scholarly journals Decision-Making at National Level for the Support of Research Infrastructures

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeannette Ridder-Numan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
National Level ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Research Infrastructures ◽  
Special Request ◽  
Support Of Research ◽  
Set Up ◽  
High Level ◽  
Scientific Collections

The presentation will elaborate on the Dutch decision-making process concerning large-scale research infrastructures at national and European levels. The process involves several stakeholders, from scientists, to funders to Ministries. The Permanent Committee for Scientific Infrastructures (http://www.onderzoeksfaciliteiten.nl/permanente-commissie) plays a high-level decision-making and vision role in this effort. The committee is independent and part of NWO, the Netherland's Research Organisation for Scientific Research, on special request of the Minister of Education, Culture and Science. This level of decision making is necessary to participate at the next level within the vision of the European Roadmap for Research Infrastructures. This Roadmap is set up by the European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastrcutures (ESFRI, https://www.esfri.eu) and is a portfolio of Research Infrastructures regarded as crucial to shape the European Landscape of scientific Research Infrastrcutures. DiSCCo (Distributed System of Scientific Collections), led by Naturalis (Leiden) is a recent and good example of such an infrastructure that gained a place in the European research infrastructure environment connecting 115 Museums, Botanical Gardens and collection-holding Universities in 21 European countries.

scholarly journals Leveraging Containers for Reproducible Psychological Research

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Wiebels ◽  
David Moreau
Keyword(s):  
Software Engineering ◽  
Operating Systems ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Worked Example ◽  
Crucial Component ◽  
Set Up

Containers have become increasingly popular in computing and software engineering, and are gaining traction in scientific research. They allow packaging up all code and dependencies to ensure that analyses run reliably across a range of operating systems and software versions. Despite being a crucial component for reproducible science, containerization has yet to become mainstream in psychology. In this tutorial, we describe the logic behind containers, what they are, and the practical problems they can solve. We walk the reader through the implementation of containerization within a research workflow, with examples using Docker and R. Specifically, we describe how to use existing containers, build personalized containers, and share containers alongside publications. We provide a worked example that includes all steps required to set up a container for a research project and can easily be adapted and extended. We conclude with a discussion of the possibilities afforded by the large-scale adoption of containerization, especially in the context of cumulative, open science, toward a more efficient and inclusive research ecosystem.

A National Customer Satisfaction Barometer: The Swedish Experience

1992 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claes Fornell
Keyword(s):  
Customer Satisfaction ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
National Level ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Total Consumption ◽  
Market Structures ◽  
Economic Climate ◽  
Swedish Experience ◽  
High Level

Many individual companies and some industries monitor customer satisfaction on a continual basis, but Sweden is the first country to do so on a national level. The annual Customer Satisfaction Barometer (CSB) measures customer satisfaction in more than 30 industries and for more than 100 corporations. The new index is intended to be complementary to productivity measures. Whereas productivity basically reflects quantity of output, CSB measures quality of output (as experienced by the buyer). The author reports the results of a large-scale Swedish effort to measure quality of the total consumption process as customer satisfaction. The significance of customer satisfaction and its place within the overall strategy of the firm are discussed. An implication from examining the relationship between market share and customer satisfaction by a location model is that satisfaction should be lower in industries where supply is homogeneous and demand heterogeneous. Satisfaction should be higher when the heterogeneity/homogeneity of demand is matched by the supply. Empirical support is found for that proposition in monopolies as well as in competitive market structures. Likewise, industries in general are found to have a high level of customer satisfaction if they are highly dependent on satisfaction for repeat business. The opposite is found for industries in which companies have more captive markets. For Sweden, the 1991 results show a slight increase in CSB, which should have a positive effect on the general economic climate.

scholarly journals Program directors’ reflections on national policy change in medical education: insights on decision-making, accreditation, and the CanMEDS framework

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly Dore ◽  
Bryce James Mack Bogie ◽  
Karen Saperson ◽  
Karen Finlay ◽  
Parveen Wasi
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Medical Education ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Program Directors ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Future Policy ◽  
High Level

Background: Outcomes of national policy change impact all levels of the organizational hierarchy. The medical education literature is sparse on how reflections from program directors (PDs) on past large-scale policy changes can inform future policy initiatives. To fill this gap, we conducted a national survey on PDs’ perceptions of, and reflections on, decision-making in medical education, accreditation procedures, and the CanMEDS framework implementation. Methods: The survey was distributed to former Canadian specialty medicine PDs (N = 684). Descriptive analysis was performed on quantitative data, thematic analysis was performed on qualitative comments, and comparisons between the quantitative and qualitative findings were performed to identify areas of convergence and/or divergence. Results: A total of 265 (38.7%) former PDs participated. Quantitative analysis revealed that 52.8% of respondents did not feel involved in decision-making regarding policy changes, 45.1% of respondents did not feel prepared to assess the CanMEDS Roles, and PDs were divided on the reasonableness of accreditation documentation. Qualitative analysis produced four themes: communication, resources, expectations of outcomes, and buy-in. Nine sub-themes were also identified. A high level of convergence was identified across the content, with only four areas of divergence identified. Conclusions: Our findings have the potential to inform future policy and/or accreditation changes. Without the lens of those charged with overseeing the implementation, policy evaluation and quality improvement will remain uninformed. PDs, therefore, bring unique insights into our understanding of national policy changes, and without the voices of these frontline implementers, the true success of policy change implementation will be hindered.

Who’s in Control? Job Creation Co-Operatives in a Capitalist Economy

1987 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 277-286
Author(s):  
Mary Mellor ◽  
Janet Hannah ◽  
John Stirling
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Local Community ◽  
National Level ◽  
Job Creation ◽  
The People ◽  
Great Pressure ◽  
Set Up ◽  
High Level ◽  
New Generation ◽  
And Control

In Britain a new generation of worker co-operatives have emerged that differ from earlier phases of co-operative development in that they have been formed primarily to create jobs in response to the high level of unemployment. All the major political parties favour co-operative development and co-operative support organisations of various kinds have been set up at local and national level. This paper argues that such ‘job creation’ co-operatives and the organisations that support them have come under great pressure to prioritise job creation as against the formulation of effective and secure co-operative structures. This pressure arises because the policies surrounding co-operative development have not taken account of the severe economic pressures the co-operatives face and the consequent effect upon their ability to sustain the co-operative principles of ownership and control of the business by the people who work in it. In the light of the specific needs and problems of the new generation of worker co-operatives the paper argues that the concepts of co-operative ownership and control need to be reassessed, in particular in relation to membership. The distinction between a co-operative and a collective is also re-evaluated together with the need for co-operative structures to be replicated in other aspects of the local community.

scholarly journals COVID-19: One-month impact of the French lockdown on the epidemic burden

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Roux ◽  
Clément Massonnaud ◽  
Pascal Crépey
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
National Level ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Transmission Model ◽  
Critical Conditions ◽  
Metropolitan Regions ◽  
Hospital Deaths ◽  
Age Structured ◽  
French Hospital ◽  
Set Up

1AbstractOn March 16 2020, French authorities ordered a large scale lockdown to counter the COVID-19 epidemic wave rising in the country, stopping non-essential economic, educational, and entertainment activities, maintaining mainly food retailers and healthcare institutions. One month later, the number of new hospitalizations and ICU admissions had reached a plateau and were beginning a slow descent.We developed a spatialized, deterministic, age-structured, and compartmental SARS-CoV-2 transmission model able to reproduce the pre-lockdown dynamic of the epidemic in each of the 13 French metropolitan regions. Thanks to this model, we estimate, at regional and national levels, the total number of hospitalizations, ICU admissions, hospital beds requirements (hospitalization and ICU), and hospital deaths which may have been prevented by this massive and unprecedented intervention in France.If no control measures had been set up, between March 19 and April 19 2020, our analysis shows that almost 23% of the French population would have been affected by COVID-19 (14.8 million individuals). Hence, the French lockdown prevented 587,730 hospitalizations and 140,320 ICU admissions at the national level. The total number of ICU beds required to treat patients in critical conditions would have been 104,550, far higher than the maximum French ICU capacity. This first month of lockdown also permitted to avoid 61,739 hospital deaths, corresponding to a 83.5% reduction of the total number of predicted deaths.Our analysis shows that in absence of any control measures, the COVID-19 epidemic would have had a critical morbidity and mortality burden in France, overwhelming in a matter of weeks French hospital capacities.

scholarly journals Leveraging Containers for Reproducible Psychological Research

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 251524592110178
Author(s):  
Kristina Wiebels ◽  
David Moreau
Keyword(s):  
Software Engineering ◽  
Operating Systems ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Worked Example ◽  
Crucial Component ◽  
Set Up

Containers have become increasingly popular in computing and software engineering and are gaining traction in scientific research. They allow packaging up all code and dependencies to ensure that analyses run reliably across a range of operating systems and software versions. Despite being a crucial component for reproducible science, containerization has yet to become mainstream in psychology. In this tutorial, we describe the logic behind containers, what they are, and the practical problems they can solve. We walk the reader through the implementation of containerization within a research workflow with examples using Docker and R. Specifically, we describe how to use existing containers, build personalized containers, and share containers alongside publications. We provide a worked example that includes all steps required to set up a container for a research project and can easily be adapted and extended. We conclude with a discussion of the possibilities afforded by the large-scale adoption of containerization, especially in the context of cumulative, open science, toward a more efficient and inclusive research ecosystem.

scholarly journals One week of chronic sleep debt does not affect decision-making processes in a mouse version of the Iowa Gambling Task

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elsa Pittaras ◽  
Sylvie Granon ◽  
Arnaud Rabat
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Iowa Gambling Task ◽  
Compensatory Mechanism ◽  
Gambling Task ◽  
Sleep Debt ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Set Up ◽  
High Level ◽  
Chronic Sleep

SummarySocio-professional pressures push people to sleep less which leads to chronic sleep debt (CSD) for a significant percentage of the population. Although the health consequences of CSD are well known, research shows that high-level cognitive processes in humans are more affected by acute sleep debt (ASD) rather than CSD (Drake et al., 2001). We have previously shown that ASD has deleterious effects on decision-making in mice and that some mice were more sensitive to ASD than others (Pittaras et al., 2018) by using a rodent version of the Iowa Gambling Task (Bechara et al., 1994). In this study, we showed that, as in humans, CSD has fewer effects on decision-making compared to ASD. We hypothesize that this observation was due to the set-up of a compensatory mechanism.

scholarly journals Analysis of the Features of Hunting Grounds in Serbia

2017 ◽  
Vol 66 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 56-61
Author(s):  
Vukan M. Lavadinović ◽  
Zoran Popović ◽  
Dejan Beuković ◽  
Milorad Danilović ◽  
Milutin Đorđević
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sustainable Management ◽  
Wildlife Conservation ◽  
National Level ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Transition Process ◽  
Game Management ◽  
Unique Role ◽  
Financial Condition

Summary Covering almost the entire territory of Serbia, hunting grounds occupy a unique role not only in the country’s hunting practices but also in game management and wildlife conservation. Therefore, it is useful to be acquainted with their characteristics in order to manage game in a sustainable manner. Nevertheless, there has not been a proper study on the condition of hunting grounds in Serbia since the country’s transition process, which reshaped the hunting sector as a whole. The purpose of this research is to identify and analyze the features of hunting grounds in Serbia in order to establish a base for future scientific research and appropriate decision making. The research results were obtained on the basis of the data on 272 hunting grounds in Serbia, collated during the hunting year of 2012/2013 and compared with the last comprehensive hunting analysis at the national level in 2001. The analysis suggests that the regal hunting system is still predominant in Serbia. The quality of hunting grounds has been enhanced to a certain extent, although there are yet some challenges which pose a threat to sustainable management such as the oversized hunting areas, lack of employees and poor financial condition.

Application of European Environmental Law by National Courts

elni Review ◽  
2008 ◽  
pp. 78-80
Author(s):  
Luc Lavrysen
Keyword(s):  
European Commission ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
National Level ◽  
Training Programme ◽  
Member States ◽  
National Courts ◽  
Set Up

In this article, the author describes the situation of National Courts applying European Environmental Law. The article shows that not in all Member States the issue is being addressed as it should be. Therefore, the author strongly supports the initiative taken by the European Commission to set up, in the light of Communication COM(2007)502 of September 2007, a large-scale training programme for members of the judiciary on the national level.

scholarly journals Situational awareness for distributed mobile robot teams under limited communication

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Kenzin ◽  
I. Bychkov ◽  
N. Maksimkin
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Situational Awareness ◽  
Autonomous Mobile Robots ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Basic Understanding ◽  
Agent Interaction ◽  
Cooperative Decision Making ◽  
High Level

A high level of team situational awareness is essential during complex, large-scale missions of autonomous mobile robots. When a situation appears that needs inter-agent interaction for cooperative decision-making, the basic understanding of the current conditions ought to be identical within the group. To achieve this requirement, all emergent information of acute importance must be promptly shared among team members. It is a non-trivial problem for large-sized and distributed robotic teams, especially under hard communication constraints. The problem considered in this paper is to nd an ecient emergency broadcasting strategy for search and survey operations of the robotic groups providing the fastest way for any agent to aware the remaining team in case of any unexpected changes. A number of simple ruled-based heuristics is proposed to treat the problem. The comparison between the suggested approaches is made regarding both the quality of the obtained solutions and the working speed.

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