Does party organization still matter? Much of the party literature suggests that politicians, who can use substitutes like mass media to win votes, lack incentives to invest in party organization. Yet party organization remains an electoral asset, especially at lower levels of government. Evidence from Brazil’s Workers’ Party (PT) indicates that party elites invest in organization when they prioritize lower-level elections, and that this investment delivers electoral returns. In the mid-2000s, the PT strengthened its support across levels of government in the conservative, clientelistic Northeast. Drawing from underutilized data on party offices, this article shows that organizational expansion contributed substantially to the PT's electoral advances in the Northeast. While President Lula da Silva’s (PT) 2006 electoral spike in the Northeast resulted from expanded conditional cash transfers, the PT’s improvement at lower levels followed from top-down organization-building. The PT national leadership deliberately expanded the party’s local infrastructure to deliver electoral gains.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate perfusion indices and pharmacokinetic parameters in solitary pulmonary nodules (SPNs). Thirty patients of 34 enrolled with SPNs (15-30 mm) were evaluated in this study. T1 and T2-weighted structural images and 2D turbo FLASH perfusion images were acquired with shallow free breathing. B-spline nonrigid image registration and optimization by chi(2) test against pharmacokinetic model curve were performed on dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI. This allowed voxel-by-voxel calculation of k(ep) , the rate constant for tracer transport to and from plasma and the extravascular extracellular space. Mean transit time, time-to-peak, initial slope, and maximum enhancement (E(max) ) were calculated from time-intensity curves fitted to a gamma variate function. After blinded data analysis, correlation with tissue histology from surgical resection or biopsy samples was performed. Histologic evaluation revealed 25 malignant and five benign SPNs. All benign SPNs had k(ep) < 1.0 min(-1) . Nineteen of 25 (76%) malignant SPNs showed k(ep) > 1.0 min(-1) . Sensitivity to diagnose malignant SPNs at a cutoff of k(ep) = 1.0 min(-1) was 76%, specificity was 100%, positive predictive value was 100%, negative predictive value was 45%, and accuracy was 80%. Of all indices studied, k(ep) was the most significant in differentiating malignant from benign SPNs. Magn Reson Med, 2012. (c) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
