The Presidency Nelson, Michael; Perry, Barbara A
05/2021
eBook
Following the election of Donald Trump, the office of the U.S.
president has come under scrutiny like never before. Featuring
penetrating insights from high-profile presidential scholars, The
...Presidency provides the deep historical and constitutional context
needed to put the Trump era into its proper perspective.Identifying
key points at which the constitutional presidency could have
evolved in different ways from the nation's founding days to the
present, these scholars examine presidential decisions that
determined the direction of the nation and the world.
ContributorsBradley R. DeWees, U.S. Air Force * Richard J.
Ellis, Willamette University * Stefanie Georgakis Abbott,
University of Virginia * Joel K. Goldstein, Saint Louis University
* Jennifer Lawless, University of Virginia * Sidney M. Milkis,
University of Virginia * Sairkrishna Bangalore Prakash, University
of Virginia * Russell L. Riley, University of Virginia * Andrew
Rudalevige, Bowdoin College * Sean Theriault, University of Texas
at Austin
42 Nelson, Michael; Perry, Barbara A; Riley, Russell L
07/2016
eBook
This book uses hundreds of hours of newly opened interviews and other sources to illuminate the life and times of the nation's forty-second president, Bill Clinton. Combining the authoritative ...perspective of these inside accounts with the analytic powers of some of America's most distinguished presidential scholars, the essays assembled here offer a major advance in our collective understanding of the Clinton White House. Included are path-breaking chapters on the major domestic and foreign policy initiatives of the Clinton years, as well as objective discussions of political success and failure.
p>42is the first book to make extensive use of previously closed interviews collected for the Clinton Presidential History Project, conducted by the Presidential Oral History Program of the University of Virginia's Miller Center. These interviews, recorded by teams of scholars working under a veil of strict confidentiality, explored officials' memories of their service with President Clinton and their careers prior to joining the administration. Interviewees also offered political and leadership lessons they had gleaned as eyewitnesses to and shapers of history. Their spoken recollections provide invaluable detail about the inner history of the presidency in an age when personal diaries and discursive letters are seldom written.
The authors producing this volume had first access to more than fifty of these cleared interviews, including sessions with White House chiefs of staff Mack McLarty and Leon Panetta, Secretaries of State Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright, National Security Advisors Anthony Lake and Sandy Berger, and a host of political advisors who guided Clinton into the White House and helped keep him there. This book thus provides a multidimensional portrait of Bill Clinton's administration, drawing largely on the observations of those who knew it best.
p>
Contributors
Spencer D. Bakich, University of Richmond
Brendan J. Doherty, United States Naval Academy
Patrick T. Hickey, West Virginia University
p>Elaine Kamarck, Center for Effective Public Management, Brookings Institution
Sidney M. Milkis, University of Virginia
Megan Moeller, University of Texas at Austin
Michael Nelson, Rhodes College and the Miller Center, University of Virginia
>Bruce F. Nesmith, Coe College
Barbara A. Perry, Miller Center, University of Virginia
Paul J. Quirk, University of British Columbia
p>Russell L. Riley, Miller Center, University of Virginia
Andrew Rudalevige, Bowdoin College
Robert A. Strong, Washington and Lee University
Sean M. Theriault, University of Texas at Austin
The presidency of George H.W. Bush was an unusually eventful one, encompassing the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the invasion of ...Panama, the Persian Gulf War, and contentious confirmation hearings over Clarence Thomas and John Tower. This book draws on interviews with senior White House and Cabinet officials conducted under the auspices of the Bush Oral History Project (a cooperative effort of the Universtiy of Virginia's Miller Center and the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation) to provide a multidimensional portrait of the first President Bush and his administration.
Purpose
Cardiometabolic disease remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in developed nations. Consequently, identifying and understanding factors associated with underlying ...pathophysiological processes leading to chronic cardio metabolic conditions is critical. Metabolic health, arterial elasticity, and insulin sensitivity (SI) may impact disease risk, and may be determined in part by myofiber type. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that type I myofiber composition would be associated with high SI, greater arterial elasticity, lower blood pressure, and blood lipids; whereas, type IIx myofibers would be associated with lower SI, lower arterial elasticity, higher blood pressure, blood lipids.
Methods
Muscle biopsies were performed on the vastus lateralis in 16 subjects (BMI = 27.62 ± 4.71 kg/m
2
, age = 32.24 ± 6.37 years, 43% African American). The distribution of type I, IIa, and IIx myofibers was determined via immunohistochemistry performed on frozen cross-sections. Pearson correlation analyses were performed to assess associations between myofiber composition, SI, arterial elasticity, blood pressure, and blood lipid concentrations.
Results
The percentage of type I myofibers positively correlated with SI and negatively correlated with systolic blood pressure SBP, diastolic blood pressure, and mean arterial pressure (MAP); whereas, the percentage of type IIx myofibers were negatively correlated with SI and large artery elasticity, and positively correlated with LDL cholesterol, SBP, and MAP.
Conclusions
These data demonstrate a potential link between myofiber composition and cardiometabolic health outcomes in a cohort of premenopausal women. Future research is needed to determine the precise mechanisms in which myofiber composition impacts the pathophysiology of impaired glucose and lipid metabolism, as well as vascular dysfunction.
Bedaquiline (BDQ), a diarylquinoline antibiotic that targets ATP synthase, is effective for the treatment of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infections that no longer respond to conventional drugs. While ...investigating the off-label use of BDQ as salvage therapy, seven of 13 patients with Mycobacterium intracellulare lung disease had an initial microbiological response and then relapsed. Whole-genome comparison of pretreatment and relapse isolates of M. intracellulare uncovered mutations in a previously uncharacterized locus, mmpT5 Preliminary analysis suggested similarities between mmpT5 and the mmpR5 locus, which is associated with low-level BDQ resistance in M. tuberculosis Both genes encode transcriptional regulators and are adjacent to orthologs of the mmpS5-mmpL5 drug efflux operon. However, MmpT5 belongs to the TetR superfamily, whereas MmpR5 is a MarR family protein. Targeted sequencing uncovered nonsynonymous mmpT5 mutations in isolates from all seven relapse cases, including two pretreatment isolates. In contrast, only two relapse patient isolates had nonsynonymous changes in ATP synthase subunit c (atpE), the primary target of BDQ. Susceptibility testing indicated that mmpT5 mutations are associated with modest 2- to 8-fold increases in MICs for BDQ and clofazimine, whereas one atpE mutant exhibited a 50-fold increase in MIC for BDQ. Bedaquiline shows potential for the treatment of M. intracellulare lung disease, but optimization of treatment regimens is required to prevent the emergence of mmpT5 variants and microbiological relapse.
The QSkin Sun and Health Study comprises a cohort of 43 794 men and women aged 40-69 years randomly sampled from the population of Queensland, Australia in 2011. The cohort was established to study ...the development of skin cancer and melanoma in the population with the highest reported incidence of these diseases in the world. At baseline, besides demographic items and general medical history, information about standard pigmentary characteristics (including hair and eye colour, freckling tendency, tanning ability and propensity to sunburn), past and recent history of sun exposure and sunburns, sun protection behaviours, use of tanning beds and history of skin cancer was collected by self-completed questionnaire. Participants have given their consent for data linkage to the universal national health insurance scheme and for linkage to cancer registries and pathology databases, thus ensuring complete ascertainment of all future skin cancer and melanoma occurrences and medical treatments and other cancer events. Linkage to these registers will occur at predetermined intervals. Approval to access QSkin data can be obtained on application to the study investigators and submission of a formal research plan that has previous approval from the human research ethics committee of the applicant's institution.
People with cystic fibrosis face substantial physical, psychological, and social challenges as they move into adolescence and adulthood, which are likely to impact on their health-related quality of ...life. This study sought to examine the relative importance of physical and mental health variables associated with health-related quality of life in this group.
Adults and adolescents (
= 174; ≥14 y old) from across 11 adult or pediatric cystic fibrosis clinics in the Republic of Ireland, completed a background questionnaire that contained self-reported physical health variables, pulmonary function (ie, FEV
%) and body mass index. Questionnaire packs also contained the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the Cystic Fibrosis Questionnaire-Revised, which has been specifically designed to assess health-related quality of life in patients with cystic fibrosis.
HADS depression and/or anxiety scores were negatively associated with 11 of the 12 Cystic Fibrosis Questionnaire-Revised domain scores. FEV
% was positively associated with 8 domains when controlling for HADS anxiety but only 4 domains when controlling for HADS depression. HADS anxiety and depression scores demonstrated larger effect sizes and explained a greater proportion of the variance than pulmonary function in 8 of the 12 Cystic Fibrosis Questionnaire-Revised domain scores.
Mental health variables, depression and anxiety, were strongly associated with health-related quality of life in subjects with cystic fibrosis and demonstrated greater effect sizes and explained a higher proportion of the variance overall than the physical health indicators, FEV
% and body mass index, which highlighted the importance of screening for, and treating, depression and anxiety symptoms.
Biomarkers of inflammation predictive of cystic fibrosis (CF) disease outcomes would increase the power of clinical trials and contribute to better personalization of clinical assessments. A ...representative patient cohort would improve searching for believable, generalizable, reproducible and accurate biomarkers.
We recruited patients from Mountain West CF Consortium (MWCFC) care centers for prospective observational study of sputum biomarkers of inflammation. After informed consent, centers enrolled randomly selected patients with CF who were clinically stable sputum producers, 12 years of age and older, without previous organ transplantation.
From December 8, 2014 through January 16, 2016, we enrolled 114 patients (53 male) with CF with continuing data collection. Baseline characteristics included mean age 27 years (SD = 12), 80% predicted forced expiratory volume in 1 s (SD = 23%), 1.0 prior year pulmonary exacerbations (SD = 1.2), home elevation 328 m (SD = 112) above sea level. Compared with other patients in the US CF Foundation Patient Registry (CFFPR) in 2014, MWCFC patients had similar distribution of sex, age, lung function, weight and rates of exacerbations, diabetes, pancreatic insufficiency, CF-related arthropathy and airway infections including methicillin-sensitive or -resistant Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Burkholderia cepacia complex, fungal and non-tuberculous Mycobacteria infections. They received CF-specific treatments at similar frequencies.
Randomly-selected, sputum-producing patients within the MWCFC represent sputum-producing patients in the CFFPR. They have similar characteristics, lung function and frequencies of pulmonary exacerbations, microbial infections and use of CF-specific treatments. These findings will plausibly make future interpretations of quantitative measurements of inflammatory biomarkers generalizable to sputum-producing patients in the CFFPR.