Supreme Court Voting Behavior: 1999 Term

This Study, the fourteenth in a series, tabulates and analyzes the voting behavior of the United States Supreme Court during the 1999 Term. The analysis is designed to determine whether individual Justices and the Court as a whole are voting more conservatively, more liberally, or about the same as compared with past Terms. This Term\u27s survey suggests a reversal of the Court\u27s liberal trend over the past two Terms, with conservative movement in six of the ten categories. Specifically, the Court\u27s support of statutory civil rights claims plummeted to an all time low, while the Court exhibited a dramatic conservative shift in cases decided by one vote. Furthermore, the Study\u27s second most reliable category for indicating liberal/conservative trends, Civil/ State Party, showed solid conservative movement in all types of decisions. Yet, this apparent conservative movement is counterbalanced somewhat by the fact that the Study\u27s most reliable category for indicating conservative/liberal trends, Criminal/Federal Party, demonstrated some liberal movement. A more in-depth analysis for each category is set forth in Part IV-B of this Study

Prevalence of a history of prior varicella/herpes zoster infection in multiple sclerosis

Varicella zoster virus (VZV) infection has been implicated in multiple sclerosis (MS), but direct causal involvement has been disputed. Nevertheless, knowledge of VZV exposure is important, given the risk of serious complications of first exposure while undergoing immunosuppressive treatment, in particular with fingolimod. We distributed questionnaires to MS clinic patients, requesting information about history of chickenpox, sibling/household/occupational exposure, history of zoster (shingles), and disease-modifying treatment. A random, proportionally representative sample of 51 patients that included patients with positive, negative, and unknown chickenpox history were selected for determination of VZV IgG by ELISA. Of 1206 distributed questionnaires, 605 were returned (50% response rate). Of these, 86% reported history of chickenpox, 5.6% gave negative history, and 8.5% did not know. Of 594 who answered the zoster question, 78% gave a negative response, 4% did not know, and 104 (17%) answered yes. Of these, 83 reported 1 episode; 12 had 2; 5 had 3; and 1 each reported 5, 6, and 15 episodes. Of 51 patients tested for VZV IgG (44 “yes,” 4 “no,” and 3 “I don’t know” answers to the question of whether they had chickenpox), 48 were seropositive; the 3 seronegative all had reported having had chickenpox. The high rate of MS patients reporting prior chickenpox infection is comparable with previous reports. A substantial proportion of MS patients, estimated to be higher than an age-matched general population, report single or multiple episodes of zoster. These data are useful for consideration of immunosuppressive treatments and/or VZV and zoster vaccination

Healthcare Access and Quality Index based on mortality from causes amenable to personal health care in 195 countries and territories, 1990-2015 : a novel analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015

Background National levels of personal health-care access and quality can be approximated by measuring mortality rates from causes that should not be fatal in the presence of effective medical care (ie, amenable mortality). Previous analyses of mortality amenable to health care only focused on high-income countries and faced several methodological challenges. In the present analysis, we use the highly standardised cause of death and risk factor estimates generated through the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) to improve and expand the quantification of personal health-care access and quality for 195 countries and territories from 1990 to 2015. Methods We mapped the most widely used list of causes amenable to personal health care developed by Nolte and McKee to 32 GBD causes. We accounted for variations in cause of death certification and misclassifications through the extensive data standardisation processes and redistribution algorithms developed for GBD. To isolate the effects of personal health-care access and quality, we risk-standardised cause-specific mortality rates for each geography-year by removing the joint effects of local environmental and behavioural risks, and adding back the global levels of risk exposure as estimated for GBD 2015. We employed principal component analysis to create a single, interpretable summary measure-the Healthcare Quality and Access (HAQ) Index-on a scale of 0 to 100. The HAQ Index showed strong convergence validity as compared with other health-system indicators, including health expenditure per capita (r= 0.88), an index of 11 universal health coverage interventions (r= 0.83), and human resources for health per 1000 (r= 0.77). We used free disposal hull analysis with bootstrapping to produce a frontier based on the relationship between the HAQ Index and the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a measure of overall development consisting of income per capita, average years of education, and total fertility rates. This frontier allowed us to better quantify the maximum levels of personal health-care access and quality achieved across the development spectrum, and pinpoint geographies where gaps between observed and potential levels have narrowed or widened over time. Findings Between 1990 and 2015, nearly all countries and territories saw their HAQ Index values improve; nonetheless, the difference between the highest and lowest observed HAQ Index was larger in 2015 than in 1990, ranging from 28.6 to 94.6. Of 195 geographies, 167 had statistically significant increases in HAQ Index levels since 1990, with South Korea, Turkey, Peru, China, and the Maldives recording among the largest gains by 2015. Performance on the HAQ Index and individual causes showed distinct patterns by region and level of development, yet substantial heterogeneities emerged for several causes, including cancers in highest-SDI countries; chronic kidney disease, diabetes, diarrhoeal diseases, and lower respiratory infections among middle-SDI countries; and measles and tetanus among lowest-SDI countries. While the global HAQ Index average rose from 40.7 (95% uncertainty interval, 39.0-42.8) in 1990 to 53.7 (52.2-55.4) in 2015, far less progress occurred in narrowing the gap between observed HAQ Index values and maximum levels achieved; at the global level, the difference between the observed and frontier HAQ Index only decreased from 21.2 in 1990 to 20.1 in 2015. If every country and territory had achieved the highest observed HAQ Index by their corresponding level of SDI, the global average would have been 73.8 in 2015. Several countries, particularly in eastern and western sub-Saharan Africa, reached HAQ Index values similar to or beyond their development levels, whereas others, namely in southern sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and south Asia, lagged behind what geographies of similar development attained between 1990 and 2015. Interpretation This novel extension of the GBD Study shows the untapped potential for personal health-care access and quality improvement across the development spectrum. Amid substantive advances in personal health care at the national level, heterogeneous patterns for individual causes in given countries or territories suggest that few places have consistently achieved optimal health-care access and quality across health-system functions and therapeutic areas. This is especially evident in middle-SDI countries, many of which have recently undergone or are currently experiencing epidemiological transitions. The HAQ Index, if paired with other measures of health-systemcharacteristics such as intervention coverage, could provide a robust avenue for tracking progress on universal health coverage and identifying local priorities for strengthening personal health-care quality and access throughout the world. Copyright (C) The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.Peer reviewe

Guidelines and Criteria to Assess Singing and Music Training in Baccalaureate Music Theater Programs

Within the last twenty years there have been a growing number of prospective students interested in pursuing musical theater (MT) training in colleges and universities throughout the United States. To meet this demand, the number of schools offering baccalaureate MT degrees has also grown. However, information on how to assess the music and singing training of undergraduate MT programs is not easily accessible to prospective undergraduate students. This is likely due to the fact that colleges and universities have only begun offering degrees in MT since 1970. Research-based information in this area is primarily found in peer-reviewed journals or by attending workshops presented by a few pedagogues specializing in MT vocal methods and techniques. The purpose of this essay is to develop criteria for assessing the singing and music training in MT baccalaureate degree programs that would be useful for prospective MT students, based on the current literature.</p

Metafrontier Analysis of Farm-level Efficiencies and Environmental-Technology Gaps in Philippine Rice Farming

Rice producers in the Philippines operate in different physical environments that are largely beyond their control, especially in terms of the agroclimatic conditions they face. Each rice area requires a unique set of location-specific technologies to match its location-specific needs. The rice production frontier is expected to vary, depending on the degree of yield-enhancing interventions implemented by the government and adopted by farmers. Understanding differences in specific production frontiers in different production systems should provide better assessments of yield performance across different locations and enable rice scientists to develop location-specific technologies as well as disseminate appropriate technologies to farmers in different climatic zones. A precise analysis of productive efficiencies, technology gaps and technical change among these zones may contribute to a more accurate targeting and effective design of the government's rice program. We measure technical efficiencies and technological gaps in rice production for farmers in four agroclimatic zones in the Philippines who may employ different production technologies according to environmental conditions. Climatic zone 3 is considered most favourable for rice production based on the intensity and distribution patterns of rainfall. A stochastic metafrontier function is used to compare mean technical efficiency and the environmental and technological gap ratio (ETGR) across climatic zones. We estimated four regional stochastic frontiers using the standard stochastic frontier model based on a translog functional form. A deterministic metafrontier production function was then fitted to the regional frontiers. Farm-level panel data were used from a three-round survey covering six cropping periods - the wet seasons of 1996, 2001 and 2006 and the dry seasons of 1997, 2002 and 2007. Results show surprisingly little interzonal variation in productivity. First, the production frontiers are quite stable across the different agroclimatic zones. The mean ETGR is quite high in all zones and varies in a narrow range from 0.83 to 0.87. Farmers operating in agroclimatic zone 3 are the most productive group followed by those operating in agroclimatic zone 2. Mean technical efficiencies of farmers in respect of their group frontiers are also closely grouped, ranging from 0.74 to 0.76. It appears that Philippine rice producers have been able to adapt their crop management strategies well to suit their particular agroclimatic conditions

Supreme Court Voting Behavior: 1998 Term

This Article, the fourteenth in a series, tabulates and analyzes the voting behavior of the United States Supreme Court. This particular study examines the Court\u27s voting behavior during the 1998 Term. The Article attempts to determine whether individual Justices and the Court as a whole are voting more conservatively, more liberally, or about the same as compared with past terms. Whether a vote is considered conservative or liberal depends upon the issues being decided. Generally, votes favoring the assertion of governmental power are conservative, while those favoring claims of individual liberty are considered liberal. The issues are categorized into ten different types of cases: Civil-State Party (state government versus a private party), Civil-Federal Party (federal government versus a private party), State Criminal Cases, Federal Criminal Cases, First Amendment Cases, Equal Protection Cases, Jurisdiction (cases raising a challenge to the exercise of federal jurisdiction), Federalism Cases, and Swing-Vote Cases. As in the 1997 Term, the voting behavior of the 1998 Term indicates overall liberal movement in a majority of the categories. Of the four categories that showed conservative movement, none were particularly noteworthy. Furthermore, this is the second consecutive Term that the Court has voted liberally on close cases decided by one vote, suggesting that ideologically charged cases are yielding more and more liberal results. All this indicates that the Rehnquist Court may be more liberal than present commentary suggests