articles+ search results

policy advice, democracy, U.S. Congress, Technology, and Social Sciences

As in all democratically constituted sta- tes, scientific policy advice to the legis- lature in the U. S. is faced with the challenges of this time: What can good advice look like given the rapidly developing new technologies and their far-reaching implications for society? Despite decades of collaboration between consultants and advisors, mutual trust must be won over and over again. Against this background, it is particularly interesting to take a closer look at current developments in the U. S.: Timothy M. Persons, GAO’s Chief Scientist, gives insights into the work of the U. S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), which advises the U. S. Congress. It becomes clear that balanced results of technology assessment and other GAO products arise when not only the majority but also the minority party is heard when prioritizing congressional inquiries. The research questions must be impartial and meet congressional requirements. The interview was conducted by Constanze Scherz (ITASKIT).

n/a and Medicine

The 15th Annual CMHC Live Online concluded on Saturday, October 24th [...]

Community detection, Graph labelling, Random walk, Markov chain, Political networks, Applied mathematics. Quantitative methods, and T57-57.97

Abstract Graph labelling is a key activity of network science, with broad practical applications, and close relations to other network science tasks, such as community detection and clustering. While a large body of work exists on both unsupervised and supervised labelling algorithms, the class of random walk-based supervised algorithms requires further exploration, particularly given their relevance to social and political networks. This work refines and expands upon a new semi-supervised graph labelling method, the GLaSS method, that exactly calculates absorption probabilities for random walks on connected graphs. The method models graphs exactly as discrete-time Markov chains, treating labelled nodes as absorbing states. The method is applied to roll call voting data for 42 meetings of the United States House of Representatives and Senate, from 1935 to 2019. Analysis of the 84 resultant political networks demonstrates strong and consistent performance of GLaSS when estimating labels for unlabelled nodes in graphs, and reveals a significant trend of increasing partisanship within the United States Congress.

sanctions, u.s, russia relations, u.s. congress, economic coercion, magnitsky act, foreign policy, International relations, JZ2-6530, Political science (General), and JA1-92

Given America’s leading position in the global economy, the U.S. government has frequently leveraged that power to punish “rogue states”, discourage nuclear proliferation, promote democratization, and create pressure for regime change. Washington relied on economic incentives in relations with Russia after 1991, but since 2012 the United States has utilized a broad range of economic sanctions against Russian side, leading to a significant deterioration in what was already a troubled relationship. In contrast to earlier comprehensive sanctions like those imposed on Iraq and Haiti, the U.S. is now crafting “smart” or targeted sanctions designed to exert maximum pressure on selected Russian elites and firms. Rather than evaluating the effectiveness of these measures on changing Russian behavior, the author explores the neglected domestic dimension of the U.S. sanctions process to improve understanding of U.S. foreign policy. This article draws on primary sources in the form of Congressional legislation, executive orders, and official statements to analyze U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia, and develops three brief case studies - the Magnitsky Act, post-Ukraine sanctions, and the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act - to explicate the main issues and actors driving U.S. sanctions. The author argues that domestic factors, including Congressional pressures and interest group activity, are critical to understanding U.S. sanctions regimes. While President Donald Trump has frequently resisted congressionally imposed sanctions, expectations for a more conciliatory approach towards Russia under the Trump administration have not materialized.

Medicine and Science

Congressional hearings are a venue in which social scientists present their views and analyses before lawmakers in the United States, however quantitative data on their representation has been lacking. We present new, publicly available, data on the rates at which anthropologists, economists, political scientists, psychologists, and sociologists appeared before United States congressional hearings from 1946 through 2016. We show that social scientists were present at some 10,347 hearings and testified 15,506 times. Economists testify before the US Congress far more often than other social scientists, and constitute a larger proportion of the social scientists testifying in industry and government positions. We find that social scientists' testimony is increasingly on behalf of think tanks; political scientists, in particular, have gained much more representation through think tanks. Sociology, and psychology's representation before Congress has declined considerably beginning in the 1980s. Anthropologists were the least represented. These findings show that academics are representing a more diverse set of organizations, but economists continue to be far more represented than other disciplines before the US Congress.

political ideology, roll-call voting, public choice, public policy, United States Congress, Economics as a science, and HB71-74

This study extends the political science and political psychology literature on the political ideology of lawmakers by addressing the following question: How stable is a legislator’s political ideology over time? In doing so, we employ Nokken−Poole scores of legislators’ political ideology for members of the United States (U.S.) House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate who were elected prior to the 103rd Congress that began in early 1991 and who served consecutively through the 115th Congress, which ended in early 2019. Results from individual time-series estimations suggest that political ideology is unstable over time for a sizable portion of the members of both major political parties who serve in the U.S. Congress, while analysis of the pooled data suggests that, after accounting for inertia in political ideology and individual legislator effects, Republican legislators become more conservative over time. These results run somewhat counter to the finding in prior studies that the political ideologies of lawmakers and other political elites are stable over time.

congress, president wilson, administration, sherman act, clayton act, trade unions, and Law

The article discusses the process of creating social legislation in the United States of America at the beginning of the 20th century. This legislation in the country was created later than in European countries. It was issued during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. The process of reviewing these bills in the US Congress, as well as the political struggle associated with their development and adoption, the analysis of the documents themselves are the focus of this article.

Thesaurus: Peru, United States, economic aid, territorial waters, fishing rights, Author’s keywords: expropriation, History (General) and history of Europe, History (General), and D1-2009

The expropriation of U.S. companies —such as the International Petroleum Company— has been signaled in historiography as a decisive factor in determining the stance of the U.S. government towards Peru’s military regime. This study shows that Congressional motivations were rather of a political nature, associated with the seizure of U.S. fishing vessels within the 200 nautical miles of territorial waters claimed by Peru. Moreover, the policies implemented by Peru’s military government were used by a group of congressmen to advance their own agendas, criticizing U.S. foreign policy at a moment of conflict of powers between the Executive and the Congress.

Kidney Week, congresos, American Society of Nephrology, Medicine, Specialties of internal medicine, and RC581-951

Language, agency, impression formation, communion, LIWC, U.S. Congress, Psychology, and BF1-990

What type of language makes the most positive impression within a professional setting? Is competent/agentic language or warm/communal language more effective at eliciting social approval? We examined this basic social cognitive question in a real world context using a big data approach—the recent record-low levels of public approval of the U.S. Congress. Using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC), we text analyzed all 123+ million words spoken by members of the U.S. House of Representatives during floor debates between 1996-2014 and compared their usage of various classes of words to their public approval ratings over the same time period. We found that neither agentic nor communal language positively predicted public approval. However, this may be because communion combines two disparate social motives (belonging and helping). A follow-up analysis found that the helping form of communion positively predicted public approval, and did so more strongly than did agentic language. Next, we conducted an exploratory analysis, examining which of the 63 standard LIWC categories predict public approval. We found that the public approval of Congress was highest when politicians used tentative language, expressed both positive emotion and anxiety, and used human words, numbers, prepositions, numbers, and avoided conjunctions and the use of second-person pronouns. These results highlight the widespread primacy of warmth over competence as the primary dimensions of social cognition.

Social Sciences

Congress and U.S. Veterans: From the GI Bill to the VA Crisis by Lindsey Cormack, contains a thorough examination of federal veterans’ policy from 2009 to 2017. Cormack argues that any consideration of politics in modern America must be done with heavy filtration, cutting through deliberate ambiguities and electioneering in the messaging. Veterans’ issues are no different.

Legislative Behavior, Religion, Foreign Policy, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Congress, Religion (General), and BL1-50

Recent literature in the religion and politics area has focused on the effect of various measures of religious affiliation on the political behavior of the mass public. Here we add to the evolving literature examining the influence of religious orientation on political elite behavior, focusing on the U.S. House of Representatives. Method. We use data on the religious affiliations of U.S. House members and National Journal scores of foreign policy voting to test the influence of religion on foreign policy ideology from 1998-2003. Our findings indicate that even after controlling for traditional political factors, religious identity influenced foreign policy voting in the House. African-American Protestants, Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and Evangelical Protestants present the most distinctive patterns. Conclusions. From this analysis we see further indications that religion influences legislative behavior in a way that, although intertwined with political partisanship, appears distinct from traditional political factors.

social networks, Facebook, archive, memory, privacy, copyright, privatization, U.S. Library of Congress, deposit requirement, digital death, and Law

This article explores the challenges posed by an archival interest in the broad palimpsest of daily life left on social networks that are controlled by private corporations. It addresses whether social networks should be archived for the benefit of future generations and proposes a policy thought experiment to help grapple with these questions, namely, the proposal for the formation of the public interest-oriented Networked Memory Project by the Library of Congress for the archiving of social networks. My discussion of the challenges posed by this thought experiment will focus on the U.S. legal framework within which the Library of Congress operates and take Facebook. To the extent that social networks have user-generated contents that range from the highly “private” to “public” as opposed to other networked platforms that contain materials that are considered “public”, the bar for the historical archival of social networks is much higher. Almost every archival effort must contend with the legal hurdle of copyright, but the archiving of social networks must also address how to handle the potentially sensitive nature of materials that are considered “private” from the perspective of the social and legal constructions of privacy. My theoretical exercise of proposing the formation of the Networked Memory Project by the Library of Congress responds to the need to consider the benefits of a public interest-oriented archive of social networks that can counter the drawbacks of the incidental corporate archiving taking place on social networks.

Communication. Mass media and P87-96

This article is based on a content analysis of the 17,811 Instagram posts made by all 534 members of the United States Congress who were seated for the duration of the first 6 months of the 115th session. I find that women are significantly more likely than men to have an Instagram account. Senators and women post significantly more times to their accounts. And a member’s personal characteristics, such as their chamber, party, and age, had significant effects on the type of content posted to Instagram. I conclude that members of Congress use Instagram similarly to how they use other social media platforms, that parties in and out of power use Instagram in substantively different ways, and that the more personal accounts of younger members suggest future changes in Congressional representation.

Surgery and RD1-811

Background. Deceased-donor kidney discard rates vary by region, but it is unknown whether discard rates and transplant outcomes vary during the American Transplant Congress (ATC) each year. Methods. Using national registry data, we determined rates of kidney discard, delayed graft function, graft failure, and mortality from December 31, 1999, through December 30, 2015, during ATC dates and compared these rates with those on the same days of the week during the 2 weeks before and after the ATC (non-ATC). We used multivariable regression to determine associations between ATC and these outcomes. Results. From 7902 donors (1575 ATC; 6327 non-ATC), 12 588 recipients received kidney transplants (2455 ATC; 10 133 non-ATC), and 2666 kidneys were discarded (582 ATC; 2084 non-ATC). Kidneys were more often discarded during ATC (19% vs 17%, P = 0.006; adjusted odds ratio, 1.21; 95% confidence interval, 1.05-1.40). There were no significant differences in donor, transplant, or recipient characteristics by ATC/non-ATC dates or by ATC/non-ATC transplant dates for delayed graft function, graft failure, or mortality. Conclusions. On the basis of a 21% increased odds of discard, the ATC itself may result in 5 additional kidney discards during this important conference every year, which suggests the need for innovative staffing or other logistic solutions during these planned meetings.

emergency powers, constitutional law, law and politics, deference thesis, congress powers, Law of nations, KZ2-6785, Law in general. Comparative and uniform law. Jurisprudence, and K1-7720

The deference thesis is that Congress and the judiciary should defer to the executive’s policy judgments during national emergencies. Criticism of the deference theory draws on the analogy of the emergency room medical protocol to argue that emergencies call for rule-bound constraint of the executive rather than deference to it. However, this criticism rests on a misunderstanding of the tradeoff between rules and standards. This paper was proposed as an analysis of deference thesis and its criticism, it has been modified to cover the general issues regarding the thesis and how rules and standards are relevant for national emergencies, it draws upon on the question of how and when the rules applicable during emergencies should be developed and applied.

diabetes mellitus, american diabetic association, congress, Nutritional diseases. Deficiency diseases, and RC620-627

From July 5 to July 9, 2015 in Convention Center in Boston (USA) there took place anniversary 75th session of the annual congress of the American Diabetic Association (ADA). The congress united more than 14000 participants from 124 countries. Programs of scientific sessions of the congress included the most topical issues of diabetology: modern approaches to diagnostics, prevention and treatment of DM and its complications, the results of the international researches of anti-diabetic preparations, problems connected with diabetes 2 types and obesity and many others.

experimental archaeology, conference, early middle ages, late middle ages, canada, usa, review, Museums. Collectors and collecting, AM1-501, Archaeology, and CC1-960

The International Congress on Medieval Studies is held at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo each May. Now in its 52nd year, ICMS draws around 3,000 people attending approximately 575 sessions of papers, panel discussions, round tables, workshops and performances. Various societies, associations, and institutions also hosted 100+ business meetings and receptions over the course of the 4 day conference. This year EXARC facilitated one session and co-sponsored another one.

Parlamento, rezo, Constitución, I Enmienda, Tribunal Supremo, separación Iglesia-Estado, símbolos, autorepresentación. Key words: Parliament, prayer, Constitution, First Amendment, Supreme Court, separation between Church and State, symbols, self-recognit, Law of Europe, KJ-KKZ, Law in general. Comparative and uniform law. Jurisprudence, and K1-7720

Resumen: El origen de la institución parlamentaria está íntimamente ligado a la escenografía religiosa. Frente a lo sucedido en el parlamentarismo continental contemporáneo, en donde su eliminación se derivó de la corriente laicizadora propia del período revolucionario, la antigua costumbre de abrir las sesiones parlamentarias con el rezo de una oración ha pervivido en el contexto del parlamentarismo anglosajón, bajo la égida de la praxis seguida en Westminster. En Estados Unidos su origen se halla en las propias sesiones del Congreso Continental y en la conformación del texto constitucional de Filadelfia, celebrándose desde entonces las correspondientes oraciones a cargo de capellanes contratados por las Cámaras. Planteada la constitucionalidad del rezo en las mismas desde la óptica de la Cláusula de Establecimiento (I Enmienda), la Corte Suprema la ha afirmado en dos sentencias (Marsh v. Chambers y Town of Greece v. Galloway) bajo argumentos históricos a condición de no ser proselitistas. La pervivencia de las oraciones parlamentarias se explica en determinados contextos como símbolos o elementos de autoafirmación e integración de la propia institución parlamentaria, conectándose con la denominada religión civil cuya presencia se ha afirmado en el caso norteamericano. Abstract: The origin of Parliaments is closely linked with the religious scenography. In contrast with what happened in the contemporary continental parliamentarism, where its elimination derived from the laicist stream of the revolutionary parliament, the ancient costume consisting of opening the parliamentary sessions with a prayer has survived in the context of the anglo-saxon parliamentarism, under the influence of the praxis followed in Westminster. In the United States its origins coincide with the sessions of the Continental Congress and the approval of the Philadelphia Constitution, since then the prayers have been recited by the chaplains hired by the Chambers. Although it has been disputed the prayer´s constitutionality due to the text of the Establishment Clause (I Amendment), the Supreme Court has confirmed it in two decisions (Marsh v. Chambers y Town of Greece v. Galloway) invoking historic arguments and under the condition that the prayers should not have a proselytizing purpose. Prayer´s survival is explained in certain contexts as elements of self-recognition and integration of the parliamentary institution, connected with the so called civil religion whose presence has been maintained in the U. S.