17 research outputs found

    Equal Protection: A Closer Look at Closer Scrutiny

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    This Note proposes to restore means-end analysis to legal respectability through a comprehensive integrated approach to purpose, misfit, and balancing. The search for a rational basis is meaningless if there are no constraints on the kind of purpose which may justify a classification. Therefore, this Note initially explores ways in which a court can more rigorously scrutinize statutory purpose. The next significant question is how a court should evaluate the degree of coincidence between the class picked out by the law and the class which would be picked out if the law were to achieve its goals. Such misfit analysis is underdeveloped, largely because the liberality of the purpose requirement often renders it unnecessary. A major part of this Note analyzes misfit (or as it is commonly described, overinclusion and underinclusion)

    Generation of a Land Cover Atlas of environmental critic zones using unconventional tools

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    L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

    Vol. 60, no. 4: Full Issue

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    Disclosure in Annual Reports: An Agency Theoretic Perspective in an International Setting

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    Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/851 on 06.20.2017 by CS (TIS)Over the recent years 'transparency' or better information disclosure has been the buzzword of various corporate governance bodies due to the failures of the system of corporate governance, which arise from an agency relationship. However, there are arguments by 'free market' advocates suggesting that information is voluntarily disclosed. This study discusses and compares the disclosure of information relating to directors' behaviour in the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, France, Germany and Sweden. These countries were selected because they represent the developed countries with different accounting systems. Furthermore, they are also the board member countries of IASC and OECD. 'Transparency' relating to directors' behaviour for the six countries were measured using disclosure indices, i.e. the disclosure point average for dichotomous, modified dichotomous weighted dichotomous and weighted modified dichotomous indices. These weighted indices were established by analysing survey responses of investment analysts. The results show that there were significant differences in the disclosure of information relating to directors' behaviour among the six countries. There is also a very low level of 'transparency' in all the countries except the United Kingdom. These results suggest that information relating to directors' behaviour is not voluntarily disclosed and therefore regulation is necessary in order for it to be more transparent as suggested by the various corporate governance bodies

    Rights of tenderers and contractors under Saudi public procurement contract regulations: a comparative study with England and Wales

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    This thesis is a comparative study in which the rights of tenderers and contractors and related procurement regulations are discussed and compared under Saudi public procurement contract regulations and those of England and Wales. This thesis does not aim to be a comprehensive comparative study, but presents examples to illustrate the issues under discussion. A central aim of the study is to consider whether Saudi public procurement contract regulations are suitable to protect the rights of tenderers and contractors and to solve their problems in the rapid development of the country. Is the Purchasing Law, in particular, able to cover the rapid development in procurement and the economy in Saudi Arabia and the world? This question is asked in order to examine the weaknesses of current procurement regulations and to explore procurement claims that the Purchasing Law fails to address tenderers' and contractors' rights and concerns. Many criticisms have been raised regarding Saudi public procurement contract regulations, especially the Saudi Purchasing Law. Although the Saudi government has called for the procurement sector to play a greater role in national development, the Purchasing Law does not support this aim. It has remained unchanged since it was enacted in 1979, despite rapid economic changes in the country. Contractors, traders, banks, and Saudi Chambers of Commerce have complained that they are too constrained by the provisions of the Purchasing Law. The ten chapters of this thesis examine the rights of procurement tenderers and contractors throughout the procedures to prepare and award a public procurement contract. In addition to identifying the principles of procurement regulations, this study investigates the rights of tenderers and contractors from the first steps of tendering procedures to the awarding of the contract and afterwards. Once the contracting authority selects a successful contractor this study highlights his rights to obtain his financial payment and to obtain remedy if the contracting authority breaches its contractual obligations. The study examines case law, procurement regulations, circulars and governmental procedures in procurement. The study results indicate that Saudi public procurement contract regulations in general and the Purchasing Law in particular are inadequate to keep pace with development requirements in the country. More specifically, the findings show that current Saudi procurement regulations are in fact obstacles to the development of the procurement sector, and a main reason for contractors' unwillingness to enter the governmental procurement market

    Development of machine learning sentiment analyzer and quality classifier (MLSAQC) and its application in analysing hospital patient satisfaction from Facebook reviews in Malaysia

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    Background: Patient online reviews (POR) on social media platforms have been proposed as novel strategies for assessing patient satisfaction and monitoring healthcare quality. Social media data, on the other hand, is unstructured and huge in volume. Furthermore, no empirical study has been undertaken in Malaysia on the use of social media data and the perceived quality of care in hospitals based on POR, as well as the relationship between these variables and hospital accreditation. The objectives of this study were to (1) develop a machine learning system for automatically classifying Facebook (FB) reviews of public hospitals in Malaysia using service quality (SERVQUAL) dimensions and sentiment analysis, (2) determine the validity of FB Reviews as a supplement to a standard patient satisfaction survey, (3) investigate associations between SERVQUAL dimensions and sentiment and patient satisfaction and (4) determine the associations between hospital accreditation status and patient satisfaction and sentiment. Method: Between 2017 and 2019, we collected comments from 48 official public hospital FB pages. By manually annotating many batches of randomly chosen reviews, we constructed a machine learning quality classifier (MLQC) based on the SERVQUAL model and a machine learning sentiment analyzer (MLSA). The classifiers were trained using logistic regression (LR), naïve Bayes (NB), support vector machine (SVM), and other approaches. Each classifier's performance was evaluated using 5-fold cross validation. We used logistic regression analysis to determine the associations. Results: The average F1-score for topic classification was between 0.687 and 0.757 for all models. In addition, SVM consistently outperformed other approaches in a 5-fold cross validation of each SERVQUAL dimension and in sentiment analysis. We analysed 1852 reviews in total and discovered that 72.1% of positive reviews and 27.9% of negative reviews were accurately recognised by MLSA. Also, 73.5% of respondents reported being satisfied with public hospital services, while 26.5% reported being dissatisfied. 240 reviews were classified as tangible, 1257 as reliability, 125 as responsive, 356 as assurance, and 1174 as empathetic using the MLQC. After adjusting for hospital covariates, all SERVQUAL indicators except tangible were associated with positive sentiment. Furthermore, after correcting for hospital variables, it was shown that all SERVQUAL dimensions except tangible and assurance were significantly linked with patient dissatisfaction. However, no statistically significant association between hospital accreditation and internet sentiment and patient satisfaction has been identified. Conclusion: Using data acquired from FB reviews and machine learning algorithms, a pragmatic and practical strategy for eliciting patient perceptions of service quality and supplementing standard patient satisfaction surveys has been created. Additionally, online patient reviews provide a hitherto untapped measure of quality, which may benefit all healthcare stakeholders. Our findings complement earlier studies and the use of FB reviews, in addition to other approaches for assessing the quality of hospital care in Malaysia. Additionally, the findings give critical data that will assist hospital administrators in capitalising on POR through real-time monitoring and evaluation of service quality

    A Study of Factors Associated with Orthodontic Treatment Outcome

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    Objective measures of malocclusion have been developed in response to concerns over treatment standards and provision of unnecessary treatment, the rise in the level of clinical audit and the need for effective use of health resources. To determine which factors, including treatment need and severity of malocclusion measured by occlusal indices, have most influence on quality of result, improvement, and resource commitment in terms of treatment duration, case notes and pre- and post-treatment study casts of 161 cases treated within a dental hospital orthodontic department were examined and assessed. Differences were found between cases treated with full fixed appliances and other appliance types with regard to severity of malocclusion, extraction pattern, duration of treatment and number of appointments required to complete treatment. There was evidence that different criteria in appliance selection were in use for males and females. Stepwise multiple linear regression analysis identified the initial severity of malocclusion as being highly influential and predictive for fixed appliance therapy in all the outcomes under study. Other important information included whether or not the treatment plan had been altered through poor co-operation, whether a first permanent molar had been extracted, and whether or not an anterior crossbite had been present initially. Accurately predictive models were produced for improvement as measured by change in PAR score, but predictive models for post-treatment PAR and duration of treatment were less accurate
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