Extant research has established that displeasure with a Supreme Court ruling typically has negligible consequences for institutional support, largely because, as legitimacy theory's positivity bias ...explains, judicial decisions are invariably delivered with the accoutrements of legitimizing symbols. The Court's ruling in Dobbs, abrogating a federal constitutional right to abortion services, may challenge legitimacy theory because displeasure with the ruling seems so widespread and intense. This research aims to determine whether the ruling lessened the Court's legitimacy. The general conclusion is that Dobbs produced a sizeable dent in institutional support, perhaps to an unprecedented degree, in part because abortion attitudes for many are infused with moral content and in part owing to the Court's substantial tilt to the right since 2020. Indeed, the Court's legitimacy may be at greater risk today than at any time since Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1930s attack on the institution.
In recent years the American public has witnessed several hard-fought battles over nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court. In these heated confirmation fights, candidates' legal and political ...philosophies have been subject to intense scrutiny and debate.Citizens, Courts, and Confirmationsexamines one such fight--over the nomination of Samuel Alito--to discover how and why people formed opinions about the nominee, and to determine how the confirmation process shaped perceptions of the Supreme Court's legitimacy.
Drawing on a nationally representative survey, James Gibson and Gregory Caldeira use the Alito confirmation fight as a window into public attitudes about the nation's highest court. They find that Americans know far more about the Supreme Court than many realize, that the Court enjoys a great deal of legitimacy among the American people, that attitudes toward the Court as an institution generally do not suffer from partisan or ideological polarization, and that public knowledge enhances the legitimacy accorded the Court. Yet the authors demonstrate that partisan and ideological infighting that treats the Court as just another political institution undermines the considerable public support the institution currently enjoys, and that politicized confirmation battles pose a grave threat to the basic legitimacy of the Supreme Court.
Chiral cations have been used extensively as organocatalysts, but their application to rendering transition metal-catalyzed processes enantioselective remains rare. This is despite the success of the ...analogous charge-inverted strategy in which cationic metal complexes are paired with chiral anions. We report here a strategy to render a common bipyridine ligand anionic and pair its iridium complexes with a chiral cation derived from quinine. We have applied these ion-paired complexes to long-range asymmetric induction in the desymmetrization of the geminal diaryl motif, located on a carbon or phosphorus center, by enantioselective C-H borylation. In principle, numerous common classes of ligand could likewise be amenable to this approach.
Bartels and Johnston have recently presented evidence suggesting that the legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court is grounded in the ideological preferences and perceptions of the American people. In ...addition, they offer experimental data purporting to show that dissatisfaction with a single Court decision substantially diminishes the institution's legitimacy. These findings strongly break with earlier research on the Court's institutional support, as the authors recognize. The theoretical implications of their findings are profound. If the authors are correct that legitimacy is strongly dependent upon satisfying the policy preferences and ideological predilections of the American people, the essence of legitimacy is fundamentally transformed. Consequently, we reinvestigate the relationships among ideology, performance satisfaction, and Court legitimacy, unearthing empirical findings that diverge markedly from theirs. We conclude with some thoughts about how the Court's "countermajoritarian dilemma" can be reconceptualized and recalculated, once more drawing conclusions sharply at odds with those of Bartels and Johnston.
Intermetallic phases, such as Mg2Ca, have been shown to significantly improve the creep strength of magnesium alloys. However, the relevant deformation mechanisms of the intermetallics for further ...alloy development are largely unknown as the application temperature of the intermetallic-metallic composites lies in their brittle low temperature regime. In this study, we investigated the deformation mechanisms of the hexagonal Mg2Ca Laves phase at the same size scale (μm) as in intermetallic-metallic alloys and at room temperature using nanomechanical test methods. We identified active slip planes by a statistical evaluation of slip traces formed around nanoindentations and measured the corresponding critical resolved shear stresses for each slip system by compression of single crystalline micropillars in selected orientations. Deformation occurs on basal, 1st and 2nd order pyramidal as well as 1st and 2nd order prismatic planes and the critical stresses are of the order of 0.44 GPa–0.59 GPa with the lowest value obtained on the 1st order prismatic planes. Finally, we discuss the possible slip systems on a theoretical basis in terms of their local atomic structure.
How is it that the U.S. Supreme Court is capable of getting most citizens to accept rulings with which they disagree? This analysis addresses the role of the symbols of judicial authority and ...legitimacy—the robe, the gavel, the cathedral-like court building—in contributing to this willingness of ordinary people to acquiesce to disagreeable court decisions. Using an experimental design and a nationally representative sample, we show that exposure to judicial symbols (1) strengthens the link between institutional support and acquiescence among those with relatively low prior awareness of the Supreme Court, (2) has differing effects depending upon levels of preexisting institutional support, and (3) severs the link between disappointment with a disagreeable Court decision and willingness to challenge the ruling. Since symbols influence citizens in ways that reinforce the legitimacy of courts, the connection between institutional attitudes and acquiescence posited by Legitimacy Theory is both supported and explained.
Background Asthma pathophysiology and treatment responsiveness are predicted by inflammatory phenotype. However, the relationship between airway microbiology and asthma phenotype is poorly ...understood. Objective We aimed to characterize the airway microbiota in patients with symptomatic stable asthma and relate composition to airway inflammatory phenotype and other phenotypic characteristics. Methods The microbial composition of induced sputum specimens collected from adult patients screened for a multicenter randomized controlled trial was determined by using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Inflammatory phenotypes were defined by sputum neutrophil and eosinophil cell proportions. Microbiota were defined by using α- and β-diversity measures, and interphenotype differences were identified by using similarity of percentages, network analysis, and taxon fold change. Phenotypic predictors of airway microbiology were identified by using multivariate linear regression. Results Microbiota composition was determined in 167 participants and classified as eosinophilic (n = 84), neutrophilic (n = 14), paucigranulocytic (n = 60), or mixed neutrophilic-eosinophilic (n = 9) asthma phenotypes. Airway microbiology was significantly less diverse ( P = .022) and more dissimilar ( P = .005) in neutrophilic compared with eosinophilic participants. Sputum neutrophil proportions, but not eosinophil proportions, correlated significantly with these diversity measures (α-diversity: Spearman r = −0.374, P < .001; β-diversity: r = 0.238, P = .002). Interphenotype differences were characterized by a greater frequency of pathogenic taxa at high relative abundance and reduced Streptococcus , Gemella , and Porphyromonas taxa relative abundance in patients with neutrophilic asthma. Multivariate regression confirmed that sputum neutrophil proportion was the strongest predictor of microbiota composition. Conclusions Neutrophilic asthma is associated with airway microbiology that is significantly different from that seen in patients with other inflammatory phenotypes, particularly eosinophilic asthma. Differences in microbiota composition might influence the response to antimicrobial and steroid therapies and the risk of lung infection.
The macrolide antibiotic azithromycin reduces exacerbations in adults with persistent symptomatic asthma. However, owing to the pleotropic properties of macrolides, unintended bacteriological ...consequences such as augmented pathogen colonization or dissemination of antibiotic-resistant organisms can occur, calling into question the long-term safety of azithromycin maintenance therapy.
To assess the effects of azithromycin on the airway microbiota, pathogen abundance, and carriage of antibiotic resistance genes.
16S rRNA sequencing and quantitative PCR were performed to assess the effect of azithromycin on sputum microbiology from participants of the AMAZES (Asthma and Macrolides: The Azithromycin Efficacy and Safety) trial: a 48-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of thrice-weekly 500 mg oral azithromycin in adults with persistent uncontrolled asthma. Pooled-template shotgun metagenomic sequencing, quantitative PCR, and isolate whole-genome sequencing were performed to assess antibiotic resistance.
Paired sputum samples were available from 61 patients (
= 34 placebo,
= 27 azithromycin). Azithromycin did not affect bacterial load (
= 0.37) but did significantly decrease Faith's phylogenetic diversity (
= 0.026) and
load (
< 0.0001). Azithromycin did not significantly affect levels of
,
,
, or
. Of the 89 antibiotic resistance genes detected, five macrolide resistance genes and two tetracycline resistance genes were increased significantly.
In patients with persistent uncontrolled asthma, azithromycin reduced airway
load compared with placebo but did not change total bacterial load. Macrolide resistance increased, reflecting previous studies. These results highlight the need for studies assessing the efficacy of nonantibiotic macrolides as a long-term therapy for patients with persistent uncontrolled asthma.
Many believe that President Trump’s criticisms of the judiciary pose real and immediate threats to judicial legitimacy. However, framing theory suggests that source credibility is a prerequisite for ...such frames to be effective. Relying on an experiment embedded in a multiwave, nationally representative sample of Americans, we examine whether public attacks on the judiciary—by either Trump or distinguished law professors—affect the US Supreme Court’s legitimacy. We demonstrate that criticisms of the Court from either source are only deleterious among respondents who believe the source is credible; source credibility also shapes agreement with the criticism. Because President Trump is viewed with distrust by a majority of Americans, his comments pose only a limited threat to the Court’s legitimacy. However, our data also suggest that a more credible source (inside or outside government), using similar attacks, could do considerable damage to the legitimacy of the American government’s most fragile branch.
Summary
Background
In asthma, the airway inflammatory phenotype influences clinical characteristics and treatment response. Although induced sputum is the gold standard test for phenotyping asthma, a ...more accessible method is needed for clinical practice.
Objective
To investigate whether white blood cell counts and/or their derived ratios can predict sputum eosinophils or neutrophils in uncontrolled asthma.
Methods
This cross‐sectional study evaluated 164 treated but uncontrolled asthmatic patients with sputum induction and blood collection. Receiver‐operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to assess the relationship between blood and sputum parameters.
Results
There was a significant positive relationship between blood eosinophil parameters and the percentage of sputum eosinophil count. A weak but significant correlation was found between sputum neutrophil percentage and blood neutrophil percentage (r = 0.219, P = 0.005). ROC curve analysis identified that blood eosinophil percentage count was the best predictor for eosinophilic asthma, with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.907 (P < 0.001). The optimum cut‐point for blood eosinophil percentage was 2.7%, and this yielded a sensitivity of 92.2% and a specificity of 75.8%. The absolute blood eosinophil count was also highly predictive with an AUC of 0.898 (P < 0.0001) at a blood eosinophil cut‐off of 0.26 × 109/L. The blood eosinophil/lymphocyte ratio (ELR) and eosinophil/neutrophil ratio (ENR) were increased in eosinophilic asthma, and the neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR) was increased in neutrophilic asthma. Neutrophilic asthma could also be detected by blood neutrophil percentages and NLR, but with less accuracy.
Conclusions and Clinical Relevance
Blood eosinophil counts and derived ratios (ELR and ENR) can accurately predict eosinophilic asthma in patients with persistent uncontrolled asthma despite treatment. Blood neutrophil parameters are poor surrogates for the proportion of sputum neutrophils. Blood counts may be a useful aid in the monitoring of uncontrolled asthma.
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