides on the yeast cell surface, such as the cell wall or cell membrane. In this review, recent studies on the yeast molecular display system in the field of not only applied studies but also fundamental studies are described with illustrations