Ambiguous Platforms and Correlated Preferences: Experimental Evidence

This paper studies, theoretically and experimentally, a model of electoral competition that allows for platforms where candidates may be ambiguous about which policy they will implement if elected. We argue that uncertainty about the policy preferences of the electorate, combined with perceived similarity of voters and candidates, can lead to the latter running on these ambiguous platforms. By appealing to voters from both ends of the spectrum, such platforms can ensure electoral success for noncentrist candidates in a sufficiently polarized society. Ambiguous platforms pose a threat to democratic representation because winning noncentrists always implement policies in favor of a minority and against the preferences of the majority. In our laboratory experiment, ambiguous platforms are chosen frequently by candidates and gain notable support from voters. Our main treatment variation provides causal evidence that ambiguous platforms are more popular among noncentrist voters if one of the candidates is a known centrist.

The Distribution of Soil Micro-Nutrients and the Effects on Herbage Micro-Nutrient Uptake and Yield in Three Different Pasture Systems

Pasture micro-nutrient concentrations are often deficient for herbage productivity and the health of livestock. The aim of this study was to investigate soil and herbage micro-nutrient content and the effects on yield on the three pasture systems of the North Wyke Farm Platform (NWFP): high-sugar grass + legume mix minus nitrogen (N) fertilizer (blue/HSG + L); permanent pasture plus N fertilizer (green/P + N); high-sugar grass plus N fertilizer (red/HSG + N). The locations with high soil total micro-nutrient concentrations had a greater slope and higher soil organic matter (SOM) content. Herbage micro-nutrient concentrations were often greater at the locations with high soil total micro-nutrient concentrations. The concentration and uptake of nearly all micro-nutrients was greatest in the herbage of the green/P + N system, which had the highest SOM content, whereas they were often lowest in the red/HSG + N system, which had the lowest SOM and the highest yield, indicating biomass dilution of micro-nutrients in the herbage. At the locations with high soil micro-nutrient concentrations, yield was higher than at locations with low micro-nutrient concentrations, and was equal across the three pasture systems, regardless of fertilizer N treatment. Variation in micro-nutrient uptake/yield in the blue grass–legume system was predominantly explained by the soil molybdenum (Mo) concentration, possibly relating to the requirement for Mo in biological nitrogen fixation. There was, therefore, a trade-off in ploughing and re-seeding for higher yield, with the maintenance of SOM being important for herbage micro-nutrient content.

The effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19-related mortality: A generalized synthetic control approach across 169 countries

Background: Most governments have introduced various non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in response to the pandemic outbreak of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) since early 2020. While NPIs aim at avoiding fatalities related to COVID-19, the previous literature on their efficacy has focused on infections and on data of the first half of 2020. Still, findings of early NPI studies may be subject to underreporting and missing timeliness of reporting of cases. Moreover, the low variation in treatment timing during the first wave makes identification of robust treatment effects difficult.Methods: To circumvent problems of reporting and treatment variation, we analyse data on daily confirmed COVID-19-related deaths per capita from Our World in Data, and on 10 different NPIs from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker for 169 countries from 1st July 2020 to 31st May 2021. To identify the causal effects of introducing NPIs on COVID-19-related confirmed fatalities per capita, we apply the generalized synthetic control (GSC) method to each NPI, while controlling for the remaining NPIs, weather conditions, vaccinations, and NPI-residualized COVID-19 cases.Findings: We do not find substantial and consistent mitigating effects of any NPI under investigation on COVID-19-related deaths per capita. We see a tentative change in the trend of COVID-19-related deaths around 30 days after workplace closing, public transport closing, and stay at home rules have been implemented, but none of them exerts a statistically significant effect.Interpretation: The study enhances the literature on the effectivity of NPIs with respect to the time frame, the number of countries, and the analytical approach. The results provide further guidance to judge the proportionality of NPIs.

Punitive Social Policy and Vital Inequality

Geographical inequalities in life and death are among the world's most pronounced in the United States. However, the driving forces behind this macroscopic variation in population health outcomes remain surprisingly understudied, both empirically and theoretically. The present article steps into this breach by assessing a number of theoretically informed hypotheses surrounding the underlying causes of such spatial heterogeneity. Above and beyond a range of usual suspects, such as poverty, unemployment, and ethno-racial disparities, we find that a hitherto neglected explanans is prison incarceration. In particular, through the use of previously unavailable county-level panel data and a compound instrumentation technique suited to isolating exogenous treatment variation, high imprisonment rates are shown to substantially increase the population-wide risk of premature death. Our findings contribute to the political economy of population health by relating the rise of the carceral state to the amplification of geographically anchored unequal life chances.

PENGARUH KONSENTRASI MESOKARP SEMANGKA TERHADAP KARAKTERISTIK FISIKOKIMIA DAN MIKROBIOLOGI WATER KEFIR SEMANGKA KUNING (Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.))

ABSTRACT Yellow watermelon (Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.)) is a kind of horticulture commodity that contains high water content. There are three parts of yellow watermelon, namely the outer part (exocarp), the middle part with white color (mesocarp), and the fruit flesh (endocarp) that the mesocarp often becomes waste of the consumption of yellow watermelon. One of the development innovations for yellow watermelon is to process it into fermented beverage such as water kefir using the mesocarp so that there is no waste material. This research aims to know the effect of mesocarp concentration on yellow watermelon water kefir physicochemical and microbiology characteristics. The method of research was using Completely Randomized Design with one factor (mesocarp concentration). Treatment variation which is utilized the 0% (v/v), 5% (v/v), 10% (v/v), 15% (v/v), and 20% (v/v) of mesocarp concentration. The research results show that the higher mesocarp concentration can increase the total of lactic acid and lactic acid bacteria, decrease the alcohol content and total of yeast, contribute to give antioxidants on water kefir, and mesocarp concentration does not have a real impact on viscosity. Keywords: Mesocarp, Yellow Watermelon, Water Kefir ABSTRAK Semangka kuning (Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.)) merupakan salah satu komoditas hortikultura dengan kandungan air yang sangat tinggi. Pada semangka kuning terdapat tiga bagian yaitu bagian terluar (eksokarp), bagian tengah berwarna putih (mesokarp), dan daging buah (endokarp) yang mana dalam mengonsumsi semangka, mesokarp seringkali menjadi limbah. Inovasi pengolahan semangka kuning salah satunya dapat dijadikan minuman fermentasi water kefir dengan memanfaatkan mesokarp agar tidak menjadi bahan yang terbuang. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui pengaruh konsentrasi mesokarp terhadap karakteristik fisikokimia dan mikrobiologi water kefir semangka kuning. Metode penelitian menggunakan Rancangan Acak Lengkap dengan faktor tunggal (konsentrasi mesokarp). Variasi perlakuan yang digunakan adalah konsentrasi mesokarp 0% (v/v), 5% (v/v), 10% (v/v), 15% (v/v), dan 20% (v/v). Hasil penelitian menunjukan semakin tinggi konsentrasi mesokarp mampu meningkatkan total asam laktat dan total bakteri asam laktat, mampu menurunkan kadar alkohol dan total khamir, memberikan antioksidan pada water kefir, dan konsentrasi mesokarp tidak mempengaruhi viskositas. Kata kunci: Mesokarp, Semangka Kuning, Water Kefir

Aspen leaves as a “chemical landscape” for fungal endophyte diversity – Can nitrogen and herbivory shape the community composition in controlled conditions?

The endophytic microbiome may influence the ecological performance of plants, including forest trees. Various abiotic and biotic factors may shape the endophyte communities directly but also indirectly, by modifying the quality of host plants as a substrate. We hypothesized that potentially antifungal or fungistatic condensed tannins (CTs) would determine the quality of aspen (Populus tremula) leaves as a substrate for endophytic fungi. By subjecting the plants to nitrogen fertilization (N) or herbivory (H; leaf beetles) we aimed to change the internal “chemical landscape”, especially the CT levels, in aspen leaves. We expected that this would lead to changes in the fungal community composition, in line with the predictions of heterogeneity-diversity relationship hypothesis. To test this we conducted a greenhouse study where aspen plants were subjected to N and H treatments, individually or in combination. The chemical status of the leaves was analysed using GC/MS (114 metabolites), LC/MS (11 phenolics) and UV-spectrometry (CTs) and the endophytic communities were characterized using culture-dependent sequencing. Nitrogen treatment, alone or in combination with herbivory had a suppressing effect on the concentration and within-treatment variation in the CT precursors, catechins, and resulted in similar trend also in CTs. Nitrogen increased the concentration of certain amino acids, and it also tended to increase most of the analysed sugars sugars. Herbivory had a negligible effect on chemical traits. In N-treated plants, the endophyte richness and abundance were higher than in plants exposed to H, but in general, the diversity of the culturable endophytes remaind stable despite the subtle changes in leaf chemistry.

A multivariate method to correct for batch effects in microbiome data

Microbial communities are highly dynamic and sensitive to changes in the environment. Thus, microbiome data are highly susceptible to batch effects, defined as sources of unwanted variation that are not related to, and obscure any factors of interest. Existing batch correction methods have been primarily developed for gene expression data. As such, they do not consider the inherent characteristics of microbiome data, including zero inflation, overdispersion and correlation between variables. We introduce a new multivariate and non-parametric batch correction method based on Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis. PLSDA-batch first estimates treatment and batch variation with latent components to then subtract batch variation from the data. The resulting batch effect corrected data can then be input in any downstream statistical analysis. Two variants are also proposed to handle unbalanced batch x treatment designs and to include variable selection during component estimation. We compare our approaches with existing batch correction methods removeBatchEffect and ComBat on simulated and three case studies. We show that our three methods lead to competitive performance in removing batch variation while preserving treatment variation, and especially when batch effects have high variability. Reproducible code and vignettes are available on GitHub.