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The purpose of central bank minutes is to give an account of monetary policy meeting discussions to outside observers, thereby enabling them to draw informed conclusions about future policy. However, minutes are by necessity a shortened and edited representation of a broader discussion. Consequently, they may omit information that is predictive of future policy decisions. To investigate this, we compare the information content of the FOMC's minutes and transcripts, focusing on three dimensions which are likely to be excluded from the minutes: 1) the committee’s degree of hawkishness; 2) the chairperson’s degree of hawkishness; and 3) the level of agreement between committee members. We measure committee and chairperson hawkishness with a novel dictionary that is constructed using the FOMC’s minutes and transcripts. We measure agreement by performing deep transfer learning, a technique that involves training a deep learning model on one set of documents – U.S. congressional debates – and then making predictions on another: FOMC transcripts. Our findings suggest that transcripts are more informative than minutes and heightened committee agreement typically precedes policy rate increases.

This theoretical essay explores three publications by Jürgen Habermas from the 1960s. The author deals with the critique of science, the production of knowledge and universities democratization. The objective was to extract from them clipings of reflections that can contribute to the studies of public communication of science. We consolidated the considerations into a graphic representation that summarizes the factors to be considered when thinking about the practice of science communication in society: the importance of considering the three interests that drive the production of knowledge - technical, practical and emancipatory, of promoting self-reflection of sciences in politicized and democratized universities, and the mediation of society in the interaction between science and politics, to subsidize decision-making based on social interests. We argue that the basis for a public communication idea of dialogical science - now widely defended - emerged in the German philosopher’s thinking in books published more than 50 years ago. However, that was not his central motivation at that time. Resumo: Este ensaio teórico explora três publicações de Jürgen Habermas da década de 1960, nas quais o autor trata da crítica da ciência, da produção do conhecimento e da democratização das universidades. O objetivo foi extrair delas recortes de reflexões que podem contribuir para os estudos da comunicação pública da ciência. Consolidam-se as reflexões em uma representação gráfica que resume os fatores a serem considerados, ao se pensar a prática de comunicação da ciência, na sociedade: a importância de levar em conta os três interesses que movem a produção do conhecimento - técnico, prático e emancipatório -, de promover a autorreflexão das ciências em universidades politizadas e democratizadas, e de haver a mediação da sociedade na interação entre ciência e política, de forma a subsidiar a tomada de decisões com base em interesses sociais. Argumenta-se que as bases para uma ideia de comunicação pública da ciência dialógica - hoje amplamente defendida - despontaram no pensamento do filósofo alemão, em livros publicados há mais de 50 anos, embora essa não fosse sua motivação central, naquele momento.

We conducted a community-based survey to compare the subjective well-being (SWB) and quality of life (QoL) of 470 rural-to-urban migrant and 422 local older adults living in Dongguan, China. Ordinal logistic regression was used to assess the dose-response relationships of SWB, QoL, and individual and environmental factors. Results show that migrant (vs. local) residents had greater SWB and better QoL. Positive self-rated health, lack of chronic diseases, not being depressed, taking regular exercise, living close to recreation facilities, and having good social cohesion were positive determinants for SWB and QoL of both local and migrant respondents. Our results provide useful information for Chinese policy decision making to promote the health of older adults.

Due to the growing emphasis on the importance of the rights and entitlements of non-human animals, horseracing has come in for renewed and, in many instances, justifiable scrutiny. This has led to an ongoing public debate concerning the use of the padded whip in particular – a debate which has been reasonably open and well contested. However, the scientific/academic debate has been disappointingly one-sided and, to date, the views of anyone other than those opposed to the continued use of the padded whip have not been given an airing. This paper seeks to redress the imbalance in the academic debate by revisiting some of the key arguments deployed by authors who express grave concerns over the use of the padded whip in racing, challenging what are taken to be significant weaknesses in many of them. For the sport to be able to make informed policy decisions on this important issue, a number of things are needed. First, a critical review of the studies available is needed. And, secondly, gaps in the literature and research need to be flagged. As things stand, the jury is still out from a scientific and philosophical point of view on the issue of whether the padded whip is painful, despite the claims of some of the more vocal critics of the practice. This paper will further look to identify the challenges ahead and the kind of research urgently needed.

During the Cold War, Strategic Warning Intelligence (SWI) was a necessary and recognized function within the intelligence community given the threats posed by conventional Warsaw Pact forces in Western Europe and Soviet ballistic missiles. With the end of the Cold War, the focus of intelligence shifted to tactical or operational issues against known threats, and the SWI function and expertise atrophied as a result. With today’s expanding and more complex threat environment, this article examines whether SWI capacities should be reintroduced in order to apprise decision makers of trending threats to national security, albeit based on faint signals, so the necessary policy decisions can be made and prioritized to mitigate said threats in a timely manner.

Hydrological impacts of climate change are prompting water resource and flood hazard management to adapt to non-stationary conditions. Among the factors influencing these policy decisions is the qu...

As an Autistic student in a master’s degree, I focused on the way expertise is understood. I was specifically interested in how policy decisions in education were made without Autistic involvement. I looked at the literature that was used to make these decisions and interviewed Autistic people as to their thoughts on who should be considered experts when it comes to autism. I found that policy was driven by experts who had little to no direct experience with autism or Autistics and who had no personal connections to the approaches they recommended. I argue that Autistic people must be involved in research design, execution, implementation, dissemination, and policy decisions.

Összefoglaló. Bevezetés: A ritka betegséggel élők ellátásában fontos előrelépések történtek az elmúlt években. Egy következő lépés lehetne hazánkban a Ritka Betegségek Nemzeti Erőforrás (Uni-Versum) Központjának (a továbbiakban: Központ) létrehozása, amely az egészségügyi, szociális és köznevelési szolgáltatásokat összehangolva és kiegészítve személyközpontú ellátást nyújtana a betegek és támogatóik részére. Célkitűzés: Célunk az volt, hogy egy nemzetközi tudományos módszertan alapján javaslatokat tegyünk arra, hogy milyen eszközökkel lehet feloldani a Központ megvalósításának lehetséges korlátozó tényezőit. Módszer: A Központ megvalósíthatóságának értékelésére interdiszciplináris szakmai egyeztetést szerveztünk különböző érintett érdekcsoportok részvételével, a SELFIE H2020 kutatási projekt által kidolgozott módszertan alapján. Az előzetesen rangsorolt legfontosabb korlátozó tényezőkre lehetséges megoldási javaslatokat tettünk. Eredmények: A lehetséges korlátozó tényezőket a résztvevők relevánsnak tartották a Központ létrehozásával kapcsolatban, és ezekre összesen 17 olyan konkrét javaslat született, amelyben a résztvevők között egyetértés alakult ki. A javaslatok kiterjedtek az ellátás tartalmára, az alkalmazott technológiák támogató szerepére, a humánerőforrás-korlátok megoldására, a hatékony vezetés és szervezés kialakítására, az összetett finanszírozási struktúra kialakítására és a kutatási lehetőségek megteremtésére is. Megbeszélés: A Központ megvalósítása esetén a ritka betegséggel élők ellátása az egészségügyi, szociális és köznevelési tevékenységeket integráló megközelítés felé mozdulna el. A kutatás során megfogalmazott javaslatok hozzájárulhatnak a Központ létrehozásához, amennyiben megvan az ehhez szükséges szakpolitikai támogatás is. Ezen túlmutatóan, a leírt munkamódszer más integrált ellátási modellek bevezethetőségének elemzéséhez is mintaként szolgálhat. Következtetés: Összefoglalva megállapíthatjuk, hogy a Központ létrehozásához számos, előzetesen is látható korlátozó tényezőt kell feloldani. Az érdekcsoportok közös javaslatai alapján kialakítható egy olyan működési forma, amely az ellátórendszerek kiegészítésével és összehangolásával jelentős társadalmi értéktöbbletet eredményezhet. Orv Hetil. 2021; 162(45): 1818–1825. Summary. Introduction: In Hungary, significant achievements have been made in the care of patients with rare diseases in recent years. A next step could be the establishment of the National Resource Centre for Rare Diseases (hereinafter: Centre) to facilitate patient-centered complex care by the integration and supplementation of existing health, social and educational services. Objective: This research aimed to develop recommendations based on international scientific methodology to overcome potential implementation barriers of the aforementioned Centre. Method: To evaluate the feasibility of the implementation, we organized an interdisciplinary workshop with representatives of different stakeholder groups, adopting the methodology developed in the SELFIE H2020 research project. During the workshop, we discussed the previously ranked, most significant implementation barriers and made recommendations for potential solutions. Results: The potential implementation barriers were considered relevant by the participants and, reflecting on these barriers, altogether 17 recommendations were developed by consensus. These recommendations were related to the content of service delivery, use of supportive technologies, overcoming workforce issues, establishing effective leadership, implementing a complex financing structure and creating research opportunities. Discussion: Implementation of the Centre would shift the care of rare diseases towards personalized and integrated health, social and educational services. Our recommendations will contribute to the establishment of the Centre, subject to positive policy decision. Furthermore, our methodological approach could support the feasibility assessment of future integrated care solutions and programs. Conclusion: Several predictable barriers must be overcome to establish the Centre. Recommendations developed by representatives of relevant stakeholders could support successful implementation and societal value generation. Orv Hetil. 2021; 162(45): 1818–1825.

With the purpose of improving the PDP (policy decision point) evaluation performance, a novel and efficient evaluation engine, namely XDNNEngine, based on neural networks and an SGDK-means (stochastic gradient descent K-means) algorithm is proposed. We divide a policy set into different clusters, distinguish different rules based on their own features and label them for the training of neural networks by using the K-means algorithm and an asynchronous SGDK-means algorithm. Then, we utilize neural networks to search for the applicable rule. A quantitative neural network is introduced to reduce a server's computational cost. By simulating the arrival of requests, XDNNEngine is compared with the Sun PDP, XEngine and SBA-XACML. Experimental results show that 1) if the number of requests reaches 10,000, the evaluation time of XDNNEngine on the large-scale policy set with 10,000 rules is approximately 2.5 ms, and 2) in the same condition as 1), the evaluation time of XDNNEngine is reduced by 98.27%, 90.36% and 84.69%, respectively, over that of the Sun PDP, XEngine and SBA-XACML.

Promoting the construction of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area is a major policy decision and national strategy made by the central government of China, which significantly supports the Belt and Road Initiative and maintains the long-term prosperity for the whole country. As an important part of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area, Foshan needs to find its own position and direction in order to accelerate the joint development with other cities through five measures.

Thean Singh, Jawahar SK Pillai, Mukunda C Sahoo Department of Hospital Administration, AIIMS, Bhubaneswar, IndiaCorrespondence: Jawahar SK Pillai Email jawahardr@yahoo.comIntroduction: Activity-based costing (ABC) is a costing technique that identifies the activities in an organization and assigns the cost to the activities based on the actual resources consumed for each activity. The method was used to ascertain the cost of surgical intensive care unit (SICU) bed in an institute of national importance, such as All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Bhubaneswar, from June 2019 to February 2021.Objective: The present study aimed to ascertain the cost of SICU beds per day by the ABC technique. The different elements of cost were analyzed. The cost for selected patients in the SICU unit was calculated by preparing a cost sheet based on the elements of cost and studying the existing charging system.Methods: A total of 38 cases were selected from the departments of General Surgery, Urology, Orthopedics, and Plastic surgery. Based on the ABC technique, the activity map was developed for SICU (cost center), and the time consumed together with resources for each activity was calculated with respect to human resources, consumables, medicines, and overheads. Thus, the total cost incurred by the hospital for SICU beds per day was estimated using the cost sheet analysis.Results: The cost was calculated to be Rs. 11,241/- per day (155 USD) against the hospital charge of Rs. 35/- (< 0.5 USD) for general patients and Rs. 1000/- for private ward patients. Exchange Conversion Rate used is 1 USD = 72.60 INR (2020– 21).Conclusion: The public sector hospitals in India provide health-care services for free and at a subsidized rate; hence, ascertaining the cost incurred by the hospital is necessary for policy decisions.Keywords: activity-based costing, SICU, costing, cost accounting, facility management costing

This paper examines the association between high-growth firm status and global linkages with special focus on the role of imports. We rely on a rich panel data covering all formal firms in Tunisia between 1999 and 2015. Our results show that firms that import, export, have foreigner ownership, or benefit from offshore regimes are more likely to achieve high-growth status compared to other similar firms in terms of size, age, sector, and region. Among these channels, importing status has a robust positive association with high growth. We find that an increase in the import barriers led by changes in non-tariff measures reduces the likelihood of achieving high-growth status through import channel for firms that are in sectors facing relatively higher levels of exposure to the shock. Import is an important attribute of high-growth firms. Those are firms that achieve outstanding growth performance in terms of turnover or number of workers. They are more prevalent among small and young firms and are an important driver of job creation. This paper uses a very comprehensive data from Tunisia to analyze the relationship between trade and high-growth firm status. Our results show that firms more exposed to external linkages through importing, exporting, or foreigner ownership are more likely to achieve high growth. More specifically, we find that increasing import barriers negatively affect the prevalence of high growth firms. Imports are widely affected by policy decisions through tariff and non-tariff measures. These results imply that facilitating access to import should be a relevant component when designing and implementing policies aiming to support firms with high-growth potential.

Research in rapidly evolving policy contexts can lead to the following ethical challenges for sponsors and researchers: the study’s standard of care can become different than what patients outside the study receive, there may be political or other pressure to move ahead with unproven interventions, and new findings or revised policies may decrease the relevance of ongoing studies. These ethical challenges are considerable, but not unprecedented. In this article, we review the case of a multinational, randomized, controlled perinatal HIV prevention trial, the “PROMISE” (Promoting Maternal Infant Survival Everywhere) study. PROMISE compared the relative efficacy and safety of interventions to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV. The sponsor engaged an independent international ethics panel to address controversy about the study’s standard of care and relevance as national and international guidelines changed. This ethics panel concluded that continuing the PROMISE trial as designed was ethically permissible because: (1) participants in all arms received interventions that were effective, and there was insufficient evidence about whether one intervention was more effective or safer than the other, and (2) data from PROMISE could be useful for a diverse range of stakeholders. In general, trials designed to inform rapidly evolving policy issues should develop mechanisms to revisit social value while recognizing that the value of research varies for diverse stakeholders with legitimate reasons to weigh evidence differently. We conclude by providing four reasons that trials may depart from the standard of care after a change in policy, while remaining ethically justifiable, and by suggesting how to improve existing trial oversight mechanisms to address evolving social value.

In the summer of 2018–19 mass fish kills occurred in the Lower Darling (Baaka) River in south-eastern Australia. The fish kills received national and international attention and have been the focus of numerous government agency and independent assessments. Although fish kills have previously been recorded in the Lower Darling region, the size and rapid succession of the 2018–19 ‘Menindee’ fish kills made them unprecedented in the Murray–Darling Basin, placing significant pressure on the native fish community. Although the deaths of millions of fish were documented, the significant negative effect that the fish kills had on local communities, particularly the traditional Baakandji people, was largely ignored. The social and cultural aspects of such events can have major non-economic effects on local communities. In this paper we document heart-felt feelings conveyed by local community members. Their sense of loss, despair and helplessness is compounded by frustration regarding water management and policy decision making in the Murray–Darling Basin. However, these tragic events have increased understanding of traditional Baakandji connection to the river and its fish and, together with local recovery efforts, now provide prospects for enhanced community and agency cooperation to improve the health of the lower Darling Baaka River and restore its native fish populations.

Trade unions have received little attention in sustainability transitions research, despite their capacity to influence policy decisions. This article presents a study of how key unions in Norway a country with a large petroleum sector as well as high union level density – have moved their preferences on transition issues in the period 2007–2019. With a document-based process analysis of trade unions’ changing policy preferences and interpretations of a just transition, a concept that aims to bridge the apparent gap between destruction and creation policies, we show how trade unions have used this concept to reconcile different positions among unions. While unions from petroleumrelated sectors are more opposed to phase-out policies compared to non-petroleum unions, the solidarity principle among unions has caused some movement towards a joint support of a just transition. Yet, different unions promote different ideas of what a just transition means depending on their sector affiliation.

Cascade genetic testing is the identification of individuals at risk for a hereditary condition by genetic testing in relatives of people known to possess particular genetic variants. Cascade testing has health system implications, however cascade costs and health effects are not considered in health technology assessments (HTAs) that focus on costs and health consequences in individual patients. Cascade health service use must be better understood to be incorporated in HTA of emerging genetic tests for children. The purpose of this review was to characterise published research related to patterns and costs of cascade health service use by relatives of children with any condition diagnosed through genetic testing. To this end, a scoping literature review was conducted. Citation databases were searched for English-language papers reporting uptake, costs, downstream health service use, or cost-effectiveness of cascade investigations of relatives of children who receive a genetic diagnosis. Included publications were critically appraised, and findings were synthesised. Twenty publications were included. Sixteen had a paediatric proband population; four had a combined paediatric and adult proband population. Uptake of cascade testing varied across diseases, from 37% for cystic fibrosis, 39% to 65% for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and 90% for rare monogenic conditions. Two studies evaluated costs. It was concluded that cascade testing in the child-to-parent direction has been reported in a variety of diseases, and that understanding the scope of cascade testing will aid in the design and conduct of HTA of emerging genetic technologies to better inform funding and policy decisions.

Purpose of review Chronic kidney disease (CKD) significantly impacts many aspects of life, health, and wellbeing. People with CKD have individual priorities for their care which may differ from those valued by clinicians and policy makers. The patient experience is broadly captured by the concept of quality of life (QoL) which is increasing assessed in research and used to guide clinical and policy decision making. Appropriate selection and application of QoL assessment tools are essential for high-quality research and patient care. This article summarises the current approaches to QoL assessment in CKD and outlines aspirations for future improvement. Recent findings Commonly used tools for assessment of QoL in CKD include the Short Form-36 and -12 and extended versions adapted for specific use in kidney patients (KD-QoL), and the EQ-5D. However, a wide range of other instruments are also reported, making comparisons between research findings challenging. Few of the tools are adequately validated for use in CKD, and relevance to patient values are unclear. Instruments suitable for use in a routine clinical setting are lacking. Summary QoL instruments developed and validated with meaningful CKD stakeholder input are required. The Standardised Outcomes in Nephrology initiative is working to address this need.

Previous studies of the geographical and temporal features of serial sex offenses are limited by small samples and/or geographical areas, and are dated. We address a significant gap in the literature by investigating the temporal and geographical proximity of the crimes of 402 serial stranger sex offenders in the UK. Periods of incarceration were extracted from calculations of temporal proximity giving a more accurate picture of series duration and time elapsed between offenses from the same series. A notable minority of serial stranger sex offenders commit their offenses within very close geographic proximity and the same was found for temporal proximity. There were also occurrences of series spanning large distances and many years. The implications of these findings for the use of geography and time in the behavioral linking of crimes, and what they mean for policy decisions regarding financial investment in law enforcement technology, are discussed.

Global concern over widely documented declines in pollinators1–3 has led to the identification of anthropogenic stressors that, individually, are detrimental to bee populations4–7. Synergistic interactions between these stressors could substantially amplify the environmental effect of these stressors and could therefore have important implications for policy decisions that aim to improve the health of pollinators3,8,9. Here, to quantitatively assess the scale of this threat, we conducted a meta-analysis of 356 interaction effect sizes from 90 studies in which bees were exposed to combinations of agrochemicals, nutritional stressors and/or parasites. We found an overall synergistic effect between multiple stressors on bee mortality. Subgroup analysis of bee mortality revealed strong evidence for synergy when bees were exposed to multiple agrochemicals at field-realistic levels, but interactions were not greater than additive expectations when bees were exposed to parasites and/or nutritional stressors. All interactive effects on proxies of fitness, behaviour, parasite load and immune responses were either additive or antagonistic; therefore, the potential mechanisms that drive the observed synergistic interactions for bee mortality remain unclear. Environmental risk assessment schemes that assume additive effects of the risk of agrochemical exposure may underestimate the interactive effect of anthropogenic stressors on bee mortality and will fail to protect the pollinators that provide a key ecosystem service that underpins sustainable agriculture. A meta-analysis of studies in which bees were exposed to combinations of agrochemicals, nutritional stressors and/or parasites revealed evidence for synergistic effects on mortality when bees were exposed to multiple agrochemicals at field-realistic levels.

Recent studies in nuclear deterrence show that nuclear punishment is infeasible in most cases due to the opponent’s second-strike capability, tactical redundancy, and the logic of self-deterrence. However, if the challenge against nuclear deterrence is expected to go unpunished, the deterrent policy is not credible and will likely fail. Can the defender violently punish the challenger possessing nuclear weapons? If it can, under what conditions? Thanks to President Kennedy’s tape recordings, the Cuban Missile Crisis provides researchers an exceptional laboratory for testing various theories on the defender’s policy choices after deterrence failure. This article derives a research hypothesis and its competing counterpart and examines their respective explanatory power via a process-tracing analysis of key members within the Executive Committee during the crisis. The study finds that the challenger’s feasibility of retaliating with atomic weapons is a crucial predictor for the defender’s policy choices.

Leseprobe ----- Zusammenfassung Gegenstand der vorliegenden Untersuchung sind diskursive Verhandlungen von Krisen in digitalen Raumen im Kontext der pandemiebedingten Schulschliesungen. Die Analyse ausgewahlter Kommunikationsbeitrage des virtuellen Lehrerzimmers innerhalb der Plattform ‚Twitter‘ mithilfe der Dokumentarischen Methode zeigt, dass das schriftsprachliche Handeln von Akteur*innen im virtuellen Raum auf eine Form von Solidarisierungsbewegung verweist. Diese kann fur das interagierende Subjekt in Anbetracht fehlender Handlungsroutinen im Zusammenhang mit den Schulschliesungen bei der Bearbeitung von Ungewissheit relevant sein. Der zugrundeliegende Orientierungsrahmen deutet zumindest auf ein kollektives Bewusstsein der Beitragenden fur die Krisenhaftigkeit des padagogisch-schulischen Geschehens. Dabei ist die Suche nach geteilten Einschatzungen, etwa im Umgang mit Elternkritik, auffallig. Ob dadurch allerdings eine reflexive Berufskrisenbearbeitung stattfindet oder sich lediglich ein Klagen der Akteure gegenuber bildungspolitischen Entscheidungen ausdruckt, musste weitergehend untersucht werden. Schlagworter: Corona-Krise, Netzwerkgesellschaften, Kontingenz, virtuelle Kommunikation, Dokumentarische Methode ----- Contingency management in the crisis. A documentary reconstruction of communication contributions in the #twitterlehrerzimmer at the time of the pandemicrelated school closures Abstract The subject of this study is the discursive negotiation of crises in digital spaces in the context of pandemic-related school closures. The analysis of selected communication posts of the virtual teachers’ room within the platform ‚Twitter‘ using the documentary method shows that the written language actions of actors in virtual space refer to a form of solidarity movement. This can be relevant for the interacting subject in the context of dealing with uncertainty in the absence of action routines in the context of school closures. At the very least, the underlying frame of orientation points to a collective awareness on the part of the contributors of the crisis nature of the pedagogicalschool event. In this context, the search for shared assessments, for example in dealing with parental criticism, is striking. However, it would have to be investigated further whether this leads to a reflexive handling of the professional crisis or whether the actors are merely complaining about educational policy decisions. Keywords: corona crisis, network societies, contingency, virtual communication, documentary method ----- Bibliographie: Hovels, Barbara/Herzmann, Petra: Kontingenzbearbeitung in der Krise. Eine dokumentarische Rekonstruktion von Kommunikationsbeitragen im #twitterlehrerzimmer zu Zeiten der pandemiebedingten Schulschliesungen, ZQF – Zeitschrift fur Qualitative Forschung, 1-2021, S. 139-158. https://doi.org/10.3224/zqf.v22i1.11

This study aims to see the density of patient visits at the Raden Mattaher Regional Hospital by using the National Emergency Department Overcrowded Scale (Nedocs). The method used in this study is an analytical survey to assess the role and function of an emergency room management and to analyze the management of patients in the emergency room at the Raden Mattaher Regional General Hospital (RSUD), Jambi Province. The results of this study indicate the average overcrowded rating in the ER at Raden Mattaher Hospital Jambi, which is in the range of 61-100 with the assessment category Very busy but not too full (extremely busy but not overcrowded). According to the Ministry of Health, the calculation of the need for human resources for nurses, the number of nurses in the ER at Raden Mattaher Hospital is short of 4 people, and not all of them are emergency certified. Based on the research results, it can be concluded that the policy decision making has been implemented but it has not been implemented properly. Furthermore, regarding the density in the emergency room during patient visits, the Raden Mattaher Regional Hospital provides a step solution to hospital management.

Many policy decisions take input from collections of scientific models. Such decisions face significant and often poorly understood uncertainty. We rework the so-called confidence approach to tackle decision-making under severe uncertainty with multiple models, and we illustrate the approach with a case study: insurance pricing using hurricane models. The confidence approach has important consequences for this case and offers a powerful framework for a wide class of problems. We end by discussing different ways in which model ensembles can feed information into the approach, appropriate to different collections of models.

Do children suffer from discriminatory structures in society and how can issues of social injustice against children be conceptualised and studied? The conceptual frame of childism is examined through everyday expressions in the aftermath of policies affecting children in Sweden, the UK and Ireland to develop knowledge of age-based and intersectional discrimination against children. While experiences in Sweden seem to indicate that young children rarely suffer severe symptoms from covid-19, or constitute a driving force in spreading the virus, policy decisions in the UK and Ireland to close down schools have had detrimental effects on children in terms of child hunger and violence against children. Policy decisions that have prioritised adults at the cost of children have unveiled a structural injustice against children, which is mirrored by individual examples of everyday societal prejudice.

A mixed method approach was designed to investigate the impact of quality of work life on life satisfaction for seafarers. For the quantitative phase, data were collected from 521 seafarers who were sailing and also those who were vacationing. The study continued in the second phase by following up with seven selected participants to investigate the results from the quantitative phase. The data were analyzed using statistical techniques like exploratory factor analysis, correlation, regression and ANOVA. The quality of work life of seafarers was found to be closely connected to life satisfaction in varied ways through recognition from the organizations, work life balance and recreational facilities. Ranks of the participants were influencers for satisfaction, whereas marital status results were indifferent for satisfaction. The findings of the study have implications for policy decisions, training and practice for shipping companies.

Background-The global burden of cancer continues to increase largely because of the aging and growth of the world population alongside an increasing adoption of cancer causing behaviors, particularly smoking in economically developing countries and life style changes. India exhibits heterogeneity in cancer. Since two decade changes in the pattern of cancer has been observed in various studies. So this retrospective study was done to observe the changing pattern in female cancer in our institution during last 10 years. Aims and object-To observe the changes in female malignancies during last 10 years in terms of age shifting and site of presentation. Result/observation-Ca cervix is on decreasing trend while ca breast is on increasing pattern.Ca gallbladder, ca esophagus, colorectal cancer and ca ovary are on gradually increasing trend while hematological malignancy is showing a sharp rise in trend. Conclusion- Evidence-based policy decision on steps for cancer prevention and cancer control should be formulated. More emphasis should be given on the cancer which are showing an increasing trend so that proper and effective screening and cancer control program can be implicated.

Applications of machine learning (ML) to high-stakes policy settings -- such as education, criminal justice, healthcare, and social service delivery -- have grown rapidly in recent years, sparking important conversations about how to ensure fair outcomes from these systems. The machine learning research community has responded to this challenge with a wide array of proposed fairness-enhancing strategies for ML models, but despite the large number of methods that have been developed, little empirical work exists evaluating these methods in real-world settings. Here, we seek to fill this research gap by investigating the performance of several methods that operate at different points in the ML pipeline across four real-world public policy and social good problems. Across these problems, we find a wide degree of variability and inconsistency in the ability of many of these methods to improve model fairness, but post-processing by choosing group-specific score thresholds consistently removes disparities, with important implications for both the ML research community and practitioners deploying machine learning to inform consequential policy decisions., 17 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables

The current research examines the effects of external and internal factors on the decisions related to the compensation policy subsequently influence turnover intentions of Telecom sector employees of Pakistan. The study was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, the factors effecting the compensation policy decision are generated through an extensive review of literature. This exhaustive list was tested through a rigorous process of a number of iterations of finding the most valued and considered factors in Pakistani telecom sector. This process was done with the top tier management including the human resource practitioners, as these are the people who significantly contribute in developing and finalizing decisions on the policy relating to compensation. For meeting with the objectives of current study, second phase consisted on identification of the impact of such decisions was tested on employee’s turnover intentions. The results were significant giving an understanding that the organizations who consider the most critical internal and external factors effecting decisions related with compensation policy, will ultimately craft such a policy, which is having a positive influence on the motivation of employee to continue working with the organization. So, this will solve the major organizational problem of retaining the productive employees and hence getting a sustainable organizational performance.

This paper focuses on the salience, engagement and influence of selected stakeholders in two key sport policy initiatives in Taiwan during the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper identifies three principa...

Facing challenges of dealing with complex social and technical issues, Chinese government has sought to enhance social credibility of policy decisions by soliciting expert advice. One institutional...

This study analyses the impact of female political empowerment on European countries’ welfare policies. Following a spatial econometric approach, the results reveal the presence of a spatial depend...

The aim of this article is to determine whether there is opportunistic behavior in local government decisions related to contracting out, public-private partnership (PPP) and/or public externalizat...

El estudio de la calidad de vida en la UE ha cobrado un especial interés en la segunda mitad de los años ochenta y en la década de los noventa ante la necesidad por parte de los políticos de disponer de una información de calidad que resulte útil en la toma de decisiones políticas y en su valoración.El objetivo de este artículo es analizar la calidad de vida de los ciudadanos de la Unión Europea reflexionado sobre si existen diferencias entre este concepto al emplear o no información de tipo subjetivo subjetiva. A la hora de medir y cuantificar la calidad de vida se han empleado diversas metodologías y aproximaciones, pero quizás la más importante y generalizada es la de los indicadores sociales. En este enfoque, el concepto a investigar es descompuesto en diversas dimensiones, que así mismo están integradas por indicadores sociales, de forma que la calidad de vida se obtiene como una combinación de la información de estos indicadores. En general, los métodos para construir indicadores sintéticos son particularmente interesantes en este campo de investigación, especialmente en el contexto de la UE, en concreto en este artículo proponemos utilizar la medida de distancia DP2.

To examine the contribution that field efficacy studies made to the assessment of marketing authorisation (MA) applications, a retrospective analysis was conducted for 100 veterinary vaccines that had been evaluated by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) between 1996 and 2017. For 52 veterinary vaccines, scrutiny of the European Public Assessment Report (EPAR) and/or the summary of product characteristics (SPC) identified objective evidence that field efficacy studies made an important or substantial impact on the efficacy claims and/or benefit-risk evaluation. For 24 applications, the contribution of field efficacy studies was classified as either supportive or was not detectable from the publicly available documents on which the analysis was based. For a further 24 applications, data exemptions were applied and the MAs were granted in the absence of field studies. The difficulty in achieving challenge in the field was highlighted by the observation that natural exposure was reported in less than half of the applications where field efficacy studies were conducted (34 out of 76). This analysis may help to inform policy decisions on the role, conduct and contribution that field efficacy studies make to the assessment of efficacy for veterinary vaccines.

The difficulty for startups to secure financing is an important issue in relation to the economic progress of developing countries. As the main financing channel for startups, informal financing is a popular topic in theoretical and practical circles. Using data on 113,656 loans to startups in Wenzhou, China, from 2016 to 2018, this paper measures the uncertainty of financing rates. The results show that from the perspective of fund suppliers, micro-loan company lending is more uncertain than direct social lending. From the perspective of financing methods, the uncertainty of contract loans is greater than the uncertainty of credit loans and is rising year on year. From the perspective of the financing period, great uncertainties occur in short-term loans of one month and long-term loans of one year or more. These results provide empirical support for policy decisions to regulate micro-loan companies, establish the spirit of contract, and increase capital liquidity.

It is common to find multiple network interfaces connected to different Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in devices such as smartphones. Multipath TCP (MPTCP) enables TCP connections to use all these network interfaces in a single TCP connection in an application transparent manner. MPTCP schedules traffic of one TCP connection over subflows created over these network interfaces. It is evident that this requires some scheduling policy. There have been some attempts to allow applications to decide on the scheduling policy. However, this violates the application transparency of MPTCP, and applications do not have all the information required to decide on such a policy. In addition, this allows the applications to monopolize the network connection thus posing a security threat as well. We argue that only the owner of the device (the user) has the right to make that policy decision and only the user can make an informed decision on the scheduling policy. For example, the user has the information on the monetary cost of the connections through different interfaces. In this paper we present a mechanism that allows the user to provide hints to the TCP scheduler to alter its scheduling policy. While this is not a mechanism to implement generic scheduling policies, it demonstrates how a user can guide the scheduling policies. As a proof of the concept, we demonstrate how MPTCP scheduler can be influenced to select a less stable and lossy path over a stable path based on a user preference.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine trials provide valuable insight into the safety and efficacy of vaccines, with individually randomized, placebo-controlled trials being the gold standard in trial design. However, a myriad of variables must be considered as clinical trial data are interpreted and used to guide policy decisions. These variables include factors such as the characteristics of the study population and circulating severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) strains, the force of infection, the definition and ascertainment of endpoints, the timing of vaccine efficacy assessment, and the potential for performance bias. In this Viewpoints article, we discuss critical variables to consider when comparing efficacy measurements across current and future COVID-19 vaccine trials.

In 1932, with the help of the League of Nations, the Chinese government sent an educational mission consisting of five scholars to Europe, in order to investigate education in different countries a...

Data availability and accessibility often present challenges to resolving regional water management issues. One primary input essential to models and other tools used to inform policy decisions is daily precipitation. Since observed datasets are not always present or accessible, data from the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) have become a potential alternative. A comparison of CFSR precipitation data to available observed data from stations in the East African countries Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania showed notable differences between the two datasets, particularly with respect to precipitation totals and number of days receiving rainfall. A sliding window bias correction approach evaluated using 3 methods with 8 different window length and timestep variations showed that empirical quantile mapping with a 30-day sliding window length and 1-day timestep achieved the best performance. A comparison of bias corrected CFSR precipitation data against observed data showed marked improvement in the similarity of the number of wet days and maximum daily rainfall between the two datasets. For precipitation totals, bias correction reduced underprediction errors by 32% and overprediction errors by 81%. Results indicate that bias-corrected CFSR precipitation data provides an improved basis for water resources applications in the study region. Methodologies and approaches are extendable to other data-scarce regions or areas where complete and consistent data are not easily accessible.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supported respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) mortality surveillance studies in several low- and middle-income countries to address the striking gap in community mortality burden data from these geographies. The compelling findings generated from these studies reveal a high unmeasured burden of community RSV mortality, particularly among infants aged

Objectives: Commentaries have suggested that initial emphasis on the higher susceptibility and mortality rates of older adults to COVID-19 has instigated ageism within the public discourse and policy decisions. Using the health belief model, the current study examined ageism in interaction with other factors influencing intention to social distance. Methods: Threat of contracting COVID-19, benefits and barriers to social distancing, benevolent and hostile ageism, and intention to social distance were examined in 960 adults ( M = 37.81 years, SD = 11.65). Results: Benevolent and hostile ageism were significant moderators for both perceived threat and barriers on intent to social distance; hostile ageism also moderated benefits on intent to social distance. Discussion: The current study demonstrates how ageism influences behavior during a pandemic. With initial reports of COVID-19 presenting older adults as a homogenous group, ageism negatively interacted with intention to social distance and may place older adults at greater risk.

The prediction of hospital emergency room visits (ERV) for respiratory diseases after the outbreak of PM2.5 is of great importance in terms of public health, medical resource allocation, and policy decision support. Recently, the machine learning methods bring promising solutions for ERV prediction in view of their powerful ability of short-term forecasting, while their performances still exist unknown. Therefore, we aim to check the feasibility of machine learning methods for ERV prediction of respiratory diseases. Three different machine learning models, including autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA), multilayer perceptron (MLP), and long short-term memory (LSTM), are introduced to predict daily ERV in urban areas of Beijing, and their performances are evaluated in terms of the mean absolute error (MAE), root mean squared error (RMSE), mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), and coefficient of determination (R2). The results show that the performance of ARIMA is the worst, with a maximum R2 of 0.70 and minimum MAE, RMSE, and MAPE of 99, 124, and 26.56, respectively, while MLP and LSTM perform better, with a maximum R2 of 0.80 (0.78) and corresponding MAE, RMSE, and MAPE of 49 (33), 62 (42), and 14.14 (9.86). In addition, it demonstrates that MLP cannot detect the time lag effect properly, while LSTM does well in the description and prediction of exposure-response relationship between PM2.5 pollution and infecting respiratory disease.

This study aims at assessing the extent to which the Ethiopian policies are based on rational policy analysis. Explanatory analysis methods are used to analyze primary and secondary qualitative data. The finding shows that in the policy making process only one policy option was investigated and crafted; the criteria used to evaluate the proposal are not clear; sophisticated solution methods haven’t been used. Though there were many consultations with stakeholders, they couldn’t be sources of many policy options due to their objective, timing and poor citizen’s political culture. Moreover, the study found out that there is lack of technical capacity and advice at the center of the government, the parliament and line ministries. Thus, government needs to do the following; establish advisory institutions, consultations should be done before crafting a draft, policy criteria should be identified, and solution methods should be used in selecting the best policy. Key words: Public policy, public policy making, public policy analysis, policy advice, policy formulation.

Living with a companion animal (CA or “pet”) often has a positive impact on quality of life and well-being. Research also highlights potential benefits of CA relationships for populations accessing...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to fill the research and cognitive gap by comparative analyzing of the cluster supply chain (CSC) and supply chains not belonging to the clusters to examine the relational embeddedness as the differentiator of supply chains operating in the clusters. Design/methodology/approach The conceptual model was tested with data collected from 475 industrial companies cooperating with their partners within supply chains, including 135 CSC. To identify the livraisons between different indicators, the correspondence analysis was applied. Findings The division of enterprises participating in this study into groups allows for the determination of relatively clear boundaries between enterprises belonging to the cluster and those that do not declare such affiliation. The obtained results confirmed that the relational embeddedness is the differentiator of the CSC collaboration. Research limitations/implications The main limitations are referred to as the static character of the data. Practical implications The paper contains implications for cluster facilitators, as well as for cluster policy decision makers, to better design support for cluster organizations. Originality/value This research is a contribution to the literature on inter-organizational structures, such as clusters and supply chains, and in particular, contributes to the creation of the scientific ground of SCS theory. The research allowed to better understand the nature of collaboration taking into consideration the fact of the relational embeddedness of the companies operating within supply chains located in clusters. It proves the existence of a new type of inter-organizational form that is CSC.

Improving access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) is at the core of the Global 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, but achieving this goal depends on the extent to which policy decision...