Do Electoral Institutions Have an Impact on Population Health?

Cataloged from PDF version of article.There is an emerging political economics literature which purports to show that legislatures elected based on proportional electoral rules spend more and redistribute more than legislatures elected based on majoritarian electoral rules. Going a step further the authors of this paper consider whether degree of electoral proportionality has an impact on population health and, in particular, the health of the least advantaged members of society. A panel of 24 parliamentary democracies for the years 1960–2004 is used to examine the relationship between electoral institutions and health. The authors find that greater electoral proportionality is positively associated with overall population health (as indicated by life expectancy) and with the health of the poorest (as indicated by a reduction in infant mortality). A panel of 17 countries for the years 1970–2004 is then used to show to that electoral permissiveness modifies the impact of health spending on infant mortality

The impact of regime-type on health: does redistribution explain everything?

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Many scholars claim that democracy improves population health. The prevailing explanation for this is that democratic regimes distribute health-promoting resources more widely than autocratic regimes. The central contention of this article is that democracies also have a significant pro-health effect regardless of public redistributive policies. After establishing the theoretical plausibility of the nondistributive effect, a panel of 153 countries for the years 1972 to 2000 is used to examine the relationship between extent of democratic experience and life expectancy. The authors find that democratic governance continues to have a salutary effect on population health even when controls are introduced for the distribution of health-enhancing resources. Data for fifty autocratic countries for the years 1994 to 2007 are then used to examine whether media freedom-independent of government responsiveness-has a positive impact on life expectancy

The impact of democracy and media freedom on under-5 mortality, 1961–2011

Do democracies produce better health outcomes for children than autocracies? We argue that (1) democratic governments have an incentive to reduce child mortality among low-income families and (2) that media freedom enhances their ability to deliver mortality-reducing resources to the poorest. A panel of 167 countries for the years 1961–2011 is used to test those two theoretical claims. We find that level of democracy is negatively associated with under-5 mortality, and that that negative association is greater in the presence of media freedom. These results are robust to the inclusion of country and year fixed effects, time-varying control variables, and the multiple imputation of missing values. © 2017 Elsevier Lt

Does control of rheumatic disease raise the standard of living in developing countries?

[No abstract available

Dumlupınar Üniversitesi Öğrencilerinin İnternet Kullanım Ve Doyum Motivasyonlarının Bazı Parametreler Bakımından İncelenmesi,

İletişim teknolojilerindeki hızlı gelişmeler sonucunda internetin toplumsal yaşamımızdaki önemi hızla artmıştır. İnternet birçok alanda kullanıcısına fayda sağlamaktadır. Bunlar; bilgi edinme, eğlence, sohbet, alışveriş, iletişim gibi farkörler bunların başında gelmektedir. Bu araştirmada, katılımcıların bazı parametrelerinin internet kullanımında etkili olan 6 faktör üzerindeki etkilerinin incelenmesi amaçlanmıştır. Araştırma Kütahya Dumlupınar Üniversitesi “Beden Eğitimi Spor Yüksek Okulu, Mühendislik Fakültesi, İİBF, Eğitim Fakültesi, Fen edebiyat Fakültesinde” okuyan basit tesadüfî örneklem yoluyla seçilen 691 öğrenci üzerinde uygulamalı olarak gerçekleştirilmiştir. Araştırmaya 309 Bayan ve 382 erkek katılım sağlamıştır. Katılımcılara spor aktiviteleri, günlük hayatları, internet kullanım farklıklılıkları, süreleri gibi bazı sorular yöneltilmiştir. Ayrıca katılımcıların demografik özellikleride belirlenmiştir. Ailelerinin ekonomik, eğitim ve yaşadıkları bölgeler hakkında da bilgi toplanmıştır. Elde edilen bu bilgilerle uygulamaya gidilmiştir. Uygulamada SPSS istatistik 15 programı kullanılarak analiz gerçekleştirilmiştir. Analizde farklı teknikler ve yöntemler kullanılmıştır. Uygulama ve analizden elde edilen veriler çalışmanın tartışma ve sonuç kısmında açıklanmıştır. Çalışma sonunda, internet kullanımının motivasyon ve doyum düzeyi üzerinde etkili olduğu sonucuna ulaşılmıştır

Increasing student engagement through virtual interactions: how?

Our ongoing research is focusing on identifying and taxonomising the elements and the factors that affect learner engagement with virtual worlds when hybrid virtual learning models are used. Our main hypothesis links learner engagement with interactions, both in the virtual world and in the physical classroom. In order to examine this subject, there is an elaboration on and consideration of aspects such as the learners’ prior experiences in the use of virtual worlds, their preconceptions about using them as a learning tool and the impact that the instructional designers’ choices have on enhancing the opportunities for interactions. In this paper, we examine the impact that the orientation process has on university students who study computer science and have almost no experience in the use of virtual worlds. Our findings suggest that the orientation process contributed positively to students’ smooth induction and that resulted in having meaningful and engaging interactions. Furthermore, students’ simultaneous coexistence in both environments eliminated the drawbacks of each educational approach and broadened the network of interactions

Cyclical and Patch-Like GDNF Distribution along the Basal Surface of Sertoli Cells in Mouse and Hamster Testes

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: In mammalian spermatogenesis, glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) is one of the major Sertoli cell-derived factors which regulates the maintenance of undifferentiated spermatogonia including spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) through GDNF family receptor α1 (GFRα1). It remains unclear as to when, where and how GDNF molecules are produced and exposed to the GFRα1-positive spermatogonia in vivo. METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here we show the cyclical and patch-like distribution of immunoreactive GDNF-positive signals and their close co-localization with a subpopulation of GFRα1-positive spermatogonia along the basal surface of Sertoli cells in mice and hamsters. Anti-GDNF section immunostaining revealed that GDNF-positive signals are mainly cytoplasmic and observed specifically in the Sertoli cells in a species-specific as well as a seminiferous cycle- and spermatogenic activity-dependent manner. In contrast to the ubiquitous GDNF signals in mouse testes, high levels of its signals were cyclically observed in hamster testes prior to spermiation. Whole-mount anti-GDNF staining of the seminiferous tubules successfully visualized the cyclical and patch-like extracellular distribution of GDNF-positive granular deposits along the basal surface of Sertoli cells in both species. Double-staining of GDNF and GFRα1 demonstrated the close co-localization of GDNF deposits and a subpopulation of GFRα1-positive spermatogonia. In both species, GFRα1-positive cells showed a slender bipolar shape as well as a tendency for increased cell numbers in the GDNF-enriched area, as compared with those in the GDNF-low/negative area of the seminiferous tubules. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: Our data provide direct evidence of regionally defined patch-like GDNF-positive signal site in which GFRα1-positive spermatogonia possibly interact with GDNF in the basal compartment of the seminiferous tubules