Appearance Scores Research Articles

OR11-4 Teprotumumab Markedly Improves Disease-related Quality of Life: Lessons From Two Randomized, Placebo-controlled Trials

Abstract Background Thyroid eye disease (TED) can result in eye-bulging (proptosis) and double-vision (diplopia) and inflammation, which frequently impacts quality of life (QoL). Teprotumumab, an insulin like growth factor-1 receptor inhibitory antibody, improves TED outcomes and QoL1 as measured by the Graves Ophthalmopathy-Quality of Life (GO-QoL) questionnaire and its appearance (AP) and visual function (VF) subscales. The primary factors driving QoL improvement in TED are unknown; therefore, we examined outcomes associated with improvement as observed in 2 placebo-controlled trials. Methods Data from Phase 2/3 placebo-controlled trials of teprotumumab were examined with a mixed-effect model with change in overall GO-QoL, AP, and VF scores as dependent variables to explain within-patient variability. Independent variables included demographics, visits, treatment, symptoms (Gorman diplopia scores [0-3], proptosis change (mm), spontaneous orbital pain, gaze-evoked orbital pain). Variability between subjects was tested over the 24-week study. Results Teprotumumab treatment significantly correlated with improved overall GO-QoL, VF and AP scores. Improvements in diplopia, proptosis, gaze-evoked and spontaneous orbital pain were associated with those in overall GO-QoL score (coefficient -4.01, -1.00, -31.21 and -4.37, respectively, all p<0.001). Improvements in diplopia scores and spontaneous orbital pain were significantly correlated with higher VF scores (coefficients -5.51 and -6.66, respectively, both p<0.001). Improvements in diplopia and proptosis correlated significantly with higher AP scores (coefficients -2.98, -1.62, both p<0.001). Patients with pain had lower AP scores (coefficient -38.21, p<0.001). Increasing age was positively correlated with higher GO-QoL AP scores (coefficient 0.41, p<0.001), but negatively correlated with GO-QoL VF scores (coefficient -0.29, p<0.001). Variability between subjects was considerable, accounting for >60% of random variance. Conclusions Improvements in diplopia, proptosis, and pain drove improvements in QoL. In older patients, changes in AP impacted QoL to a lesser degree, while reduced VF had a greater negative impact on QoL. References Kahaly et al, Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinol 2021; 9(6): 360-372 Presentation: Sunday, June 12, 2022 11:45 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Ecological and/or Nutritional Scores for Food Traffic-Lights: Results of an Online Survey Conducted on Pizza in France

Understanding the hierarchy for consumers between different labels signaling various characteristics defining food sustainability is still an open question. A web survey was conducted in France to examine how providing different scores about the environment and/or nutrition could influence purchase intents for one pizza. 1200 participants were recruited in France in April 2021. They were asked about their purchase intents for one pizza, before and after seeing nutritional and/or ecological scores associated with colors going from green to red. A Global-Score synthetizing both nutritional and ecological dimensions was also tested. The results show that the appearance of scores and colors significantly affect the purchase intents for this pizza. Indeed, for each type of score (namely nutritional, ecological or global), the dominant effect comes from the reduction in purchase intents related to the red color, although green or yellow colors also change purchase intents but to a lesser extent. With the red color, the nutritional score leads to more significant decreases in purchasing intents than the ones related to the ecological score or the Global-Score. With an additional round, the appearance of another score complementing the alternative one underlines that the negative impact of the red color for one score on purchase intents is not outweighed by the positive impact of the green color for the other score.

Cancer-elicited inflammation attenuates response and outcome in tyrosine kinase inhibitor naive patients with advanced NSCLC

ObjectiveCancer elicited inflammation is the main environmental cause leading to carcinogenesis and metastasis of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Roles of the inflammatory biomarker in predicting the clinical efficacy of tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) and prognosis of naive patients with advanced NSCLC need to be determined, and the best inflammatory predicted biomarker remains unknown. MethodsA total of 178 eligible advanced NSCLC patients (124 and 54 cases within discovery and validation cohorts, respectively) who received first-line EGFR-TKI between July of 2014 and October of 2020 were enrolled in the present study. We detected circulating immune cell counting, albumin (Alb), pre-albumin (pAlb), ALP, AST, LDH, GGT, HDL-c, and fibrinogen (Fib) concentrations, and calculated 22 inflammatory ratios and scores. Logistic regression and Cox proportional hazards models were used to assess the impact of these ratios and scores on objective response and disease control rate (ORR and DCR) as well as progression-free survival (PFS) in these patients. ResultsTwenty-five percentage and 24.07% of NSCLC patients were observed objective response to the treatment of first-line EGFR-TKI in discovery and validation cohort, respectively. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression showed that high PLR, NPS, SII, SIS, mSIS, GLR and FPR as well as low PNI were significantly associated with poor PFS in discovery cohort. However, only high SII and FPR were found to be associated with unsatisfactory outcome in validation cohort. Time-dependent areas under ROC of FPR were 0.702 (0.517–0.888) in discovery cohort, and 0.767 (0.613–0.921) in validation cohort, which were extremely higher than the other biomarkers. The patients with FPR-SII combined score 2 harbored worse prognosis compared to the combined score 0 in discovery (plog-rank = 0.003, adjusted HR = 2.888, 95%CI = 1.500–5.560) and validation cohort (plog-rank = 0.001, adjusted HR = 3.769, 95%CI = 1.676–8.478) as well as overall population (plog-rank < 0.001, adjusted HR = 3.109, 95%CI = 1.878–5.147), and its time-dependent AUCs were 0.747 (0.594–0.900) and 0.815 (0.688–0.942) in the two cohorts, respectively, which were significantly higher than the single biomarker in the two cohorts. The patients with high FPR and FPR-SII score harbored worse DCR than the low patients in the two cohorts and overall population, respectively. Moreover, the similar poor survival was observed in advanced high-FPR NSCLC patients with different treatment options, however, the survival of low-FPR patients with treatment of single TKI, radiotherapy or chemotherapy or radio-chemotherapy combined TKI was good compared to the high-FPR patients with radio-chemotherapy combined TKI, and the survival differences were observed between TKI (plog-rank < 0.001) or radiotherapy combined TKI (plog-rank = 0.014) treated low-FPR patients and the high FPR patients. Additionally, FPR-SII combined score could monitor the progression of the disease in real-time, and the median month of the positive score appearance was significantly earlier than CT/MRI detection (p < 0.001 for 3 months vs. 13 months). ConclusionsHigh-grade cancer elicited inflammation could attenuates response and outcome in tyrosine kinase inhibitor naive patients with advanced NSCLC. FPR-SII combined score was the best inflammatory biomarker to monitor and predict the progression of advanced NSCLC patients with treatment of TKI.

Effectiveness of orbital decompression for endocrine orbitopathy and impact on quality of life: A retrospective study

To evaluate the effectiveness of orbital decompression intervention in terms of variation of the exophthalmos and to highlight its association with changes in quality of life before and after surgery.Medical records of patients with moderate-severe GO who underwent orbital decompression surgery were retrospectively reviewed.Clinical parameters, including demographic characteristics, surgical technique, exophthalmos values, and QoL using the GO-QoL questionnaire were studied before and after orbital decompression and analyzed.Thirty patients were included in the study. Surgery was bilateral 26 patients and unilateral in 4 patients (56 operated orbits). Before surgery the average value of exophthalmometry was 24.96 (±2.68) mm. The questionnaires submitted for assessment of the quality of life (GO-QoL) yielded average values of 43.3 for the visual function (VF) and 44.03 for the appearance (AP). 20 patients (64.3%) underwent combined bone and fat decompression surgery, 9 underwent fat decompression, and 1 underwent bone decompression. After surgery, the average values of exophthalmometry were 21.8 (±2.34) mm, with an average reduction of 3.20 (±2.35) mm. (p < 0.0001) GO-QoL questionnaires administered after surgery showed a mean VF score of 76.73 (±26.75), and AP score of 73.71 (±21.89). (p < 0.001, paired t-test)Orbital decompressive surgery is not only effective on GO, but also on a long-term improvement in overall well-being, self-confidence and QoL.

De vita cum imperfectis

De vita cum imperfectis Alfred Dürr Translated by Traute M. Marshall (bio) The creation of new editions of old music, an important area of musicology, usually has two goals: to enrich our understanding of history and, at the same time, to provide present musical practice with new material—a goal to which the overused notion of the "unjustly forgotten master" bears eloquent (and dubious) witness. The editorial method employed assumes the incontrovertible high quality of the work to be edited; the original, as conceived by the master, is deemed flawless. From this it follows that all the errors contained in the work as it has come down to us are due to flawed transmission and therefore have to be emended in the new edition. Similarly, all additions made to the work by another hand in the course of transmission do not measure up to the level of the master; therefore, they too have to go. This attitude leads to the ideal of the Urtextausgabe, the edition of the original text. And even though the term in recent decades has been interpreted in a considerable number of different ways, it still implies that the new edition must focus as much as possible on the evidence of the composer, and that foreign interpretation of any kind is to be excluded. There is no need to challenge the general validity of these principles. Whoever follows them, however (in the conviction that clarification of the composer's intent is demanded by the commitment to truth, without which our discipline makes no sense), must also become aware of the method's limits in order to use it effectively. The following observations will consider some of those limits. A work like Johann Sebastian Bach's St. Matthew Passion, which the author is currently [1971] editing, is well suited to clarify the problems, since there is no question about the quality of the work or the capabilities of the composer. Therefore, we will be able to focus exclusively on editorial problems. [End Page 212] First of all, we must address the following question: to what extent should the notational appearance of the autograph score be preserved? Whenever the fair copy of a composer is the topic, the autograph Mus. ms. Bach P25 in the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek must not be, and cannot be, overlooked. All scholars agree that the idiosyncrasies of Bach's notational handwriting reveal to the eye—as well as to the inner ear—essential features of Bach's music. For that reason, every editor will strive to deviate from this visual representation as little as possible. Max Schneider, in his new edition, met this obligation in exemplary fashion.1 Therefore, the result reveals the problem of the method with particular clarity. Bach, for example, combines the two continuo staves of the first of the two choral movements, "Laß ihn kreuzigen," onto one staff (the lowest) for four and a half measures (folio 54r of the score): there was no space available for the normal separation. On folio 54v, on the other hand, there was sufficient space, and each chorus is given its own continuo staff for the remaining four measures of the movement. The same situation recurs in the second choral movement of the same text: on folio 56v it had to be notated on one staff for five and a half measures, but there was enough space on folio 57r to separate the continuo parts onto two staves for the remainder of the movement. Schneider notates both movements with just one continuo staff throughout (as the lowest staff), thus turning Bach's stopgap measure, necessitated by lack of space, into the governing rule. But when this rule is applied, should it then not be necessary to reproduce visually the lack of space in a new edition, so that the user can understand the rationale of the score layout? Would it not be more important to clarify what caused the composer to proceed in this particular way than to copy slavishly the mere appearance of the score? But is the lack of space the composer faced worthy to be enshrined in a new edition? A blind trust in authority ("he must have known why...

De vita cum imperfectis

De vita cum imperfectis Alfred Dürr Translated by Traute M. Marshall (bio) The creation of new editions of old music, an important area of musicology, usually has two goals: to enrich our understanding of history and, at the same time, to provide present musical practice with new material—a goal to which the overused notion of the "unjustly forgotten master" bears eloquent (and dubious) witness. The editorial method employed assumes the incontrovertible high quality of the work to be edited; the original, as conceived by the master, is deemed flawless. From this it follows that all the errors contained in the work as it has come down to us are due to flawed transmission and therefore have to be emended in the new edition. Similarly, all additions made to the work by another hand in the course of transmission do not measure up to the level of the master; therefore, they too have to go. This attitude leads to the ideal of the Urtextausgabe, the edition of the original text. And even though the term in recent decades has been interpreted in a considerable number of different ways, it still implies that the new edition must focus as much as possible on the evidence of the composer, and that foreign interpretation of any kind is to be excluded. There is no need to challenge the general validity of these principles. Whoever follows them, however (in the conviction that clarification of the composer's intent is demanded by the commitment to truth, without which our discipline makes no sense), must also become aware of the method's limits in order to use it effectively. The following observations will consider some of those limits. A work like Johann Sebastian Bach's St. Matthew Passion, which the author is currently [1971] editing, is well suited to clarify the problems, since there is no question about the quality of the work or the capabilities of the composer. Therefore, we will be able to focus exclusively on editorial problems. [End Page 212] First of all, we must address the following question: to what extent should the notational appearance of the autograph score be preserved? Whenever the fair copy of a composer is the topic, the autograph Mus. ms. Bach P25 in the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek must not be, and cannot be, overlooked. All scholars agree that the idiosyncrasies of Bach's notational handwriting reveal to the eye—as well as to the inner ear—essential features of Bach's music. For that reason, every editor will strive to deviate from this visual representation as little as possible. Max Schneider, in his new edition, met this obligation in exemplary fashion.1 Therefore, the result reveals the problem of the method with particular clarity. Bach, for example, combines the two continuo staves of the first of the two choral movements, "Laß ihn kreuzigen," onto one staff (the lowest) for four and a half measures (folio 54r of the score): there was no space available for the normal separation. On folio 54v, on the other hand, there was sufficient space, and each chorus is given its own continuo staff for the remaining four measures of the movement. The same situation recurs in the second choral movement of the same text: on folio 56v it had to be notated on one staff for five and a half measures, but there was enough space on folio 57r to separate the continuo parts onto two staves for the remainder of the movement. Schneider notates both movements with just one continuo staff throughout (as the lowest staff), thus turning Bach's stopgap measure, necessitated by lack of space, into the governing rule. But when this rule is applied, should it then not be necessary to reproduce visually the lack of space in a new edition, so that the user can understand the rationale of the score layout? Would it not be more important to clarify what caused the composer to proceed in this particular way than to copy slavishly the mere appearance of the score? But is the lack of space the composer faced worthy to be enshrined in a new edition? A blind trust in authority ("he must have known why...

Study on Surface Layers of Aluminum and Titanium Alloys and Analysis of their Scuff Resistance

To reduce the risk of scoring copper or zinc coatings were applied to the samples in molten salts at a temperature of 350-500°C. Using ion sputtering and Auger electron spectroscopy the depth of the surface layers and the grain size in the coating were determined. Samples were plates 0.5-0.7 mm thick made of titanium and aluminum alloys. For copper-coated alloys a coating zone up to 10 μm and a diffuse zone up to 6 μm which is intermediate between the coating and the substrate can be distinguished in the surface layers. For zinc-coated aluminum alloys there is one zone of 5-7 μm which is an aluminum-zinc alloy of variable composition across depth. Thus, a soft metal formed on the surface of the titanium and aluminum alloys when processed in the salt melt is connected to the base metal with metallic bonds. Moreover, the higher the temperature and the longer the holding time in the salt melt, the thicker the coating is. While investigating the score resistance a dependence of the friction moment change on the path travelled to a score appearance was obtained. It has been established that the score resistance of the titanium and aluminum alloys is directly dependent on the inhomogeneity factor which is sharply increased when there is a softer (compared with the base metal) coating on the surface of the metal processed. Experimental stamping-drawing of cups made of the titanium alloy workpieces preliminary copper-coated in the salt melt was carried out. The production cycle was significantly reduced, and the surface quality of the products after the coating removal was high, the scoring was not observed. Thus, the use of soft (compared with the base metal) metal coatings applied in salt melts is promising for titanium and aluminum alloys.

Review: Teaching Stravinsky: Nadia Boulanger and the Consecration of a Modernist Icon, by Kimberly A. Francis

Teaching Stravinsky: Nadia Boulanger and the Consecration of a Modernist Icon , by Kimberly A. Francis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. xxiii, 266 pp. The teasingly ambiguous title of Kimberly Francis's book gives us some clues as to the part played by Nadia Boulanger in Stravinsky's career. Boulanger was a champion of Stravinsky's music, both as the teacher of her own students and in what would now be termed public engagement, and she taught his younger son Soulima from 1929. But Francis also makes the bolder claim that “For all intents and purposes, [Boulanger] taught [Igor Stravinsky] how to view his own music; her analysis opened his eyes to his work. She helped him articulate his voice and the mechanisms underlying his ‘technique.’ She also taught him about presentation, the direct relationship between the score's appearance and its legacy” (p. 248). While Robert Craft considered Boulanger simply to be “a prodigious proof-reader” (quoted p. 9), Francis instead provides “a feminist account of Boulanger's professional interactions with Stravinsky, his family, and his music” (p. 9). She follows Suzanne Cusick and others in her wish to shed light on “woman's work and the culturally feminine so that they cease to be marginalized and devalued, but might be re-interpreted as important elements of musical culture” (quoted p. 9). Francis chooses to view the Boulanger-Stravinsky relationship through the lens of Pierre Bourdieu's theory, referencing particularly the concepts of cultural capital, consecration, and agency. Yet the theoretical framework is handled with a light touch after the introduction: Boulanger's …

Descriptive Analysis for Evaluation the Sensory Attribute of Dangmyon(starch vermicelli) Added with Mulberry Leaves Powder

The objective of this study was to evaluate the sensory attributes of Dangmyon(starch vermicelli) prepared with mulberry leaves powder. Mulberry leaves powder was added in ratios (w/w) of 0% (CON), 0.5% (MD1), 1.0% (MD2), 1.5% (MD3). and 2.0% (MD4), and descriptive analysis and sensory evaluations of the Dangmyon were performed. Data analysis consisted of analysis of variance (ANOVA) and principal component analysis (PCA). Descriptive expressions of Dangmyon included ‘appearance’, ‘odor/aroma’, ‘flavor/taste’, ‘texture/mouthfeel’, and ‘after-sensation’. A total of 28 descriptive expressions were obtained. The results of descriptive analysis indicated that it was possible to explain 93.45% of all variations by the first and second principal components. The first and second components of variation were 83.15% and 10.30% respectively. In sensory evaluation, the scores forappearance, flavor, taste and overall preference for MD3 were significantly higher than for the samples (CON, MD1, MD2, and MD4). The findings indicate that the addition of 1.5% mulberry leaves powder is effective for the preparation of Dangmyon with regard to consumer acceptability.

A Bloody Transition: Child Killers in Narciso Ibáñez Serrador’s ¿Quién puede matar a un niño? (1976)

A Bloody Transition:Child Killers in Narciso Ibáñez Serrador’s ¿Quién puede matar a un niño? (1976) Eli Evans and Haley O’Neil Long considered the model of a tidy transition from dictatorship to democracy, the Spanish Transición in fact left behind a residue of uneasiness that is still being contended with today. By and large, this uneasiness can be traced to the so-called pacto del olvido, or pact of forgetting – an “institutionalized amnesia,” as Madeline Davis describes it, silently agreed upon by all of the major power players in the Spanish transition and subsequently formalized in the Amnesty Law of 1977. Described at the time by one moderate government deputy as a “forgetting from everybody to everybody,” that law banned the prosecution of crimes of a political nature committed during the Franco regime, including “the violation of human rights by government agents and functionaries” (Davis 863). For years, scholars and writers have debated the significance of this institutionalized amnesia, as well as the spectacle of its reversal witnessed in both the political and cultural arenas during the course of the past decade: a display punctuated by the passage of the “Ley de la Memoria Histórica,” or law of historical memory, in 2007, and what Sebastiaan Faber describes as “the appearance of scores of best-selling novels, memoirs, and studies, as well as … films, television programs, exhibits, and documentaries about hitherto less broadly publicized aspects of the Civil War and Francoism” (206). While many scholars, among them Jo Labanyi, have framed the pacto del olvido as a collective act of repression subsequently manifested in various collective pathologies, others, such as Santos Juliá, have contended that the conscious decision to forget is itself a way of remembering. And while Faber interprets the historical memory “boom” of the late 1990s and [End Page 329] early 2000s as a “sign of socio-political health” (205), Joan Ramon Resina contends that the commodification of history does not constitute a genuine working through of the memory of it so much as yet another means of repressing the same. Mediated by the market, writes Resina, the “past … is constantly neutralized” (93). Despite such disagreements regarding the short and long-term consequences of the pacto del olvido, however, there has been a surprising consensus amongst scholars and historians with respect to its cause. Synthesizing Palomar Aguilar’s 1996 Memory and Amnesia: The Role of the Spanish Civil War in the Transition to Democracy Faber describes “how it was the fear of violent conflict and the overwhelming, haunting presence of a certain memory of the Republic and the Civil War that quickly discouraged any further exploration of the past,” an attitude “imposed … from above,” he concedes, but “with the approval of most of the population” (213). To this widely accepted belief that a top-to-bottom refusal of the possible repetition of past violence lay at the heart of the Spanish transition’s pacto del olvido, Narciso Ibáñez Serrador’s 1976 ¿Quién puede matar a un niño? serves as a striking counter-example – one that, as we read it, goes so far as to suggest such a repetition of violence may be the very condition of a meaningful transition from a totalitarian past to a democratic future. In a moment in which the suspicion, long held by some of Spain’s most acerbic intellectuals, that the Spanish Transición was not one from dictatorship to democracy so much as from political dictatorship to market dictatorship has become word on the street, ¿Quién puede matar a un niño? offers a critically valuable glimpse into what Christopher Prendergast calls “the sphere of the might-have-been.” Loosely based on the novel El juego de los niños by Juan José Plans, ¿Quién puede matar a un niño? tells the story of British couple Tom and Evie’s ill-fated trip to the fictional Spanish island of Almanzora, four hours by boat from the southern coastal town of Benavís. For Tom, the journey is one of return. Twelve years earlier, he visited Almanzora on his own and retains magical memories he hopes to relive with his now...

Bone defect healing with an osteogenic protein‐1 device combined with carboxymethylcellulose

One consideration for the practical use and application of osteogenic proteins is an effective method of delivery. This study evaluated a putty-type collagen carrier with recombinant human osteogenic protein-1 (rhOP-1) ability to heal canine critical sized (2.5 cm) ulna segmental defects compared to rhOP-1 with a particulate collagen carrier (OP device). The addition of carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) to the particulate collagen carrier (OPCMC device) to form the putty consistency was evaluated in two doses (3.5 and 1.75 mg rhOP-1/g carrier). The CMC greatly improved the intraoperative handling and site containment of the device. For the one-half dose and full-dose sites there were no statistically significant differences in the radiographic grading of defect healing when treated with the particulate OP-1 device and the device with CMC added. However, there was a dose effect with greater and earlier new bone formation observed with increased rhOP-1. Mechanically, there were no differences between particulate and putty formulations, although again, a significant effect was observed for treatment dose with the full-dose OPCMC device restoring 94% of the strength of the intact ulna compared to only 65% for the identical one-half dose implant. Regardless of rhOP-1 dose, the quality of union grading and total histologic score appearance were improved with the addition of CMC, although differences in histologic scoring were not statistically significant. Overall, the radiographic, mechanical, and histologic bone-healing characteristics with the one-half dose OPCMC device were similar to sites treated with the full-dose OP device. The observed improvement in healing may allow for lesser amounts of the device or a device with less rhOP-1 to be used.

Antiviral Activity of the Marine Alga Symphyocladia latiuscula against Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV-1) in Vitro and Its Therapeutic Efficacy against HSV-1 Infection in Mice

The antiviral activities of extracts from 5 species of marine algae collected at Haeundae (Pusan, Korea), were examined using plaque reduction assays. Although the activity of a methanol (MeOH) extract of Sargassum ringoldianum (Sargassaceae) was the most potent against several types of viruses, it was also cytotoxic. A MeOH extract of Symphyocladia latiuscula (Rhodomelaceae) and its fractions exhibited antiviral activities against acyclovir (ACV) and phosphonoacetic acid (PAA)-resistant (AP(r)) herpes simplex type 1 (HSV-1), thymidine kinase (TK(-)) deficient HSV-1 and wild type HSV-1 in vitro without cytotoxicity. The major component, 2,3,6-tribromo-4,5-dihydroxybenzyl methyl ether (TDB) of a CH(2)Cl(2)-soluble fraction was active against wild type HSV-1, as well as AP(r) HSV-1 and TK(-) HSV-1 (IC(50) values of 5.48, 4.81 and 23.3 microg/ml, respectively). The therapeutic effectiveness of the MeOH extract and TDB from S. latiuscula was further examined in BALB/c mice that were cutaneously infected with HSV-1 strain 7401H. Three daily oral administrations of the MeOH extract and TDB significantly delayed the appearance of score 2 skin lesions (local vesicles) and limited the development of further score 6 (mild zosteriform) lesions in infected mice without toxicity compared with controls. In addition, TDB suppressed virus yields in the brain and skin. Therefore TDB should be a promising anti HSV agent.

Which Incumbents Lose in House Elections: A Response to Jacobson's "The Marginals Never Vanished"

After the appearance of scores of scholarly works attempting to explain why incumbent members of the House of Representatives became safer in the mid-1960s, Gary Jacobson, in a recent (February 1987) article in this journal, claims that for House seats held by incumbents has not, in fact, declined. The crux of Jacobson's case rests on an alleged increase in the chances of an incumbent winning by a large margin in one election and then losing the seat two years later. Thus, Jacobson believes, marginality needs to be redefined rather than memorialized. In this response we raise some additional issues relevant to the matter of incumbent safety. Our analysis of the evidence suggests there may have been a slight, temporary increase in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the chances of big winners losing their next race, but clearly indicates that in the six elections since 1974 the proportion of big winners who lose the next election is virtually identical to the proportion in the 1950s and early 1960s. What is more, those who do lose almost always do so because of an adverse redistricting or a major, personal scandal. Thus, unlike Jacobson, we conclude that (1) there has been no meaningful increase in the chances of big winners subsequently losing and (2) in recent elections the chances of a scandal-free, unredistricted, previously safe incumbent losing are practically nil. The level of competition in congressional elections has declined and should be a source of concern to those who value electoral accountability.