Measuring the Relationship between Voter Turnout and Health in Ireland

Health issues are an integral part of the political agenda in Ireland. Yet no study to date has examined the direct impact of health concerns on political outcomes. This study investigates the impact of health, both physical and psychological, and perceptions of the health service on voter turnout in Ireland using the European Social Survey in 2005. The results show that individuals with poor subjective health are significantly less likely to vote in a General Election. Dissatisfaction with the health service is also associated with a lower probability of voting. However these effects interact: those with poor health and who are dissatisfied with the health service are more likely to vote. Psychological well- being has no effect on voter turnout. The health effects identified in this study are large. Therefore, given the PR electoral system in Ireland, small changes in voter turnout could have dramatic consequences for electoral outcomes.voter turnout, self-rated general health, WHO-5

Does Voting History Matter? Analysing Persistence in Turnout

Individuals who vote in one election are also more likely to vote in the next. Modelling the causal relationship between past and current voting decisions however is intrinsically difficult, as this positive association can exist due to habit formation or unobserved heterogeneity. This paper overcomes this problem using longitudinal data from the British National Child Development Study (NCDS) to examine voter turnout across three elections. It distinguishes between unobserved heterogeneity caused by fixed individual characteristics and the initial conditions problem, which occurs when voting behaviour in a previous, but unobserved, period influences current voting behaviour. It finds that controlling for fixed effects unobserved heterogeneity has little impact on the estimated degree of habit in voter turnout, however failing to control for initial conditions reduces the estimate by a half. The results imply that voting in one election increases the probability of voting in a subsequent election by 13%.Voter turnout, habit formation, dynamic panel models

The causal effect of breastfeeding on children's cognitive development: A quasi-experimental design

To estimate the causal effect of breastfeeding on children's cognitive skills as measured at ages 3, 5, 7 and 11.

“…Take up thy Bed, and Vote” Measuring the Relationship between Voting Behaviour and Indicators of Health

Individuals experiencing poor health are less likely to vote at election time, despite being the ones most affected by health policies implemented by the successful party. This paper investigates the relationship between health and voter turnout and political party choice in the 1979, 1987 and 1997 British general elections using the National Child Development Study (NCDS). It finds that poor health is associated with lower turnout, as the perceived costs of voting, such as the physical and mental effort involved, are greater than the perceived benefits, which are derived from the policy implications of the election outcome. In addition, the subset of unhealthy individuals who do vote at election time generally support Labour, as such voters are more likely to utilise the NHS and hence support parties that advocate public provision of health services. Given the low participation rates of the unhealthy, a political party which formulates an attractive policy package aimed at such potential voters could therefore mobilise a previously untapped source of the electorate.Health Status, Voter Turnout, Political Party Choice

Political Interest, Cognitive Ability and Personality - Determinants of Voter Turnout in Britain

This paper uses longitudinal data from the National Cohort Development Study (NCDS) to investigate the determinants of voter turnout in the 1997 British General Election. It introduces measures of cognitive ability and personality into models of electoral participation and finds that firstly, their inclusion reduces the impact of education and secondly, that standard turnout models may be biased by the inclusion of the much used “interest in politics” measure. A bivariate probit model of turnout and interest then shows that individuals with high ability, an aggressive personality and a sense of civic duty are more likely to both turn out to vote and to have an interest in politics.Turnout, Education, Ability, Personality

Returns to basic skills in Central and Eastern Europe - a semi-parametric approach

This paper uses semi-parametric econometric techniques to investigate the relationship between basic skills and earning in three post-communist countries - the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia using the IALS dataset. While the large increases in the returns to education in the new market economies has been well documented in the literature, no study to date has examined the impact of basic skills and schooling on income. Estimating a Mincer human capital model we find that including a measure of basic skills reduces the returns to education. In addition, using a partial linear model in which log earnings is linear in schooling, but is an arbitrary function of basic skills, we find that this relationship is not well described by the common assumption of linearity at the tails of the distribution.Earnings, Education, Basic skills, Transition

Correcting Unwanted Amplitude Modulation in Electro-optic Modulators

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) is designed to detect disturbances in spacetime created by the motion of large masses, referred to as gravitational waves. The effects of gravitational waves seen on Earth are very small; waves arriving at Earth are only expected to disturb spacetime by a factor of 10-21, thus LIGO must be extremely sensitive to detect their effects. In order to increase LIGO s sensitivity, the lengths of LIGO s arm cavities must be carefully controlled and sensed. One component of a subsystem used to attain such control is an electro-optic modulator. Also known as a Pockels cell, an electro-optic modulator consists of a crystal whose indices of refraction vary with an applied voltage. Depending on its orientation, a Pockels cell can be used to introduce either phase modulation or amplitude modulation in polarized light. LIGO uses a Pockels cell to modulate the phase of an infrared laser in this manner, but over time unwanted amplitude modulation has been observed as well. Such amplitude modulation produces noise that must be eliminated. This amplitude modulation most likely comes from drifting alignment between the Pockels cell and the polarization angle of the laser, and so a feedback control system was designed to correct it. Two possible actuators were considered for the feedback control system, a Faraday rotator and a picomotor. The Faraday rotator used in this experiment proved ineffective in correcting the amplitude modulation because it was unable to rotate the polarization angle of the laser far enough to bring it back in alignment with the Pockels cell. A different Faraday rotator capable of greater rotation could still work, but such a Faraday rotator may prove unfeasible when actuating LIGO s Pockels cell. However, the picomotor proved much more effective, correcting the alignment and thus rectifying the problem in a matter of minutes. Having successfully tested this feedback control system with a picomotor as the actuator, a similar feedback control system can be created for LIGO, bringing the apparatus one step closer to its ultimate goal of detecting gravitational waves

Examining Rating Source Differences in Narrative Performance Feedback

The purpose of the present study was to examine the narrative feedback quality and content of comments from supervisors, peers, and subordinates in a multisource performance feedback context. Research on performance management interventions tends to focus on issues such as rater training, scale development, scale formats, and reducing test and rater bias. However, other components in performance management interventions have received little attention, including narrative feedback. Narrative feedback takes the form of written comments describing the ratee’s performance on different dimensions. The narrative feedback quality variables included favorability, specificity, goal content, and feedback length. Predictor variables of narrative feedback quality including rater familiarity, rater acquaintanceship time, and ratee position tenure were also investigated. The narrative feedback content variables included the amount of relative content, absolute content, task content and trait content. The data were collected using a commercial multi-source feedback instrument which included numeric ratings and narrative feedback from the perspectives of the ratees’ supervisors, peers and subordinates. A sample of 200 ratees with manager or director in their title were selected. Each of the 8,967 comments were coded by four trained research assistants. The results indicated that supervisors provided the highest quality narrative feedback, peers and subordinates were comparable. Rater familiarity tended to be positively related to narrative feedback quality, and, interestingly, acquaintanceship time tended to be negatively related to narrative feedback quality, suggesting that acquaintanceship time should not be used as a proxy for familiarity. Ratee position tenure was negatively related to narrative feedback quality, however the relationship was smallest for peers suggesting the use of peer raters for longer-tenured ratees. The rating source comparisons of the narrative feedback content variables suggested that all sources used about the same amount of each content type, and that the relationships between the content variables and narrative feedback quality were comparable across rating sources. The overall results for relative, absolute, and trait feedback content suggested that they were related to positive description and included little actionable content. Task content had the largest positive relationships with narrative feedback quality, indicating that future rater training should focus on the provision of task content

Subordinate Ratings of Supervisor Performance: Balancing Accountability and Anonymity

Multi-source feedback often includes ratings from one’s subordinates; however, there is little research on the accuracy of these ratings. With multi-source feedback systems being used more for administrative decisions there is a precedent to test how accurate subordinate ratings are. The present study distinguishes between two types of accountability; appeasement-accountability and accuracy-accountability in an attempt to increase the accuracy of subordinate ratings of job performance. The result was three experimental conditions. The first was the anonymous condition which is in line with current practice; subordinates are typically granted anonymity when submitting ratings about their supervisor. The second was the appeasement-accountability condition, and the third was the accuracy-accountability condition. One hundred and fifty participants rated videos of four different trainers’ job performance using behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS). The dependant variables of interest were Cronbach’s (1955) accuracy components of differential accuracy, elevation accuracy, stereotype accuracy, and differential elevation. Significant differences were found between Conditions 1 and 3 for Differential Elevation. Additionally, the comparison between Conditions 2 and 3 was nearing significance for Differential Elevation. These findings are indicative of increased accuracy for administrative decisions for those in the accuracy-accountability condition. Possible explanations for the results found, study limitations, and directions for future research are discussed

The Large Peculiar Velocity of the cD Galaxy in Abell 3653

We present a catalogue of galaxies in Abell 3653 from observations made with the 2dF spectrograph at the Anglo-Australian Telescope. Of the 391 objects observed, we find 111 are bone-fide members of Abell 3653. We show that the cluster has a velocity of cz = 32214 +/- 83 km/s (z=0.10738 +/- 0.00027), with a velocity dispersion typical of rich, massive clusters of sigma_{cz} = 880^{+66}_{-54}. We find that the cD galaxy has a peculiar velocity of 683 +/- 96 km/s in the cluster restframe - some 7sigma away from the mean cluster velocity, making it one of the largest and most significant peculiar velocities found for a cD galaxy to date. We investigate the cluster for signs of substructure, but do not find any significant groupings on any length scale. We consider the implications of our findings on cD formation theories.Comment: 16 pages, including 7 figures and a long table. Accepted for publication in MNRA