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Because of his personality, had Donald Trump won the 2020 election the remarkable and unexpected united response by NATO allies to the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine would not have happened. Relying on leader personality research in foreign policy, we demonstrate this by using the counterfactual method of analysis. Specifying key differences between Biden's and Trump's personalities in terms of their experiences, traits and beliefs, we explicitly show that president Trump would have been very unlikely to share US intelligence, rally NATO allies in support of Ukraine or challenge Vladimir Putin. In contrast, these responses fit very well with Joe Biden's personality. We first present counterfactual analysis as a method before comparing Biden and Trump along personality characteristics known to significantly influence foreign-policy decisions. Through our case-study, we demonstrate the value of using systematic and theoretically grounded counterfactual methods for assessing the importance of individual differences between leaders and emphasizing their impact on international affairs.

There is an urgent clinical need to identify patients likely to benefit from immune checkpoint inhibitor ICI treatment. Approaches available in the clinic today, such as PD-L1 immunohistochemistry (IHC) and tumor mutation burden (TMB), are insufficient for this task, in part as differences in microenvironments expressed by individual tumors may lead to heterogeneous response patterns. Recent efforts exploring the utility of quantitative imaging (radiomic) biomarkers to predict response to ICIs have shown promise to provide a more accurate and scalable method. In contrast to previously published models, our work focuses on generalizable models for predicting individual lesion-level as well as patient-level response at 3-month follow-up per RECIST criteria, using a large multi-institutional “real-world” dataset. The models combine radiomics features with demographic, molecular, and laboratory values routinely available in patients’ electronic medical records. We analyzed radiomic characteristics of 6,295 primary and metastatic lesions from 1,206 metastatic NSCLC patients treated with anti-PD-1/anti-PD-L1 ICIs from 8 institutions across the US and Europe. Patients with unavailable PD-L1 IHC, imaging follow-up, or with oncogenic driver mutations were excluded from analysis, resulting in a total dataset of 766 subjects randomly assigned to training (N=514) and validation sets (N=252). Using gradient-boosted decision tree algorithms, we developed a multi-modal predictive model to identify patients responding to ICI therapy at 3-months and evaluated its performance against an imaging-only CT radiomics model and the clinical standard of care, biopsy-based PD-L1 IHC. The multi-modal model contains CT radiomic features capturing lesion heterogeneity and spicularity, patient demographics, PD-L1 TPS, and tumor burden volume in the lung, lymph nodes, and the liver. Under the two-tailed DeLong test, the multi-modal model demonstrated statistically significant benefit over the current standard of care (PD-L1 IHC) in predicting multi-lesion 3-month response: 0.81 (P=.005) area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC-AUC) in first-line ICI monotherapy patients, 0.72 (P=.044) in all-lines ICI monotherapy, and 0.71 (P=.025) in all-lines ICI-chemotherapy combination. The imaging-only model demonstrated predictive performance comparable to PD-L1 IHC: 0.71 (P=.226), 0.61 (P=.905), 0.62 (P=.674) on the same cohorts respectively. A multi-modal CT radiomics-based approach demonstrated predictive accuracy benefit over the current clinical standard and may provide an opportunity for more personalized patient management, such as risk-based escalation/de-escalation of concurrent chemotherapy in NSCLC patients. We will evaluate this methodology in prospective studies. Citation Format: Ravi B. Parikh, Petr Jordan, Rita J. Ciaravino, Ryan A. Beasley, Arpan A. Patel, Dwight H. Owen, Arya Amini, Brendan D. Curti, Ray Page, Aurelie Swalduz, Jean-Paul Beregi, Jan Chrusciel, Eric Snyder, Pritam Mukherjee, Heather M. Selby, Soohee Lee, Roshanthi Weerasinghe, Shwetha Pindikuri, Jakob B. Weiss, Andrew L. Wentland, Anish Kirpalani, An Liu, Olivier Gevaert, George Simon, Hugo JWL Aerts. Multi-institutional validation of a radiomics-based artificial intelligence method for predicting response to PD-1/PD-L1 immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy in stage IV NSCLC. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 1 (Regular and Invited Abstracts); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(7_Suppl):Abstract nr 5618.

Whilst International Relations scholarship has taken a ‘temporal turn’, foreign policy decision-making (FPDM) research reveals little explicit theoretical attention to time. Time is an important aspect of several prominent frameworks, yet these either fail to make explicit their conception of time or fail to reflect upon the implications of their temporal assumptions and understandings. We address this lacuna by developing a timing perspective on foreign policy decision-making. We present the central features of this perspective, including the nature of timing agency, temporal motivations, the timing of decision-making processes, and timing as a foreign policy tool. Illustrated with empirical examples, we show how timing plays out in foreign policy decision-making and helps to shed new light on our understanding of crises and ways decision-makers may grapple with them. We conclude by considering the theoretical and empirical benefits and challenges of bridging FPDM with theoretical approaches to time. Postprint

Temporal considerations play a role in many models of foreign policy analysis, particularly those focused on decision-making processes. While time features prominently as a background feature against which sequence, cadence and psychological consequence are measured, little attention has been given to how foreign policy agents actively construct their temporal environments. We propose that different foreign policy-making actors develop distinct relationships with time, and that variations in these relationships can help account for the ways in which ‘events’ are transformed into routine practices, change opportunities or full-blown foreign policy crises. We advance a novel conception of time in foreign policy-making through our development of timing theory and the linguistic constructions of ‘time’ by foreign policy actors. We propose a typology of timing agency, which highlights the impact of these orientations on decision-making processes as well as the characteristics of foreign policy behaviours. Using the case of Brexit, we elaborate differences in actors' temporal orientations and show how such differences impact the making of foreign policy.

Robotic systems may help efficiently execute complicated tasks that require a high degree of accuracy, and this, in large part, explains why robotics have garnered widespread use in a variety of neurosurgical applications, including intracranial biopsies, spinal instrumentation, and placement of intracranial leads. The use of robotics in neurosurgery confers many benefits, and inherent limitations, to both surgeons and their patients. In this narrative review, we provide a historical overview of robotics and its implementation across various surgical specialties, and discuss the various robotic systems that have been developed specifically for neurosurgical applications. We also discuss the relative advantages of robotic systems compared to traditional surgical techniques, particularly as it pertains to integration of image guidance with the ability of the robotic arm to reliably execute pre-planned tasks. As more neurosurgeons adopt the use of robotics in their practice, we postulate that further technological advancements will become available that will help achieve improved technical capabilities, user experience, and overall patient clinical outcomes.

British foreign policy stands at a turning point following the 2016 ‘Brexit’ referendum. Drawing on role theory, we trace the United Kingdom’s efforts to establish new foreign policy roles as it interacts with the concerned international actors. We find that the pro-Brexit desire to ‘take back control’ has not yet translated into a cogent foreign policy direction. In its efforts to avoid adopting the role of isolate, the United Kingdom has projected a disoriented foreign policy containing elements of partially incompatible roles such as great power, global trading state, leader of the Commonwealth, regional partner to the European Union (EU) and faithful ally to the United States. The international community has, through processes of socialisation and alter-casting, largely rejected these efforts. These role conflicts between the United Kingdom and international actors, as well as conflicts among its different role aspirations, have pressed UK policies towards its unwanted isolationist role, potentially shaping its long-term foreign policy orientation post-Brexit.

This article surveys the quantitative literature in coalition foreign policy. Tracing its development back to what we call the ‘first generation studies’ in Democratic Peace research, we illustrate that its theoretical and methodological foundations distinguish this literature from its predecessors. We then overview the existing studies along three dimensions: the nature of the dependent variables, the content of the key explanatory variables, and the processes that identify and systematise the institutional factors that influence coalition foreign policy. Our suggestions for future research highlight some of the puzzles motivated by the findings of this literature and the promise of multi-method designs. Postprint

We explore US covert forcible actions against democratic governments and their citizens and show that inter-democratic use of covert force is common and can be accommodated within the theory of democratic peace. Grounded in the Perceptual Theory of Legitimacy, we argue that democracies are constrained by public perceptions of their legitimacy from overtly aggressing against other democratic states. When democracies desire to aggress against their democratic counterparts they will do so covertly. We test the assumptions of the theory and its implication with (1) laboratory studies of the conflation of democracy with ally status, and (2) historical analyses of covert militarized actions and prisoner detention, which show that US forcible actions, when carried out against democracies and their citizens, are carried out clandestinely. Postprint

This article examines international reactions to Scotland’s 2014 bid for independence as an instance of socialisation of an aspirant state, what we term ‘pre-socialisation’. Building on and contributing to research on state socialisation and role theory, this study proposes a nexus between roles and sovereignty. This nexus has three components: sovereignty itself is a role casted for by an actor; the sovereign role is entangled with the substantive foreign policy roles the actor might play; and the sovereign role implicates the substantive foreign policy roles of other actors. The Scottish debate on independence provides an effective laboratory to develop and explore these theoretical dimensions of pre-socialisation, revealing the contested value and meaning of sovereignty, the possible roles that an independent Scotland could play, and the projected implications for the role of the UK and other international actors. Our analysis of the Scottish case can provide insights for other cases of pre-socialisation and is more empirically significant following the UK’s 2016 referendum to leave the European Union. Postprint

This chapter discusses technical concerns and choices that arise when crafting a correspondence or audit study using external validity as a motivating framework. The chapter discusses resume creation, including power analysis , choice of inputs, pros and cons of matching pairs, solutions to the limited template problem, and ensuring that instruments indicate what the experimenters want them to indicate. Further topics about implementation include when and for how long to field a study, deciding on a participant pool, and whether or not to use replacement from the participant pool . More technical topics include matching outcomes to inputs, data storage, and analysis issues such as when to use clustering, when not to use fixed effects, and how to measure heterogeneous and interactive effects. The chapter ends with a technical checklist that experimenters can utilize prior to fielding a correspondence study.

Comparative foreign policy analysis (CFP) is a vibrant and dynamic subfield of international relations. It examines foreign policy decision making processes related to momentous events as well as patterns in day-to-day foreign interactions of nearly 200 different states (along with thousands of international and nongovernmental organizations). Scholars explore the causes of these behaviors as well as their implications by constructing, testing, and refining theories of foreign policy decision making in comparative perspective. In turn, CFP also offers valuable lessons to government leaders. This article surveys the evolution of CFP as a subfield over time, with special attention to its contributions to academic understanding and policymaking. It begins with a review of the characteristics and contributions of CFP, followed by acknowledgment of early works that helped establish this area of study. The next section of the article reviews major thematic focuses of CFP, including theories of international pressures and factors that may drive state foreign policy as well as strong foundations in studies of domestic politics. Key internal actors and conditions that can influence state foreign policies include individual leaders, institutions and legislatures, bureaucratic organizations and government agencies, and public opinion and nongovernmental organizations. Following this survey of actors and contemporary theories of their role in foreign policy decision-making, the article develops two illustrations of new directions in CFP studies focused on political party factions and role theory in comparative perspective.

This investigation was financially supported by the University of Kansas General Research Fund. Why do multiparty cabinets in parliamentary democracies produce more extreme foreign policies than single-party cabinets? Our paper argues that particular institutional and psychological dynamics explain this difference. We test this argument using a global events data set incorporating foreign policy behaviors of numerous multiparty and single-party governments. We find that more parties and weak parliaments promote extremity in coalitions, but parliamentary strength has the opposite effect for single-party governments. This study challenges existing expectations about the impact of democratic institutions on foreign policy. Postprint

Segmentations of medical images are required in a number of medical applications such as quantitative analyses and patient-specific orthotics, yet accurate segmentation without significant user attention remains a challenge. This work presents a novel segmentation algorithm combining the region-growing Seeded Cellular Automata with a boundary term based on an edge-detected image. Both single processor and parallel processor implementations are developed and the algorithm is shown to be suitable for quick segmentations (2.2 s for 2 5 6 × 2 5 6 × 1 2 4 voxel brain MRI) and interactive supervision (2–220 Hz). Furthermore, a method is described for generating appropriate edge-detected images without requiring additional user attention. Experiments demonstrate higher segmentation accuracy for the proposed algorithm compared with both Graphcut and Seeded Cellular Automata, particularly when provided minimal user attention.

This paper briefly discusses the history, benefits, and shortcomings of traditional audit field experiments to study market discrimination. Specifically it identifies template bias and experimenter bias as major concerns in the traditional audit method and demonstrates through an empirical example that computerization of a resume or correspondence audit can efficiently increase sample size and greatly mitigate these concerns. Finally, it presents a useful meta-tool that future researchers can use to create their own resume audits.

Institutional constraints have been offered by some scholars as an explanation for why multiparty coalitions should be more peaceful than single-party cabinets. Yet others see the same institutional setting as a prescription for more aggressive behavior. Recent research has investigated these conflicting expectations, but with mixed results. We examine the theoretical bases for these alternative expectations about the effects of coalition politics on foreign policy. We find that previous research is limited theoretically by confounding institutional effects with policy positions, and empirically by analyzing only international conflict data. We address these limitations by examining cases of foreign policy behavior using the World Event/Interaction Survey (WEIS) dataset. Consistent with our observation that institutional constraints have been confounded with policy positions, we find that coalitions are neither more aggressive nor more peaceful, but do engage in more extreme foreign policy behaviors. These findings are discussed with regard to various perspectives on the role of institutions in shaping foreign policy behavior.

Scholars of public and foreign policy have emphasized the role of decision processes in the creation of policy failures and fiascos and have demonstrated the importance that psychological factors play in policy mistakes. Using Ulrich Beck's notion of world risk society and drawing on advances in our understanding of a key psychological factor central to decision-making pathologies – cognitive dissonance – this contribution explores the ways in which features of the risk era could alter important decision dynamics and increase decision-making mistakes. In combination with the catastrophic potential of world risk society, this would suggest an increase in the frequency of policy-making fiascos. Bridging the gap between the ‘macro’ conditions of globalization and the ‘micro’ processes of decision-making also challenges our conception of both the nature and sources of policy-making mistakes and suggests that our scholarly understanding of ‘decision-making mistakes’ may need rethinking. Postprint

Current 3D imaging modalities generate a wealth of diagnostic information, yet this information is underused in orthopaedics because of the lack of orthopaedic-specific imaging software. In this chapter, we detail how orthopaedic-specific imaging software can improve the diagnostic and planning capabilities of 3D imaging. Specifically, we describe the importance of biomechanical reference frames, as well as how to establish these reference frames using anatomical landmarks. Once these reference frames are established, this provides a basis for surgeon-specific views (i.e. views that the surgeon can directly compare to the operating room) as well as precise joint replacement component measurements.

Data from the National Election Studies were examined in an effort to isolate cognitive dissonance of two kinds: dissonance arising from a behavioral commitment in the form of voting, and dissonance arising from inconsistencies associated with having supported the losing candidate. Feeling thermometer ratings of the two principal presidential candidates obtained before and immediately after six elections (1972, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, and 1996) were analyzed. Regression estimates supported a dissonance reduction explanation of observed attitude changes. Voters, as compared to nonvoters, tended to increase the evaluative distance between candidates after an election, whereas supporters of the losing candidate were more likely than supporters of the winning candidate to decrease such evaluative distances. An additional examination of voters yielded results consistent with dissonance theory: After the election, respondents reporting favorable evaluations of both candidates (a difficult choice) tended to spread comparative candidate evaluations compared to respondents who were favorable toward only one candidate (an easy choice). The results both support and cast doubt on prior studies.

The case study, as a method of inquiry, is particularly suited to the field of political psychology. Yet there is little training in political science, and even less in psychology, on how to do case study research. Furthermore, misconceptions about case studies contribute to the methodological barrier that exists within and between the two parent disciplines. This paper reviews the various definitions and uses of case studies and integrates a number of recent insights and advances into a practical guide for conducting case study research. To this end, the paper discusses various stereotypes of the case study and offers specific steps aimed at addressing these criticisms.

Our goal is to introduce the latest technology based laboratory experiments to engage students effectively and to help them understand the fundamental concepts in the electronics and telecommunications fields. In order to achieve this goal a multi-featured or a multi-disciplinary platform is used to develop the experiments. The essence of our approach is twofold: to evaluate a platform which can be used to teach the basics of wireless networks, and later use the same platform to develop innovative control applications. This robotic platform can also be used for experimental research in mobile sensor networks. The platform we adopted is the surveyor robot (SRV-1) platform. In this paper, we propose laboratory experiments on TCP, UDP, different networking modes and mesh network of robots. Additionally, we report the results of an initial assessment to evaluate the students' knowledge level on wireless networks and their interest in using the surveyor robot platform.

This paper briefly discusses the history, benefits, and shortcomings of traditional audit field experiments to study market discrimination. Specifically it identifies template bias and experimenter bias as major concerns in the traditional audit method, and demonstrates through an empirical example that computerization of a resume or correspondence audit can greatly mitigate these concerns. Finally, it presents a useful meta-tool that future researchers can use to create their own resume audits.

In interactive, image-guided surgery, current physical space position in the operating room is displayed on various sets of medical images used for surgical navigation. We have developed a PC-based surgical guidance system (ORION) which synchronously displays surgical position on up to four image sets and updates them in real time. There are three essential components which must be developed for this system: (1) accurately tracked instruments; (2) accurate registration techniques to map physical space to image space; and (3) methods to display and update the image sets on a computer monitor. For each of these components, we have developed a set of dynamic link libraries in MS Visual C++ 6.0 supporting various hardware tools and software techniques. Surgical instruments are tracked in physical space using an active optical tracking system. Several of the different registration algorithms were developed with a library of robust math kernel functions, and the accuracy of all registration techniques was thoroughly investigated. Our display was developed using the Win32 API for windows management and tomographic visualization, a frame grabber for live video capture, and OpenGL for visualization of surface renderings. We have begun to use this current implementation of our system for several surgical procedures, including open and minimally invasive liver surgery.

In interactive, image-guided surgery, current physical space position in the operating room is displayed on various sets ofmedical images used for surgical navigation. One useful image display format for image-guided hepatic surgery is liversurface renderings. Deep-seated tumors within the liver can be projected onto the surface of these renderings and providepertinent information concerning the location and size of metastatic liver tumors. Techniques have been developed by ourgroup to create hepatic surface renderings. An independently implemented variation ofthe marching cubes algorithm is usedon segmented livers to create a triangulated surface, which is displayed using OpenGL, a 3-D graphics and modelingsoftware library. Tumors are segmented separately from the liver so that their colors differ from that of the liver surface.The liver is then rendered slightly transparent so that tumors can be seen within liver and aid surgeons in preoperativeplanning. The graphical software is also bundled into a dynamic linked library (DLL) and slaved with ORION, our WindowsNT based image-guided surgical system. We have tested our graphics DLL on a liver phantom embedded with "tumors". Asurface-based registration algorithm was used to map current surgical position onto a transparent phantom rendering thatindicates tumor location. The rendering view is updated as surgical position is changed. For minimally invasive procedures,we will use the direct linear transformation and the same surface-based registration technique to map rendered tumorsdirectly onto an endoscopic image. This will be especially useful in localizing deep-seated tumors for ablation and resectionprocedures.Keywords: surface renderings, image-guided surgery, OpenGL, liver surgery

In many surgical procedures, ultrasound is used for real- time visualization in order to minimize invasion of healthy tissue. Unfortunately, the exact location of soft tissues and the composition of tissues of interest may be difficult to determine using ultrasound. In interactive image guided surgery (IIGS), the display of present surgical position on preoperative tomographic imags enhances the surgeons locational awareness and provides knowledge of surgical anatomy. However, changes in the anatomy during surgery are not realized by the current IIGS techniques. This manuscript details initial experiments conducted to merge the strengths of intraoperative ultrasound imaging with IIGS. This includes: 1) developing a technique for accurately tracking an ultrasound probe in physical space and 2) determining a transformation to map ultrasound image space into physical space.