Experts and evidence in deliberation: scrutinising the role of witnesses and evidence in mini-publics, a case study

Experts hold a prominent position in guiding and shaping policy-making; however, the nature of expert input to decision-making is a topic of public debate. A key aspect of deliberative processes such as citizens’ juries is the provision of information to participants, usually from expert witnesses. However, there is currently little guidance on some of the challenges that organisers and advocates of citizens’ juries must consider regarding expert involvement, including the role of the witness, issues around witness identification and selection, the format of evidence provision, the evidence itself, and how these factors affect the experience of the participants and the witnesses. Here, we explore these issues through detailed case study of three citizens’ juries on onshore wind farm development in Scotland, including interviews with the witnesses involved. This is complemented by examining a cohort of mini-publics held on energy and the environment topics, and, where possible, discussion with the program organisers. We identify a series of issues and sensitivities that can compromise the effectiveness and fairness of the evidence-giving in mini-publics, for the participants, the witnesses and the organisers. We recommend approaches and areas for future work to address these challenges. This is the first time that the ways of involving witnesses in such processes have been so comprehensively examined, and is timely given the increasing interest in democratic innovations such as mini-publics and the current discourse concerning experts

Human engineering design criteria study Final report

Human engineering design criteria for use in designing earth launch vehicle systems and equipmen

Secondary prevention through comprehensive cardiovascular rehabilitation : from knowledge to implementation. 2020 update. A position paper from the Secondary Prevention and Rehabilitation Section of the European Association of Preventive Cardiology

©The European Society of Cardiology 2020. Article reuse guidelines : sagepub.com/journals-permissionsSecondary prevention through comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation has been recognized as the most cost-effective intervention to ensure favourable outcomes across a wide spectrum of cardiovascular disease, reducing cardiovascular mortality, morbidity and disability, and to increase quality of life. The delivery of a comprehensive and ‘modern’ cardiac rehabilitation programme is mandatory both in the residential and the out-patient setting to ensure expected outcomes. The present position paper aims to update the practical recommendations on the core components and goals of cardiac rehabilitation intervention in different cardiovascular conditions, in order to assist the whole cardiac rehabilitation staff in the design and development of the programmes, and to support healthcare providers, insurers, policy makers and patients in the recognition of the positive nature of cardiac rehabilitation. Starting from the previous position paper published in 2010, this updated document maintains a disease-oriented approach, presenting both well-established and more controversial aspects. Particularly for implementation of the exercise programme, advances in different training modalities were added and new challenging populations were considered. A general table applicable to all cardiovascular conditions and specific tables for each clinical condition have been created for routine practice.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Case Reports

Abstracts of the 29th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Indonesian Heart Association (ASMIHA) 1st ASMIHA Digital Conference, 23-25 October 202

Strategizing in the new normal : implications of digitalization for strategizing and uncertainty : philosophical and managerial considerations

Something fundamental is changing – or is it? The firms are preoccupied by transformations and disruptions, the scholars are reassessing the validity of old theories, the politicians are wondering where the power is, and the individuals are struggling to understand how to go about making a living tomorrow. Has this always been the normal, or are we evidencing an era that can rightfully be called a New Normal? This research is an attempt to synthetize knowledge from several rich sources in order to understand the drivers of the changes emerging from the phenomenon labelled digitalization. The research quandary of this conceptual monograph is the impact of digitalization – as a sociotechnical trinity of digital technological systems, humans and perceptions – on strategizing, the individual level actions and decisions tackling the fundamental uncertainty of anything future-oriented, subsequently coalescing into collective level outcomes. This research explores the constitutions of strategizing, uncertainty and digitalization in order to understand the impact of the drivers of digitalization on the constitution of uncertainty dealt with in strategizing, and the subsequent changes therefore reflected on strategizing. Tracing these ripples requires reconceptualizing uncertainty as consisting of three dimensions: lack of knowledge, difficulty of choosing between diverse standards of desirability, and the infathomability of the meaning making mechanisms that underpin the creation of those standards of desirability. As findings, this dissertation presents three theses: first, digitalization obliterates one type of uncertainty, while changing and enforcing other types; secondly, digitalization erodes the boundaries of extant entities and creates new boundary forming mechanisms; and thirdly, digitalization changes the shape and impact of what we take for granted, consider normal – the doxa. These findings have implications for both the theorists and the practitioners. As scholars, we need to redefine such units of analysis, as heretofore captured by concepts like the firm, market or nation. As practitioners, we need to cherish such rationalities that do not compete with the algorithmic intelligence, to emphasize such creative thinking a machine cannot do. As individuals, we need to understand how many of our actions are grounded on the unreflective acceptance of what we take for granted, and how susceptible our notion of normal is to manipulation. Together, we need to understand that the digital representation of reality, being constructed today to give the shape for our tomorrow, reflects not only the physical entities datafied and digitized, but also our values and preferences – whether we reflectively acknowledge them or not.Elämme perustavanlaatuisen muutoksen aikaa – vai elämmekö? Yritykset keskittyvät disruptioihin ja muutoksiin, tutkijat arvioivat vanhojen teorioiden kykyä selittää uusia ilmiöitä, poliitikot pohtivat vallan uusia muotoja ja yksilöt taistelevat huomisen toimeentulon kanssa. Onko tämä ollut aina yhtä normaalia, vai elämmekö aikaa, jota voimme rehellisesti kutsua uudeksi normaaliksi? Tämä tutkimus pyrkii yhdistämään rikasta, olemassaolevaa tietoa monista lähteistä luodakseen ymmärrystä digitalisaatioksi kutsutun ilmiön synnyttämien muutosten ajureista. Tämän teoreettisen monografian tutkimusalue on digitalisaation – digitaalisten teknologisten systeemien, ihmisten ja oletusten muodostaman sosioteknisen kolmiyhteyden – vaikutus strategiointiin, eli tulevaisuuteen elimellisesti liittyvän epävarmuuden käsittelyyn sellaisella yksilötason toiminnalla ja päätöksenteolla, joka yhdistyy kollektiivisen tason lopputuloksiksi. Tämä tutkimus perehtyy strategioinnin, epävarmuuden ja digitalisaation luonteeseen selvittääkseen digitalisaation ajurien vaikutusta strategioinnissa käsiteltävään epävarmuuteen, ja siitä syntyviin muutoksiin strategioinnissa. Tämän vaikutusketjun ymmärtäminen vaatii epävarmuuden uutta konseptualisointia: epävarmuus muodostuu kolmesta ulottuvuudesta, jotka ovat tiedon puute, eri arvoskaalojen välillä valitsemisen vaikeus, sekä niiden merkityksen muodostamismekanismien hahmottomuus, joista arvoskaalamme kumpuavat. Tämän kirjan tulokset muodostavat kolme väitöstä: ensinnäkin, digitalisaatio tuhoaa yhden epävarmuuden tyypin ja muuttaa sekä vahvistaa muita; toiseksi, digitalisaatio haurastuttaa olemassa olevien entiteettien rajoja ja synnyttää uusia rajanmuodostusmekanismeja; ja kolmanneksi, digitalisaatio muuttaa itsestäänselvänä ja normaalina pitämiemme asioiden muotoa ja vaikutusta. Näillä tuloksilla on niin teoreettisia kuin käytännönkin vaikutuksia. Tutkijoina meidän on uudelleen määriteltävä sellaisia analyysin yksiköitä kuten yritys, markkina tai valtio. Yritystoiminnan harjoittajina meidän on vaalittava sellaista rationaalisuutta, mihin algoritminen äly ei kykene, painotettava luovaa ajattelua. Yksilöinä meidän on ymmärrettävä miten iso osa toiminnastamme perustuu itsestäänselvyyksinä pitämiimme asioihin ja miten helposti käsitystämme normaalista voidaan manipuloida. Yhdessä, meidän on ymmärrettävä, että tänään muodostumassa oleva, huomistamme muovaava digitaalinen todellisuuden representaatio heijastelee, paitsi fyysisen maailman digitaaliseksi dataksi muunnettuja entiteettejä, myös arvojamme ja preferenssejämme – riippumatta siitä, tiedostammeko ja tunnistammeko ne vai emme

CODUSA - Customize Optimal Donor Using Simulated Annealing In Heart Transplantation.

In heart transplantation, selection of an optimal recipient-donor match has been constrained by the lack of individualized prediction models. Here we developed a customized donor-matching model (CODUSA) for patients requiring heart transplantations, by combining simulated annealing and artificial neural networks. Using this approach, by analyzing 59,698 adult heart transplant patients, we found that donor age matching was the variable most strongly associated with long-term survival. Female hearts were given to 21% of the women and 0% of the men, and recipients with blood group B received identical matched blood group in only 18% of best-case match compared with 73% for the original match. By optimizing the donor profile, the survival could be improved with 33 months. These findings strongly suggest that the CODUSA model can improve the ability to select optimal match and avoid worst-case match in the clinical setting. This is an important step towards personalized medicine

Soil quality, properties, and functions in life cycle assessment: an evaluation of models

Soils provide essential ecosystem services for supporting both human and ecosystem needs and has been under pressures resulting from the intensification and expansion of human activities. In the last 15 years, substantial efforts have been made to quantify the impacts on soils derived from production systems and their related supply chains. In this study, a systematic, qualitative evaluation of up-to-date models connecting land occupation and land transformation to soil impact indicators (e.g., soil properties, functions, and threats) is performed. The focus is on models that may be applied for assessing supply chains, namely in the context of life cycle assessment (LCA). A range of eleven soil-related models was selected and evaluated against different criteria, including scientific soundness, stakeholders' acceptance, reproducibility, and the applicability of models from the perspective of LCA practitioners. Additionally, this study proposes a new land use cause-effect chain to qualify the impacts of land use on soils. None of the models is fulfilling all the criteria and includes comprehensively the cause-effect impact pathways. Notably, trade-offs were most frequent between the relevance of the modeled impact processes and the models' applicability. On the one hand, models proposing multi-indicators cover several drivers of impacts and have a broader scope. On the other hand, several models just focus on one driver of impact, but may provide more relevant impact characterization. Our results provide common ground for the development and identification of models that provide a comprehensive and robust assessment of land use change and land use impacts on soils. Indeed, to ensure both a comprehensive and relevant characterization of impacts, the study identifies several research needs for further models' developments, namely: 1) adopting a common land use cause-effect chain and land use classification; 2) accounting for different land management and land use intensities; 3) expanding the inventory data beyond the accounting of the area related to a certain land use; 4) assessing the added value of multi-indicators compared to single indicators, including the reduction of possible redundancies in the impact evaluation; 5) improving consistency from midpoint to endpoint characterization, especially the link with biodiversity; 6) guiding the calculation of normalization factors; and 7) assessing systematically model's uncertaintyinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio