Congressional Performance,Incumbent Behavior,and Voting in Senate Elections

Conventional wisdom suggests that individual members of Congress have no real incentive to act in ways that might improve public evaluations of their collective body. In particular, the literature provides no clear evidence that public evaluations of Congress affect individual races for Congress, and little reason to expect that voters would hold specific individuals responsible for the institution's performance. We suggest that this conventional wisdom is incorrect. Using multiple state‐level exit polls of Senate voting conducted by Voter News Service in 1996 and 1998, we arrive at two key findings. First, we find that evaluations of Congress do have a significant effect on voting within individual U.S. Senate races across a wide variety of electoral contexts. Second, we find that punishments or rewards for congressional performance are not distributed equally across all members, or even across members of a particular party. Instead, we find that the degree to which citizens hold a senator accountable for congressional performance is significantly influenced by that senator's actual level of support for the majority party in Congress, as demonstrated on party votes.     

Keine Befreiung vom Anschluss- und Benutzungszwang an öffentliche Trinkwasserversorgung

Keine Zusammenfassung     

Interaction of butorphanol, with monoamine oxidase inhibitor, tranylcypromine.

This investigation examines the possibility of interaction between tranylcypromine and butorphanol in comparison to pethidine. The LD50 of pethidine and butorphanol were determined in mice pretreated with the non-selective monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitor, tranylcypromine orally for 8 days or with oral saline solution. Tranylcypromine decreased the LD50 of both pethidine and butorphanol by 78% and 41%, respectively. Anesthetized rabbits with halothane pretreated with tranylcypromine or saline were given pethidine (5 mg/kg i.v.) or butorphanol (0.5, 1 and 2 mg/kg i.v.). Pethidine produced a marked increase in blood pressure in rabbits pretreated with tranylcypromine and did not affect significantly the heart rate. Butorphanol did not affect either blood pressure or heart rate at doses of 0.5 or 1 mg/kg. However, the largest dose of butorphanol (2 mg/kg) produced hypotension and tachycardia in rabbits pretreated with tranylcypromine. Neither pethidine nor butorphanol affected the temperature of anesthetized rabbits pretreated with tranylcypromine or saline.     

Joint custody: a comprehensive review

This article presents a comprehensive overview of joint custody. The history and legislative implications are discussed, as are pertinent issues relative to the reported advantages and disadvantages of joint custody. Finally, the role of the mental health professional in assisting with counseling divorced families either before, during, or after a custody decision is discussed.     

A comparison of methods used in the UK and Ireland for the extraction and detection of semen on swabs and cloth samples

The recent formation of a United Kingdom and Irish working group, the Body Fluids Forum (BFF), highlighted the need to investigate different working practices prior to any inter-laboratory comparison work and identification of best practice. Various dilutions of semen were seeded onto swabs and cloth samples for each BFF member laboratory to test using their standard techniques. The results showed that the detection of acid phosphatase on swabs is best achieved using direct testing rather than on an extract from the swab. Extraction methods for spermatozoa require a balance to be achieved between using a sufficient volume of water to ensure optimal release and minimal volume to ensure a concentrated extract. PSA tests were investigated and found to be more sensitive than Choline. DNA profiles were obtained from samples in which no spermatozoa had been detected during microscopic examination.