Without Local Newspapers, Can We Save Our Democracy? An Analysis of Political Culture, Voter Turnout, and Civic Engagement

Since the 1830s, newspapers have been accessible to all members of the public in the United States regardless of socio-economic status. Newspapers are important political information providers. Local journalists provide invaluable expertise for the community they serve about community-level problems, local elections, and help hold government accountable. If news organizations cannot afford to sustain a local newspaper and its staff, the result is a news desert for the community. While recent research has examined the decline of local newspapers, little has been done on how the decline of local newspapers affects civic engagement and voter turnout across the United States. To what extent do local newspapers contribute to civic engagement? Using Daniel Elazar’s (1966) typology of a state’s political culture, this thesis hypothesizes that moralistic states have fewer news deserts, higher voter turnout, and higher civic engagement than individualistic and traditionalistic states. This thesis did not find a clear distinction of moralistic states being the highest in voter turnout, in civic engagement, and lower in news desert concentration, but it appears that moralistic states have higher voter turnout in the 2014 midterm election across the board and have news deserts growing at the slowest rate compared to the individualistic and traditionalistic typologies. The health of our democratic republic requires civic engagement, and people need access to quality information to participate and cast their ballots

Considering equity in health technology assessment: an exploratory analysis of agency practices

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.Objectives: Equity is one of the founding principles in most healthcare systems. Financial constraints entail an increased risk of exacerbating inequities and a greater need for evidence-based decisions. It is, therefore, both important and timely to enquire how equity can be addressed in health technology assessment (HTA) practice. We aimed to explore related practices from a broad range of HTA agencies, identify exemplary approaches and common concerns, and offer insights for future considerations. Methods: HTA agencies for which both methodological guides and HTA reports were publicly available were selected from an initial comprehensive pool. Information was extracted on issues ranging from a general commitment to fairness to specific measures targeting both methodological and process-related elements. Results: Methodological documents and ninety-eight reports from nineteen agencies were analyzed. Our findings indicate that equity was not a standard consideration in HTA report production. The nature of specific approaches and the amount of resources invested into including an equity perspective varied considerably. Specific measures (e.g., appropriate information sources, analytical tools, and schemes) were mentioned by almost half of the agencies analyzed. Albeit sporadic, both horizontal and vertical equity considerations were identified in included HTA reports. Conclusions: While varying legal contexts and institutional principles can lead to different interpretations of equity at the decision point, a combination of methodological and process-related practices could contribute to more equity-sensitive evaluations, especially in conjunction with enhanced dissemination of existing methodological tools. Networking initiatives on behalf of existing collaborating platforms could play an important role in this direction

How health technology assessment agencies address the issue of unpublished data

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.Objectives: Reporting bias potentially threatens the validity of results in health technology assessment (HTA) reports. Our study aimed to explore policies and practices of HTA agencies regarding strategies to include previously unpublished data in their assessments, focusing on requests to industry for unpublished data. Methods: We included international HTA agencies with publicly available methods papers as well as HTA reports. From the methods papers and recent reports we extracted information on requests to industry and on searches in trial registries, regulatory authority Web sites and for conference abstracts. Results: Eighteen HTA agencies and seventy-three reports were included. Agencies’ methods papers showed variability regarding requests to industry (requests are routinely carried out in seven cases, not mentioned in six, at the discretion of HTA authors in three, and based on manufacturer applications in two), which were reflected in the reports investigated. As reporting of requests was limited, it often remained unclear whether unpublished data had been received. Searches in trial registries, at regulatory authorities or for conference abstracts are described as a routine or optional part of the search strategy in the methods papers of 9, 11, and 8 included agencies, respectively. A total of 52 percent, 39 percent, and 16 percent of reports described searches in trial registries, at regulatory agencies, and hand searching of conference proceedings. Conclusion: International HTA agencies currently differ considerably in their efforts to address the issue of unpublished data. Requests to industry may constitute one strategy to access and include unpublished data, while agencies can learn from each other concerning successful practice

Diet analysis reveals pre-historic meals among the Loma San Gabriel at La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos, Rio Zape, Mexico (600–800 CE)

Coprolites have been a source of study for archeologists due to several reasons: they not only provide information on the life and nutritional habits of ancient individuals but also on their health. In this paper, we processed 10 coprolites collected at La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos (600–800 CE), Rio Zape, Mexico, with acetolysis solution for pollen analysis. The number of pollen grains/gram of each coprolite sample was quantified along with the macroscopic remains of these samples. The main food item ingested by the population was maize, followed by Agave. Squash blossoms were also part of their food source determined by the presence of pollen grains. In macro remains, we identified rodent bones, plant seeds, and Agave fibers. The macroscopic analysis of the samples fits with the analysis of smaller remains, giving an idea of the meal represented by each coprolite analyzed. We relate these results to previous microbiome studies of coprolite samples from the same archeological site and provide a discussion on the relevancy of studying macro- and microremains that can be applied to microbiome interpretation analysis

Effectiveness of Self-Generation During Learning is Dependent on Individual Differences in Need for Cognition.

Self-generated information is better recognized and recalled than read information. This so-called generation effecthas been replicated several times for different types of stimulus material, different generation tasks, and retention intervals. The present study investigated the impact of individual differences in learners’ disposition to engage in effortful cognitive activities (need for cognition, NFC) on the effectiveness of self-generation during learning. Learners low in NFC usually avoid getting engaged in cognitively demanding activities. However, if these learners are explicitly instructed to use elaborate learning strategies such as self-generation, they should benefit more from such strategies than learners high in NFC, because self-generation stimulates cognitive processes that learners low in NFC usually tend not to engage in spontaneously. Using a classical word-generation paradigm, we not only replicated the generation effect in free and cued recall but showed that the magnitude of the generation effect increased with decreasing NFC in cued recall. Results are consistent with our assumption that learners higher in NFC engage in elaborate processing even without explicit instruction, whereas learners lower in NFC usually avoid cognitively demanding activities. These learners need cognitively demanding tasks that require them to switch from shallow to elaborate processing to improve learning. We conclude that self-generation is beneficial regardless of the NFC level, but our study extends the existing literature on the generation effect and on NFC by showing that self-generation can be particularly useful for balancing the learning disadvantage of students lower in NFC

Recent Studies in Tudor and Stuart Drama

An assessment of recent scholarly work treating the literature of Tudor and Stuart Drama and some general observations on the state of the profession. A full bibliography and price list of the works received by SEL for consideration follow. © 2014 Rice University