Ethnicity, voter alignment and political party affiliation - an African case: Zambia

Conventional wisdom holds that ethnicity provides the social cleavage for voting behav-iour and party affiliation in Africa. Because this is usually inferred from aggregate data of national election results, it might prove to be an ecological fallacy. The evidence based on individual data from an opinion survey in Zambia suggests that ethnicity matters for voter alignment and even more so for party affiliation, but it is certainly not the only factor. The analysis also points to a number of qualifications which are partly methodology-related. One is that the degree of ethnic voting can differ from one ethno-political group to the other depending on various degrees of ethnic mobilisation. Another is that if smaller eth-nic groups or subgroups do not identify with one particular party, it is difficult to find a significant statistical correlation between party affiliation and ethnicity - but that does not prove that they do not affiliate along ethnic lines.Wahlverhalten und Mitgliedschaft in politischen Parteien Afrikas ist nur wenig untersucht worden. Gewöhnlich wird argumentiert, dass Ethnizität als soziale Konfliktlinie das Wahlverhalten und die Parteienmitgliedschaft strukturiert. Da dieses Argument auf hoch aggregierten Wahldaten beruht, kann hier ein ökologischer Fehlschuss vorliegen. Die vorliegende Analyse beruht deshalb auf individuellen Umfragedaten aus Sambia. Das Ergebnis ist, dass Ethnizität tatsächlich eine Rolle für das Wahlverhalten und die Parteienmitgliedschaft spielt, aber keineswegs den einzigen Erklärungsfaktor darstellt. Die Analyse offenbart zudem eine Reihe von Einschränkungen und Qualifizierungen, die teilweise methodischer Natur sind. Eine ist, dass ethnisches Wahlverhalten und Parteienmitgliedschaft von einer ethnischen Gruppe zur anderen unterschiedlich ist, dass, wenn sich kleinere ethnische Gruppen oder Untergruppen mit keiner Partei identifizieren, es schwierig wird, statistisch signifikante Korrelationen zu finden - was indessen noch nicht beweist, dass Ethnizität keine Rolle spielt

Моделі процесів захисту цілісності інформаційних об’єктів з використанням коду умовних лишків. Алгоритм нулізації

The models of processes of defense of integrity of information’s holding object with application of code of conditional tailings which provide high probabilities of exposure of violations of integrity and correction of the exposed curvatures are examined

Effect of chronic octreotide treatment on intestinal absorption in patients with acromegaly

The adverse gastrointestinal effects of octreotide, a synthetic analog of somatostatin, have not been fully elucidated. Low-dose octreotide frequently causes adverse gastrointestinal symptoms in normal individuals. We investigated the adverse gastrointestinal effects of high-dose octreotide, which is required for the normalization of growth hormone hypersecretion in some patients with acromegaly. Patients with acromegaly ( N =8) were treated with octreotide, 450 μg/day, then 1500 μg/day for two months at each dosage. Carbohydrate absorption was assessed using the d -xylose test, and fat absorption using fecal fat excretion and serum carotene concentrations, at baseline, at each dosage of octreotide, and after one month of washout. Ultrasonography was used to monitor for cholelithiasis. Growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor-I concentrations were significantly suppressed at both dosages. Adverse gastrointestinal symptoms were mild and transient. d -Xylose absorption remained normal at each dosage and after one month of washout. Fecal fat excretion increased from 7±2 to 12±2 g/24 hr ( P <0.05) after the higher dosage and resumed baseline levels after the washout. Mean fasting serum carotene levels remained normal, and carotene loading test (15,000 units three times a day for three days) was unreliable in identifying patients with high fecal fat. No new cholelithiasis was detected by ultrasonography. One of two patients with preexisting cholelithiasis developed biliary colic several days after the treatment period. Although steatorrhea was common, small intestinal absorptive capacity was otherwise unchanged by four months of high-dose octreotide treatment, which significantly suppressed growth hormone secretion in acromegalic patients.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44417/1/10620_2005_Article_BF01307549.pd

Managing the Socially Marginalized: Attitudes Towards Welfare, Punishment and Race

Welfare and incarceration policies have converged to form a system of governance over socially marginalized groups, particularly racial minorities. In both of these policy areas, rehabilitative and social support objectives have been replaced with a more punitive and restrictive system. The authors examine the convergence in individual-level attitudes concerning welfare and criminal punishment, using national survey data. The authors\u27 analysis indicates a statistically significant relationship between punitive attitudes toward welfare and punishment. Furthermore, accounting for the respondents\u27 racial attitudes explains the bivariate relationship between welfare and punishment. Thus, racial attitudes seemingly link support for punitive approaches to opposition to welfare expenditures. The authors discuss the implications of this study for welfare and crime control policies by way of the conclusion

Long-range attraction between particles in dusty plasma and partial surface tension of dusty phase boundary

Effective potential of a charged dusty particle moving in homogeneous plasma has a negative part that provides attraction between similarly charged dusty particles. A depth of this potential well is great enough to ensure both stability of crystal structure of dusty plasma and sizable value of surface tension of a boundary surface of dusty region. The latter depends on the orientation of the surface relative to the counter-ion flow, namely, it is maximal and positive for the surface normal to the flow and minimal and negative for the surface along the flow. For the most cases of dusty plasma in a gas discharge, a value of the first of them is more than sufficient to ensure stability of lenticular dusty phase void oriented across the counter-ion flow.Comment: LATEX, REVTEX4, 7 pages, 6 figure

Clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of pegvisomant for the treatment of acromegaly: a systematic review and economic evaluation

Background: Acromegaly, an orphan disease usually caused by a benign pituitary tumour, is characterised by hyper-secretion of growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-1). It is associated with reduced life expectancy, cardiovascular problems, a variety of insidiously progressing detrimental symptoms and metabolic malfunction. Treatments include surgery, radiotherapy and pharmacotherapy. Pegvisomant (PEG) is a genetically engineered GH analogue licensed as a third or fourth line option when other treatments have failed to normalise IGF-1 levels. Methods: Evidence about effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of PEG was systematically reviewed. Data were extracted from published studies and used for a narrative synthesis of evidence. A decision analytical economic model was identified and modified to assess the cost-effectiveness of PEG. Results: One RCT and 17 non-randomised studies were reviewed for effectiveness. PEG substantially reduced and rapidly normalised IGF-1 levels in the majority of patients, approximately doubled GH levels, and improved some of the signs and symptoms of the disease. Tumour size was unaffected at least in the short term. PEG had a generally safe adverse event profile but a few patients were withdrawn from treatment because of raised liver enzymes. An economic model was identified and adapted to estimate the lower limit for the cost-effectiveness of PEG treatment versus standard care. Over a 20 year time horizon the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was pound81,000/QALY and pound212,000/LYG. To reduce this to pound30K/QALY would require a reduction in drug cost by about one third. Conclusion: PEG is highly effective for improving patients' IGF-1 level. Signs and symptoms of disease improve but evidence is lacking about long term effects on improved signs and symptoms of disease, quality of life, patient compliance and safety. Economic evaluation indicated that if current standards (UK) for determining cost-effectiveness of therapies were to be applied to PEG it would be considered not to represent good value for money

Addressing Corporate Ties to Slavery: Corporate Apologia in a Discourse of Reconciliation

Pressured by activists to take responsibility, American corporations recently found themselves in the spotlight for their past ties to slavery. Responding to the issue, they stepped into a complex discourse of reconciliation. Taking a rhetorical approach, this article analyzes the response of Aetna Inc. It explores how corporate rhetoric functions within present discourses about historical injustices and illustrates that Aetna\u27s response informed by common strategies of corporate apologia inhibited meaningful reconciliation. The article thus furthers criticisms of (corporate) apologia in the context of historical injustice and raises questions about the potentialities and limitations of corporate rhetoric for reconciliation