An Examination of Women\u27s Representation and Participation in Bicycle Advisory Committees in California, Research Report WP 11-03

In the United States, women bicycle at significantly lower rates than men. One method of remedying this disparity is to ensure that women are engaged in bicycle planning and policy making through, for example, participation in bicycle advisory committees (BACs). No research has been conducted on women’s representation and participation in these committees. This study attempts to fill that gap by examining women’s membership levels in and experiences serving on California bicycle advisory committees and bicycle/pedestrian advisory committees. In addition, we explore some of the barriers to participation faced by female cyclists. A survey of 42 committees revealed that women make up approximately 24% of members on an average bicycle (and pedestrian) advisory committee in California. Through focus group interviews with 24 women currently serving on BACs, several common themes emerged. Women on these committees are more likely than men to bring up women’s and children’s issues, and some aspects of the committees themselves may serve as barriers for women to become more involved. An online survey of 565 women cyclists in California provided insight regarding some of the common barriers women identify as reasons for not becoming involved with a BAC. Lack of awareness of the committees did not seem to be a barrier: 67% of respondents were aware of their local committee. Instead, barriers indentified by participants included: time; perceived lack of qualifications; lack of information about the committee; family and household responsibilities; and lack of interest. Recommendations to increase women’s representation on BACs include the following strategies: education about the committee; targeted recruitment efforts; and policy and procedural changes

Ethics review of research projects involving human subjects

Maltreatment of subjects has led to the introduction of an ethics review process for research involving humans. There is a feeling that the bureaucratization of the process is too restrictive and that it may be hampering research. The function, duties, and effectiveness of ethics committees are examined, and it is contended that there are problems with the way that committees operate. The remit of committees needs to be clarified, and the paper presents guidelines for making decisions on ethical matters, with deontological considerations taking precedence over consequentialist ones. It is concluded that the functions and processes of ethics committees need to be modified

Much Ado About Nothing? Comitology as a Feature of EU Policy Implementation and its Effects on the Democratic Arena. IHS Political Science Series: 2001, No. 78

The previously neglected phenomenon of governance by committees has recently received increasing attention in the academic literature. This paper focuses on the consequences of the arrangements prevailing in the committees active in the implementing phase of EU-legislation on the practice of democracy and legitimacy. The so-called "comitology committees" can be seen as a good example of the tension between input- and output-based sources of legitimacy. On the one hand the EP has demanded its increased involvement in this system ever since these committees were established. On the other hand (preliminary) studies have shown that Members of the European Parliament seem to be overwhelmed with the scrutiny or even the filing of draft implementing measures. This gives rise to the question of increasing the legitimacy of committee work and at the same time preserving the "efficiency" of this (presumably) cooperative form of decision making. This phenomenon is illustrated by means of a case study of committees active in the field of health and consumer protection

Validation of Voting Committees

This article contains a method to bound the test errors of voting committees with members chosen from a pool of trained classifiers. There are so many prospective committees that validating them directly does not achieve useful error bounds. Because there are fewer classifiers than prospective committees, it is better to validate the classifiers individually than use linear programming to infer committee error bounds. We test the method using credit card data. Also, we extend the method to infer bounds for classifiers in general

Voting in Small Committees

A small committee has to approve/reject a project with uncertain return. Members have different preferences: some are value-maximizers, others are biased towards approval. We focus on the efficient use of scarce information when communication is not guaranteed, and we provide insights on the optimal committee composition. We show that the presence of biased members can improve the voting outcome by simplifying the strategies of unbiased members. Thus, heterogeneous committees perform at least as well as homogeneous committees. In particular, when value-maximizers outnumber biased members by one vote, the optimal equilibrium becomes unique. Finally, allowing members to communicate brings no improvement.voting, small committees, committees composition, communication in committees

Political action committees

The Political Action Committee (known by the conventional acronym of PAC) is a privately-organised group dedicated to shaping and influencing political policy and law making. PACs operate to generate, distribute and spend campaign funding. While they are required to register with state regulators, PACs are normally conceived as a way of pursuing particular issues outside of or parallel with the formal political framework. In the way they set about this, PACs are permitted to advocate the election of a candidate to a federal election, or to subject opposition candidates to attack. It all means that the sets of alliances and monetary arrangements that develop between PACs and the political establishment are important factors to consider when reporting on and critically assessing the US democratic arrangement: a political system that aspires to the fair distribution of political arguments. More broadly, an informed understanding of the role of PACs and the restrictions they face provides the journalist and the academic alike with an insight into the links between finance and political power

Search Committees

A committee decides by unanimity whether to accept the current alternative, or to continue costly search. Alternatives are described by several distinct attributes. Each committee member privately assesses the quality of one attribute (her \Committee, Search, Specialization, Interdependent Values, Voting, Partisanship

Guidance on management committees for pupil referral units: constitution and roles and responsibilities

This document offers guidance on the constitution and roles of management committees for pupil referral units (PRUs). It is mainly intended for local authority (LA) officers responsible for PRU provision and for the clerks and chairs of management committees. Separate guidance deals with management committee procedures

Symmetric and Asymmetric Committees

This paper studies the assignment of decision makers to two committees that make decisions by a simple majority rule. There is an even number of decision makers at each of various skill levels and each committee has an odd number of members. Surprisingly, even with the symmetric assumptions in the spirit of Condorcet, a symmetric composition of committees is not always optimal. In other words, decision makers with different skill levels should not generally be evenly divided among the committees. However, in the special case of only two skill levels, it is optimal to compose the committees evenly.collective decision making, simple majority rule, committees