The Reaffirmation of a Multiparty System in France

1990 ◽  
Vol 84 (4) ◽  
pp. 1076-1101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph A. Schlesinger ◽  
Mildred Schlesinger

In accord with the office-seeking theory of parties, we explore the impact of the structure of electoral competition on French parties. We speculated that the Fifth Republic's electoral structure—dual-ballot elections in single-member districts—would produce a multiparty system consisting of parties tailored to the two-ballot mode of winning. To test our proposition we devised two measures of winning for the members of the national assembly's partisan groups: the percentage of members who won the absolute majority that was needed to win on the first ballot and the average shift in the electoral margin of the groups' remaining members from the first to the second ballot. The two measures revealed four distinct ways of winning, each of which fostered a prototypical party.

PeerJ ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. e1438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramal Moonesinghe ◽  
Gloria L.A. Beckles

Monitoring national trends in disparities in different diseases could provide measures to evaluate the impact of intervention programs designed to reduce health disparities. In the US, most of the reports that track health disparities provided either relative or absolute disparities or both. However, these two measures of disparities are not only different in scale and magnitude but also the temporal changes in the magnitudes of these measures can occur in opposite directions. The trends for absolute disparity and relative disparity could move in opposite directions when the prevalence of disease in the two populations being compared either increase or decline simultaneously. If the absolute disparity increases but relative disparity declines for consecutive time periods, the absolute disparity increases but relative disparity declines for the combined time periods even with a larger increase in absolute disparity during the combined time periods. Based on random increases or decreases in prevalence of disease for two population groups, there is a higher chance the trends of these two measures could move in opposite directions when the prevalence of disease for the more advantaged group is very small relative to the prevalence of disease for the more disadvantaged group. When prevalence of disease increase or decrease simultaneously for two populations, the increase or decrease in absolute disparity has to be sufficiently large enough to warrant a corresponding increase or decrease in relative disparity. When absolute disparity declines but relative disparity increases, there is some progress in reducing disparities, but the reduction in absolute disparity is not large enough to also reduce relative disparity. When evaluating interventions to reduce health disparities using these two measures, it is important to consider both absolute and relative disparities and consider all the scenarios discussed in this paper to assess the progress towards reducing or eliminating health disparities.


2015 ◽  
Vol 156 (15) ◽  
pp. 592-597
Author(s):  
László Szerafin ◽  
János Jakó ◽  
Ferenc Riskó

Introduction: The low peripheral absolute lymphocyte and high monocyte count have been reported to correlate with poor clinical outcome in various lymphomas and other cancers. However, a few data known about the prognostic value of absolute monocyte count in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. Aim: The aim of the authors was to investigate the impact of absolute monocyte count measured at the time of diagnosis in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia on the time to treatment and overal survival. Method: Between January 1, 2005 and December 31, 2012, 223 patients with newly-diagnosed chronic lymphocytic leukaemia were included. The rate of patients needing treatment, time to treatment, overal survival and causes of mortality based on Rai stages, CD38, ZAP-70 positivity and absolute monocyte count were analyzed. Results: Therapy was necessary in 21.1%, 57.4%, 88.9%, 88.9% and 100% of patients in Rai stage 0, I, II, III an IV, respectively; in 61.9% and 60.8% of patients exhibiting CD38 and ZAP-70 positivity, respectively; and in 76.9%, 21.2% and 66.2% of patients if the absolute monocyte count was <0.25 G/l, between 0.25–0.75 G/l and >0.75 G/l, respectively. The median time to treatment and the median overal survival were 19.5, 65, and 35.5 months; and 41.5, 65, and 49.5 months according to the three groups of monocyte counts. The relative risk of beginning the therapy was 1.62 (p<0.01) in patients with absolute monocyte count <0.25 G/l or >0.75 G/l, as compared to those with 0.25–0.75 G/l, and the risk of overal survival was 2.41 (p<0.01) in patients with absolute monocyte count lower than 0.25 G/l as compared to those with higher than 0.25 G/l. The relative risks remained significant in Rai 0 patients, too. The leading causes of mortality were infections (41.7%) and the chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (58.3%) in patients with low monocyte count, while tumours (25.9–35.3%) and other events (48.1 and11.8%) occurred in patients with medium or high monocyte counts. Conclusions: Patients with low and high monocyte counts had a shorter time to treatment compared to patients who belonged to the intermediate monocyte count group. The low absolute monocyte count was associated with increased mortality caused by infectious complications and chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. The absolute monocyte count may give additional prognostic information in Rai stage 0, too. Orv. Hetil., 2015, 156(15), 592–597.


2021 ◽  
pp. 109634802110160
Author(s):  
Dengjun Zhang ◽  
Jinghua Xie

Tourism seasonality negatively affects hotels’ operational and financial performance and then survival probabilities. Several studies have evaluated the impact of tourism seasonality on hotels’ exit risk. However, the empirical findings are ambiguous, probably due to the overall seasonality and different measures used in these studies. Against this background, this study explores the impact of tourism seasonality on hotel firms’ exit risk, using a proportional hazards model. We controlled for financial ratios, the main factors influencing the exit risk, and used two measures of tourism seasonality by market segment, namely, leisure, business, and conference tourism. The case study is the Norwegian hotel industry. The empirical results suggest that the different seasonal patterns of tourism demand in the market segments mitigate the impact of the overall seasonality on hotels’ exit risk, and that seasonality measures of various tourism segments affect the exit risk in different ways.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Rebar N. Mohammed

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are a rare population of cells that reside mainly in the bone marrow and are capable of generating and fulfilling the entire hematopoietic system upon differentiation. Thirty-six healthy donors, attending the HSCT center to donate their bone marrow, were categorized according to their age into child (0–12 years), adolescence (13–18 years), and adult (19–59 years) groups, and gender into male and female groups. Then, the absolute number of HSCs and mature immune cells in their harvested bone marrow was investigated. Here, we report that the absolute cell number can vary considerably based on the age of the healthy donor, and the number of both HSCs and immune cells declines with advancing age. The gender of the donor (male or female) did not have any impact on the number of the HSCs and immune cells in the bone marrow. In conclusion, since the number of HSCs plays a pivotal role in the clinical outcome of allogeneic HSC transplantations, identifying a younger donor regardless the gender is critical.


Agriculture ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 253
Author(s):  
Mirosław Biczkowski ◽  
Aleksandra Jezierska-Thöle ◽  
Roman Rudnicki

The paper’s main aim is to assess the measures implemented within the Rural Development Program (RDP) 2007–2013 in Poland. This programme is dedicated to the diversification of business activities in rural areas and rural livelihood and, thus, the improvement of the multifunctionality of rural areas. The analysis covered two measures from Axis 3, Improvement of the quality of life in rural areas and diversification of rural economy: M311, diversification into non-agricultural activities; and M312, Establishment and development of micro-enterprise. The study and the discussion are presented from a geographical perspective and, in a broader context, take into account several conditions (natural, urban, agricultural and historical) and the spatial diversity of the allocation of European Union (EU) funds. Models of a policy of multifunctional rural development, implemented after accession to the EU, are presented. The research’s spatial scope covers Poland’s territory on two spatial scales: the system of regions (16 NUTS2 units) and poviats (314 LAU level 1 units). The analysis covers all the projects implemented in Poland under the two measures of Axis 3 of the RDP 2007–2013. A set of conditions was prepared for all LAU1 units, forming the background for assessing the impact of the EU funds on the development of non-agricultural activities. To determine the relationship between the RDP measures and the selected groups of conditions, a synthetic index and a correlation index are used. They are also used to determine the mutual relations between the two analyzed activities in terms of the spatial scales used. Access to the EU funds (RDP) has considerably enlarged the opportunities for accelerating agricultural modernisation and restructuration towards multifunctional development, as well as the opportunities for implementing new development and work methods in the countryside in Poland. The attractiveness of the two studied RDP measures varied across regions. The beneficiaries’ activity depended on the local potential (resources), culture and tradition of the region, and size and potential of the farm. In the areas where agriculture is deeply rooted, beneficiaries were more willing to engage in ventures tapping into the resources available in their farms. Thus, they create additional livelihood of income and workplaces for household members. In turn, the beneficiaries from the areas where farms are smaller and economically weaker often undertake activities related to setting up a new business (outside farming).


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (15) ◽  
pp. 5190
Author(s):  
Cristina Medina-Bailon ◽  
Naveen Kumar ◽  
Rakshita Pritam Singh Dhar ◽  
Ilina Todorova ◽  
Damien Lenoble ◽  
...  

In this work, we present a comprehensive analytical model and results for an absolute pH sensor. Our work aims to address critical scientific issues such as: (1) the impact of the oxide degradation (sensing interface deterioration) on the sensor’s performance and (2) how to achieve a measurement of the absolute ion activity. The methods described here are based on analytical equations which we have derived and implemented in MATLAB code to execute the numerical experiments. The main results of our work show that the depletion width of the sensors is strongly influenced by the pH and the variations of the same depletion width as a function of the pH is significantly smaller for hafnium dioxide in comparison to silicon dioxide. We propose a method to determine the absolute pH using a dual capacitance system, which can be mapped to unequivocally determine the acidity. We compare the impact of degradation in two materials: SiO2 and HfO2, and we illustrate the acidity determination with the functioning of a dual device with SiO2.


2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Mitchener-Nissen

When assessing any security technology which impacts upon privacy, whether this constitutes a new technology or the novel application of existing technologies, we should do so by examining the combined effect of all security interventions currently employed within a society. This contrasts with the prevailing system whereby the impact of a new security technology is predominantly assessed on an individual basis by a subjective balancing of the security benefits of that technology against any reductions in concomitant rights, such as privacy and liberty. I contend that by continuing to focus on the individual effect, as opposed to the combined effects, of security technologies within a society the likelihood of sleep-walking into (or indeed waking-up in) an absolute surveillance society moves from a possible future to the logically inevitable future. This conclusion is based on two underlying assertions. Firstly that assessing a technology often entails a judgement of whether any loss in privacy is legitimised by a justifiable increase in security; however one fundamental difference between these two rights is that privacy is a finite resource with identifiable end-states (i.e. absolute privacy through to the absolute absence of privacy) whereas security does not have two finite end-states (while there exists the absolute absence of security, absolute security is an unobtainable yet desired goal). The second assertion, which relies upon the validity of the first, holds that one consequence of absolute security being unobtainable yet desirable is that new security interventions will continuously be developed, each potentially trading a small measure of privacy for a small rise in security. Examined individually each intervention may constitute a justifiable trade-off. However this approach of combining interventions in the search for ever greater security will ultimately reduce privacy to zero.


2020 ◽  
pp. 145-154
Author(s):  
Robin Harding

The concluding chapter brings together the implications and insights from the four empirical chapters, reconsidering the theoretical claim in the light of this evidence. It also discusses the generalizability of the findings, both for Africa as a whole and for new democracies throughout the world. Finally, it attempts to situate the argument and findings in the context of an ever-changing Africa. In doing so, it considers the impact of urban–rural linkages, and the implications of rapid demographic changes taking place across the continent. In a continent that has been experiencing historically unprecedented rates of urbanization, how should we expect political incentives, and subsequent policies, to evolve? How might pro-rural development affect the nature of urban–rural relations across Africa? How in turn might this influence the nature of electoral competition? And finally, how much reason do we have to be optimistic about democracy in Africa?


Author(s):  
Rolf Steinbuch

To prevent high buildings in endangered zones suffering from seismic attack, TMD are applied successfully. In many applications the dampers are placed along the height of the edifice to reduce the damage during the earthquake. The dimensioning of TMD is a multidimensional optimisation problem with many local maxima. To find the absolute best or a very good design, advanced optimization strategies have to be applied. Bionic optimization proposes different methods to deal with such tasks but requires many repeated studies of the buildings and dampers design. To improve the speed of the analysis, the authors propose a reduced model of the building including the dampers. A series of consecutive generations shows a growing capacity to reduce the impact of an earthquake on the building. The proposals found help to dimension the dampers. A detailed analysis of the building under earthquake loading may yield an efficient design.


2019 ◽  
Vol 224 ◽  
pp. 02012
Author(s):  
Eugenе Sosenushkin ◽  
Oksana Ivanova ◽  
Elena Yanovskaya ◽  
Yuliya Vinogradova

In this paper, we study the dynamic processes in materials reinforced with fibers, that can be represented as composite rods. There has been developed a mathematical model of wave propagation under the impact of a shock pulse in semi-infinite composite rods. It is believed that the considered composite rod consists of two layers formed by simpler rods of different isotropic materials with different mechanical properties. The cross sections of such rods are considered to be constant and identical. When such composite materials are impacted by dynamic loads, a significant part of the energy is dissipated due to the presence of friction forces between the contact surfaces of the rods. In this regard, we study the propagation of waves in an elastic fiber-rod, the layers of which interact according to Coulomb law of dry friction. The case of instantaneous excitation of rods by step pulses is investigated. The blow is applied to a rod made of a harder material. In the absence of slippage, the friction force gets a value not exceeding the absolute value of the limit. In the absence of slippage, the friction force takes a value not exceeding the absolute value of the limit. Let us consider the value of the friction force constant. Normal stresses and velocities satisfy the equations of motion and Hooke’s law. The problem statement results in the solution of inhomogeneous wave equations by the method of characteristics in different domains, which are the lines of discontinuities of the solution. Solutions are found in all constructed domains. On the basis of the analysis of the obtained solution, qualitative conclusions are made and curves are constructed according to the obtained ratios. From the found analytical solution of the problem it is possible to obtain ratios for stresses and strain rates in composite rods and composite materials.


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