2,658 research outputs found
Challenging the Manifesto Project Data Monopoly: Estimating Partiesâ Policy Position Time-Series Using Expert and Mass Survey Data
In this research note we propose a novel approach for generating time-series for party positions as an alternative to the estimates provided by the Manifesto Project. Our approach combines multiple expert surveys from different years, filling up the missing data using a multiple imputation algorithm that uses additional information from mass surveys. We illustrate this approach by estimating time-series for eight European countries for periods up to 50 years and show that our estimates are comparable, if not superior, in richness and face validity to those of the Manifesto Project. We conclude that our approach can easily generate data that can be used to explore the robustness of empirical analyses using party position data and serve as valid benchmarks for computational text scaling and crowd-sourced manual coding of party manifestos
Continuous sedation until death: The everyday moral reasoning of physicians, nurses and family caregivers in the UK, The Netherlands and Belgium
Copyright © 2014 Raus et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.Background - Continuous sedation is increasingly used as a way to relieve symptoms at the end of life. Current research indicates that some physicians, nurses, and relatives involved in this practice experience emotional and/or moral distress. This study aims to provide insight into what may influence how professional and/or family carers cope with such distress.
Methods - This study is an international qualitative interview study involving interviews with physicians, nurses, and relatives of deceased patients in the UK, The Netherlands and Belgium (the UNBIASED study) about a case of continuous sedation at the end of life they were recently involved in. All interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed by staying close to the data using open coding. Next, codes were combined into larger themes and categories of codes resulting in a four point scheme that captured all of the data. Finally, our findings were compared with others and explored in relation to theories in ethics and sociology.
Results - The participantsâ responses can be captured as different dimensions of âclosenessâ, i.e. the degree to which one feels connected or âcloseâ to a certain decision or event. We distinguished four types of âclosenessâ, namely emotional, physical, decisional, and causal. Using these four dimensions of âclosenessâ it became possible to describe how physicians, nurses, and relatives experience their involvement in cases of continuous sedation until death. More specifically, it shined a light on the everyday moral reasoning employed by care providers and relatives in the context of continuous sedation, and how this affected the emotional impact of being involved in sedation, as well as the perception of their own moral responsibility.
Conclusion - Findings from this study demonstrate that various factors are reported to influence the degree of closeness to continuous sedation (and thus the extent to which carers feel morally responsible), and that some of these factors help care providers and relatives to distinguish continuous sedation from euthanasia.The Economic and Social Research
Council (UK), the Research Foundation Flanders
(BE), the Flemish Cancer Association (BE), the Research Council of Ghent
University (BE), the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NL) and
the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (NL)
Evaluation of cyber-tools in cultural tourism
Nowadays, e-services technology has demonstrated a pervasive character in the modern tourism industry. E-services implemented by the tourism industry, e.g., e-tourism, appeared to produce significant cost reductions and market efficiencies. Since online services are continuously accessible, time and geographic differences do not hinder the interaction between tourism service providers and their customers anymore. By usingICTs, (small) tourism organisations can enlarge their markets or operate in niche markets by serving a specific group of customers. The increased use of ICTs has thus resulted in a significant change in the structure of the tourism industry. The present paper aims to provide an overview of experiences and findings that address the socioeconomic impacts of e-services for the (cultural) tourist industry, on the basis of a systematic impact analysis. We use a SWOT approach to organise a systematic evaluation of various e-services effects, which are specifically differentiated for e-services and e-tourism (including cultural heritage) of socioeconomic importance. The main sources to identify the strengths and weaknesses of e-services are the academic and management literature that describes the experience in practice of various stakeholders. Copyright © 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
DNA Spools under Tension
DNA-spools, structures in which DNA is wrapped and helically coiled onto
itself or onto a protein core are ubiquitous in nature. We develop a general
theory describing the non-equilibrium behavior of DNA-spools under linear
tension. Two puzzling and seemingly unrelated recent experimental findings, the
sudden quantized unwrapping of nucleosomes and that of DNA toroidal condensates
under tension are theoretically explained and shown to be of the same origin.
The study provides new insights into nucleosome and chromatin fiber stability
and dynamics
Organized condensation of worm-like chains
We present results relevant to the equilibrium organization of DNA strands of
arbitrary length interacting with a spherical organizing center, suggestive of
DNA-histone complexation in nucleosomes. We obtain a rich phase diagram in
which a wrapping state is transformed into a complex multi-leafed, rosette
structure as the adhesion energy is reduced. The statistical mechanics of the
"melting" of a rosette can be mapped into an exactly soluble one-dimensional
many-body problem.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figures in a pdf fil
Dynamics of a Driven Single Flux Line in Superconductors
We study the low temperature dynamics of a single flux line in a bulk type-II
superconductor, driven by a surface current, both near and above the onset of
an instability which sets in at a critical driving. We found that above the
critical driving, the velocity profile of the flux line develops a
discontinuity.Comment: 10 pages with 4 figures, REVTE
Elasticity Theory and Shape Transitions of Viral Shells
Recently, continuum elasticity theory has been applied to explain the shape
transition of icosahedral viral capsids - single-protein-thick crystalline
shells - from spherical to buckled/faceted as their radius increases through a
critical value determined by the competition between stretching and bending
energies of a closed 2D elastic network. In the present work we generalize this
approach to capsids with non-icosahedral symmetries, e.g., spherocylindrical
and conical shells. One key new physical ingredient is the role played by
nonzero spontaneous curvature. Another is associated with the special way in
which the energy of the twelve topologically-required five-fold sites depends
on the background local curvature of the shell in which they are embedded.
Systematic evaluation of these contributions leads to a shape phase diagram in
which transitions are observed from icosahedral to spherocylindrical capsids as
a function of the ratio of stretching to bending energies and of the
spontaneous curvature of the 2D protein network. We find that the transition
from icosahedral to spherocylindrical symmetry is continuous or weakly
first-order near the onset of buckling, leading to extensive shape degeneracy.
These results are discussed in the context of experimentally observed
variations in the shapes of a variety of viral capsids.Comment: 53 pages, 17 figure
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