Distributive politics inside the city? The political economy of Spain's Plan E

We study the allocation of investment projects by municipal governments across groups of voters using data from a fiscal stimulus program carried out in Spain between 2009 and 2011. This program provided municipalities with a large endowment to spend in public investments and required the geocoding of each individual project. Combining these data with disaggregated election information at the census area level, we study whether politicians use expenditures to target their supporters or to raise turnout. Estimates from regression, matching and RDD methods show no evidence of local governments targeting areas of core support. Instead, investment goes disproportionately to low turnout areas, suggesting that politicians use funds to increase participation. We confirm this hypothesis by showing that, in the following elections, turnout is increased in areas that received more investment. Our results suggest that mobilization can be a force in shaping the allocation of resources across voter groups within cities

Decline in macrolide resistance rates among Streptococcus pyogenes causing pharyngitis in children isolated in Italy

Macrolides are often used to treat group A streptococcus (GAS) infections, but their resistance rates reached high proportions worldwide. The aim of the present study was to give an update on the characteristics and contemporary prevalence of macrolide-resistant pharyngeal GAS in Central Italy. A total of 592 isolates causing pharyngitis in children were collected in the period 2012-2013. Clonality was assessed by emm typing and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) for all macrolide-resistant strains and for selected susceptible isolates. Genetic determinants of resistance were screened by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Forty-four GAS were erythromycin-resistant (7.4 %). Among them, 52.3 % and 50 % were clindamycin- and tetracycline-resistant, respectively. erm(B)-positive isolates (52.3 %) expressed the constitutive cMLSB phenotype. mef(A) and its associated M phenotype were recorded in 40.9 % of the cases. The remaining erm(A)-positive isolates expressed the iMLSB phenotype. Seventeen tetracycline-resistant isolates carried tet(M) and five isolates carried tet(O). Twenty-five emm types were found among all strains, with the predominance of emm types 12, 89, 1, and 4. Eleven emm types and 12 PFGE clusters characterized macrolide-resistant strains, with almost two-thirds belonging to emm12, emm4, and emm11. Macrolide-susceptible and -resistant emm types 12, 89, 11, and 4 shared related PFGE profiles. There was a dramatic decline in macrolide resistance in Central Italy among pharyngeal GAS isolates in 2012-2013 when compared to previous studies from the same region (p < 0.05), although macrolide consumption remained stable over the past 15 years. We observed a decrease in the proportion of macrolide-resistant strains within emm types commonly associated with macrolide resistance in the past, namely emm12, 1, and 89

Distributive politics inside the city? The political economy of Spain’s Plan E

We study distributive politics inside cities by analysing how local governments allocate investment projects to voters across neighbourhoods. In particular, we ask whether politicians use investment to target their own supporters. To this aim, we use detailed geo-located investment data from Plan E, a large fiscal stimulus program carried out in Spain in 2009–2011. Our main empirical strategy is based on a close-elections regression-discontinuity design. In contrast to previous studies – which use aggregate data at the district or municipal level – we exploit spatial variation in both investment and voter support within municipalities and find no evidence of supporter targeting. Complementary results indicate that voters may be responding to investment by increasing turnout

How the scars of past wars continue to shape UK society

Edward Pinchbeck, Felipe Carozzi and Luca Repetto discuss new research exploring how memory of losses from war affects communities and shapes social values. Their findings suggest the impact can reverberate through generations

Scars of war: the legacy of WW1 deaths on civic capital and combat motivation

What drives soldiers to risk their life in combat? We show that the legacy of war creates lasting conditions that encourage younger generations to take greater risks when fighting for their country. Using individual-level data from over 4 million British war records, we show that WWI deaths deeply affected local communities and the behaviour of the next generation of soldiers. Servicemen from localities that suffered heavier losses in WWI were more likely to die or to be awarded military honours for bravery in WW2. To explain these findings, we document that WWI deaths promoted civic capital in the inter-war period - as demonstrated by the creation of lasting war memorials, veterans' associations and charities, and increased voter participation. In addition, we show that sons of soldiers killed in WWI were more likely to die in combat, suggesting that both community-level and family-level transmission of values were important in this context

ELECTRO-MECHANICAL DESIGN OF A MAGNETIC GEAR PROTOTYPE

A magneto-mechanical approach is proposed to design a magnetic gear prototype. Firstly, an integrated tool for electromechanical simulations is developed, starting from a topological parametric model of a planetary magnetic gear (PMG). Then a CAD model is realised with a progressive rise in complexity, in order to achieve quickly exchangeable configurations for different experimental tests. Three different solutions are designed with advantages and drawbacks. Finally, a block-oriented dynamic model of a PMG, inserted in a mechanical driveline, is developed in Matlab/Simulink environment using the results of magneto mechanical simulations, to virtually test the dynamic behaviour of the device

Sliding friction and superlubricity of colloidal AFM probes coated by tribo-induced graphitic transfer layers

Colloidal probe Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) allows to explore sliding friction phenomena in graphite contacts of nominal lateral size up to hundreds of nanometers. It is known that contact formation involves tribo-induced material transfer of graphite flakes from the graphitic substrate to the colloidal probe. In this context, sliding states with nearly-vanishing friction, i.e. superlubricity, may set in. A comprehensive investigation of the transfer layer properties is mandatory to ascertain the origin of superlubricity. Here we explore the friction response of micrometric beads, of different size and pristine surface roughness, sliding on graphite under ambient conditions. We show that such tribosystems undergo a robust transition towards a low-adhesion, low-friction state dominated by mechanical interactions at one dominant tribo-induced nanocontact. Friction force spectroscopy reveals that the nanocontact can be superlubric or dissipative, in fact undergoing a load-driven transition from dissipative stick-slip to continuous superlubric sliding. This behavior is excellently described by the thermally-activated, single-asperity Prandtl-Tomlinson model. Our results indicate that upon formation of the transfer layer, friction depends on the energy landscape experienced by the topographically-highest tribo-induced nanoasperity. Consistently we find larger dissipation when the tribo-induced nanoasperity is sled against surfaces with higher atomic corrugation than graphite, like MoS2 and WS2, in prototypical Van der Waals layered hetero-junctions.Comment: 35 pages, 6 figures, to be published in Langmui

Graphite superlubricity enabled by triboinduced nanocontacts

Colloidal probe Atomic Force Microscopy allows to explore sliding states of vanishing friction, i.e. superlubricity, in mesoscopic graphite contacts. Superlubricity is known to appear upon formation of a triboinduced transfer layer, originated by material transfer of graphene flakes from the graphitic substrate to the colloidal probe. Previous studies suggest that friction vanishes due to crystalline incommensurability at the newly formed interface. However this picture still lacks several details, such as the roles of the tribolayer roughness and of loading conditions. Hereafter we gain deeper insight into the tribological response of micrometric silica beads sliding on graphite under ambient conditions. We show that the tribotransferred flakes behave as lubricious nanoasperities with a twofold role. First, they decrease the silica-graphite true contact area, in fact causing a breakdown of adhesion and friction by one order of magnitude. Second, they govern mechanical dissipation through the specific energy landscape experienced by the topographically-highest triboinduced nanoasperity. Remarkably, such contact junctions can undergo a load-driven atomic-scale transition from continuous superlubric sliding to dissipative stick-slip, that agrees with the single-asperity Prandtl-Tomlinson model. Superlubricity in mesoscopic silica-graphite junctions may therefore arise from the load-controlled competition between interfacial crystalline incommensurability and contact pinning effects at one dominant nanoasperity.Comment: 55 pages, published in Carbon, this is the Accepted Manuscript version, it includes the revised Supplementary Data versio