Our personality affects our ability to connect our policy preferences to the correct political party- and that's a problem for democracy.

Functioning democracies require voters to connect their own personal and subjective policy preferences to the political party that best represents them. Aaron Dusso's new book examines how individual psychologies and people's tendencies to be introverted or extroverted affects their ability to match their policy preference to the correct political party. He finds that the more extroverted one is, the less ..

Partisan and economic cues fail to help low-information voterschoose the correct presidential candidate

When people vote, does their preferred candidate represent the policies that are best for them? Not necessarily – a lack of information can often lead to people voting ‘incorrectly’ against their interests or beliefs. Using a new method of measuring this incorrect voting in presidential elections, Aaron Dusso finds that when choosing between candidates, strong partisans and those who believe that the economy is doing better for them, but who also have poor knowledge of candidates’ policy positions, are much more likely to vote for the ‘wrong’ candidate

Race and Right-Wing Authoritarianism: How Scoring High in Authoritarianism Does Not Necessarily Lead to Support for Right-Wing Candidates

Objectives Authoritarianism has a long history suggesting that it is primarily a phenomenon of the right. However, I argue that this has led to scholars overlooking the potential that, in some contexts, authoritarianism can lead to support for left-wing candidates. African-American voters in the United States provide such a context. A key component of right-wing authoritarianism is that individuals will support whom they believe to be their rightful leader. In the United States, who one believes to be their group's rightful leader is contingent on the race of the voter and the party of the candidate. I hypothesize that as African-American voters' level of authoritarianism increases, they will be more likely to support the left-wing Democratic candidate. Methods I test this hypothesis with a national sample of voters after the 2012 U.S. presidential election. I estimate multiple logit models predicting the probability of voting for Obama, the key independent variables being respondents' right-wing authoritarian score, their race, and the interaction of these two variables. Results The results present strong support for my hypothesis that an increase in right-wing authoritarianism increases the probability of African-American voters choosing Obama. Conclusion The results show that the effect of authoritarianism on vote choice is contingent on race/ethnicity. Too often, scholars have overlooked the potential that whom individuals deem to be their established authority is contingent on the political context. These results challenge scholars to provide a more nuanced approach to how authoritarianism influences behavior

Mike Pence won’t be a game changer for Donald Trump

This week, Donald Trump announced that Indiana Governor Mike Pence would be his Vice Presidential pick. Aaron Dusso takes a close look at Pence’s selection, writing that the Governor is a relatively standard Republican who has low name recognition and hails from a non-battleground state. In the end, he says, Vice Presidential picks do not matter a great deal in general elections; the choice may matter even less this year given the top of the ticket’s larger than life persona

The Causes and Effects of Delay of Building Construction in Ethiopia, Southern Nation Nationalities of People Region in Gurage Zone (Case of Wolkite Town)

Construction projects are successful, when it is completed on schedule with in the agreed budget, expected quality level according to the specification otherwise it leads to so many problem. More than 70% of projects fail or are challenged to achieve their planned objective (Standish Group, 2015).This study identifies the cause and effect of delay of building construction in Sothern nation nationality of people state in case of Gurage zone. The study was conducted by using mixed (quantitative and qualitative) methods of research and a 1 to 5 likert scale questionnaire survey together with focus group were used. A total of 35(thirty-five) questionnaire were distributed and collected from clients, contractors and consultants and two focus group discussion were held to identify the cause and effects of delay factor. The questionnaire were analysed and calculated in degree of severity, frequency of occurrence and importance index. The analysis result showed that the top 10 (ten) causes of delay of BCP in importance index (II%) were economic condition (inflation, currency and LC), fluctuation in price of material, time overrun of the project, slow decision making, improper planning, lack of finance to fund the project completion, preparing incomplete bill of quantity, delay in approval of payment, shortage of material, and change in drawing and design respectively. The top five  effect of delay of BCP in importance index were increase in financial cost of project (budget overrun), time overrun of the project, poor quality of completed project, abandonment of building projects, and wastage and underutilization of human resources and materials. Keywords: Building construction, Economic condition, Delay causes, Effects of delay, time overrun. DOI: 10.7176/CER/12-1-02 Publication date: January 31st 202

Silver jubilee: 25 years of the first demonstration of the direct effect of phosphate on the parathyroid cell

Although phosphorus is an essential element for life, it is not found in nature in its native state but rather combined in the form of inorganic phosphates (P

Modelling and Implementing a Knowledge Base for Checking Medical Invoices with DLV

Checking medical invoices, done by every health insurance company, is a labor-intensive task. Both speed and quality of executing this task may be increased by the knowledge-based decision support system ACMI which we present in this paper. As the relevant regulations also contain various default rules, ACMI`s knowledge core is modelled using the answer set programming paradigm. It turned out that all relevant rules could be expressed directly in this framework, providing for a declarative and easily extendable and modifiable knowledge base. ACMI is implemented using the DLV system

Serum and urinary soluble α-Klotho as markers of kidney and vascular impairment

This study was designed to investigate the controversy on the potential role of sKlotho as an early biomarker in Chronic Kidney Disease-Mineral Bone Disorder (CKD-MBD), to assess whether sKlotho is a reliable marker of kidney α-Klotho, to deepen the effects of sKlotho on vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) osteogenic differentiation and to evaluate the role of autophagy in this process. Experimental studies were conducted in CKD mice fed a normal phosphorus (CKD+NP) or high phosphorus (CKD+HP) diet for 14 weeks. The patients\u27 study was performed in CKD stages 2-5 and in vitro studies which used VSMCs exposed to non-calcifying medium or calcifying medium with or without sKlotho. The CKD experimental model showed that the CKD+HP group reached the highest serum PTH, P and FGF23 levels, but the lowest serum and urinary sKlotho levels. In addition, a positive correlation between serum sKlotho and kidney α-Klotho was found. CKD mice showed aortic osteogenic differentiation, together with increased autophagy. The human CKD study showed that the decline in serum sKlotho is previous to the rise in FGF23. In addition, both serum sKlotho and FGF23 levels correlated with kidney function. Finally, in VSMCs, the addition of sKlotho prevented osteogenic differentiation and induced autophagy. It can be concluded that serum sKlotho was the earliest CKD-MBD biomarker, a reliable indicator of kidney α-Klotho and that might protect against osteogenic differentiation by increasing autophagy. Nevertheless, further studies are needed to investigate the mechanisms of this possible protective effect

Mortality in hemodialysis patients with COVID-19, the effect of paricalcitol or calcimimetics

BACKGROUND: In COVID-19 patients, low serum vitamin D (VD) levels have been associated with severe acute respiratory failure and poor prognosis. In regular hemodialysis (HD) patients, there is VD deficiency and markedly reduced calcitriol levels, which may predispose them to worse outcomes of COVID-19 infection. Some hemodialysis patients receive treatment with drugs for secondary hyperparathyroidism, which have well known pleiotropic effects beyond mineral metabolism. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of VD status and the administration of active vitamin D medications, used to treat secondary hyperparathyroidism, on survival in a cohort of COVID-19 positive HD patients. METHODS: A cross-sectional retrospective observational study was conducted from 12 March to 21 May 2020 in 288 HD patients with positive PCR for SARS-CoV2. Patients were from 52 different centers in Spain. RESULTS: The percent of HD patients with COVID-19 was 6.1% (288 out of 4743). Mortality rate was 28.4% (81/285). Three patients were lost to follow-up. Serum 25(OH)D (calcidiol) level was 17.1 [10.6-27.5] ng/mL and was not significantly associated to mortality (OR 0.99 (0.97-1.01), CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that the use of paricalcitol, calcimimetics or the combination of both, seem to be associated with the improvement of survival in HD patients with COVID-19. No correlation was found between serum VD levels and prognosis or outcomes in HD patients with COVID-19. Prospective studies and clinical trials are needed to support these findings

Experimentação agrícola com soja na empresa Oryza & Soy Pesquisa e Consultoria Agronômica Ltda

O estágio foi realizado na empresa Oryza & Soy Pesquisa e Consultoria Agronômica Ltda entre 29/09/2021 e 24/01/2022 na estação experimental do município de Capivari do Sul – RS. O estágio teve como objetivo aperfeiçoar os conhecimentos adquiridos durante o curso através da vivência diária da experimentação agrícola em uma estação de pesquisa, envolvendo atividades de planejamento, implantação e condução de experimentos de arroz irrigado e soja. Essa vivência, ao lado dos excelentes profissionais que atuam na empresa, foi muito enriquecedora, pois foi possível observar e intervir em diferentes cenários (através dos diferentes experimentos) dessas duas grandes culturas para o estado do Rio Grande do Sul, possibilitando o aprendizado para melhor manejar esses sistemas em diferentes realidades que podem ser encontradas nas terras baixas da Planície Costeira Externa do estado