The politics of policy design

Determining where politics sits in scholarship on policy design might potentially start from first principles with three ontological questions: What is policy? What is design? What is politics? It should then be self-evident that given we are far from convincingly clear answers to any of these questions individually, answering them in combination presents a tricky task. In what follows, I try to pull apart how politics has been conceived in regard to policy design. I have also chosen to follow a conceptual approach because, in an important sense, policy design pertains to general questions about politics and policy in all their aspects (Simon, 1969; Peters, 2018). Therefore, the significance of policy design research is important beyond this one area of inquiry. There are three sections. In the first, I tease out six different ways in which politics has been conceptualized in policy design. Some of these approaches could easily be situated in more than one category, so I have not attempted to render them mutually exclusive. My aim is to identify the political dimensions of the approaches to encourage further concep- tual reflection. Section 2 develops a heuristic for policy design, depicted in a two-vector figure that maps the field of scholarship along policy and politics dimensions, while also distinguish- ing orientations towards scholars from those aimed at practitioners. The final section considers potential routes for cross-fertilization between perspectives

Jeremy Corbyn’s rhetorical dilemma: left-wing populism or mainstream convention?

Jeremy Corbyn has recently been described as a “demagogue”; but his appeal is derived from his character rather than from rhetorical strategies, explain Judi Atkins and Nick Turnbull. Here, they discuss the rhetoric of distance deployed by his critics, and the inevitable dilemma Corbyn will face if he is to appeal to an audience beyond Labour grassroot members

Are political statecraft and populism compatible? Lessons from Corbyn and Trump

Although Jeremy Corbyn and Donald Trump share no common ideological ground, as political strategists they both reject the political establishment and the rules of traditional statesmanship. Kingsley Purdam, Dave Richards, and Nick Turnbull draw on Jim Bulpitt’s statecraft theory to argue that, in the long-run, the imperative for sound statecraft will win out over temporary populism

U of M SolarCar Chassis Manufacturing Optimization

ME450 Capstone Design and Manufacturing Experience: Winter 2015The University of Michigan Solar Car is designing a solar-powered vehicle that will be racing at speeds of over 100kph in Australia for the 2015 World Solar Challenge. In order to keep the driver safe and support the suspension loads at these speeds, the team designs its cars around a central, structural chassis box. This chassis is currently made of a number of smaller components produced of carbon fiber and other materials which are then bonded together to form a structural single piece monocoque chassis. The existing method of manufacturing the various components involves creating female negative fiberglass molds from male positive polyurethane molds. Composite plies are hand-laid into the molds, cured to make parts, and then trimmed by hand. All of the components are then attached using a team standard bonding procedure. The goal of this project is to identify or develop a method of manufacturing and assembling the chassis system to decrease manufacturing time from the current 8 weeks down to 3 weeks. Potential items for the project to investigate include, but are not limited to: mold design and manufacturing methods; chassis designs; and bonding procedure and materials selection. The final deliverable will include producing a proof of concept of small scale solar vehicle using whichever manufacturing method is chosen.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111317/1/20_Report.pd

Applying Deep Learning To Airbnb Search

The application to search ranking is one of the biggest machine learning success stories at Airbnb. Much of the initial gains were driven by a gradient boosted decision tree model. The gains, however, plateaued over time. This paper discusses the work done in applying neural networks in an attempt to break out of that plateau. We present our perspective not with the intention of pushing the frontier of new modeling techniques. Instead, ours is a story of the elements we found useful in applying neural networks to a real life product. Deep learning was steep learning for us. To other teams embarking on similar journeys, we hope an account of our struggles and triumphs will provide some useful pointers. Bon voyage!Comment: 8 page

Habitability of exoplanetary systems with planets observed in transit

(Shortened) We have used the measured properties of the stars in the 79 exoplanetary systems with one or more planets that have been observed in transit, to estimate each system's present habitability. The measured stellar properties have been used to determine the present location of the classical habitable zone (HZ). To establish habitability we use the estimated distances from the giant planet(s) within which an Earth-like planet would be inside the gravitational reach of the giant. Of the 79 transiting systems known in April 2010, only 2 do not offer safe havens to Earth-like planets in the HZ, and thus could not support life today. We have also estimated whether habitability is possible for 1.7 Gyr into the past i.e. 0.7 Gyr for a heavy bombardment, plus 1.0 Gyr for life to emerge and thus be present today. We find that, for the best estimate of each stellar age, an additional 28 systems do not offer such sustained habitability. If we reduce 1.7 Gyr to 1.0 Gyr this number falls to 22. However, if giant planets orbiting closer to the star than the inner boundary of the HZ, have got there by migration through the HZ, and if this ruled out the subsequent formation of Earth-like planets, then, of course, none of the presently known transiting exoplanetary systems offers habitability. Fortunately, this bleak conclusion could well be wrong. As well as obtaining results on the 79 transiting systems, this paper demonstrates a method for determining the habitability of the cornucopia of such systems that will surely be discovered over the next few years.Comment: 20 pages, 2 Figures, 4 Tables. Accepted for publication by MNRA

A (cautionary) tale of two texts

In this presentation, we reflect on our experiences working on two contrasting manuscripts in an institutional environment where TEI has little uptake. In particular, we explore some of the challenges and tradeoffs we encountered creating digital editions with only limited institutional support for sustainable Digital Humanities research software infrastructure and training. The first manuscript we worked with is a handwritten German text (BL) of some 100,000 words, to which we added a transcript, notes, facsimiles, and a translation. We used the TEI to encode people, places, bibliographical references, and fictional characters. This was published online using TEI Publisher Web Components and required the team (DR, RT) to create a virtual machine, build a Django interface, provision a IIIF server, provision storage for images, and maintain the site over time, all of which incurs significant technical debt and requires specialised skills. The second manuscript (NT) comprises 8,000 words of ethnographic notes from Vanuatu in 1914. An HTML version built by NT presents the text and images of the manuscript originals, sometimes up to eleven different page images corresponding to the same text, with decisions required to arrive at a consensus document. It is housed on a site controlled by NT, and is picked up by the Internet Archive. It requires no maintenance and has no dependencies, and NT was able to build the site himself. How can we scope projects, understand the workload implications, and manage the expectations of academics who become excited after seeing completed TEI projects and want to apply the technology in their work? What kind of ongoing support is required to keep a site like this going? While some institutions have TEI support services that can guarantee ongoing access to encoded texts, what is the best strategy for an academic who does not have access to local TEI support services that can guarantee ongoing access to encoded texts

Reconnaissance Basement Geology and Tectonics of South Zealandia

We report new U‐Pb zircon ages, geochemical and isotopic data for Mesozoic igneous rocks, and new seismic interpretations of mostly submerged South Zealandia (1.5 Mkm2). We use these data, along with existing geological and geophysical data sets, to refine the extent and nature of geological units. Our new 1:25 M geological map of South Zealandia provides a regional framework to investigate the rifting and breakup that formed Zealandia, Earth's most submerged continent. Samples of prerift (pre‐100 Ma) plutonic rocks can be matched with on‐land New Zealand igneous suites and indicate an east‐west strike for the subduction‐related 260 to 105‐Ma Median Batholith across the Campbell Plateau. The plutonic chronology of formerly contiguous plutonic rocks in West Antarctica reveals similar pulses and lulls to the Median Batholith. Contrary to previous interpretations, the Median Batholith does not coincide with the 1,600‐km‐long Campbell Magnetic Anomaly System. Instead we interpret the continental magnetic anomalies to represent a mainly mafic igneous unit, whose shape and extent is controlled by synrift structures related to Gondwana breakup. Correlatives of some of these unsampled igneous rocks may be exposed as circa 85 Ma alkalic volcanic rocks on the Chatham Islands. Extension directions varied by up to 65° from 100 to 80 Ma, and we suggest this allowed this large area to thin considerably before final rupture to form new oceanic crust. Synrift (90–80 Ma) structures cut the oroclinal bend in southern South Island and support a pre‐early Late Cretaceous age of orocline formation.The work was supported by Core Research Funding to GNS Science by the New Zealand Government Ministry of Business, Employment and Innovation

Employing the policy capacity framework for health system strengthening

The policy capacity framework offers relevant analytical ideas that can be mobilized for health system strengthening. However, the employment of this framework in the health field constitutes a relevant interdisciplinary gap in knowledge. This themed issue explores the relationships between the policy capacity framework and health system strengthening, in a multidimensional and interdisciplinary way, in high-income and low–middle-income countries. This introduction unpacks the dynamic interrelationships between the policy capacity framework and health system strengthening, bringing together common and distinct elements from both fields and summarizing possible relationships between them. The analysis shows that both fields together can increase our knowledge on health policies and system’s critical themes and reforms. This challenge could be followed by exploring the convergences between them, as far as concepts/themes (types of capacities and other themes) and levels of analysis are concerned. Although in varied ways, papers in this issue (based on European countries, China, Canada, New Zealand, India, Australia, and Brazil) advance the use of the policy capacity framework for health policy or system strengthening. They give two main interdisciplinary contributions. Critical capacities can be incorporated into the policy capacity framework for the analysis of system strengthening—capacity to adapt, contexts of mixed and complex systems, dynamic view of policy capacity, and policy capacity as a relational power. Policy capacity is contextually interpreted (relative to the problem frame) and dynamic and adaptive (processual and relational), in relation to the properties of a health system, particularly with regard to the existing and developing mixed and complex systems

Feasibility cluster randomised controlled trial of a within-consultation intervention to reduce antibiotic prescribing for children presenting to primary care with acute respiratory tract infection and cough

Objective To investigate recruitment and retention, data collection methods and the acceptability of a ‘within-consultation’ complex intervention designed to reduce antibiotic prescribing. Design Primary care feasibility cluster randomised controlled trial. Setting 32 general practices in South West England recruiting children from October 2014 to April 2015. Participants Children (aged 3 months to <12 years) with acute cough and respiratory tract infection (RTI). Intervention A web-based clinician-focussed clinical rule to predict risk of future hospitalisation and a printed leaflet with individualised child health information for carers, safety-netting advice and a treatment decision record. Controls Usual practice, with clinicians recording data on symptoms, signs and treatment decisions. Results Of 542 children invited, 501 (92.4%) consented to participate, a month ahead of schedule. Antibiotic prescribing data were collected for all children, follow-up data for 495 (98.8%) and the National Health Service resource use data for 494 (98.6%). The overall antibiotic prescribing rates for children’s RTIs were 25% and 15.8% (p=0.018) in intervention and control groups, respectively. We found evidence of postrandomisation differential recruitment: the number of children recruited to the intervention arm was higher (292 vs 209); over half were recruited by prescribing nurses compared with less than a third in the control arm; children in the intervention arm were younger (median age 2 vs 3 years controls, p=0.03) and appeared to be more unwell than those in the control arm with higher respiratory rates (p<0.0001), wheeze prevalence (p=0.007) and global illness severity scores assessed by carers (p=0.045) and clinicians (p=0.01). Interviews with clinicians confirmed preferential recruitment of less unwell children to the trial, more so in the control arm. Conclusion Differential recruitment may explain the paradoxical antibiotic prescribing rates. Future cluster level studies should consider designs which remove the need for individual consent postrandomisation and embed the intervention within electronic primary care records