This paper studies legislative negotiations between two parties whose political power changes over time. The model has a unique subgame perfect equilibrium, which becomes very tractable when parties can make offers frequently. This tractability facilitates studying how changes in political power affect implemented policies. An extension of the baseline model analyses how elections influence leg...

This paper studies how electoral incentives influence the outcomes of political negotiations. It considers a game between two political parties that have to bargain over which policy to implement. While bargaining, the parties’ popularity varies over time. Changes in popularity are partly exogenous and partly driven by the parties’ actions. There is an election scheduled at a future date and th...

BACKGROUND Infantile hemangiomas (IHs) are the most common benign tumor of infancy, yet their pathogenesis is poorly understood. IHs are believed to originate from a progenitor cell, the hemangioma stem cell (HemSC). Recent studies by our group showed that NOTCH proteins and NOTCH ligands are expressed in hemangiomas, indicating Notch signaling may be active in IHs. We sought to investigate dow...

Generating cardiomyocytes from embryonic stem cells is an important technique for understanding cardiovascular development, the origins of cardiovascular diseases and also for providing potential reagents for cardiac repair. Numerous methods have been published but often are technically challenging, complex, and are not easily adapted to assessment of specific gene contributions to cardiac myoc...

I contemporary society, scientists hold a considerable degree of respect, trust, admiration, and authority. Surveys show that North American and European citizens hold a deep belief in the promise of science to solve problems, as well as to improve quality of life and the economy (Eurobarometer 2008; NSB 2008; Pew Research Center on People and the Press 2009a). Even on controversial topics such...

This paper examines the effect of gridlock on urban mobility. It defines gridlock and shows how it can be modeled, monitored and controlled with parsimonious models that do not rely on detailed forecasts. The proposed approach to gridlock management should be most effective when based on real-time observation of relevant spatially aggregated measures of traffic performance. This is discussed in...

Ezh2 is a histone trimethyltransferase that silences genes mainly via catalyzing trimethylation of histone 3 lysine 27 (H3K27Me3). The role of Ezh2 as a regulator of gene silencing and cell proliferation in cancer development has been extensively investigated; however, its function in heart development during embryonic cardiogenesis has not been well studied. In the present study, we used a gen...

Epithelialized somites form repeatedly from the unsegmented presomitic mesoderm (PSM) in the tailbud of vertebrate embryos. Mutant analysis has shown that the Delta-Notch pathway is essential for the temporal and spatial control of somite formation. Several components of this pathway show cyclic transcription, which is driven by a molecular oscillator. This oscillator is thought to act similarl...

Notch signaling directs cell fate during embryogenesis by influencing cell proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis. Notch genes are expressed in the adult mouse ovary, and roles for Notch in regulating folliculogenesis are beginning to emerge from mouse genetic models. We investigated how Notch signaling might influence the formation of primordial follicles. Follicle assembly takes place ...