Three essays on the study of nationalization with automated content analysis

In three papers, I consider two questions of nationalization in American politics, and one question of the methodology necessary to study them. Nationalization is the process by which local politics become more like national politics on the basis of political issues and electoral engagement. It is usually measured using the difference in presidential and state-level electoral returns over time. To expand the study of nationalization, I use automated content analysis to derive new measures for the phenomenon’s study based on political text. In particular, I apply automated content analysis via latent dirichlet allocation to code for salient topics in text from national political agenda speech, local agenda speech, and state laws. The primary source for these local agenda codes is a novel database of State of the State addresses, which are like presidential State of the Union addresses, but are delivered by governors. I developed the database over the past seven years as part of this dissertation; it draws from all 50 States, and the earliest captured addresses date to the year 1893. The secondary sources for these codes are the State of the Union addresses and a corpus of laws passed by state legislatures. I utilize the codes from these naturally distinct text corpora to study the nationalization of the political agenda, and how nationalized elections relate to the production of salient laws. The comparison of naturally distinct texts, however, is problematic and requires further examination. To that end, the first paper, “A Theory and Method for Pooling Naturally Distinct Corpora” concerns the theory and method for why we should be able to use, pool, and compare the computer-generated codes from these naturally distinct text corpora to study nationalization. I propose a theoretical framework with which the researcher may defend the pooling of corpora, and introduce an empirical approach to testing for absolute comparability, the delta-statistic. While statistics like the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and penalized log likelihood can help the researcher to determine if a model fits the pooled corpora better than the corpora separately, the delta-statistic relies on a strong theory of latent traits to evaluate the absolute quality of a pooled model. This is especially important when it is impossible to evaluate ground truth fit because some data are unlabeled. The second paper, “Have State Policy Agendas Become More Nationalized?” examines whether the nationalization of state policy agendas is related to the nationalization of gubernatorial elections. The analysis shows that State agendas, as laid out in the State of the State addresses, have become more similar to each other over time. It also shows that State agendas have become more similar to the national agenda, as laid out in the State of the Union addresses. Finally, I demonstrate an increasing relationship between the similarity in the agenda and the nationalization of elections. The findings suggest that the nationalization of the agenda is a significant and related factor to the nationalization of elections. The third paper, “Can States Govern Effectively When Politics Are Nationalized?” considers the question of whether electoral nationalization moderates the relationship between divided government and legislative productivity in the states. I find a null effect of divided government on salient lawmaking ability, and that nationalization of state legislatures has generally decreased the production of salient laws. The result holds even though nationalization is unrelated to the ability of our state governments to take action on salient issues during times of divided government. The findings suggest that behavioral factors driving lawmaker decisions may be more to blame for lawmaking defects than institutional ones. Taken together, the essays demonstrate the value of text analysis to the analysis of nationalization and other research topics in American politics

Bostonia: The Boston University Alumni Magazine. Volume 10

Founded in 1900, Bostonia magazine is Boston University's main alumni publication, which covers alumni and student life, as well as university activities, events, and programs

Changes in Mycobacterium tuberculosis-Specific Immunity With Influenza co-infection at Time of TB Diagnosis.

Background: Prior Influenza A viral (IAV) infection has been shown to increase susceptibility to tuberculosis (TB) and TB has also been shown to be a primary cause of death during pandemics, including the Spanish Influenza outbreak of 1918-1919. The majority of data has been obtained from mouse models, thus the aim of this study was to determine the impact of Flu co-infection on host immunity and disease severity in TB patients at diagnosis. Methods: Sputum from 282 patients with active TB were analyzed for presence of FluA/FluB RNA at presentation using multiplex PCR. Sputum RNA was also analyzed for Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) load using 16S RNA amplification. Supernatants from digested sputum and Mtb antigen-stimulated whole blood were analyzed using multiplex cytokine arrays and PBMC were analyzed for cytokine production from CD4+ T, CD8+ T and Mucosal Associated Invariant T cells (MAITs). Results: 12 (4.3%) of TB patients were found to have FluA or FluB viral RNA present in their sputum at the time of TB diagnosis. The TB/Flu co-infected patients had a significantly higher bacterial load compared to those with TB mono-infection (p = 0.0026). They had lower levels of IL17A in ex vivo sputum (p = 0.0275) and higher MCP-1 (CCL2) levels in the blood following PPD stimulation (p = 0.0267). TB/Flu co-infected subjects had significantly higher IFN-γ+IL-17+CD4+ and IFN-γ+IL-17-CD8+ cells compared to TB mono-infected subjects. Conclusions: These data show that Flu co-infection at time of TB diagnosis is associated with a higher bacterial load and differential cellular and soluble profiles. These findings show for the first time the impact of TB/Flu co-infection in a human cohort and support the potential benefit of Flu vaccination in TB-endemic settings

palaeoverse: A community‐driven R package to support palaeobiological analysis

1. The open-source programming language ‘R' has become a standard tool in the palaeobiologist's toolkit. Its popularity within the palaeobiological community continues to grow, with published articles increasingly citing the usage of R and R packages. However, there are currently a lack of agreed standards for data preparation and available frameworks to support the implementation of such standards. Consequently, data preparation workflows are often unclear and not reproducible, even when code is provided. Moreover, due to a lack of code accessibility and documentation, palaeobiologists are often forced to ‘reinvent the wheel’ to find solutions to issues already solved by other members of the community. 2. Here, we introduce palaeoverse, a community-driven R package to aid data preparation and exploration for quantitative palaeobiological research. The package is freely available and has three core principles: (1) streamline data preparation and analyses; (2) enhance code readability; and (3) improve reproducibility of results. To develop these aims, we assessed the analytical needs of the broader palaeobiological community using an online survey, in addition to incorporating our own experiences. 3. In this work, we first report the findings of the survey, which shaped the development of the package. Subsequently, we describe and demonstrate the functionality available in palaeoverse and provide usage examples. Finally, we discuss the resources we have made available for the community and our future plans for the broader Palaeoverse project. 4. palaeoverse is a community-driven R package for palaeobiology, developed with the intention of bringing palaeobiologists together to establish agreed standards for high-quality quantitative research. The package provides a user-friendly platform for preparing data for analysis with well-documented open-source code to enhance transparency. The functionality available in palaeoverse improves code reproducibility and accessibility, which is beneficial for both the review process and future research

Ice‐Marginal Proglacial Lakes Across Greenland: Present Status and a Possible Future

Abstract: Ice‐marginal lakes can affect glacier dynamics but are ignored in studies of the evolution of the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) and of peripheral mountain glaciers and ice caps (PGICs). Here we show that lakes occupy 10% of the GrIS ice margin and occur on 5% of PGICs. Ice velocity at the GrIS margin is enhanced by ∼ 25% at lakes versus on land. Mean ice discharge into lakes is ∼4.9 Gt.yr, which is ∼1% of ice discharged through marine termini. We locate thousands of subglacial overdeepenings within which 7,404 km2 of future lakes could form, all of which will be ice‐marginal at some time. Future lakes in the west and east will be restricted to the margin of the GrIS and within alpine valleys, respectively. This status and possible future leads us to contend that lakes should be incorporated into projections of Greenland ice loss

Ice‐marginal proglacial lakes across Greenland: Present status and a possible future

Ice-marginal lakes can affect glacier dynamics but are ignored in studies of the evolution of the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) and of peripheral mountain glaciers and ice caps (PGICs). Here we show that lakes occupy 10 % of the GrIS ice margin and occur on 5 % of PGICs. Ice velocity at the GrIS margin is enhanced by ∼ 25 % at lakes versus on land. Mean ice discharge into lakes is ∼ 4.9 Gt.yr, which is ∼1 % of ice discharged through marine termini. We locate thousands of subglacial overdeepenings within which 7,404 km2 of future lakes could form, all of which will be ice-marginal at some time. Future lakes in the west and east will be restricted to the margin of the GrIS and within alpine valleys, respectively. This status and possible future leads us to contend that lakes should be incorporated into projections of Greenland ice loss

Immune Antibodies and Helminth Products Drive CXCR2-Dependent Macrophage-Myofibroblast Crosstalk to Promote Intestinal Repair

Helminth parasites can cause considerable damage when migrating through host tissues, thus making rapid tissue repair imperative to prevent bleeding and bacterial dissemination particularly during enteric infection. However, how protective type 2 responses targeted against these tissue-disruptive multicellular parasites might contribute to homeostatic wound healing in the intestine has remained unclear. Here, we observed that mice lacking antibodies (Aid-/-) or activating Fc receptors (Fcrg-/-) displayed impaired intestinal repair following infection with the murine helminth Heligmosomoides polygyrus bakeri (Hpb), whilst transfer of immune serum could partially restore chemokine production and rescue wound healing in Aid-/- mice. Impaired healing was associated with a reduced expression of CXCR2 ligands (CXCL2/3) by macrophages (MΦ) and myofibroblasts (MF) within intestinal lesions. Whilst antibodies and helminths together triggered CXCL2 production by MΦ in vitro via surface FcR engagement, chemokine secretion by intestinal MF was elicited by helminths directly via Fcrg-chain/dectin2 signaling. Blockade of CXCR2 during Hpb challenge infection reproduced the delayed wound repair observed in helminth infected Aid-/- and Fcrg-/- mice. Finally, conditioned media from human MΦ stimulated with infective larvae of the helminth Ascaris suum together with immune serum, promoted CXCR2-dependent scratch wound closure by human MF in vitro. Collectively our findings suggest that helminths and antibodies instruct a chemokine driven MΦ-MF crosstalk to promote intestinal repair, a capacity that may be harnessed in clinical settings of impaired wound healing

HETDEX pilot survey for emission-line galaxies - I. Survey design, performance, and catalog

We present a catalog of emission-line galaxies selected solely by their emission-line fluxes using a wide-field integral field spectrograph. This work is partially motivated as a pilot survey for the upcoming Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX). We describe the observations, reductions, detections, redshift classifications, line fluxes, and counterpart information for 397 emission-line galaxies detected over 169 sq.arcmin with a 3500-5800 Ang. bandpass under 5 Ang. full-width-half-maximum (FWHM) spectral resolution. The survey's best sensitivity for unresolved objects under photometric conditions is between 4-20 E-17 erg/s/sq.cm depending on the wavelength, and Ly-alpha luminosities between 3-6 E42 erg/s are detectable. This survey method complements narrowband and color-selection techniques in the search for high redshift galaxies with its different selection properties and large volume probed. The four survey fields within the COSMOS, GOODS-N, MUNICS, and XMM-LSS areas are rich with existing, complementary data. We find 104 galaxies via their high redshift Ly-alpha emission at 1.9<z<3.8, and the majority of the remainder objects are low redshift [OII]3727 emitters at z<0.56. The classification between low and high redshift objects depends on rest frame equivalent width, as well as other indicators, where available. Based on matches to X-ray catalogs, the active galactic nuclei (AGN) fraction amongst the Ly-alpha emitters (LAEs) is 6%. We also analyze the survey's completeness and contamination properties through simulations. We find five high-z, highly-significant, resolved objects with full-width-half-maximum sizes >44 sq.arcsec which appear to be extended Ly-alpha nebulae. We also find three high-z objects with rest frame Ly-alpha equivalent widths above the level believed to be achievable with normal star formation, EW(rest)>240 Ang.Comment: 45 pages, 36 figures, 5 tables, submitted to ApJ

Australian songbird body size tracks climate variation: 82 species over 50 years.

The observed variation in the body size responses of endotherms to climate change may be explained by two hypotheses: the size increases with climate variability (the starvation resistance hypothesis) and the size shrinks as mean temperatures rise (the heat exchange hypothesis). Across 82 Australian passerine species over 50 years, shrinking was associated with annual mean temperature rise exceeding 0.012°C driven by rising winter temperatures for arid and temperate zone species. We propose the warming winters hypothesis to explain this response. However, where average summer temperatures exceeded 34°C, species experiencing annual rise over 0.0116°C tended towards increasing size. Results suggest a broad-scale physiological response to changing climate, with size trends probably reflecting the relative strength of selection pressures across a climatic regime. Critically, a given amount of temperature change will have varying effects on phenotype depending on the season in which it occurs, masking the generality of size patterns associated with temperature change. Rather than phenotypic plasticity, and assuming body size is heritable, results suggest selective loss or gain of particular phenotypes could generate evolutionary change but may be difficult to detect with current warming rates.The work was partly supported by the Australian Research Council (DP120102651); JLG was partly supported by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT150100139); TA is funded by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT180100354); WJS is funded by Arcadia