We build simple models for the distribution of voting patterns in a group, using the Supreme Court of the United States as an example. The least structured, or maximum entropy, model that is consistent with the observed pairwise correlations among justices' votes is equivalent to an Ising spin glass. While all correlations (perhaps surprisingly) are positive, the effective pairwise interactions in the spin glass model have both signs, recovering some of our intuition that justices on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum should have a negative influence on one another. Despite the competing interactions, a strong tendency toward unanimity emerges from the model, and this agrees quantitatively with the data. The model shows that voting patterns are organized in a relatively simple "energy landscape," correctly predicts the extent to which each justice is correlated with the majority, and gives us a measure of the influence that justices exert on one another. These results suggest that simple models, grounded in statistical physics, can capture essential features of collective decision making quantitatively, even in a complex political context.Social and political systems, almost by definition, generate collective or emergent phenomena. It is natural to try describing these phenomena in the language of statistical mechanics [1, 2], but it is not always clear whether this is a metaphor or a real theory within which we can make quantitative predictions. Here we address this problem in the context of voting on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). While nine justices surely are not in the thermodynamic limit, we argue that there still are quantitative predictions to be made, and that models grounded in statistical physics provide the simplest account of the observed voting patterns [3].SCOTUS is the highest court in the US government, consisting of nine justices who vote on the constitutionality of legislative and executive actions. We consider natural courts, periods of time during which the membership stays constant, and focus on the second Rehnquist Court (1994Court ( -2004, which provides the largest data set [4, 5]. The Court issues majority and minority opinions, and these can be supplemented with other opinions; although opinions can be nuanced, each justice casts a yes (σ i = +1) or no (σ i = −1) vote, and the majority of votes decides the fate of the case.A widely discussed fact of current political life in the United States is the strong polarization along party lines, so that consensus and unanimity have become rare. Comments on the nature of decision making on the Supreme Court also point to strong ideological divisions between right and left, with one or two justices providing "swing votes" [6]. In reality, unanimous decisions are much more likely than 5-4 splits [7], as shown in Fig 1. This pattern is consistent across more than fifty years, and there is little indication that the unanimous cases are in a special class of "easy" decisions [8].The definition of yes and no in each case is ...

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SummaryThis case report emphasizes the varied manifestation of CO poisoning and its genesis from methylene chloride. Because DCM is now an ingredient in many popular spray paints, the ingredients should be checked routinely in toxic exposures. Manufacturer's suggestions concerning the use these products in ventilated areas to avoid harmful effects do not always protect the consumer, and the public should be well informed regarding this issue.

Superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and its concentration were measured in thyroid tissues obtained from patients with Graves' disease, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, differentiated thyroid cancer, and endemic goiter (before and after iodine supplementation) as well as in normal thyroid tissue (paranodular tissue) from patients with follicular adenomas. SOD activity was measured by pyrogallol assay in ethanol-chloroform extracts of the thyroid homogenates. The SOD concentration in the thyroid extract was measured as immunoreactive SOD by electroimmunoassay. Endemic goiter tissues (n = 10) contained significantly lower SOD activity [mean, 1.9 +/- 1.9 (+/- SD) vs. 7.5 +/- 3.9 ng purified SOD/micrograms DNA; P less than 0.02] and concentration (mean, 0.2 +/- 0.1 vs. 0.8 +/- 0.5 ng SOD/microgram DNA; P less than 0.01) compared with those of normal tissues. No other pathological thyroid tissues had such consistently low SOD levels. Lactate dehydrogenase activity, a marker of cytosolic enzyme, was not lower in endemic goiter tissues than in normal tissues, suggesting that both tissues possessed functioning cells capable of producing cytosolic enzyme. Thyroid tissue from endemic goiter patients previously treated with iodized oil injection also had low SOD activity and concentration. Western blot analysis indicated that SOD protein in the endemic goiter tissue did not differ from that in normal thyroid tissue. We conclude that there is deficiency of cytosolic SOD in endemic goiter tissue. Since the deficiency of cytosolic SOD causes more prolonged exposure to oxygen free radicals, the decrease in SOD might contribute to the degenerative changes frequently found in these tissues.