While it is very common for Congressional researchers to use interest group ratings as measures of legislator policy preferences, this paper argues that the manner in which such ratings are calculated implies that they may poorly approximate the underlying legislator preferences on which they are based. In light of this, the paper develops a technique designed to adjust interest group ratings so that they more closely correlate with legislator preferences. It argues based on Monte Carlo simulations that the technique produces adjusted ratings that improve on unadjusted ratings, and it applies the adjustment technique to historical ratings published by the Americans for Democratic Action.

*: Using t'-test when equal variances were not assumed.Abbreviations: M: men; W: women; SBP: systolic blood pressure; DBP: diastolic blood pressure; BMI: body mass index; FPG: fasting plasma glucose; TC: total cholesterol; TG: triglyceride; HDL-C: high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol; LDL-C: low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol; SD: standard deviation.The comparison of traditional risk factors between genders (mean ± SD).

Note: The second model, M2, consists of only SVM model for the low-CA125 group, and no additional models for the high-CA125 group. The 4 marker set used in model 2 includes 16∶0, 18∶1 PPE, 15∶0 LPC, 18∶2 LPA, and 18∶0, 22∶6 PPE.