Long-Term Economic Hardship and Non-Mainstream Voting in Canada

Canadian voting behaviour from 1979 to 2000 is examined by relating long-term economic changes to support for “non-mainstream” parties, defined as parties other than the Liberals or Progressive Conservatives. This long-term perspective is unique, in that standard economic voting research focuses mostly on how short-term economic changes affect support levels for the incumbent. In order to illustrate the effects of long-term economic decline, federal voting results are related with short- and long-term economic data, namely unemployment and labour-force participation rates, all aggregated at the provincial level. The pooled data produces results that confirm the relevance of short-term changes to explain support for the incumbent party, while support for non-mainstream parties is, instead, explained by long-term economic changes

Hyperosmotic priming of arabidopsis seedlings establishes a long-term somatic memory accompanied by specific changes of the epigenome

<p>Background: In arid and semi-arid environments, drought and soil salinity usually occur at the beginning and end of a plant's life cycle, offering a natural opportunity for the priming of young plants to enhance stress tolerance in mature plants. Chromatin marks, such as histone modifications, provide a potential molecular mechanism for priming plants to environmental stresses, but whether transient exposure of seedlings to hyperosmotic stress leads to chromatin changes that are maintained throughout vegetative growth remains unclear.</p> <p>Results: We have established an effective protocol for hyperosmotic priming in the model plant Arabidopsis, which includes a transient mild salt treatment of seedlings followed by an extensive period of growth in control conditions. Primed plants are identical to non-primed plants in growth and development, yet they display reduced salt uptake and enhanced drought tolerance after a second stress exposure. ChIP-seq analysis of four histone modifications revealed that the priming treatment altered the epigenomic landscape; the changes were small but they were specific for the treated tissue, varied in number and direction depending on the modification, and preferentially targeted transcription factors. Notably, priming leads to shortening and fractionation of H3K27me3 islands. This effect fades over time, but is still apparent after a ten day growth period in control conditions. Several genes with priming-induced differences in H3K27me3 showed altered transcriptional responsiveness to the second stress treatment.</p> <p>Conclusion: Experience of transient hyperosmotic stress by young plants is stored in a long-term somatic memory comprising differences of chromatin status, transcriptional responsiveness and whole plant physiology.</p&gt

Facteurs d’appui à la souveraineté du Québec chez les jeunes : Une comparaison entre francophones, anglophones et allophones

Des études récentes ont fait état d’une progression notable de l’option souverainiste chez les Québécois issus de l’immigration, particulièrement parmi les jeunes (« génération 101 »). Ces résultats ont amené certains à conclure que l’intégration linguistique de ces derniers les sensibilisait davantage à l’option souverainiste et que leur comportement électoral était maintenant devenu pratiquement indifférencié de celui des jeunes francophones. Notre étude, basée sur les données d’un sondage mené en 2006, suggère de nuancer ces conclusions. Nos résultats indiquent en effet que, malgré la hausse de l’appui à la souveraineté observée ces dernières années chez les jeunes allophones, les facteurs motivant leur appui ne sont pas tout à fait les mêmes que chez les francophones. Les jeunes allophones semblent notamment très sensibles aux valeurs associées au fédéralisme canadien, de même qu’aux conséquences économiques de la souveraineté. En ce sens, leur comportement s’apparente davantage à celui des jeunes anglophones qu’à celui des jeunes francophones. Le contraste entre francophones et allophones apparaît encore plus marqué lorsque nous examinons l’appui à une question référendaire plus « dure » faisant référence à l’accession du Québec au statut de « pays ».Recent studies have shown a significant increase in sovereignty support among Quebec immigrants, and particularly among immigrants’ children (“Generation 101”). These observations have led some to conclude that, as a result of linguistic integration, immigrant youths’ political opinions and behaviour have become almost undifferentiated from those of their francophone counterparts. Our study, based on a survey conducted in early 2006, provides a significantly more nuanced picture of the situation. Our results indicate that, even though young allophones may have become more supportive of Quebec sovereignty in recent years, the actual motivations behind their support are not entirely the same as those of young francophones. Young allophones appear to be very sensitive to values associated with Canadian federalism, and to the economic consequences of sovereignty. On these accounts, their behaviour more closely resembles that of young anglophones. Such contrast between francophones and allophones becomes even more striking when we examine answers to a more “hardline” referendum question that refers to Quebec assuming the status of a “country.

Revisiting Local Campaign Effects: An Experiment Involving Literature Mail Drops in the 2007 Ontario Election

An invariant feature of constituency election campaigns is the literature mail drop, usually a one-page leaflet or card left at the door profiling the candidate and appealing for electoral support. In this article, we report on a field experiment designed to assess the effects of such mail drops. The experiment was conducted during the 2007 Ontario provincial election campaign in the constituency of Cambridge and entailed distributing literature for the Green party candidate in that constituency. After randomly assigning constituency polls to treatment and control groups, and delivering the Green candidate’s partisan literature only to the selected treatment group polls, we compared the candidate’s support levels in the treated polls with those in the control group. Our research detected a modest effect associated with the literature drop. The effect was largely limited to constituency neighbourhoods fitting at least part of the Green party’s traditional demographic, that is, those with higher than average socio-economic status

Rebates and loyalty discounts schemes in EU: towards a more economic approach?; Il margin squeeze in Europa dopo TeliaSonera e Telefonica; Regulatory impact assessment in telecommunication industry

1. The economics of rebates. Antitrust assessment of rebates in EU before the 2009 Guidance Paper: a form based approach. The treatment of rebates scheme in Guidance Paper on art 82. EU case after Guidance Paper: towards a more economic approach? Conditional rebates after Guidance paper: is form enough? The need of a “safe harbour” rule. 2. Recentemente la corte svedese ha comminato all’operatore incumbent una sanzione amministrativa per aver abusato della posizione dominante goduta nei servizi di accesso a banda larga. Tale sentenza è stata preceduta da una pronuncia pregiudiziale della Corte Europea sull’l’interpretazione dell’art. 102 TFUE in merito ai criteri alla luce dei quali si deve ritenere che una pratica tariffaria di compressione dei margini tra prezzo e costo costituisca abuso di posizione dominante. Sul solco di tale interpretazione la Corte di Giustizia Europea ha recentemente confermato la sanzione inflitta dalla Commissione all’operatore telefonico spagnolo (Telefonica) per violazione dell’art 102 del TFUE. L’interpretazione della corte segna una svolta in materia di margin squeeze che da un lato allarga il divario tra stati uniti ed Europa e dall’altro appare andare oltre l’approccio delineato dalla Commissione europea sull’applicazione dell’art 102 del trattato. Nel corso del lavoro si riassumeranno i punti di principali novità rappresentati dalla sentenza, gli elementi di rottura rispetto al passato e rispetto all’approccio statunitense e si cercheranno di delineare i possibili scenari futuri. 3. Il margin squeeze in EU: definizione ed evoluzione. La sentenza TeliaSonera: distanza incolmabile rispetto all’approccio statunitense? Il rapporto tra antitrust e regolamentazione di settore: le due sponde dell’oceano.1. The economics of rebates. Antitrust assessment of rebates in EU before the 2009 Guidance Paper: a form based approach. The treatment of rebates scheme in Guidance Paper on art 82. EU case after Guidance Paper: towards a more economic approach? Conditional rebates after Guidance paper: is form enough? The need of a “safe harbour” rule. 2. Recentemente la corte svedese ha comminato all’operatore incumbent una sanzione amministrativa per aver abusato della posizione dominante goduta nei servizi di accesso a banda larga. Tale sentenza è stata preceduta da una pronuncia pregiudiziale della Corte Europea sull’l’interpretazione dell’art. 102 TFUE in merito ai criteri alla luce dei quali si deve ritenere che una pratica tariffaria di compressione dei margini tra prezzo e costo costituisca abuso di posizione dominante. Sul solco di tale interpretazione la Corte di Giustizia Europea ha recentemente confermato la sanzione inflitta dalla Commissione all’operatore telefonico spagnolo (Telefonica) per violazione dell’art 102 del TFUE. L’interpretazione della corte segna una svolta in materia di margin squeeze che da un lato allarga il divario tra stati uniti ed Europa e dall’altro appare andare oltre l’approccio delineato dalla Commissione europea sull’applicazione dell’art 102 del trattato. Nel corso del lavoro si riassumeranno i punti di principali novità rappresentati dalla sentenza, gli elementi di rottura rispetto al passato e rispetto all’approccio statunitense e si cercheranno di delineare i possibili scenari futuri. 3. Il margin squeeze in EU: definizione ed evoluzione. La sentenza TeliaSonera: distanza incolmabile rispetto all’approccio statunitense? Il rapporto tra antitrust e regolamentazione di settore: le due sponde dell’oceano.LUISS PhD Thesi

The 2007 Provincial Election and Electoral System Referendum in Ontario

Ontario’s general election in Oct. 10, 2007, was unprecedented for several reasons. The election was held on a date fixed by legislation and not one set by the premier or his caucus, something new to Ontario and relatively new to Canadian politics. Turnout declined to 53%, the lowest ever in Ontario history. The incumbent Liberals won a second consecutive majority government, something the party had not achieved since 1937. And finally, the election featured a referendum question that asked voters in Ontario to approve reforms to the electoral system, a proposal that was overwhelmingly rejected. This article explores each of the above-stated elements as they unfolded in the election

Performance evaluation of GPS receiver under equatorial scintillation

Equatorial scintillation is a phenomenon that occurs daily in the equatorial region after the sunset and affects radio signals that propagate through the ionosphere. Depending on the temporal and spatial situation, equatorial scintillation can represent a problem in the availability and precision of the Global Positioning System (GPS). This work is concerned with evaluating the impact of equatorial scintillation on the performance of GPS receivers. First, the morphology and statistical model of equatorial scintillation is briefly presented. A numerical model that generates synthetic scintillation data to simulate the effects of equatorial scintillation is presented. An overview of the main theoretical principles on GPS receivers is presented. The analytical models that describe the effects of scintillation at receiver level are presented and compared with numerical simulations using a radio software receiver and synthetic data. The results achieved by simulation agreed quite well with those predicted by the analytical models. The only exception is for links with extreme levels of scintillation and when weak signals are received

Tunneling spectroscopy studies of aluminum oxide tunnel barrier layers

We report scanning tunneling microscopy and ballistic electron emission microscopy studies of the electronic states of the uncovered and chemisorbed-oxygen covered surface of AlOx tunnel barrier layers. These states change when chemisorbed oxygen ions are moved into the oxide by either flood gun electron bombardment or by thermal annealing. The former, if sufficiently energetic, results in locally well defined conduction band onsets at ~1 V, while the latter results in a progressively higher local conduction band onset, exceeding 2.3 V for 500 and 600 C thermal anneals

ZINC-FINGER interactions mediate transcriptional regulation of hypocotyl growth in Arabidopsis

Integration of environmental signals and interactions among photoreceptors and transcriptional regulators is key in shaping plant development. TANDEM ZINC-FINGER PLUS3 (TZP) is an integrator of light and photoperiodic signaling that promotes flowering in Arabidopsis thaliana. Here we elucidate the molecular role of TZP as a positive regulator of hypocotyl elongation. We identify an interacting partner for TZP, the transcription factor ZINC-FINGER HOMEODOMAIN 10 (ZFHD10), and characterize its function in coregulating the expression of blue-light–dependent transcriptional regulators and growth-promoting genes. By employing a genome-wide approach, we reveal that ZFHD10 and TZP coassociate with promoter targets enriched in light-regulated elements. Furthermore, using a targeted approach, we show that ZFHD10 recruits TZP to the promoters of key coregulated genes. Our findings not only unveil the mechanism of TZP action in promoting hypocotyl elongation at the transcriptional level but also assign a function to an uncharacterized member of the ZFHD transcription factor family in promoting plant growth