Twenty-eight national elections for a Parliament in constant evolution. European Policy Brief No. 26, March 2014

In the City, the citizen is king. At least theoretically. In the European City currently being built around twenty-eight national democracies, the citizen will soon be called upon, in May, to democratically elect his or her representative in the European Parliament for the next five years. Since the very first election of Members of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage in 1979, spectacular progress has been made by the “European Economic Community” that we now all know as the European Union. And the powers vested in citizen representatives are equally impressive. But there is a real possibility that European citizens will turn their backs on the upcoming European elections like never before. Why

Running hot and cold: Bhutan-India-China relations

What will the new year bring for the three countries? Even though the Doklam issue was solved peacefully, its occurrence shows that a frozen conflict can run hot now and again. Looking ahead, the new year may bring new challenges, a continued status quo, and/or new opportunities writes Sarina Theys

Analyzing Extreme Cases: How Quantile Regression can Enhance Our Ability to Identify Productivity Stars

Recent research suggests that individual productivity may not be normally distributed and is best modeled by a power law, a form of a heavy-tailed distribution where extreme cases on the right side of the distribution affect the mean and skew the probability distribution. These extreme cases, commonly referred to as “star performers” or “productivity stars,” provide a disproportionately positive impact on organizations. Yet, the field of industrial-organizational psychology has failed to uncover effective techniques to identify them during selection accurately. Limiting factors in the identification of star performers are the traditional methods (e.g., Pearson correlation, ordinary least squares regression) used to establish criterion-related validity and inform selection battery design (i.e., determine which assessments should be retained and how those assessments should be weighted). Pearson correlation and ordinary least squares regression do not perform well (i.e., do not provide accurate estimates) when data are highly skewed and contain outliers. Thus, the purpose of this dissertation was to investigate whether an alternative method, specifically the quantile regression model (QRM), outperforms traditional approaches during criterion-related validation and selection battery design. Across three unique samples, results suggest that although the QRM provides a much more detailed understanding of predictor-criterion relationships, the practical usefulness of the QRM in selection assessment battery design is similar to the OLS regression

Latest Trend for Fluorine in the Phosphoric Industry: Absorption Efficiency Improvement, Conversion into Raw Material

Almost all the phosphate apatite used in the world to produce phosphoric acid trough the wet process contains fluorine. When not properly controlled, this element creates process, health and environmental issues that can have dramatic impact. In recent year several technologies have been established or improved to tackle these challenges. F absorption has been improved by simple changes that ensure a high efficiency while minimizing the CAPEX. F usage has also been largely investigated to produce valuable product as AlF3 or HF but also easy to transport raw material as CaF2. This paper will describe some recent development related to these topics

The Dutch Individualised Care Scale for patients and nurses : a psychometric validation study

Aims and objectives: Translating and psychometrically assessing the Individualised Care Scale (ICS) for patients and nurses for the Flemish and Dutch healthcare context. Background: Individualised care interventions have positive effects on health outcomes. However, there are no valid and reliable instruments for evaluating individualised care for the Flemish and Dutch healthcare context. Design: Psychometric validation study. Setting and participants: In Flemish hospitals, data were collected between February and June 2016, and in Dutch hospitals, data were collected between December 2014 and May 2015. Nurses with direct patient contact and a working experience of minimum 6 months on the wards could participate. Patient inclusion criteria were being an adult, being mentally competent, having an expected hospital stay of minimum 1 day, and being able to speak and read the Dutch language. In total, 845 patients and 569 nurses were included. Methods: The ICS was translated into Dutch using a forward–backward translation process. Minimal linguistic adaptations to the Dutch ICS were made to use the scale as a Flemish equivalent. Omega, Cronbach’s Alpha, mean inter-item correlations and standardised subscale correlations established the reliability and confirmatory factor analysis the construct validity of the ICS. Results: Internal consistency using Omega (Cronbach’s Alpha) ranged from 0.83 to 0.96 (0.82–0.95) for the ICSNurse and from 0.88 to 0.96 (0.87–0.96) for the ICSPatient. Fit indices of the confirmatory factor analysis indicated a good model fit, except for the root mean square error of approximation, which indicated only moderate model fit. Conclusion: The Dutch version of the ICS showed acceptable psychometric performance, supporting its use for the Dutch and Flemish healthcare context. Relevance to clinical practice: Knowledge of nurses’ and patients’ perceptions on individualised care will aid to target areas in the Dutch and Flemish healthcare context in which work needs to be undertaken to provide individualised nursing care

An explicit counterexample to the Lagarias-Wang finiteness conjecture

The joint spectral radius of a finite set of real $d \times d$ matrices is defined to be the maximum possible exponential rate of growth of long products of matrices drawn from that set. A set of matrices is said to have the \emph{finiteness property} if there exists a periodic product which achieves this maximal rate of growth. J.C. Lagarias and Y. Wang conjectured in 1995 that every finite set of real $d \times d$ matrices satisfies the finiteness property. However, T. Bousch and J. Mairesse proved in 2002 that counterexamples to the finiteness conjecture exist, showing in particular that there exists a family of pairs of $2 \times 2$ matrices which contains a counterexample. Similar results were subsequently given by V.D. Blondel, J. Theys and A.A. Vladimirov and by V.S. Kozyakin, but no explicit counterexample to the finiteness conjecture has so far been given. The purpose of this paper is to resolve this issue by giving the first completely explicit description of a counterexample to the Lagarias-Wang finiteness conjecture. Namely, for the set \mathsf{A}_{\alpha_*}:= \{({cc}1&1\\0&1), \alpha_*({cc}1&0\\1&1)\} we give an explicit value of \alpha_* \simeq 0.749326546330367557943961948091344672091327370236064317358024...] such that $\mathsf{A}_{\alpha_*}$ does not satisfy the finiteness property.Comment: 27 pages, 2 figure

Tuning the ferromagnetic properties of hydrogenated GaMnAs

Hydrogenation and posthydrogenation annealings have been used as a very efficient tool to tune the hole density over a wide range, at fixed magnetic moment concentration, in thin GaMnAs layers. Reduction of the hole density resulted in strong modifications of their ferromagnetic properties. In particular, we observed in magnetotransport experiments the decrease of the Curie temperature, along with modifications of the magnetic anisotropy, a behavior consistent with the mean-field theory

AIDS and insurance law: possible social policy solutions for life insurance applicants excluded due to HIV seropositivity

The broad aim of this study is to investigate and recommend a model which would contribute to finding a solution to the AIDS pandemic facing the insurance industry. At present HIV positive persons are excluded from obtaining life insurance, and as a result of this they are excluded from obtaining access to finance as a life insurance policy is a vital financial instrument when attempting to access finance. The insurance industry has decided to protect itself and its response to the pandemic smacks of crisis intervention rather an attempt to find a solution acceptable to all parties. The intention is to investigate the role that all stakeholders, the public sector, the state and the industry can play in contributing to an imaginative response posed by this challenge. This study explores the causes and prognosis of AIDS, how the life insurance industry operates, how necessary life insurance is, strategies adopted by the industry in the face of this challenge, the experience of international insurers, as well as suggesting possible solutions and examining their mechanics. The study also investigates the impact of the Constitution and the Fundamental Rights on the suggested solutions. It recommends a particular solution as a workable model within a social policy perspective. It concludes with a request that all stakeholders participate in this solution for and to the benefit of everyone, as AIDS is not the problem of medical practitioners, or attorneys, or the insurance industry, but a societal problem

Link Words in Note-Taking and Student Interpreter Performance: An Empirical Study

The note-taking technique (NTT) is an essential tool for consecutive interpreting. Several experts developed guidelines to help interpreters develop their own personal note-taking techniques, one of which is noting down link words. In this article, the authors discuss the findings of an empirical study which compared the note-taking and interpreting performance of 13 Belgian spoken-language student interpreters in the first year of their master’s degree in interpreting. The study aimed to explore the effectiveness and influence of (not) noting down links between ideas as per the guidelines in the literature (Jones, 2002; Gillies, 2005; Rozan, 1956) on spoken language interpreting performance. Based on the conclusions of this study, some suggestions are offered as to the teaching of spoken language consecutive interpreting and note-taking