Equitable representation in councils: theory and an application to the United Nations Security Council

We analyze democratic equity in council voting games (CVGs). In a CVG, a voting body containing all members delegates decision-making to a (time-varying) subset of its members, as describes, e.g., the relationship between the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). We develop a theoretical framework for analyzing democratic equitability in CVGs at both the country and region levels, and for different assumptions regarding preference correlation. We apply the framework to evaluate the equitability of the UNSC, and the claims of those who seek to reform it. We find that the individual permanent members are overrepresented by between 21.3 times (United Kingdom) and 3.8 times (China) from a country-level perspective, while from a region perspective Eastern Europe is the most heavily overrepresented region with more than twice its equitable representation, and Africa the most heavily underrepresented. Our equity measures do not preclude some UNSC members from exercising veto rights, however

Granularity of Services – an Economic Analysis

Service-oriented architectures are widely discussed as a design principle for application and enterprise architectures. Nevertheless, an adequate granularity of services has not yet been researched sufficiently from an economic perspective. The finer the granularity to realize the functions of a process, the higher the number of services is, and the more effort has to be directed towards composing them. In contrast, very coarse grained services bear the disadvantages of higher implementation costs and lower reuse potential (e.g., in different processes). The aim of the decision model proposed in this paper is to determine an adequate granularity of services from an economical perspective. Thus, degrees of freedom, which often exist for the choice of granularity after a domain analysis, can be leveraged to realize a cost-efficient solution. We illustrate the applicability and practical benefits of the decision model with an example from the context of a financial services provider

Granularität von Services – eine ökonomische Analyse

Serviceorientierte Architekturen werden für die Gestaltung von Anwendungs- und Unternehmensarchitekturen intensiv diskutiert. Dennoch wurde die Frage nach einer adäquaten Granularität von Services unter ökonomischen Aspekten bisher kaum erforscht. Je feiner die Granularität von Services zur Realisierung der Funktionen eines Prozesses gewählt wird, desto größer ist die Anzahl der notwendigen Services. Dadurch steigt der Kompositionsaufwand. Sehr grobgranulare Services hingegen besitzen den Nachteil, dass ihr Realisierungsaufwand höher ist und die Chance zur Mehrfachverwendung (bspw. in verschiedenen Prozessen) sinkt. Im Beitrag wird daher ein Modell entwickelt, das die Entscheidung bezüglich der Granularität von Services unter ökonomischen Aspekten unterstützt und auf diese Weise bestehende Freiheitsgrade nutzt, die eine rein fachlich orientierte Festlegung der Granularität noch offenlässt. Das Entscheidungsmodell wird am Fallbeispiel einer Bank demonstriert, um die Anwendbarkeit und den praktischen Nutzen zu veranschaulichen

Information and communication technology to facilitate learning for students in the health professions: Current uses, gaps, and future directions

Changes in the U.S. Healthcare System along with the need for institutions of higher education to prepare a work force ready to address the challenges of today and tomorrow have highlighted the need to incorporate technology in its broadest sense as part of the student learning experience. In health professional education, this becomes challenging as programs have traditionally relied on face-to-face instruction along with internship experiences which provide hands on patient care. In addition, learning activities that incorporate higher order critical thinking must be incorporated in order to meet competency based professional expectations as well as expectations in the work place environment. This article will address current technology use in health professional education programs and identify opportunities to incorporate technology to enhance the student learning experiences with emphasis on the critical thinking, communication, and psychomotor skills required of today’s health professional graduate

Time-Dependent Myocardial Necrosis in Patients With ST-Segment-Elevation Myocardial Infarction Without Angiographic Collateral Flow Visualized by Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Results From the Multicenter STEMI-SCAR Project.

Background Acute complete occlusion of a coronary artery results in progressive ischemia, moving from the endocardium to the epicardium (ie, wavefront). Dependent on time to reperfusion and collateral flow, myocardial infarction ( MI ) will manifest, with transmural MI portending poor prognosis. Late gadolinium enhancement cardiac magnetic resonance imaging can detect MI with  high diagnostic accuracy. Primary percutaneous coronary intervention is the preferred reperfusion strategy in patients with ST -segment-elevation MI with 121 minutes demonstrated increased infarct size, transmurality index, and transmurality grade (all P121 minutes causes a high grade of transmural necrosis. In this pure ST -segment-elevation MI population, time to reperfusion to salvage myocardium was less than suggested by current guidelines