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Hao, F., P. Y. A. Ryan, and P. Zieliński. "Anonymous voting by two-round public discussion." IET Information Security 4, no. 2 (2010): 62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1049/iet-ifs.2008.0127.
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Engstrom, Richard L. "Thernstrom v. Voting Rights Act: Round Two." Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy 9, no. 3 (September 2010): 203–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/elj.2010.9304.
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Kiss, Áron. "Identifying strategic voting in two-round elections." Electoral Studies 40 (December 2015): 127–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2015.08.002.
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Kamakura, Wagner Antonio. "Using Voter-choice Modeling to Plan Final Campaigns in Runoff Elections." Revista de Administração Contemporânea 20, no. 6 (December 2016): 753–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/1982-7849rac2016160116.
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Abstract Even though runoff elections are the most common form of presidential elections in the world, voter-choice behavior in these two-round elections have not received the attention they deserve in the literature. Two-round elections provide political consultants and candidates with rich and factual data on voter preferences, revealed through the voting behavior observed in the first round, which can guide the planning and implementation of their final campaign. They also allow political analysts to apply their voter-choice models to actual voting behavior (rather than voting intentions) in a multi-party election during the first round, and validate their predictions in a two-party election in the final round. I use results from the four most recent Brazilian presidential elections to demonstrate how voter-choice models can be applied to guide political campaigns in runoff elections.
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Dolez, Bernard, Annie Laurent, and André Blais. "Strategic voting in the second round of a two-round system: The 2014 French municipal elections." French Politics 15, no. 1 (March 7, 2017): 27–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/s41253-016-0010-9.
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Gherghina, Sergiu, and Mihail Chiru. "Voting after Watching: The Strategic Role of Election Polls." European Review 20, no. 2 (March 30, 2012): 210–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1062798711000548.
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The November 2009 Romanian presidential elections illustrate the process through which media exposure to exit polls during the election day allows strategic voting in the least expected situations (i.e. in the first round of a two-ballot setting). Organized in a two-round system in which the first two competitors qualify for the second round, these elections display one unsolved dilemma. The difference registered in elections between the two challengers is twice as large as the average support in the pre-election polls (a comparable difference was never registered in post-communist Romania). Our quantitative analysis uses election results from the past two decades and aggregated poll data from 2009 and reveals that a large share of the Romanian electorate avoids wasting votes and casts them for candidates with real winning chances. This article argues that polls presented to the voters, by the media during the elections, made the difference. They were used as electoral strategies to trigger strategic voting and thus promote specific candidates.
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Van der Straeten, Karine, Jean-François Laslier, and André Blais. "Vote Au Pluriel: How People Vote When Offered to Vote Under Different Rules." PS: Political Science & Politics 46, no. 02 (March 28, 2013): 324–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1049096513000036.
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AbstractThis article reports on an Internet-based quasi-experiment that took place during the French 2012 presidential election. We designed a website where French voters could vote under different voting rules. Based on the observation of more than 8,000 participants, we find that a substantial minority (10% to 15%) vote differently under the different systems, with 17% of the voters not voting for their preferred candidate in the one-round election, this percentage dropped to 12% in the alternative vote (first choice). Compared to the two-rounds election, at the aggregate level, the top two candidates get slightly more votes under one round, while the minor candidates obtain more first choices under the alternative vote. These findings are consistent with what the literature suggests about the impact of these voting systems on voters' choice.
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RICHTER, KASPAR. "Wage Arrears and Economic Voting in Russia." American Political Science Review 100, no. 1 (February 2006): 133–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003055406062058.
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This paper revisits the issue of economic voting in the context of the 1996 Presidential Election in Russia. The election was branded as a fundamental choice between capitalism and communism, yet voters were also grappling with a large crisis of personal finances: about one in two workers experienced nonpayments of wages at the time of the elections. The analysis exploits a rich nationally representative household panel dataset to identify the impact of wage arrears on the second-round election outcome. Wage arrears reduced the vote for the incumbent President Yeltsin among workers from around 65% to 49%, which amounts to a drop of 4% in the Yeltsin vote in the second round. Support for Yeltsin vote declined with the amount of wage arrears at the time of the vote and with wage arrears in 1995. Wage arrears led more voters to believe the government to be noncaring and to favor income restrictions for the rich. Political attitudes of working men changed more than those of working women.
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Bouton, Laurent. "A Theory of Strategic Voting in Runoff Elections." American Economic Review 103, no. 4 (June 1, 2013): 1248–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/aer.103.4.1248.
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This paper analyzes the properties of runoff electoral systems when voters are strategic. A model of three-candidate runoff elections is presented, and two new features are included: the risk of upset victory in the second round is endogenous, and many types of runoff systems are considered. Three main results emerge. First, runoff elections produce equilibria in which only two candidates receive a positive fraction of the votes. Second, a sincere voting equilibrium does not always exist. Finally, runoff systems with a threshold below 50 percent produce an Ortega effect that may lead to the systematic victory of the Condorcet loser. (JEL C72, D72)
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Abadeer, Caroline, Alexandra Domike Blackman, and Scott Williamson. "Voting in Transition: Participation and Alienation in Egypt’s 2012 Presidential Election." Middle East Law and Governance 10, no. 1 (March 28, 2018): 25–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18763375-01001001.
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How does voter turnout change as countries transition to democracy? Using district-level data from Egypt’s 2012 presidential election, we show that turnout was higher in more educated and urban districts—a stark reversal from voting patterns under the authoritarian Mubarak regime, when less educated and poorer areas were more likely to participate. However, this pattern weakened in the second round of the 2012 election, when the choice was restricted to two candidates who reflected Egypt’s primary pre-revolution political divide. Urban and educated districts experienced a decline in turnout and a rise in protest voting during the second round relative to the first, suggesting that key political groups were alienated from the electoral process. These results indicate that who participates in elections can shift quickly as institutions change, but this is conditional on the choice of candidates available to voters.
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Kuzmics, Christoph, and Daniel Rodenburger. "A case of evolutionarily stable attainable equilibrium in the laboratory." Economic Theory 70, no. 3 (August 22, 2019): 685–721. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00199-019-01224-5.
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Abstract We reinvestigate data from the voting experiment of Forsythe et al. (Soc Choice Welf 10:223–247, 1993). In every one of 24 rounds, 28 players were randomly (re)allocated into two groups of 14 to play a voting stage game with or without a preceding opinion poll phase. We find that the null hypothesis that play in every round is given by a particular evolutionarily stable attainable equilibrium of the 14-player stage game cannot be rejected if we account for risk aversion (or a heightened concern for coordination), calibrated in another treatment.
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Olivares, G., J. P. Cárdenas, J. C. Losada, and J. Borondo. "Opinion Polarization during a Dichotomous Electoral Process." Complexity 2019 (February 10, 2019): 1–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2019/5854037.
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Political polarization can emerge on electoral campaigns where the population faces a dichotomous decision, with only two voting alternatives. In this paper, we analyze the Twitter conversation around the second round of the 2017 Chilean elections, where voters had to choose between the final two candidates. First, we have estimated the opinions of Twitter users obtaining a distribution of opinions for each day. Next, we have measured the resulting political polarization from the cited opinion distributions and track its evolution during a full week that includes the voting day. We found the conversation to be highly polarized, reaching its maximum during the previous day to the election and significantly decreasing the day after due to the presence of new users who only participated during that day.
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Gerstlé, Jacques. "Onze débats télévisés pour une campagne présidentielle." Nottingham French Studies 57, no. 2 (July 2018): 143–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/nfs.2018.0212.
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Since 1974 the second-round debate has been an obligatory fixture in the calendar for French presidential candidates. In 2017 this traditional debate was joined by ten others: eight for the primaries, extended for the first time to the Right (three first-round debates and one before the decisive vote for each side of the political spectrum). There were also two debates before the first round of voting in the presidential election itself. A debate can be defined as an interactive mode of communication based on an exchange of arguments embedded within a unidirectional system of communication (a TV broadcast). Different types of categories have been used to analyse candidates’ exchanges in these debates, identifying divergence and convergence, retrospective or prospective discourses, whether a message is aggressive or defensive, and whether it is policy-orientated or relational in scope.
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Quaranta, Mario. "Repertoires of political participation: Macroeconomic conditions, socioeconomic resources, and participation gaps in Europe." International Journal of Comparative Sociology 59, no. 4 (August 2018): 319–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0020715218800526.
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The European economic crisis has stimulated a great deal of research linking contextual macroeconomic conditions and political outputs, as conventional and unconventional political participation. Nevertheless, such research has often treated forms of political participation as independent from each other, overlooking how citizens can choose from combinations of political actions to influence politics in contexts with varying levels of macroeconomic performance. This article, instead, focuses on two common forms of participation – voting and protesting – and studies whether engagement in “repertoires” of participation – the “disengaged” (abstaining and not protesting), the “duty-based” (voting and not protesting), the “protest” (abstaining and protesting), and the “all-round” (voting and protesting) repertoires – varies according to countries’ macroeconomic conditions in Europe in 30 countries over time. This article also considers that the effect of macroeconomic conditions on repertoires of participation might depend on citizens’ socioeconomic resources – such as education, employment status, and income – with consequences for participation gaps or inequalities. Using multilevel models and data from seven rounds of the European Social Survey, this article shows that in contexts where macroeconomic conditions are worse, the probability of engaging in the “protest” repertoire increases, while the probability of engaging in the other three repertoires does not depend on the economy. In addition, the article finds that participation gaps narrow in the “disengaged” and “duty-based” repertoires in contexts with poorer macroeconomic performance, while the gaps in the “protest” and “all-round” repertoires do not change across contexts with different economic conditions.
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Aidt, Toke, Jagjit S. Chadha, and Hamid Sabourian. "Commentary: Breaking the Brexit Impasse: Achieving a Fair, Legitimate and Democratic Outcome." National Institute Economic Review 247 (February 2019): F4—F11. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/002795011924700103.
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Unanimity on the question of UK exit from the EU is not within reach, but this does not mean that the House of Commons or the population at large can not find a way out of the current Brexit impasse that is fair and legitimate. We discuss different voting procedures which satisfy some important principles of democracy and which can select the option that can win a majority against all other alternatives in a head-to-head majority vote. We argue that strategic considerations play an important role and we propose a procedure that works well and can help break the impasse when voters act strategically. The procedure requires (1) that all options with some minimum support are on the agenda, (2) that voting takes place in multiple rounds and (3) that in each round the alternative with the least support is eliminated until in the last round only two alternatives are left and the majority winner is selected. We discuss how this procedure can be modified to take into account that some voters may vote non-strategically and how it, in practice, could be used either in the House of Commons or in a new referendum.
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Ambasta, Anshula, Marko Balan, Michael Mayette, Alberto Goffi, Sharon Mulvagh, Brian Buchanan, Steven Montague, Shannon Ruzycki, and Irene W. Y. Ma. "Education Indicators for Internal Medicine Point-of-Care Ultrasound: a Consensus Report from the Canadian Internal Medicine Ultrasound (CIMUS) Group." Journal of General Internal Medicine 34, no. 10 (June 25, 2019): 2123–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11606-019-05124-1.
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Abstract Background Curriculum development and implementation for internal medicine point-of-care ultrasound (IM POCUS) continues to be a challenge for many residency training programs. Education indicators may provide a useful framework to support curriculum development and implementation efforts across programs in order to achieve a consistent high-quality educational experience. Objective This study seeks to establish consensus-based recommendations for education indicators for IM POCUS training programs in Canada. Design This consensus study uses a modified nominal group technique for voting in the initial round, followed by two additional rounds of online voting, with consensus defined as agreement by at least 80% of the participants. Participants Participants were 22 leaders with POCUS and/or education expertise from 13 Canadian internal medicine residency programs across 7 provinces. Main Measures Education indicators considered were those that related to aspects of the POCUS educational system, could be presented by a single statistical measure, were readily understood, could be reliably measured to provide a benchmark for measuring change, and represented a policy issue. We excluded a priori indicators with low feasibility, are impractical, or assess learner reactions. Candidate indicators were drafted by two academic internists with post-graduate training in POCUS and medical education. These indicators were reviewed by two internists with training in quality improvement prior to presentation to the expert participants. Key Results Of the 52 candidate education indicators considered, 6 reached consensus in the first round, 12 in the second, and 4 in the third round. Only 5 indicators reached consensus to be excluded; the remaining indicators did not reach consensus. Conclusions The Canadian Internal Medicine Ultrasound (CIMUS) group recommends 22 education indicators be used to guide and monitor internal medicine POCUS curriculum development efforts in Canada.
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Emanuele, Vincenzo, and Stefano Rombi. "Le primarie del Centro-Sinistra del 25 novembre e del 2 dicembre 2012: un'analisi descrittiva con dati aggregati." Quaderni dell Osservatorio elettorale QOE - IJES 71, no. 1 (June 30, 2014): 5–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.36253/qoe-9489.
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Despite primary elections in Italy continue to be asymmetric – i.e. carried out only by the center-left coalition – their ability to involve the electorate and their growing media impact make it a powerful democratic tool. In this article we study the 2012 Italian primary elections, held by the center-left coalition in order to select the prime ministerial candidatefor the 2013 general elections. In particular, we will shed light on three dimensions: turnout, electoral results and competitiveness. We will also take into account the role played by the new candidate selection rule – the two-round system – which will allow us to collect a lot of information about the voting behavior of the selectorate. What has been the turnout level in the2012 Italian primary elections? Which similarities and differences can be found in the patterns of participation between the first and the second round? Which factors may explain the territorial differences in turnout levels? What have been the territorial patterns of voting behavior for the main candidates? The 2012 primary elections have been more or less competitive with respect to the previous Italian national primaries? We will try to address these questions through the use of a mainly quantitative methodology with aggregate data.
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A. Thomas Paul Roy, P. Gokulakrishnan, D. Suresh,. "A HOMOMORPHIC ENCRYPTION BASED ON-LINE VOTING SYSTEM." INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN INDUSTRY 9, no. 1 (March 17, 2021): 1157–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.17762/itii.v9i1.249.
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This paper developed for the risk free and person oriented Online Voting System. The Online Voting gadget is made for the humans of the united states living round the world and needs to vote for their representative. The election can be carried out in two methods the paper ballot election and the computerized ballot elections. The automatic ballot elections are referred to as the digital voting. The on line vote casting device is rather developed and the on-line polling machine can be changed through precisely and at once vote casting on line and on the spot results. The on line balloting gadget is completed by using the net so it can be known as the Internet Voting. The gadget proceeds the on-line vote casting machine in a new approach known as Homomorphic Encryption . Homogeneous encryption is the form of encryption, which lets the computer generate encrypted end results in ciphertexts, as though they were performed in a plaintext, when decrypted, which matches the end result of the operations. In this paper we have a digital voting device based on homomorphic encryption to make sure that the vote is confidential. The benefits of multi-homorphic encryption systems are all presented in our suggestion. The proposed electoral system is suitable for elections that include non-partial votes and for multi-candidate elections. For outsourced storage and counting, homomorphic encryption can be used.
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Cataldi, Matteo, Vincenzo Emanuele, and Aldo Paparo. "Elettori in movimento nelle comunali 2011 a Milano, Torino e Napoli." Quaderni dell'Osservatorio elettorale QOE - IJES 67, no. 1 (June 30, 2012): 5–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.36253/qoe-9775.
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In 2011 Italian local elections we observed high electoral mobility: in Milan, for example, the center-left gained his first-time victory in the Berlusconi era, while in Naples there was a significant split voting in the first round and a huge turnaround between the first and the second ballot. A general research question emerged: are the shifts in the results understandable trough a left-right axis (political nature hypothesis of these elections) or were there cross-cutting mechanisms (local nature hypothesis of the elections with a strong role of personal aspects)?To answer the question we analyze the voting ecological estimates in the three biggest cities involved in 2011 elections: Milan, Naples and Turin. For every matrix we generated the estimates both applying the traditional Goodman model (for the whole city and splitting by district) and the hierarchical multinomial-dirichlet model developed by Rosen, Jiang, King and Taner.The most important result of our study is the strong political polarization of the vote in the two northern cities and a great importance of the local factors in Naples, where only a dominant role of the candidates can make sense of the detected shifts in voting behaviour.
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Sun, Ning, Li-Qiong Wang, Jia-Kai Shao, Na Zhang, Ping Zhou, Sai-Nan Fang, Wei Chen, Jing-Wen Yang, and Cun-Zhi Liu. "An expert consensus to standardize acupuncture treatment for knee osteoarthritis." Acupuncture in Medicine 38, no. 5 (April 20, 2020): 327–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0964528419900789.
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Background: Acupuncture has been advocated for as a potentially effective therapy for patients with knee osteoarthritis (KOA) in systematic reviews and guidelines. However, there is still a lack of agreement on the optimal therapeutic protocol for acupuncture. This aim of this study was to develop an expert consensus regarding the therapeutic protocol of acupuncture to guide doctors in clinical practice. Methods: An initial list of items was based on an overview of research evidence from four databases and clinical problem investigation with a multidisciplinary panel. A two-step process was used to optimize the list, including semi-structured interviews with three acupuncture clinical experts and a three-round Delphi consensus survey with the voting panel. A nine-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree, 9 = strongly agree) was used to measure agreement. Results: In total, 52 professionals (response rate: 52%) confirmed their participation in the voting panel. The initial list including 28 items was evaluated. Following a three-round Delphi survey, a consensus was achieved including 37 items that can be broadly categorized into six domains: (1) main treatment principles, (2) acupuncture treatment, (3) dose of acupuncture intervention, (4) primary outcomes, (5) adverse events and (6) others. Conclusion: This expert consensus could be used to guide doctors in clinical practice and help patients with KOA gain access to appropriate and coordinated acupuncture treatment.
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Wang, Jun, Sujoy Sikdar, Tyler Shepherd, Zhibing Zhao, Chunheng Jiang, and Lirong Xia. "Practical Algorithms for Multi-Stage Voting Rules with Parallel Universes Tiebreaking." Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence 33 (July 17, 2019): 2189–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v33i01.33012189.
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STV and ranked pairs (RP) are two well-studied voting rules for group decision-making. They proceed in multiple rounds, and are affected by how ties are broken in each round. However, the literature is surprisingly vague about how ties should be broken. We propose the first algorithms for computing the set of alternatives that are winners under some tiebreaking mechanism under STV and RP, which is also known as parallel-universes tiebreaking (PUT). Unfortunately, PUT-winners are NP-complete to compute under STV and RP, and standard search algorithms from AI do not apply. We propose multiple DFS-based algorithms along with pruning strategies, heuristics, sampling and machine learning to prioritize search direction to significantly improve the performance. We also propose novel ILP formulations for PUT-winners under STV and RP, respectively. Experiments on synthetic and realworld data show that our algorithms are overall faster than ILP.
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Anders, Jennifer F., Jennifer N. Fishe, Kyle A. Fratta, Jessica H. Katznelson, Matthew J. Levy, Richard Lichenstein, Michael G. Milin, Joelle N. Simpson, Theresa A. Walls, and Heather L. Winger. "Creating a Pediatric Prehospital Destination Decision Tool Using a Modified Delphi Method." Children 8, no. 8 (July 29, 2021): 658. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/children8080658.
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Decisions for patient transport by emergency medical services (EMS) are individualized; while established guidelines help direct adult patients to specialty hospitals, no such pediatric equivalents are in wide use. When children are transported to a hospital that cannot provide definitive care, care is delayed and may cause adverse events. Therefore, we created a novel evidence-based decision tool to support EMS destination choice. A multidisciplinary expert panel (EP) of stakeholders reviewed published literature. Four facility capability levels for pediatric care were defined. Using a modified Delphi method, the EP matched specific conditions to a facility pediatric-capability level in a draft tool. The literature review and EP recommendations identified seventeen pediatric medical conditions at risk for secondary transport. In the first voting round, two were rejected, nine met consensus for a specific facility capability level, and six did not reach consensus on the destination facility level. A second round reached consensus on a facility level for the six conditions as well as revision of one previously rejected condition. In the third round, the panel selected a visual display format. Finally, the panel unanimously approved the PDTree. Using a modified Delphi technique, we developed the PDTree EMS destination decision tool by incorporating existing evidence and the expertise of a multidisciplinary panel.
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Parker, Samuel G., Steve Halligan, Mike K. Liang, Filip E. Muysoms, Gina L. Adrales, Adam Boutall, Andrew C. de Beaux, et al. "Definitions for Loss of Domain: An International Delphi Consensus of Expert Surgeons." World Journal of Surgery 44, no. 4 (December 17, 2019): 1070–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00268-019-05317-z.
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Abstract Background No standardized written or volumetric definition exists for ‘loss of domain’ (LOD). This limits the utility of LOD as a morphological descriptor and as a predictor of peri- and postoperative outcomes. Consequently, our aim was to establish definitions for LOD via consensus of expert abdominal wall surgeons. Methods A Delphi study involving 20 internationally recognized abdominal wall reconstruction (AWR) surgeons was performed. Four written and two volumetric definitions of LOD were identified via systematic review. Panelists completed a questionnaire that suggested these definitions as standardized definitions of LOD. Consensus on a preferred term was pre-defined as achieved when selected by ≥80% of panelists. Terms scoring <20% were removed. Results Voting commenced August 2018 and was completed in January 2019. Written definition: During Round 1, two definitions were removed and seven new definitions were suggested, leaving nine definitions for consideration. For Round 2, panelists were asked to select all appealing definitions. Thereafter, common concepts were identified during analysis, from which the facilitators advanced a new written definition. This received 100% agreement in Round 3. Volumetric definition: Initially, panelists were evenly split, but consensus for the Sabbagh method was achieved. Panelists could not reach consensus regarding a threshold LOD value that would preclude surgery. Conclusions Consensus for written and volumetric definitions of LOD was achieved from 20 internationally recognized AWR surgeons. Adoption of these definitions will help standardize the use of LOD for both clinical and academic activities.
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Irvine, Jill A., and Carol S. Lilly. "Boys Must be Boys: Gender and the Serbian Radical Party, 1991–2000." Nationalities Papers 35, no. 1 (March 2007): 93–120. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00905990601124553.
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On 27 June 2004, Serbian voters went to the polls for the third time in a year to choose a president. The winner of the first two rounds of voting, Tomislav Nikolić, Deputy to the President of the extreme right Serbian Radical Party (SRS), lost the third round of voting to the more liberal Borisav Tadić by just under 8 percentage points (53.2 to 45.4), and the Radicals failed to form a ruling coalition in government. Nevertheless, more than five years after the last war in the disintegration of the Yugoslav state, the largest political party in the largest of the successor states has been characterized as the most extreme right party in the Balkans today. Indeed, the Radicals have been an enduring force in Serbian politics for the past decade and a half, sometimes ruling in coalition with Slobodan Milošević's Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS). SRS founder Vojislav Šešelj, a flamboyant, obstreperous, highly influential figure, and his fellow Radicals have sought and in many ways succeeded in shaping the post-communist transformation of Yugoslav politics and society, calling for a return to the true spirit of Serbia, when the nation was strong because its men defended its honor as well as its borders.
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Ramírez, Paula, Ana Milena Gil, Juan Camilo Fuentes, Claudia Lucia Sossa, Claudia Marcela Chalela, Jose Sandoval-Sus, and Lizbeth Alexandra Acuña. "Risk Management Indicators in Patients with Lymphoma in Colombia." Blood 132, Supplement 1 (November 29, 2018): 5852. http://dx.doi.org/10.1182/blood-2018-99-120347.
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Abstract Background: Lymphomas are the sixth most common type of cancer in adults in Colombia. According to Cuenta de Alto Costo data from health insurance companies and health providers, there were 10,928 cases (1,257 new cases reported in 2016) of lymphoma in Colombia in 2017. Consequently, it is crucial to develop an instrument to assess and monitor risk management by insurance companies and providers in adults with diagnosis of Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. This would eventually contribute to reduce the impact of the disease in the patients, their families, and the healthcare system. The aim of this study was to establish evidence-based risk management indicators to measure health insurance companies' and health providers' performance in risk control in patients with lymphoma in Colombia. Methods: A consensus report was conducted adapting the method "The RAND/UCLA Appropriateness Method (RAM)". First, a detailed literature review was performed to synthesize the latest evidence on the topic. Second, a list of indicators was pre-selected. Third, expert panel rated the pre-selected indicators in two rounds. During the first-round, experts answered an online questionnaire to rate each indicator from 1 to 7 using a Likert scale. The ratings were made individually with no interaction among panelists. During the second-round, panelists met and discussed each indicator and the ratings. Then, re-rated each indicator individually. Indicators with a score over 80% were considered consensus. Fourth, a panel meeting was conducted to establish final indicators. And finally, results were shared with all actors involved in the Colombian healthcare system. Results: Twenty-four insurance companies representatives, 2 government representatives, and a public advocate participated. After reviewing the literature and a panel discussion, experts pre-selected a list of 25 management indicators which then were submitted to online voting. Twenty-three indicators achieved a high score and were validated, but since the two remaining indicators only received an intermediate score, all 25 indicators were submitted to a second online voting after discussing the first-round results. During the second-round, 3 indicators that were rated "inappropriately" by the panelists due to lack of relevance or viability, were conclusively excluded. Lastly, 15 final management indicators were approved and classified in five different domains (diagnosis, staging, treatment, opportunity, and results-overall survival, relapse-free survival, and mortality) during the panel meeting. Conclusion: Risk management indicators were established by a consensus report to assess and monitor management of patients with lymphoma by insurance companies and health providers. Since management indicators can be assessed from information reported by insurance companies to Cuenta de Alto Costo group, implementing strategies to improve survival rates and health-related quality of life can have great impact decreasing the burden of the disease in the Colombian healthcare system. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.
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García Layana, Alfredo, Alfredo Adán, Francisco Javier Ascaso, Francisco Cabrera, Juan Donate, José Juan Escobar Barranco, Gema Peralta, et al. "Use of intravitreal dexamethasone implants in the treatment of diabetic macular edema: Expert recommendations using a Delphi approach." European Journal of Ophthalmology 30, no. 5 (July 10, 2019): 1042–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1120672119861623.
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Objective: The aim of this study is to develop guidance on the use of intravitreal dexamethasone implants in the treatment of diabetic macular edema. Method: The study was performed using the modified Delphi method to obtain a consensus among a panel of experts on management of patients with diabetic macular edema and use of intravitreal dexamethasone implants in clinical practice. Thirty-seven panel members, experts on retina, from different Spanish centers were invited to participate. Individual and anonymous opinions were asked by answering a 76-item questionnaire across 11 topic areas (two rounds were done). Level of agreement was assessed using a Likert-type scale of 9 points. Results: Agreement on “consensus” was reached during the first round in 63 items. The 13 remaining items underwent a second round of voting. After the second round, agreement on “consensus” was reached on five items. Finally, eight items remained without consensus. Conclusion: Intravitreal dexamethasone implants are useful in the treatment of patients with diabetic macular edema with different profiles, for example, pseudophakic, poor-adherents, vitrectomized, candidates for cataract surgery, patients with high inflammatory component, and with a history of cardiovascular events. The use of intravitreal dexamethasone reduces the number of visits and facilitates compliance. Experts thought that the switch from anti-vascular endothelial growth factor therapy to intravitreal dexamethasone implants should be done preferably after three injections. Also, pro re nata treatment provides better results in diabetic macular edema patients as it helps to prevent undertreatment. Finally, experts concluded that clinical guidelines and treatment protocols for diabetic macular edema need to be updated.
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Gheorghiţă, Andrei. "Vote Transfers, Thwarted Voters and Newcomers in the 2009 Presidential Runoff in Romania." Social Change Review 9, no. 2 (December 1, 2011): 135–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/scr-2016-0020.
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Abstract This article investigates the role of thwarted voters and newcomers in setting the result of the December 6th, 2009 presidential runoff in Romania. For this purpose it employs panel survey data from the Romanian Election Studies, collected across three waves: pre-election, between the two rounds, post-election. Initially, it draws a picture of the main evolutions in turnout and vote between the first and the second round, with a special emphasis on vote transfers and risks associated to turnout and pro-winner overreporting. Then it analyzes the thwarted voters and their rationalities of making second-order electoral choices in the presidential runoff. The influence of campaign developments and long-term party/candidate preferences is assessed. Finally, the article investigates the profile of newcomers (people only voting in the runoff) and the mechanisms of political mobilisation in their case. A special attention is given to how newcomers make the electoral choice in the presidential runoff and to the influence of the campaign developments on that choice.
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Cruciani, Emilio, Emanuele Natale, André Nusser, and Giacomo Scornavacca. "Phase transition of the 2-Choices dynamics on core–periphery networks." Distributed Computing 34, no. 3 (May 26, 2021): 207–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00446-021-00396-5.
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AbstractThe 2-Choices dynamics is a process that models voting behavior on networks and works as follows: Each agent initially holds either opinion blue or red; then, in each round, each agent looks at two random neighbors and, if the two have the same opinion, the agent adopts it. We study its behavior on a class of networks with core–periphery structure. Assume that a densely-connected subset of agents, the core, holds a different opinion from the rest of the network, the periphery. We prove that, depending on the strength of the cut between core and periphery, a phase-transition phenomenon occurs: Either the core’s opinion rapidly spreads across the network, or a metastability phase takes place in which both opinions coexist for superpolynomial time. The interest of our result, which we also validate with extensive experiments on real networks, is twofold. First, it sheds light on the influence of the core on the rest of the network as a function of its connectivity toward the latter. Second, it is one of the first analytical results which shows a heterogeneous behavior of a simple dynamics as a function of structural parameters of the network.
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Tehmeena Iqbal, Ihtsham Ul Haq Padda, and Shujaat Farooq. "Unconditional Cash Transfers and Women Empowerment: The Case of Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) in Pakistan." Journal of Business and Social Review in Emerging Economies 6, no. 2 (May 3, 2020): 401–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.26710/jbsee.v6i2.1098.
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This study has explored the welfare impact of Benazir Income Support Program’s (BISP) unconditional cash transfers on women empowerment. The program was initiated in 2011 by the government of Pakistan. The impact has been computed by using two follow up rounds i.e, 2011 & 2016 where baseline was carried out in 2011 and follow-up round was carried out in 2016. Regression Discontinuity Design approach was used to measure casual effects of the BISP cash transfers on women empowerment by selecting target and control groups based on proxy means test. The overtime impact have been estimated by employing Difference in Difference (DiD) model on panel households from 2011-2016. The study observed that BISP led to improve socio-economic wellbeing of the beneficiary women. It has brought improvement in women mobility and women participation in voting. The important contribution is an improvement in the aspect of socio-economic and political empowerment and women mobility across time and overtime. This showed continues support for longer period brought desired results.
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Kim, Eun Kyung. "Sector-based vote choice: A new approach to explaining core and swing voters in Africa." International Area Studies Review 21, no. 1 (November 29, 2017): 28–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2233865917742066.
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This study examines economic components of the support base for each party in Ghana’s de facto two-party system. Most accounts of partisan voting in African democracies contend that some voters routinely support the same party because it rewards co-ethnics through patronage in the form of private and local community goods. A few recent studies have found that some voters vote retrospectively and sociotropically, rewarding or punishing the incumbent party on the basis of its overall performance in office. However, neither the ethno-clientelist account nor the performance assessment account addresses the possibility that African parties build their support bases around competing economic policy interests. Using a merged dataset from the Afrobarometer Survey Round 5 and district-level industrial employment and agricultural production data from Ghana, I find that it is economic interests by agricultural sub-sector that are highly predictive of parties’ issue-based platforms. Voters who do not share a common interest with any of the main parties’ key policies are most likely to switch party preferences election to election.
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Kuter, David J., Sam Salek, and Atul Mehta. "A Global Delphi Consensus Initiative for Early Diagnosis of Gaucher Disease: Barriers, Their Resolution and the Impact on Patients." Blood 128, no. 22 (December 2, 2016): 4885. http://dx.doi.org/10.1182/blood.v128.22.4885.4885.
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Abstract Background: Diagnosis of Gaucher disease (GD) can be difficult and diagnostic delays are common in both adult and paediatric patients. This may in part be attributable to the heterogeneous nature of early presenting signs and symptoms in GD, which may result in patients consulting various specialists before a diagnosis is reached. As part of this global Gaucher earlier diagnosis consensus (GED-C) initiative, a panel of expert physicians was asked to determine the most important barriers to diagnosis of GD. The panel was also asked about the impact of the initiative if its primary objective of facilitating earlier diagnosis was realized. Methods: In round 1 of an anonymous, multi-stage, iterative Delphi process, the panel provided free-text answers to a series of open questions, including: "In your experience, what are the greatest barriers to diagnosis in patients with early GD?" and "Assuming that this initiative achieves its goal, what difference could it make to clinical practice?" An independent facilitator grouped the responses to these questions by theme, and these were checked and consolidated as summary statements by the two non-voting co-chairs of the GED-C initiative. In round 2, panel members independently rated the importance of each statement using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = not important, 5 = extremely important). Statements awarded an importance score of at least 3 by more than 75% of respondents were reissued in round 3, in which panel members rated their level of agreement with each statement using a 5-point pivoted Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 3 = neither agree nor disagree; 5 = strongly agree). Consensus was defined as more than 67% of respondents agreeing or strongly agreeing (a score of ≥ 4) with a statement. Results: In total, 22 experts from 16 countries were recruited to the GED-C panel. Round 1 (100% response, n = 22) yielded 47 phrases relating to barriers to diagnosis, and 30 relating to the impact of the initiative on clinical practice, which were consolidated as 9 statements describing barriers to diagnosis, and 8 summarizing the initiative's impact. In round 2 (100% response, n = 22) and round 3 (100% response, n = 22), 6 barrier statements and all 8 impact statements met the stipulated importance criteria, and consensus was then reached for all 6 barrier statements and for 7 impact statements (Table). Discussion: This initiative highlights that, as well as the heterogeneous nature of GD, clinicians' lack of awareness of GD and poor knowledge of important presenting signs probably contribute to incorrect or delayed diagnoses. The GED-C initiative aims to resolve this by providing clinicians with simple guidance regarding important factors in GD, thereby improving disease awareness and facilitating early diagnosis. This may improve understanding of the natural history of GD, patient management, and potentially patients' long-term outcomes. Acknowledgment: Submitted on behalf of the GED-C panel members and the European Hematology Association Scientific Working Group 'Quality of Life and Symptoms'. Administration of the GED-C initiative was funded by an unrestricted educational grant from Shire. Table Table. Disclosures Kuter: Bristol-Myers Squibb: Research Funding; ONO: Consultancy; Protalex: Research Funding; Eisai: Consultancy; Shionogi: Consultancy; 3SBios: Consultancy; Syntimmune: Consultancy; MedImmune: Consultancy; CRICO: Other: Paid expert testimony; Amgen: Consultancy, Paid expert testimony; Pfizer: Consultancy; Rigel: Consultancy, Research Funding; GlaxoSmithKline: Consultancy; Shire: Consultancy; Genzyme: Consultancy. Salek:Novartis: Research Funding; Bristol-Myers Squibb: Research Funding; Shire: Consultancy; Servier: Consultancy; Sanofi: Research Funding; Agios: Consultancy. Mehta:Protalix/Pfizer: Honoraria, Other: travel grant, Research Funding; Genzyme: Honoraria, Other: travel grant, Research Funding; Actelion: Honoraria, Other: travel grant, Research Funding; Shire: Honoraria, Other: travel grant, Research Funding.
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Kennicutt, M. C., S. L. Chown, J. J. Cassano, D. Liggett, L. S. Peck, R. Massom, S. R. Rintoul, et al. "A roadmap for Antarctic and Southern Ocean science for the next two decades and beyond." Antarctic Science 27, no. 1 (September 18, 2014): 3–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0954102014000674.
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AbstractAntarctic and Southern Ocean science is vital to understanding natural variability, the processes that govern global change and the role of humans in the Earth and climate system. The potential for new knowledge to be gained from future Antarctic science is substantial. Therefore, the international Antarctic community came together to ‘scan the horizon’ to identify the highest priority scientific questions that researchers should aspire to answer in the next two decades and beyond. Wide consultation was a fundamental principle for the development of a collective, international view of the most important future directions in Antarctic science. From the many possibilities, the horizon scan identified 80 key scientific questions through structured debate, discussion, revision and voting. Questions were clustered into seven topics: i) Antarctic atmosphere and global connections, ii) Southern Ocean and sea ice in a warming world, iii) ice sheet and sea level, iv) the dynamic Earth, v) life on the precipice, vi) near-Earth space and beyond, and vii) human presence in Antarctica. Answering the questions identified by the horizon scan will require innovative experimental designs, novel applications of technology, invention of next-generation field and laboratory approaches, and expanded observing systems and networks. Unbiased, non-contaminating procedures will be required to retrieve the requisite air, biota, sediment, rock, ice and water samples. Sustained year-round access to Antarctica and the Southern Ocean will be essential to increase winter-time measurements. Improved models are needed that represent Antarctica and the Southern Ocean in the Earth System, and provide predictions at spatial and temporal resolutions useful for decision making. A co-ordinated portfolio of cross-disciplinary science, based on new models of international collaboration, will be essential as no scientist, programme or nation can realize these aspirations alone.
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Kuter, David J., Sam Salek, and Atul Mehta. "A Global Delphi Consensus Initiative for Early Diagnosis of Gaucher Disease: Key Presenting Signs and Patient Co-Variables in Type 1 Disease." Blood 128, no. 22 (December 2, 2016): 3676. http://dx.doi.org/10.1182/blood.v128.22.3676.3676.
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Abstract Background: Gaucher disease (GD) is associated with a broad spectrum of signs and symptoms, with phenotypes ranging from fatal perinatal to asymptomatic adult forms. Given the heterogeneous presentation and rarity of the disease, misdiagnosis is common and diagnosis is often delayed, which can lead to avoidable morbidities and potentially irreversible tissue damage. Among the three phenotypes of GD, type 1 is the most prevalent in the Western hemisphere. As part of the global Gaucher earlier diagnosis consensus (GED-C) initiative, we report here the signs and patient co-variables that are regarded by expert physicians as most indicative of type 1 GD in its early stages. The overarching goal of the GED-C initiative is to generate a web-based point-scoring system that can be used by clinicians across specialties to facilitate identification of patients who may benefit from diagnostic testing for GD. Methods: In an anonymous iterative Delphi process, a panel of expert physicians was asked to provide free-text answers to a series of open questions, including: "Which unexplained signs and co-variables may be important to consider in early type 1 GD?" An independent facilitator categorized responses from round 1 into themes, which were checked and consolidated by the two non-voting co-chairs of the initiative to generate a set of summary factors. In round 2, panel members independently rated the importance of each factor using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = not important, 5 = extremely important). Factors assigned an importance score of at least 3 by more than 75% of respondents were provisionally classified as major; other factors were classified as minor. In round 3, panel members rated their level of agreement with the provisional classification of factors as major using a 5-point pivoted Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 3 = neither agree nor disagree; 5 = strongly agree). Consensus was defined as more than 67% of respondents agreeing or strongly agreeing (a score of ≥ 4) with the classification; if consensus was not reached, factors were classified as minor. Results: In total, 22 physicians with expertise in type 1 GD were recruited to the GED-C panel from 16 countries. Round 1 (100% response, n = 22) yielded 104 phrases, which were grouped into 38 themes, then consolidated as 21 factors. In round 2 (100% response, n = 22), 10 factors were provisionally classified as major. In round 3 (100% response, n = 22), consensus was reached on 9 major factors in early type 1 GD, including 7 presenting signs and 2 patient co-variables. The mean importance scores (round 2) and agreement scores (round 3) awarded to these 9 major factors are given in Table 1. Minor factors included asthenia, bleeding or bruising, dyslipidaemia, fatigue, gallstones, growth retardation, low bone mineral density and a family history of Parkinson disease. Table 1. Mean scores of importance and agreement for 9 major factors in rounds 2 and 3, respectively. Discussion: Definitive diagnostic tests for GD have been available for several years, but patient referral for testing is impeded by several issues, including a general lack of knowledge among clinicians of the signs and co-variables that should arouse a suspicion of GD. The presenting signs and patient co-variables identified by this multidisciplinary consensus initiative will help clinicians to identify those patients who may benefit from diagnostic testing for GD. Several algorithms have been devised with the aim of facilitating GD diagnosis, but these may be perceived as complex by the non-specialist. The next stage of the GED-C initiative will be to use the factors identified here to create a point-scoring system that clinicians of any specialty can use to obtain clear direction regarding the need to test a patient for GD. Acknowledgment: Submitted on behalf of the GED-C panel members and the European Hematology Association Scientific Working Group 'Quality of Life and Symptoms'. Administration of the GED-C initiative was funded by an unrestricted educational grant from Shire. Table 1. Table 1. Disclosures Kuter: Amgen: Consultancy; Eisai: Consultancy; Genzyme: Consultancy; GlaxoSmithKline: Consultancy; ONO: Consultancy; Pfizer: Consultancy; Shionogi: Consultancy; Shire: Consultancy; 3SBios: Consultancy; Bristol-Myers Squibb: Research Funding; Protalix: Research Funding; Rigel: Research Funding. Salek:Agios: Consultancy; Servier: Consultancy; Shire: Consultancy; Bristol-Myers Squibb: Research Funding; Novartis: Research Funding; Sanofi: Research Funding. Mehta:Actelion: Honoraria, Other: Travel grants, Research Funding; Genzyme: Honoraria, Other: Travel grants, Research Funding; Protalix/Pfizer: Honoraria, Other: Travel grants, Research Funding; Shire: Honoraria, Other: Travel grants, Research Funding.
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Kuter, David J., Sam Salek, and Atul Mehta. "Key Presenting Signs and Patient Co-Variables in Early Diagnosis of Type 3 Gaucher Disease: A Global Delphi Consensus Initiative." Blood 128, no. 22 (December 2, 2016): 4886. http://dx.doi.org/10.1182/blood.v128.22.4886.4886.
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Abstract Background: Among the three phenotypes of Gaucher disease (GD), type 1 is the most prevalent in the Western hemisphere, but types 2 and 3 are increasingly seen, and occur with similar prevalence to type 1 in parts of Asia. There is a spectrum of signs and symptoms among these phenotypes, which range from fatal perinatal to asymptomatic adult disease, and this heterogeneity contributes to relatively high levels of misdiagnosis and delays in diagnosis of GD. As part of the global Gaucher earlier diagnosis consensus (GED-C) initiative, we report here the signs and patient co-variables that are regarded by expert physicians as most indicative of type 3 GD in its early stages. The overarching goal of the GED-C initiative was to generate a web-based point-scoring system for use across clinical specialties to facilitate identification of patients who may benefit from diagnostic testing for GD. Methods: In an anonymous, iterative Delphi process, a panel of expert physicians was asked to provide free-text answers to a series of open questions, including: "Which unexplained signs and co-variables may be important to consider in early type 3 GD?" An independent facilitator categorized responses from round 1 into themes, which were checked and consolidated by the two non-voting co-chairs of the initiative to generate a set of summary factors. In round 2, panel members independently rated the importance of each factor using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = not important, 5 = extremely important). Factors that were assigned an importance score of at least 3 by more than 75% of respondents were provisionally classified as major; other factors were classified as minor. In round 3, panel members rated their level of agreement with the provisional classification of factors as major using a 5-point pivoted Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 3 = neither agree nor disagree; 5 = strongly agree). Consensus was defined as more than 67% of respondents agreeing or strongly agreeing (a score of ≥ 4) with the classification; if consensus was not reached, factors were classified as minor. Results: In total, 19 physicians with expertise in type 3 GD were recruited to the GED-C panel from 14 countries. Round 1 (100% response, n = 19) yielded 70 phrases, which were grouped into 34 themes, then consolidated as 23 factors. In round 2 (100% response, n = 19), 16 factors were provisionally classified as major. In round 3 (100% response, n = 19), consensus was reached on 10 major factors in early type 3 GD, including 9 presenting signs and 1 patient co-variable. The mean importance scores (round 2) and agreement scores (round 3) awarded to these 10 major factors are given in Table 1. Minor factors included bleeding or bruising, cardiovascular calcification, cognitive deficit, growth retardation, hyperferritinaemia, aged 18 years or younger, Jewish ancestry and a family history of Parkinson disease. Discussion: Definitive diagnostic tests for GD have been available for several years, but patient referral for testing is impeded by several issues, including a lack of knowledge among clinicians of the signs and co-variables that should arouse suspicion of GD. In type 3 GD, the problem is exacerbated by the relative rarity of the phenotype. Presenting signs and patient co-variables identified by this multidisciplinary consensus initiative will help clinicians identify those patients who may benefit from diagnostic testing for GD. Several algorithms have been devised to facilitate GD diagnosis, but non-specialists may perceive these as complex. The GED-C initiative will use the factors identified here to create a point-scoring system that clinicians of any specialty can use to obtain clear direction regarding the need to test a patient for GD. Acknowledgment: Submitted on behalf of the GED-C panel members and the European Hematology Association Scientific Working Group 'Quality of Life and Symptoms'. Administration of the GED-C initiative was funded by an unrestricted educational grant from Shire. Table 1 Mean scores of importance and agreement for 10 major factors in early diagnosis of type 3 Gaucher disease. Table 1. Mean scores of importance and agreement for 10 major factors in early diagnosis of type 3 Gaucher disease. Disclosures Kuter: Eisai: Consultancy; Genzyme: Consultancy; MedImmune: Consultancy; Rigel: Consultancy, Research Funding; CRICO: Other: Paid expert testimony; Pfizer: Consultancy; Protalex: Research Funding; GlaxoSmithKline: Consultancy; Amgen: Consultancy, Paid expert testimony; Bristol-Myers Squibb: Research Funding; ONO: Consultancy; Shionogi: Consultancy; Shire: Consultancy; Syntimmune: Consultancy; 3SBios: Consultancy. Salek:Novartis: Research Funding; Bristol-Myers Squibb: Research Funding; Shire: Consultancy; Servier: Consultancy; Sanofi: Research Funding; Agios: Consultancy. Mehta:Protalix/Pfizer: Honoraria, Other: travel grant, Research Funding; Genzyme: Honoraria, Other: travel grant, Research Funding; Actelion: Honoraria, Other: travel grant, Research Funding; Shire: Honoraria, Other: travel grant, Research Funding.
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Manu, Patrick, Anush Poghosyan, Abdul-Majeed Mahamadu, Lamine Mahdjoubi, Alistair Gibb, Michael Behm, and Olugbenga O. Akinade. "Design for occupational safety and health: key attributes for organisational capability." Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management 26, no. 11 (November 18, 2019): 2614–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/ecam-09-2018-0389.
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Purpose Against the backdrop of the contribution of design to the occurrence of occupational injuries and illnesses in construction, design for occupational safety and health (DfOSH) is increasingly becoming prominent in the construction sector. To ensure that design interventions are safe for construction workers to build and maintain, design firms need to have the appropriate organisational capability in respect of DfOSH. However, empirical insight regarding the attributes that constitute DfOSH organisational capability is lacking. The purpose of this paper, which trailblases the subject of DfOSH organisational capability in construction, is to address two key questions: what organisational attributes determine DfOSH capability? What is the relative priority of the capability attributes? Design/methodology/approach The study employed three iterations of expert focus group discussion and a subsequent three-round Delphi technique accompanied by the application of voting analytic hierarchy process. Findings The study revealed 18 capability attributes nested within six categories, namely: competence (the competence of organisation’s design staff); strategy (the consideration of DfOSH in organisation’s vision as well as the top management commitment); corporate experience (organisation’s experience in implementing DfOSH on projects); systems (systems, processes and procedures required for implementing DfOSH); infrastructure (physical, and information and communication technology resources); and collaboration (inter- and intra-organisational collaboration to implement DfOSH on projects). Whilst these categories and their nested attributes carry varying weights of importance, collectively, the competence-related attributes are the most important, followed by strategy. Originality/value The findings should enable design firms and other key industry stakeholders (such as the clients who appoint them) to understand designers’ DfOSH capability better. Additionally, design firms should be able to prioritise efforts/investment to enhance their DfOSH capability.
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Fish, Rebecca, Caroline Sanders, Paula R. Williamson, and Andrew G. Renehan. "Core outcome research measures in anal cancer (CORMAC): protocol for systematic review, qualitative interviews and Delphi survey to develop a core outcome set in anal cancer." BMJ Open 7, no. 11 (November 2017): e018726. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-018726.
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IntroductionThe incidence of anal squamous cell carcinoma (ASCC) has increased threefold in the last 30 years. Initial treatment is chemoradiotherapy, associated with short-term and long-term side effects. Future therapy innovations aim to reduce morbidity in treatment of early tumours while maintaining treatment efficacy, and to escalate treatment intensity in locally advanced tumours with acceptable quality of life (QoL). However, all phase III randomised controlled trials to-date have utilised different primary outcomes, which hinders evidence synthesis and presents challenges to the selection of optimal outcomes in future trials. No trial comprehensively assessed long-term side effects and QoL, suggesting outcomes reflecting issues important to patients are under-represented. This project aims to determine the priority outcomes for all stakeholders and reach agreement on a standardised core set of outcomes to be measured and reported on in all future ASCC trials.Methods and analysisA systematic review will identify all outcomes reported in trials and observational studies of chemoradiotherapy as primary treatment for ASCC. Outcomes of importance to patients will be identified through patient interviews. The long list of outcomes generated from the systematic review and interviews will be used to create a two-round Delphi process, including key stakeholders (patients and healthcare professionals). The results of the Delphi will be discussed at a face-to-face consensus meeting. Discussion will focus on outcomes that did not achieve consensus through the Delphi process and conclude with anonymous voting to ratify the final core outcome set (COS).Ethics and disseminationThe final COS will feed directly into the PersonaLising Anal cancer radioTherapy dOse (PLATO) national anal cancer trials and the Association of coloproctologists of Great Britain and Ireland (ACPGBI) supported national anal cancer database. Utilisation of the COS will increase the relevance of research output to all stakeholders and increase the capacity for data synthesis between trials. This study has ethical approval and is registered with the Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials (COMET) initiative.Trial registration numberPROSPERO registration ID:CRD42016036540
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Morkevičius, Vaidas, and Zenonas Norkus. "Šiuolaikinės Lietuvos klasinė struktūra: neovėberiška analizė." Sociologija. Mintis ir veiksmas 31, no. 2 (January 1, 2012): 75–152. http://dx.doi.org/10.15388/socmintvei.2012.2.393.
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Santrauka. Straipsnio tikslas – pritaikyti socialinės nelygybės ir politinių procesų pokomunistinėje Lietuvoje analizei Roberto Eriksono, Johno Goldthorpe’o ir Lucienne Portocarero (EGP) klasių teoriją, kuri tęsia Maxo Weberio socialinės struktūros analizės tradiciją. Pirmame skirsnyje analizuojamos priežastys, kodėl atkūrus Lietuvos nepriklausomybę Lietuvos sociologai beveik visiškai apleido tyrimų barą, kurį sociologijos klasikai laikė pagrindiniu, – visuomenės socialinės struktūros analizę. Aptariami dviejų tyrimų, skirtų pokomunistinės Lietuvos socialinės struktūros analizei (Rūtos Brazienės disertacijos ir Arvydo Matulionio vadovaujamo autorių kolektyvo parašytos monografijos) rezultatai, palyginama indukcinė ir dedukcinė socialinės struktūros analizės metodologija, išryškinami dedukcinės metodologijos privalumai. Antrame skirsnyje išdėstoma EGP klasių teorija, pateikiant ją kaip kūrybišką klasikinių Maxo Weberio socialinės struktūros idėjų tąsą. Išryškinami Maxo Weberio ir Karlo Marxo klasių sampratų skirtumai, o EGP klasių teorija palyginama su jos pagrindinėmis šiuolaikinėmis alternatyvomis: neomarksistine Eriko Wrighto klasių teorija, orientuota į išnaudojimo santykių analizę, ir amerikietiškąja socialinės stratifikacijos analizės koncepcija, orientuota į individualaus socialinio ekonominio statuso (SES) matavimus. Trečiame skirsnyje neovėberiškai analizuojama pokomunistinės Lietuvos klasinė struktūra, pateikiant jos 11, 7, 5 ir 3 EGP klasių modelius. Šiam tikslui panaudojami 2009 m. pabaigoje atliktos reprezentatyvios Europos socialinio tyrimo (EST) Lietuvos gyventojų apklausos duomenys. Remiantis diachroniniais ir sinchroniniais palyginimais bei istorine analize išryškinami šios struktūros bendrieji (lyginant su panašiomis į Lietuvą šalimis) ir saviti nacionaliniai bruožai. Paskutiniajame skirsnyje modifikuotas 7 EGP klasių modelis pritaikomas statistiškai nagrinėjant vėberiškai apibrėžiamą (kaip „gero gyvenimo šansų“ nelygaus pasiskirstymo) socialinę nelygybę Lietuvoje, o taip pat bandant nustatyti (pasitelkiant statistinę atitikties analizę) klasinės priklausomybės įtaką politinėms orientacijoms bei elgsenai.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: Eriksono-Goldthorpe-Portocarero (EGP) klasių teorija, pokomunistinės Lietuvos socialinė struktūra ir politika, gero gyvenimo šansų nelygybė, atitikties analizė.Key words: Erikson-Goldthorpe-Portocarero (EGP) class theory, ABSTRACTTHE CLASS STRUCTURE OF CONTEMPORARY LITHUANIA: A NEO-WEBERIAN ANALYSISThis article analyses social inequality and political processes in post-Communist Lithuania, using the neo-Weberian class theory of Robert Erikson, John Goldthorpe and Lucienne Portocarero (EGP). The opening section considers why the analysis of social structure, which was a central concern in classical sociology, has been so neglected in Lithuanian sociology since the restoration of independence. There are just two exceptions to this trend, discussed in the same section – Rūta Brazienė’s 2002 thesis and the 2005 volume edited by Arvydas Matulionis. The first part also compares inductive (data-driven) and deductive (theory-driven) methodologies of social structure analysis to substantiate the advantages of the latter for this article’s empirical analysis. The second part outlines EGP class theory, considered as a creative continuation of Weber’s classical analysis of social structure, and as a genuine alternative to Marx’s theory of classes and class struggle. EGP class theory is compared with two other approaches – Erik Olin Wright’s neo-Marxist class theory, which emphasises exploitation relations between classes, and American social stratification analysis, which focuses on the measurement of socio-economic status (SES). The third section offers a neo-Weberian examination of post-Communist Lithuania’s class structure, represented by four different EGP class types. Diachronic and synchronic comparisons and historical analysis are used to point out the features of Lithuanian class structure that are shared with other similar countries and those features that are nationally specific. To this end, data from Round 4 of the European Social Survey in Lithuania (conducted at the end of 2009) is used. In the last section, which applies statistical methods of correspondence analysis, a slightly modified EGP class model is used to explore manifestations of social inequality (conceived in Weberian terms as an unequal distribution of ‘life chances’), as well as the voting and ideological orientations of the Lithuanian electorate.
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Butnaru, Andrei-Mădălin. "Machine learning applied in natural language processing." ACM SIGIR Forum 54, no. 1 (June 2020): 1–3. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3451964.3451979.
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Machine Learning is present in our lives now more than ever. One of the most researched areas in machine learning is focused on creating systems that are able to understand natural language. Natural language processing is a broad domain, having a vast number of applications with a significant impact in society. In our current era, we rely on tools that can ease our lives. We can search through thousands of documents to find something that we need, but this can take a lot of time. Having a system that can understand a simple query and return only relevant documents is more efficient. Although current approaches are well capable of understanding natural language, there is still space for improvement. This thesis studies multiple natural language processing tasks, presenting approaches on applications such as information retrieval, polarity detection, dialect identification [Butnaru and Ionescu, 2018], automatic essay scoring [Cozma et al., 2018], and methods that can help other systems to understand documents better. Part of the described approaches from this thesis are employing kernel methods, especially string kernels. A method based on string kernels that can determine in what dialect a document is written is presented in this thesis. The approach is treating texts at the character level, extracting features in the form of p -grams of characters, and combining several kernels, including presence bits kernel and intersection kernel. Kernel methods are also presented as a solution for defining the complexity of a specific word. By combining multiple low-level features and high-level semantic features, the approach can find if a non-native speaker of a language can see a word as complicated or not. With one focus on string kernels, this thesis proposes two transductive methods that can improve the results obtained by employing string kernels. One approach suggests using the pairwise string kernel similarities between samples from the training and test sets as features. The other method defines a simple self-training algorithm composed of two iterations. As usual, a classifier is trained over the training data, then is it used to predict the labels of the test samples. In the second iteration, the algorithm adds a predefined number of test samples to the training set for another round of training. These two transductive methods work by adapting the learning method to the test set. A novel cross-dialectal corpus is shown in this thesis. The Moldavian versus Romanian Corpus (MOROCO) [Butnaru and Ionescu, 2019a] contains over 30.000 samples collected from the news domain, split across six categories. Several studies can be employed over this corpus such as binary classification between Romanian and Moldavian samples, intra-dialect multi-class categorization by topic, and cross-dialect multi-class classification by topic. Two baseline approaches are presented for this collection of texts. One method is based on a simple string kernel model. The second approach consists of a character-level deep neural network, which includes several Squeeze-and-Excitation Blocks (SE-blocks). As known at this moment, this is the first time when a SE-block is employed in a natural language processing context. This thesis also presents a method for German Dialect Identification composed on a voting scheme that combines a Character-level Convolutional Neural Network, a Long Short-Term Memory Network, and a model based on String Kernels. Word sense disambiguation is still one of the challenges of the NLP domain. In this context, this thesis tackles this challenge and presents a novel disambiguation algorithm, known as ShowtgunWSD [Butnaru and Ionescu, 2019b]. By treating the global disambiguation problem as multiple local disambiguation problems, ShotgunWSD is capable of determining the sense of the words in an unsupervised and deterministic way, using WordNet as a resource. For this method to work, three functions that can compute the similarity between two words senses are defined. The disambiguation algorithm works as follows. The document is split into multiple windows of words of a specific size for each window. After that, a brute-force algorithm that computes every combination of senses for each word within that window is employed. For every window combination, a score is calculated using one of the three similarity functions. The last step merges the windows using a prefix and suffix matching to form more significant and relevant windows. In the end, the formed windows are ranked by the length and score, and the top ones, based on a voting scheme, will determine the sense for each word. Documents can contain a variable number of words, therefore employing them in machine learning may be hard at times. This thesis presents two novel approaches [Ionescu and Butnaru, 2019] that can represent documents using a finite number of features. Both methods are inspired by computer vision, and they work by first transforming the words within documents to a word representation, such as word2vec. Having words represented in this way, a k-means clustering algorithm can be applied over the words. The centroids of the formed clusters are gathered into a vocabulary. Each word from a document is then represented by the closest centroid from the previously formed vocabulary. To this point, both methods share the same steps. One approach is designed to compute the final representation of a document by calculating the frequency of each centroid found inside it. This method is named Bag of Super Word Embeddings (BOSWE) because each centroid can be viewed as a super word. The second approach presented in this thesis, known as Vector of Locally-Aggregated Word Embeddings (VLAWE), computes the document representation by accumulating the differences between each centroid and each word vector associated with the respective centroid. This thesis also describes a new way to score essays automatically by combining a low-level string kernel model with a high-level semantic feature representation, namely the BOSWE representation. The methods described in this thesis exhibit state-of-the-art performance levels over multiple tasks. One fact to support this claim is that the string kernel method employed for Arabic Dialect Identification obtained the first place, two years in a row at the Fourth and Fifth Workshop on NLP for Similar Languages, Varieties, and Dialects (VarDial). The same string kernel model obtained the fifth place at the German Dialect Identification Closed Shared Task at VarDial Workshop of EACL 2017. Second of all, the Complex Word Identification model scored a third-place at the CWI Shared Task of the BEA-13 of NAACL 2018. Third of all, it is worth to mention that the ShotgunWSD algorithm surpassed the MCS baseline on several datasets. Lastly, the model that combines string kernel and bag of super word embeddings obtained state-of-the-art performance over the Automated Student Assessment Prize dataset.
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Rusyaeva, A. S. "Investigations of the Western Temenos of Olbia." Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 1, no. 1 (1995): 80–102. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157005794x00354.
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AbstractExcavations since the 1920s show the presence in Olbia of two sacred areas (temene), East and West, divided by a main street. The author's excavations of the Western temenos reveal what was probably the earliest sanctuary, of the sixth century, followed at the end of that century by a stone temple dedicated to Apollo Ietros, guardian deity of the city. The sanctuary can be shown to have been considered a sacred area right down to the end of the city's history. The excavation of a sanctuary of Cybele, dated from at least the 2nd half of the 6th c. B.C., refutes earlier views that situated it on the E. temenos. Also found was a sanctuary of Hermes and Aphrodite with a 3rd c. B.C. temple. The presence of a sanctuary of the Dioscuri can be shown from dedications but its site cannot yet be pinpointed. Altars found on the West temenos can be classified as rectangular, round and primitive. Intact ash piles have also been analyzed. Many bothroi were found, including reused water cisterns. Their contents included masses of ceramic material (Attic pottery, local grey-ware and other East Greek ware), Olbian dolphin and arrowhead coins, votive offerings, ostraca and an abundance of architectural terracotta. It is clear that from the foundation of the city a considerable area of its urban area was assigned to sanctuaries and that this area remained the focus of the religious life of the Olbian state throughout its existence.
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Spivey, Nigel. "Art and Archaeology." Greece and Rome 63, no. 1 (March 29, 2016): 140–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0017383515000327.
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In 1830 a hoard of Roman silver weighing some 25 kilograms was recovered from farmland near Berthouville, between Rouen and Caen. The silver was mostly worked into drinking vessels and associated items such as jugs, ladles, and bowls. Two statuettes of the god Mercury confirmed this as a votive deposit, as indicated by various dedications from Romano-Gallic pilgrims, notably on nine pieces left by Quintus Domitius Tutus (‘Mr Safe’) in the mid-first century ad. Restored by conservation experts at the Getty Museum, the cache – along with several other treasures from Gaul – has served as witness to ‘Roman luxury’ in an exhibition on tour in the USA. The exhibition's catalogue is a volume that earns its place in any classical library. The Berthouville Silver Treasure and Roman Luxury may not add very much to our understanding of luxuria in Roman discourse: it is left unclear what happens when a ‘luxury object’ is put out of circulation, or at least transferred into the enclosed economy of a sanctuary; and if Mercury was a deity of fortune favoured particularly by freed slaves, perhaps a set of silver spoons was not such an ‘elite’ attribute as supposed? Beyond such factors of value, however, the figurative elaboration on display is striking. At the centre of a libation bowl we find the Lydian queen Omphale in a drunken slumber, exposing her derrière – as if to say ‘Beware how you imbibe’. One wine pitcher shows Achilles leaping aboard his chariot, with the body of Hector trussed in tow; turn the jug round, and there is Achilles again, now himself stricken in battle. On another pitcher, Achilles is among Greeks mourning the death of Patroclus; and there is Hector's corpse in a pair of scales, as the price of his ransom is assessed. We would be impressed to find such ‘sophisticated’ iconography upon objects in use at some stately villa at Rome or around the Bay of Naples. What does its appearance in the moist pastures of Normandy signify – at least for our preconceptions of ‘provincial taste’?
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Mazurczak, Urszula. "Panorama Konstantynopola w Liber chronicarum Hartmanna Schedla (1493). Miasto idealne – memoria chrześcijaństwa." Vox Patrum 70 (December 12, 2018): 499–525. http://dx.doi.org/10.31743/vp.3219.
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The historical research of the illustrated Nuremberg Chronicle [Schedelsche Weltchronik (English: Schedel’s World Chronicle)] of Hartmann Schedel comprises the complex historical knowledge about numerous woodcuts which present views of various cities important in the world’s history, e.g. Jerusalem, Constantinople, or the European ones such as: Rome, some Italian, German or Polish cities e.g. Wrocław and Cracow; some Hungarian and some Czech Republic cities. Researchers have made a serious study to recognize certain constructions in the woodcuts; they indicated the conservative and contractual architecture, the existing places and the unrealistic (non-existent) places. The results show that there is a common detail in all the views – the defensive wall round each of the described cities. However, in reality, it may not have existed in some cities during the lifetime of the authors of the woodcuts. As for some further details: behind the walls we can see feudal castles on the hills shown as strongholds. Within the defensive walls there are numerous buildings with many towers typical for the Middle Ages and true-to-life in certain ways of building the cities. Schematically drawn buildings surrounded by the ring of defensive walls indicate that the author used certain patterns based on the previously created panoramic views. This article is an attempt of making analogical comparisons of the cities in medieval painting. The Author of the article presents Roman mosaics and the miniature painting e.g. the ones created in the scriptorium in Reichenau. Since the beginning of 14th century Italian painters such as: Duccio di Buoninsegna, Giotto di Bondone, Simone Martini and Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted parts of the cities or the entire monumental panoramas in various compositions and with various meanings. One defining rule in this painting concerned the definitions of the cities given by Saint Isidore of Seville, based on the rules which he knew from the antique tradition. These are: urbs – the cities full of architecture and buildings but uninhabited or civita – the city, the living space of the human life, build-up space, engaged according to the law, kind of work and social hierarchy. The tradition of both ways of describing the city is rooted in Italy. This article indicates the particular meaning of Italian painting in distributing the image of the city – as the votive offering. The research conducted by Chiara Frugoni and others indicated the meaning of the city images in the painting of various forms of panegyrics created in high praise of cities, known as laude (Lat.). We can find the examples of them rooted in the Roman tradition of mosaics, e.g. in San Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna. They present both palatium and civitas. The medieval Italian painting, especially the panel painting, presents the city structure models which are uninhabited and deprived of any signs of everyday life. The models of cities – urbs, are presented as votive offerings devoted to their patron saints, especially to Virgin Mary. The city shaped as oval or sinusoidal rings surrounded by the defensive walls resembled a container filled with buildings. Only few of them reflected the existing cities and could mainly be identified thanks to the inscriptions. The most characteristic examples were: the fresco of Taddeo di Bartolo in Palazzo Publico in Siena, which presented the Dominican Order friar Ambrogio Sansedoni holding the model of his city – Siena, with its most recognizable building - the Cathedral dedicated to the Assumption of Mary. The same painter, referred to as the master painter of the views of the cities as the votive offerings, painted the Saint Antilla with the model of Montepulciano in the painting from 1401 for the Cathedral devoted to the Assumption of Mary in Montepulciano. In the painting made by T. di Bartolo, the bishop of the city of Gimignano, Saint Gimignano, presents the city in the shape of a round lens surrounded by defence walls with numerous church towers and the feudal headquarters characteristic for the city. His dummer of the city is pyramidally-structured, the hills are mounted on the steep slopes reflecting the analogy to the topography of the city. We can also find the texts of songs, laude (Lat.) and panegyrics created in honour of the cities and their rulers, e.g. the texts in honour of Milan, Bonvesin for La Riva, known in Europe at that time. The city – Arcadia (utopia) in the modern style. Hartman Schedel, as a bibliophile and a scholar, knew the texts of medieval writers and Italian art but, as an ambitious humanist, he could not disregard the latest, contemporary trends of Renaissance which were coming from Nuremberg and from Italian cities. The views of Arcadia – the utopian city, were rapidly developing, as they were of great importance for the rich recipient in the beginning of the modern era overwhelmed by the early capitalism. It was then when the two opposites were combined – the shepherd and the knight, the Greek Arcadia with the medieval city. The reception of Virgil’s Arcadia in the medieval literature and art was being developed again in the elite circles at the end of 15th century. The cultural meaning of the historical loci, the Greek places of the ancient history and the memory of Christianity constituted the essence of historicism in the Renaissance at the courts of the Comnenos and of the Palaiologos dynasty, which inspired the Renaissance of the Latin culture circle. The pastoral idleness concept came from Venice where Virgil’s books were published in print in 1470, the books of Ovid: Fasti and Metamorphoses were published in 1497 and Sannazaro’s Arcadia was published in 1502, previously distributed in his handwriting since 1480. Literature topics presented the historical works as memoria, both ancient and Christian, composed into the images. The city maps drawn by Hartmann Schedel, the doctor and humanist from Nurnberg, refer to the medieval images of urbs, the woodcuts with the cities, known to the author from the Italian painting of the greatest masters of the Trecenta period. As a humanist he knew the literature of the Renaissance of Florence and Venice with the Arcadian themes of both the Greek and the Roman tradition. The view of Constantinople in the context of the contemporary political situation, is presented in a series of monuments of architecture, with columns and defensive walls, which reminded of the history of the city from its greatest time of Constantine the Great, Justinian I and the Comnenus dynasty. Schedel’s work of art is the sum of the knowledge written down or painted. It is also the result of the experiments of new technology. It is possible that Schedel was inspired by the hymns, laude, written by Psellos in honour of Constantinople in his elaborate ecphrases as the panegyrics for the rulers of the Greek dynasty – the Macedonians. Already in that time, the Greek ideal of beauty was reborn, both in literature and in fine arts. The illustrated History of the World presented in Schedel’s woodcuts is given to the recipients who are educated and to those who are anonymous, in the spirit of the new anthropology. It results from the nature of the woodcut reproduction, that is from the way of copying the same images. The artist must have strived to gain the recipients for his works as the woodcuts were created both in Latin and in German. The collected views were supposed to transfer historical, biblical and mythological knowledge in the new way of communication.
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Fisković, Igor. "Lopudski oltari Miha Pracata." Ars Adriatica, no. 2 (January 1, 2012): 177. http://dx.doi.org/10.15291/ars.448.
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Three cinquecento polychrome wood-carved altars have been preserved on the island of Lopud near Dubrovnik, the most monumental of which is situated in the parish church of Our Lady of Šunj. Its retable was constructed to resemble a classical aedicule, with an intricately carved frame and a central figural depiction of the Assumption of the Virgin, complemented by a complex iconographic programme in the symmetrically arranged adjoining scenes. Filling the small cassettes of the predella are reliefs of the Annunciation and Christ as the Man of Sorrows, together with perspectively rendered narrative scenes of the Last Supper and the Washing of the Feet, while in the pediment is a frontal depiction of the Coronation of the Virgin by the Holy Trinity. In the narrow side wings between the columns and pilasters are four bas-reliefs of local patron saints depicted half-turned towards the central image, and thus achieving an overall plastic harmony for a demanding content. In terms of space, the main scene is well-developed through a pronounced sculptural modelling of the figures of the eleven apostles in the round, the most prominent of which is that of St Peter, placed in the foreground and turned to face the nave of the church, while the others are consumed by the miraculous assumption of the Virgin into heaven. She is followed high up by a pair of small angels and several tiny symbolical cherubim heads, all of which helps to achieve an extremely convincing religious scene. Its attractiveness is significantly heightened by the all’antica realism and pedantic Roman-inspired modelling which highlight the skill of a highly trained and talented master wood carver, which leaves no doubt that this is a special work of art, and indeed, the most beautiful carved wood retable in the east Adriatic which has survived to date. In this first complete study of the altar, the author traces historical records in which it is mentioned without the exact year of its creation, origin or carver being cited. He dispels the tradition that the altar was brought from England, supposedly from the Chapel of Henry VIII, and explains this tradition as having been based on the discovery of an alabaster altar, a typical product of late Gothic workshops at Nottingham, several examples of which exist in Dalmatia. From the seventeenth-century records, on the other hand, we learn that the altar in the church of the „Madonna del Sugni” (a vernacular Italo-Croatian transformation of the word Assunta) was dedicated in 1572. An examination of comparative material establishes that the altar’s compositional scheme draws upon altarpieces painted by Alvise Vivarini around 1480, while its morphological features find their closest parallel in the activities and mannerisms of the Venetian workshop of Paolo Campsa, who worked from the 1490s to the early 1550s, and who sold his works in the wide area under the government of La Serenissima. The Republic of Venice profited a great deal from this export, while its urban centre’s innumerable wooden altars disappeared following subsequent changes of fashion. A group of securely attributed works shows that Paolo Campsa frequently borrowed formulas and idioms from Venetian painters of the older generation; analogies with two of Vivarini’s altar paintings confirm that he repeated this technique on the Lopud altar, even though altars as complex as this are not found in the surviving oeuvre of this artist. An overview of the extremely numerous works attributed to this fecund wood carver has not led to a secure attribution of this scenically developed altar to his hand. However, an analytical observation points to significant similarities with individual figures considered by scholars of Renaissance wooden sculpture to be products of his workshop - more a factory, in fact - or of his circle which, without a doubt, Paolo stamped with his mark. Apart from the assumption that there are master wood carvers who have not been identified, or formally and clearly differentiated, who followed his teachings and mannerisms, this paper opens the possibility of locating more exactly the place of the altar’s creation. Since Campsa’s workshop was active even after his death, it can be assumed that the altar was made in the 1560s or 1570s, and that it was transported and assembled on the island of Lopud for its dedication of 1572. Furthermore, the author observes the meaning of the subsequent addition of the background, which was painted once the altar reached its destination; it shows a summarized depiction of the scenery of Lopud and a tiny settlement with a precisely and proportionately drawn sailing ship docked at the island’s bay. The background reveals that the nature of the work was votive and, by identifying the layers of local historical circumstance and by combining them with the relevant written sources, it can be connected to the activities of the distinguished ship owner Miho Pracat, the richest citizen of the Republic of Dubrovnik during the cinquecento. Two more wooden sculptures can be added to Miho Pracat’s donation to his home island: the figures of St Catherine and St Roch which were also made in Venice and which had originally belonged to a small altar of his family in the local church of St Francis, known from archival records. This altar was composed of an older polychrome triptych, now unfortunately lost, and which, together with a pair of side statues, formed a piece resembling a number of altarpieces from Paolo Campsa’s workshop. Thus, the analysis of these works of art reveals key components of visual culture, and a peculiar mosaic of sixteenth-century artistic production in a peripheral community of the small island of Lopud under the government of the Republic of Dubrovnik.
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Plutowski, Luke, Rebecca Weitz-Shapiro, and Matthew S. Winters. "Voter Beliefs and Strategic Voting in Two-Round Elections." Political Research Quarterly, July 20, 2020, 106591292094079. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1065912920940791.
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How widespread is strategic voting in two-round electoral systems, and which types of voters are most likely to engage in such behavior? While runoff elections are common in presidential systems around the world, research on strategic voting in these settings remains limited. This paper explores four different types of strategic behavior that are possible in two-round systems, including some types, such as “strong-to-weak” strategic voting, which are not possible in single-shot elections. We use a nationwide survey to assess the incidence and correlates of strategic voting in Brazil’s 2018 presidential election, where thirteen candidates competed in the first round. We find evidence of “weak-to-strong” strategic voting at a similar rate to that documented in single-round elections in other countries. We find little evidence of other types of strategic voting. Furthermore, we show that voters’ confidence in their predictions of the likely electoral outcome and their ideological preferences strongly predict strategic voting. These results point to the importance of accounting for voter beliefs and attitudes in addition to objective voter characteristics to explain strategic voting.
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Lenger, Alexander, Stephan Wolf, and Nils Goldschmidt. "Choosing inequality: how economic security fosters competitive regimes." Journal of Economic Inequality, December 22, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10888-020-09472-5.
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AbstractIn a novel experimental design, we study how social immobility affects the choice among distributional schemes in an experimental democracy. We design a two-period experiment in which subjects first choose a distributional scheme by majority voting (“social contract”). Then subjects engage in a competitive real-effort task to earn points. Based on production success, participants are ranked from best to worst. In combination with the initially chosen scheme, these ranks determine the final payout of the first round, leading to a pattern of societal stratification. Participants are informed individually about points and rank, before the same sequence of voting, production and payoff determination is repeated in a second round. To test the effect of social immobility on choosing distributional regimes the experiment is conducted with and without a social immobility factor, i.e. a different weighting of the two rounds. In our standard scenario, payoffs are simply added. In our “social immobility setting”, we alter the game as follows: the actual income in round 2 is calculated by adding 0.2 times the raw payoff from the second production game and 0.8 times the income from round 1. With the higher importance of round 1 success, we simulate the fact that economic movement upwards and downwards in societies (“social mobility”) is a de facto rigid constraint: high and low incomes tend to reproduce themselves. Our main findings are that in the Equal Weight Treatment, most groups opt for complete equality in both rounds, while in the unequal weight setting the initial choice of equality is followed by a shift to the most competitive regime. In both treatments, we observe that those performing well in round 1 tend to vote for unequal schemes in round 2, while low-performers develop an even stronger “taste for equality”. This supports a central Rawlsian idea: behind an (experimental) “veil of uncertainty”, the lack of idiosyncratic information is strong enough to let people decide as if driven by social preferences. The different group decisions in round 2 suggest that for this to happen, stakes need to be sufficiently high. To our surprise, other factors like gender, social background or real-life income have hardly any impact on unveiled decision making. We conclude that in our experimental democracy, competition based income allocation (a “market economy”) finds support only if people are sufficiently well off. Hence, increasing inequality perpetuated by social immobility is likely to undermine the general support for market-based systems.
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Zeitoun, Jean-David, Matthieu Faron, Sophie de Vaugrigneuse, and Jérémie H. Lefèvre. "Health as an independent predictor of the 2017 French presidential voting behaviour: a cross-sectional analysis." BMC Public Health 19, no. 1 (November 6, 2019). http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-7861-3.
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Abstract Background It has been suggested that poor health has influenced vote for Brexit and the US presidential election. No such research has been published regarding the 2017 French presidential election. Methods We performed a cross-sectional analysis using a comprehensive set of socioeconomic and health indicators, to be compared with voting outcome at the first round of the 2017 French presidential election. The 95 French departments were selected as the unit of analysis. Data were obtained from publicly available sources. The linear model was used for both univariate and multivariate analysis to investigate the relation between voting patterns and predictors. Sensitivity analyses were done using the elastic-net regularisation. Results Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen arrived ahead. When projected on the first factorial plane (~ 60% of the total inertia), Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen tended to be in opposite directions regarding both socioeconomic and health factors. In the respective multivariate analyses of the two candidates, both socio-economic and health variables were significantly associated with voting patterns, with wealthier and healthier departments more likely to vote for Emmanuel Macron, and opposite departments more likely to vote for Marine Le Pen. Mortality (p = 0.03), severe chronic conditions (p = 0.014), and diabetes mellitus (p < 0.0001) were among the strongest predictors of voting pattern for Marine Le Pen. Sensitivity analyses did not substantially change those findings. Conclusions We found that areas associated with poorer health status were significantly more likely to vote for the far-right candidate at the French presidential election, even after adjustment on socioeconomic criteria.
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Mole, Sara E., Angela Schulz, Eben Badoe, Samuel F. Berkovic, Emily C. de Los Reyes, Simon Dulz, Paul Gissen, et al. "Guidelines on the diagnosis, clinical assessments, treatment and management for CLN2 disease patients." Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases 16, no. 1 (April 21, 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13023-021-01813-5.
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Abstract Background CLN2 disease (Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis Type 2) is an ultra-rare, neurodegenerative lysosomal storage disease, caused by an enzyme deficiency of tripeptidyl peptidase 1 (TPP1). Lack of disease awareness and the non-specificity of presenting symptoms often leads to delayed diagnosis. These guidelines provide robust evidence-based, expert-agreed recommendations on the risks/benefits of disease-modifying treatments and the medical interventions used to manage this condition. Methods An expert mapping tool process was developed ranking multidisciplinary professionals, with knowledge of CLN2 disease, diagnostic or management experience of CLN2 disease, or family support professionals. Individuals were sequentially approached to identify two chairs, ensuring that the process was transparent and unbiased. A systematic literature review of published evidence using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidance was independently and simultaneously conducted to develop key statements based upon the strength of the publications. Clinical care statements formed the basis of an international modified Delphi consensus determination process using the virtual meeting (Within3) online platform which requested experts to agree or disagree with any changes. Statements reaching the consensus mark became the guiding statements within this manuscript, which were subsequently assessed against the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation (AGREEII) criteria. Results Twenty-one international experts from 7 different specialities, including a patient advocate, were identified. Fifty-three guideline statements were developed covering 13 domains: General Description and Statements, Diagnostics, Clinical Recommendations and Management, Assessments, Interventions and Treatment, Additional Care Considerations, Social Care Considerations, Pain Management, Epilepsy / Seizures, Nutritional Care Interventions, Respiratory Health, Sleep and Rest, and End of Life Care. Consensus was reached after a single round of voting, with one exception which was revised, and agreed by 100% of the SC and achieved 80% consensus in the second voting round. The overall AGREE II assessment score obtained for the development of the guidelines was 5.7 (where 1 represents the lowest quality, and 7 represents the highest quality). Conclusion This program provides robust evidence- and consensus-driven guidelines that can be used by all healthcare professionals involved in the management of patients with CLN2 disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. This addresses the clinical need to complement other information available.
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Chok, A. Y., A. Oliver, S. Rasheed, E. J. Tan, M. E. Kelly, A. G. J. Aalbers, N. Abdul Aziz, et al. "Perioperative management and anaesthetic considerations in pelvic exenterations using Delphi methodology: results from the PelvEx Collaborative." BJS Open 5, no. 1 (January 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/bjsopen/zraa055.
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Abstract Background The multidisciplinary perioperative and anaesthetic management of patients undergoing pelvic exenteration is essential for good surgical outcomes. No clear guidelines have been established, and there is wide variation in clinical practice internationally. This consensus statement consolidates clinical experience and best practice collectively, and systematically addresses key domains in the perioperative and anaesthetic management. Methods The modified Delphi methodology was used to achieve consensus from the PelvEx Collaborative. The process included one round of online questionnaire involving controlled feedback and structured participant response, two rounds of editing, and one round of web-based voting. It was held from December 2019 to February 2020. Consensus was defined as more than 80 per cent agreement, whereas less than 80 per cent agreement indicated low consensus. Results The final consensus document contained 47 voted statements, across six key domains of perioperative and anaesthetic management in pelvic exenteration, comprising preoperative assessment and preparation, anaesthetic considerations, perioperative management, anticipating possible massive haemorrhage, stress response and postoperative critical care, and pain management. Consensus recommendations were developed, based on consensus agreement achieved on 34 statements. Conclusion The perioperative and anaesthetic management of patients undergoing pelvic exenteration is best accomplished by a dedicated multidisciplinary team with relevant domain expertise in the setting of a specialized tertiary unit. This consensus statement has addressed key domains within the framework of current perioperative and anaesthetic management among patients undergoing pelvic exenteration, with an international perspective, to guide clinical practice, and has outlined areas for future clinical research.
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Selinger, Christian, Nicola Carey, Shelley Cassere, Catherine Nelson-Piercy, Aileen Fraser, Veronica Hall, Kate Harding, et al. "Standards for the provision of antenatal care for patients with inflammatory bowel disease: guidance endorsed by the British Society of Gastroenterology and the British Maternal and Fetal Medicine Society." Frontline Gastroenterology, May 7, 2020, flgastro—2020–101459. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/flgastro-2020-101459.
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BackgroundPregnant women with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are at increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes. Comprehensive guidelines on medical management have been published; yet, there is limited guidance on service set-up and minimum standards of care for pregnant women with IBD.AimTo develop a position statement on service set-up and minimum standards of care in the UK.MethodsA working group consisting of 16 gastroenterologists, obstetricians, obstetric physician, IBD specialist nurses and midwives was assembled. Initial draft statements were produced and a modified Delphi process with two rounds of voting applied. Statements were modified according to voters’ feedback after each round. Statements with ≥80% agreement were accepted.ResultsAll 15 statements met criteria for inclusion. To facilitate optimal care, regular and effective communication between IBD and obstetric teams is required. There should be nominated link clinicians for IBD in obstetric units and for pregnancy in IBD units. Preconception counselling should be available for all women with IBD. All pregnant women should be advised on the safety of IBD medication during pregnancy and breast feeding, the optimal mode of delivery, the management of biologics (where applicable) and safety of childhood vaccinations. Regular audit of pregnancy outcomes and documentation of advice given is recommended.ConclusionPosition statements have been developed that advise on the importance of joined-up multidisciplinary care, proactive decision-making with clear documentation and communication to the woman and other healthcare practitioners.
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Colafrancesco, Serena, Maria Manara, Alessandra Bortoluzzi, Teodora Serban, Gerolamo Bianchi, Luca Cantarini, Francesco Ciccia, et al. "Management of adult-onset Still’s disease with interleukin-1 inhibitors: evidence- and consensus-based statements by a panel of Italian experts." Arthritis Research & Therapy 21, no. 1 (December 2019). http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13075-019-2021-9.
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Abstract Background Adult-onset Still’s disease (AOSD) is a rare inflammatory condition characterized by fever, rash, and arthritis. Because of its rarity, clinical trials are inherently small and often uncontrolled. Our objective was to develop recommendations for the use of interleukin (IL)-1 inhibitors in the management of patients with AOSD, based on the best evidence and expert opinion. Methods A panel of 10 experts (9 rheumatologists and 1 pediatrician) was established. The first step was dedicated to a comprehensive literature review and development of statements. Two separate literature searches were performed on the MEDLINE (Pubmed), EMBASE, and BIOSIS databases through April 2018 to identify (1) differences and similarities between AOSD and pediatric Still’s disease (systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis [SJIA]) and (2) the efficacy and safety of IL-1 inhibitors in AOSD treatment. In the second step, the statements were submitted in a Delphi process to a panel of 67 rheumatologists. Consensus threshold was set at 66%: positive, > 66% of voters selected scores 3 to 5; negative, > 66% of voters selected scores 1 or 2. In the third step, the voting results were analyzed, and the statements were finalized. Results Eleven statements were developed. Forty-six of 67 rheumatologists (72%) participated in the Delphi process. A positive consensus was reached after the first round of voting and was full (> 95%) on the majority of statements. A large consensus was achieved in considering AOSD and SJIA as the same disease. The use of anti-IL-1 therapies in refractory patients was considered quite safe and effective both as the first and as a subsequent line of biologic treatment, especially in systemic patients. Because of the lack of head-to-head comparisons, a different profile of efficacy among IL-1 inhibitors could not be established. There was a large consensus that failure of the first IL-1 inhibitor does not preclude response to another one. The lack of studies comparing early versus late treatment did not allow to draw conclusions; however, data from SJIA suggest a better response in early treatment. Conclusions The Delphi method was used to develop recommendations that we hope will help clinicians in the management of patients with AOSD refractory to conventional therapies.
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Hertanto, Hertanto, and Handi Mulyaningsih. "BUPATI PEREMPUAN PERTAMA DI LAMPUNG DAN KEGAGALAN CALON PETAHANA PADA PILKADA DI LAMPUNG TIMUR TAHUN 2015." Jurnal Ilmiah Mimbar Demokrasi 16, no. 2 (October 3, 2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.21009/jimd.v16i2.8757.
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In Indonesia, women were elected as governors, regents, mayors and deputy regional head is still small. The same phenomenon occurred in Lampung during the election period of 2005-2014, not a single female candidate was elected as regional head and deputy regional head. New on the elections in 2015 elected two women as East Lampung Regent (Chusnunia Chalim) and Vice Regent of Pesisir Barat (Erlina). The purpose of this study to determine the factors Chusnunia Chalim victory (and a couple Zaiful Bokhari) in local elections in East Lampung district in 2015. Theoretical framework used to explain the modalities of political contestation of the election, assuming that the candidate that wins must have the capital that includes political capital, social capital, and economic capital. This study used a descriptive approach qualitative research informants the winning team mate Chusnunia Chalim and Zaiful Bokhari, Commissioner of the East Lampung Regency, local community leaders, and some leaders of political parties bearers and supporters of the candidate. Discussion of the results showed that women's involvement in political elections and local governments began to seem real. Chusnunia because social capital is consolidated with the political capital of the bearers of political parties (PKB and PD) and the PDI-P supporters of political parties. This victory more dominant factor in social capital and strengthened by the political capital that appears at times the last round of the campaign. Social capital is obtained from the ethnic affiliation of voters with candidates and religious culture of the majority of the population of East Lampung. Meanwhile, the advantage of the element of political capital gained from the failure of incumbent candidates in the voting stage. So that prospective incumbent and its main bearers of political parties, PDI-P, shift support to Chusnunia.