The Ideology of Heads of Government, 1870-2012

This Note introduces the Heads of Government dataset, which provides summary information about the ideological orientation of heads of government (left, center, or right, with separately provided information about religious orientation) in 33 states in Western Europe, the Americas, and the Asia–Pacific region between 1870 and 2012. The Note also describes some intriguing empirical patterns when it comes to over-time changes in the political prominence of left-wing, centrist, and right-wing parties

The Lay of the Land: Information Capacity and the Modern State

Relying on three new indicators of the information capacity of states, this paper provides new evidence on the ability of states to collect and process information about the territories and populations that they govern. The three indicators are (a) the availability of a reliable census, (b) the establishment of a permanent government agency tasked with processing statistical information about the territory and the population, and (c) the regular release of statistical yearbooks. We find, as expected, that there has been a secular increase in information capacity over time. We also investigate salient differences among countries from the early 1800s onward

Sentiment analysis and the impact of employee satisfaction on firm earnings

Prior text mining studies of corporate reputational sentiment based on newswires, blogs and Twitter feeds have mostly captured reputation from the perspective of two groups of stakeholders – the media and consumers. In this study we examine the sentiment of a potentially overlooked stakeholder group, namely, the firm’s employees. First, we present a novel dataset that uses online employee reviews to capture employee satisfaction. We employ LDA to identify salient aspects in employees’ reviews, and manually infer one latent topic that appears to be associated with the firm’s outlook. Second, we create a composite document by aggregating employee reviews for each firm and measure employee sentiment as the polarity of the composite document using the General Inquirer dictionary to count positive and negative terms. Finally, we define employee satisfaction as a weighted combination of the firm outlook topic cluster and employee sentiment. The results of our joint aspect-polarity model suggest that it may be beneficial for investors to incorporate a measure of employee satisfaction into their method for forecasting firm earnings

Diurnal blood pressure variations in patients with hypertension and stroke or transient ischemic attack

Wstęp Liczne badania wykazały, że dobowy profil ciśnienia typu non-dipper lub extreme dipper, duża zmienność ciśnienia, a szczególnie jego wysoki ranny wzrost to czynniki zwiększające ryzyko udaru mózgu u osób z nadciśnieniem. Natomiast tylko w nielicznych pracach ocenia się dobową zmienność ciśnienia tętniczego u pacjentów bezpośrednio po przebytym incydencie mózgowo-naczyniowym. Dlatego celem niniejszej pracy była ocena zmian ciśnienia tętniczego, a szczególnie jego zmienności dobowej u pacjentów z udarem niedokrwiennym mózgu w ostrym okresie w porównaniu z pacjentami z przemijającymi epizodami niedokrwienia (TIA). Materiał i metody Badania przeprowadzono u 25 chorych w wieku 49-87 lat z objawami udaru mózgu oraz długotrwałym nadciśnieniem tętniczym w wywiadzie (15 pacjentów z udarem niedokrwiennym mózgu oraz 10 chorych z TIA). Grupę kontrolną stanowiło 15 pacjentów z nowo wykrytym nadciśnieniem tętniczym, bez wykładników niedokrwienia mózgu. U wszystkich chorych wykonano 24-godzinne ABPM - u pacjentów z udarem mózgu lub TIA w 3 dobie hospitalizacji, a u pacjentów z nadciśnieniem niepowikłanym w pierwszej dobie, przed podjęciem leczenia hipotensyjnego. Wyniki W trzeciej dobie od początku incydentu mózgowego skurczowe ciśnienie tętnicze (SBP) było istotnie wyższe (p < 0,001) u pacjentów z udarem mózgu (152,3 &plusmn; 17,3 mm Hg) niż u pacjentów z TIA (129,3 &plusmn; 14,1 mm Hg). Natomiast maksymalne spadki SBP u chorych z TIA (87,3 &plusmn; 16,8 mm Hg) były istotnie większe w porównaniu z pacjentami z udarem mózgu i z niepowikłanym nadciśnieniem tętniczym (odpowiednio 110,8 &plusmn; 25,7 i 103,4 &plusmn; 15,2 mm Hg). Fizjologiczny nocny spadek SBP był zaburzony u pacjentów z udarem mózgu i wynosił 5,4 &plusmn; 2,3% w porównaniu z 11,3 &plusmn; 7,8% u pacjentów z TIA i 11,7 &plusmn; 6,9% u chorych z nadciśnieniem tętniczym niepowikłanym. Dobowa zmienność SBP była istotnie nasilona u pacjentów z TIA w porównaniu z pacjentami z udarem mózgu. Wnioski U pacjentów z TIA szybciej niż u pacjentów z udarem niedokrwiennym dochodzi do normalizacji SBP. Jednocześnie pacjenci z TIA mają tendencję do dużych spadków SBP. W udarze mózgu stwierdza się zmniejszony spadek ciśnienia (szczególnie SBP) w nocy. Natomiast chorzy z TIA wykazują zwiększoną zmienność ciśnienia tętniczego, szczególnie SBP, w porównaniu z pacjentami z udarem niedokrwiennym mózgu.Background It was found that non-dipper and extreme dipper blood pressure profile, increased blood pressure variability and morning surge of blood pressure are risk factors of stroke in hypertensive patients. Less is known about changes in blood pressure pattern in acute phase of cerebrovascular event. The aim of the study was to compare changes in blood pressure pattern in patients with ischemic stroke and those with TIA. Material and methods Twenty five hypertensive patients with symptoms of stroke (15 patients with acute ischemic stroke and 10 patients with TIA) and 15 patients with newly diagnosed uncomplicated hypertension were studied. 24-h ABPM was performed on the third day of hospitalization in patients with cerebrovascular event and on the first day, before antihypertensive therapy in hypertensive controls. Results Mean 24-hour systolic blood pressure was significantly higher (p < 0,001) in patients with stroke (152,3 &plusmn; 17,3 mm Hg) than in patients with TIA (129,3 &plusmn; 14,1 mm Hg) while maximal fall in systolic blood pressure was significantly higher in patients with TIA (87,3 &plusmn; 16,8 mm Hg) in comparison with patients with stroke and patients with uncomplicated hypertension (110,8 &plusmn; 25,7 and 103,4 &plusmn; 15,2 mm Hg respectively). Night blood pressure fall was decreased in stroke patients (5,4 &plusmn; 2,3%) and 24-h blood pressure variability was increased in patients with TIA. Conclusions Systolic blood pressure normalizes faster in patients with TIA than in patients with acute ischemic stroke. Greater maximal drops in systolic blood pressure were also noticed in patients with TIA. Night systolic blood pressure fall was diminished in patients with acute stroke while 24-h blood pressure variability was increased in patients with TIA

External sources of clean technology: evidence from the clean development mechanism

New technology is fundamental to sustainable development. However, inventors from industrialized countries often refuse technology transfer because they worry about reverse-engineering. When can clean technology transfer succeed? We develop a formal model of the political economy of North–South technology transfer. According to the model, technology transfer is possible if (1) the technology in focus has limited global commercial potential or (2) the host developing country does not have the capacity to absorb new technologies for commercial use. If both conditions fail, inventors from industrialized countries worry about the adverse competitiveness effects of reverse-engineering, so technology transfer fails. Data analysis of technology transfer in 4,894 projects implemented under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism during the 2004–2010 period provides evidence in support of the model

The impact of ambidexterity on enterprise performance: evidence from 15 countries and 14 sectors

The assumption made by research on ambidexterity is that enterprises operating ambidextrously perform better as a result. Similarly, the beneficial effects of ambidexterity are often assumed to be invariant across different contexts, such as sector. However, as is widely acknowledged in the literature, there is a paucity of evidence on which to base these assumptions. To address this issue, in this note we examine evidence from the Community Innovation Survey covering 15 countries and 45,113 enterprises. The paper shows a strong, positive effect on growth in sales turnover from ambidexterity in the manufacturing and the scientific and technical services sectors

Union members at the polls in diverse trade union landscapes

This article investigates to what extent social democratic parties still benefit from the support of union members at the polls. Not only are social democratic parties confronted with new competitors in the party systems, but also the union confederations of the socialist labour movement are in some countries losing their dominant position due to the rise of separate professional confederations. It is argued in the article that the effect of union membership on voting choice is conditioned by the structure of the trade union movement. The support of union members for social democracy is fostered by the strength of the confederations historically close to this party family, while it is hampered when strong separate (or politically unaffiliated) white-collar confederations exist. Using European Social Survey and Swedish Public Opinion data, the article shows that social democratic parties still enjoy important support from trade union members, but at the same time are under fierce competition from bourgeois and green parties among members of white-collar confederations. This reinforces the challenges for social democracy to build new voters’ coalitions in post-industrial societies

The resource curse revisited: A Bayesian model averaging approach

© 2018 Elsevier B.V. The evidence for the effects of oil rents on growth is mixed, a result which can be explained with model uncertainty. We address the issue using Bayesian Model Averaging techniques and an updated cross-country data set for long-term growth in the period 1970–2014, including 91 countries and 54 potential growth determinants. We do not find empirical evidence for the existence of a “natural resource curse” in our sample. On the contrary, our results suggest a robust positive effect of oil rents on long-term economic growth. We then introduce interaction terms of oil rents with potential conditions under which oil dependency can lead to sub-standard growth. The results indicate that the positive effect of oil rents may be conditional on the quality of institutions. We test the robustness of our results using a panel data set and find neither a curse nor a positive effect of oil rents on short- to medium-run growth

Interaction effects in the theory of planned behaviour: Predicting fruit and vegetable consumption in three prospective cohorts

Objective The theory of planned behaviour (TPB) has been criticized for not including interactions between major constructs thought to underlie behaviour. This study investigated the application of the TPB to the prediction of fruit and vegetable consumption across three prospective cohorts. The primary aim of the study was to investigate whether interactions between major constructs in the theory would increase the ability of the model to predict intention to consume fruit and vegetables (i.e.; attitude × perceived behavioural control [PBC], subjective norm × PBC, subjective norm × attitude) and self-reported fruit and vegetable intake (i.e.; PBC × intention). Design Secondary data analysis from three cohorts: One predictive study (cohort 1) and two intervention studies (cohorts 2 and 3). Method Participants completed a TPB measure at baseline and a measure of fruit and vegetable intake at 1 week (cohort 1; n = 90) or 1 month (cohorts 2 and 3; n = 296). Results Attitude moderated the impact of PBC on intention. PBC moderated the impact of intention on behaviour at 1 week but not 1 month. Conclusion The variance accounted for by the interactions was small. However, the presence of interactions between constructs within the TPB demonstrates a need to consider interactions between variables within the TPB in both theoretical and applied research using the model