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By taking two monarchy countries as examples, this paper discusses the differences and similarities of the policy process model and the systems model. The difference has first been discussed. Policies in the United Kingdom can be applied to the policy process model, due to the fact that step-by-step policymaking procedures can be observed during the policymaking process in the United Kingdom. The case shows that policies made by countries with democracy can also be analyzed by using the policy process model. On the contrary, policies in Saudi Arabia can be studied by using the systems model, due to the fact that unclear policymaking procedures can be witnessed in Saudi Arabia. This paper also discusses two similarities between the two models. They both emphasize on “policy cycle”, as well as influenced by different kinds of environment. While social policy is always influenced by political ideology and system, and can be studied by different models, this paper concludes that the policymaking process is, all in all, a cycle and can be influenced by different environmental factors, no matter what political system a country has.

When is a token female’s voice incorporated into the actions of a traditionally male-dominated team, and to what ends? Drawing from the tokenism, gender stereotypes, and minority influence literatu...

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is a unique institution not only in Europe, but in the whole world; it is by far the most effective among all the international human rights courts. Since its foundationing in 1959, it has dealt a huge number of decisions, becoming the most active participant in the international justice. The success of individual appeals, on which the entire Convention system is based, has inevitably led to the involvement of new areas of human rights in the subject of the court’s research, and has extended it to a new range of subjects. The Court’s systematic expansion of the area (borders) of the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the involvement of new areas in it due to the progressive nature of the practice, is a positive quality. The rich and diverse Strasbourg practice has changed the political and legal landscape of Europe. This has led to the ECHR becoming a victim of its own success, in some cases invading the sovereign powers of states and affecting their constitutional identity. Among practitioners and researchers of international justice issues, the voices about excessive activism of the Court started appearing more often. The author of this article studies the factors that contribute to the manifestation of activist positions by judges of the ECHR, identifies forms of activism, and distinguishes them from judicial passivism. The material for the article includes the work of prominent researchers of international justice problems, judges of the ECHR, Russian authors, and the judicial practice of this supranational court. The author uses traditional research methods — general scientific and special, with an emphasis on the comparative legal method. The subject of the study is the author’s scientific concepts that reveal judicial activism through the case-law of the ECHR. The relevance of the work lies in the problem of using the practice of supranational courts in national justice, and the effective application of the developed standards.

Existing research consistently shows that informal workplace support, such as familysupportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB), are more effective at reducing work–family conflict than formal organizational supports. The purpose of this study is to integrate propositions from the stereotype content model and social role theory to understand how family-supportive supervision is related to social evaluations of supervisors (i.e., perceptions of supervisor warmth and competence) and identify boundary conditions (i.e., supervisor gender and employee gender role beliefs) to help researchers and practitioners understand how these relationships affect work–family conflict. We test our hypotheses using two studies, one an experimental vignette study and the other a two-wave survey study of working individuals with family or caregiving responsibilities. Our results suggest that FSSB are importantly related to how employees socially evaluate their supervisors along the dimensions of warmth and competence; supervisor gender moderates the relationship between FSSB and perceived competence (but not warmth); employee gender role beliefs moderates both these relationships (but in a counterintuitive way for supervisor competence); and we find evidence that warmth and competence mediate the effects that FSSB have on work–family conflict. Implications for theory, future research, and practice are discussed.

(1) Background: Hong Kong is experiencing population aging, but there is little research on advance care planning. This research asks for community-dwelling older adults’ views on advance care planning in order to provide a different angle to the results collected from nursing homes and hospitals. (2) Methods: The targeted respondents were people aged 55 or above. A total of 282 questionnaires were collected using the random sampling method. Respondents were asked whether they would make an advance care plan, whether they would prepare for their death, and whether they had received any death education; they were also given eight statements related to treatments and decision making. (3) Results: The study found that only 17% of the respondents would like to use advance care planning, even after it was explained to them. Advance care planning favorers would be more likely to insist on having wills and would be more likely to trust doctors rather than family members. (4) Conclusions: The results also suggested that the medical care and social support for end-of-life patients should be improved. The results also showed the importance of medical professionals as they showed that respondents wanted advice on end-of-life decision-making from medical professionals.

Background Patients with axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) may experience spinal stiffness and pain, leading to reduced physical function and quality of life. Despite the benefits of physical activity (PA) and exercise, previous studies have demonstrated lower levels of PA among patients with axSpA. This study aims to examine the patterns of PA among patients with axSpA compared to the general population in a multi-ethnic Asian country. Methods This was a cross-sectional study conducted between May 2016 and Jan 2017. Consecutive patients with axSpA were recruited at an outpatient rheumatology clinic at Singapore General Hospital, the largest tertiary hospital in Singapore. Controls were based on a previous cross-sectional study. PA was assessed using the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQ). Results Seventy-four patients with axSpA were recruited and compared with 2679 controls. Lower proportion of patients with axSpA met the WHO recommendations for PA (axSpA = 77.0%, controls = 89.7%, p p p = 0.91). Conclusions Proportion of patients with axSpA meeting the WHO recommendations for PA differed significantly from the general population, and level of PA did not differ between patients with active and inactive axSpA disease. Higher levels of sedentary activity were seen in patient with axSpA compared to the general population, highlighting the need for interventions to promote PA among patients with axSpA.

The rules on the competence of international courts determine the nature of the cases they resolve and the conditions for their admission to proceedings. The possibility composition of the court considers each case individually following the principle of jurisdiction to decide the jurisdiction due to the lack of a clear regulatory framework. Each international court of justice, relying on the international law, is solely competent to resolve doubts as to its own jurisdiction. This study aims to identify the approach of courts to solving jurisdictional problems in practice. The material for the study includes the cases of international courts, doctrinal comments, and legal positions of prominent researchers of international justice. The author describes the basic interpretative framework procedure, restraint, activism in the justification, and the lack of personal jurisdiction. Thus, if the international court of justice has no confidence in the existence of competence on the subject of the dispute, it will not take measures to justify it. The brevity of the position on the issue will be due to interpretative restraint. Activism arises when the international court of justice seeks to achieve a procedural result, substantiate the rationality of the result of interpretation or the impossibility of achieving it. Science has not resolved the issue of factors that may affect the limits of interpretation by international courts of their own competence.

This paper seeks to examine why political parties in Hong Kong are fragmented and how the development of political parties in Hong Kong leads to social discord. Political parties started to emerge in Hong Kong in the 1980s. They had a golden opportunity to develop in the 1990s due to political reform, but why are political parties in Hong Kong still small, weak, with poor reputations and weak support? The author points out five factors that lead to the malfunction of political parties in Hong Kong. Although some factors are caused by the political parties themselves, the author argues that they are, all in all, constitutional or institutional factors, as they are long-term restraints directly set by the government since the colonial era. Due to the failure of party development in Hong Kong caused by constitutional and institutional restraints, the author will also discuss how this failure has lead to the political and social discord in the past two decades since the handover and the future.

Recent advances in social hierarchy research highlight that power and status are two prevalent but distinct bases of hierarchy. However, these distinctions have yet to be thoroughly explored in contexts where power and status coexist and can covary. This is, in part, due to the lack of an appropriate measure capable of capturing power and status as distinct constructs. In order to advance research on social hierarchy and bridge the empirical findings from social psychology research to organizational research, this paper outlines the development of a 12-item bipartite measure of perceived power and perceived status. Using seven samples, we develop a psychometrically sound measure and provide evidence of construct validity. Our results not only support the importance of distinguishing between these two prevalent bases of social hierarchy, but also highlight the potential dangers of capturing one base of hierarchy without accounting for the other.

The advent of wearable sensor technologies has the potential to transform organizational research by offering the unprecedented opportunity to collect continuous, objective, highly granular data over extended time periods. Recent evidence has demonstrated the potential utility of Bluetooth-enabled sensors, specifically, in identifying emergent networks via colocation signals in highly controlled contexts with known distances and groups. Although there is proof of concept that wearable Bluetooth sensors may be able to contribute to organizational research in highly controlled contexts, to date there has been no explicit psychometric construct validation effort dedicated to these sensors in field settings. Thus, the two studies described here represent the first attempt to formally evaluate longitudinal Bluetooth data streams generated in field settings, testing their ability to (a) show convergent validity with respect to traditional self-reports of relational data; (b) display discriminant validity with respect to qualitative differences in the nature of alternative relationships (i.e., advice vs. friendship); (c) document predictive validity with respect to performance; (d) decompose variance in network-related measures into meaningful within- and between-unit variability over time; and (e) complement retrospective self-reports of time spent with different groups where there is a "ground truth" criterion. Our results provide insights into the validity of Bluetooth signals with respect to capturing variables traditionally studied in organizational science and highlight how the continuous data collection capabilities made possible by wearable sensors can advance research far beyond that of the static perspectives imposed by traditional data collection strategies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

PurposeThe diversity literature has yet to investigate relationships between diversity and leader–member exchanges (LMX) at multiple levels of analysis. The purpose of this paper is to test a multilevel model of nationality diversity and LMX. In doing so, the authors investigate the role of surface- and deep-level diversity as related to leader–member exchange differentiation (LMXD) and relative LMX (RLMX), and hence to subordinate job performance.Design/methodology/approachThe authors test a multilevel model of diversity and LMX using multisource survey data from subordinates nesting within supervisors. The authors do so in a context where diversity in nationality is pervasive and plays a key role in LMXs, i.e., a multinational organization in Dubai. The authors tested the cross-level moderated model using MPlus.FindingsThe results suggest surface-level similarity is more important to RLMX than deep-level similarity. The relationship between surface-level similarity and RLMX is moderated by workgroup nationality diversity. When workgroups are more diverse, there is a positive relationship between dyadic nationality similarity and RLMX; when workgroups are less diverse, similarity in nationality matters less. Moreover, LMXD at the workgroup level moderates the relationship between RLMX and performance at the individual level.Originality/valueThis study is one of very few to examine both diversity and LMX at multiple levels of analysis. This is the first study to test the workgroup diversity as a cross-level moderator of the relationship between deep-level similarity and LMX. The results challenge the prevailing notion that that deep-level similarity is more strongly related to LMX than surface-level diversity.

Introduction Natural language processing (NLP) is an emerging tool which has the ability to automate data extraction from large volumes of unstructured text. One of the main described uses of NLP in radiology is cohort building for epidemiological studies. This study aims to assess the accuracy of NLP in identifying a group of patients positive for ureteric stones on Computed Tomography - Kidneys, Ureter, Bladder (CT KUB) reports. Methods Retrospective review of all CT KUB reports in a single calendar year. A locally available NLP tool was used to automatically classify the reports based on positivity for ureteric stones. This was validated by manual review and refined to maximize the accuracy of stone detection. Results A total of 1874 CT KUB reports were identified. Manual classification of ureteric stone positivity was 36% compared with 27% using NLP. The accuracy of NLP was 85% with a sensitivity of 66% and specificity of 95%. Incorrect classification was due to misspellings, variable syntax, terminology, pluralization and the inability to exclude clinical request details from the search algorithm. Conclusions Our NLP tool demonstrated high specificity but low sensitivity at identifying CT KUB reports that are positive for ureteric stones. This was attributable to the lack of feature extraction tools tailored for analysing radiology text, incompleteness of the medical lexicon database and heterogeneity of unstructured reports. Improvements in these areas will help improve data extraction accuracy.

At present, Hong Kong does not have a publicly-managed mandatory contributory retirement protection scheme. The Hong Kong Government launched a consultation on the universal pension scheme in 2015. The Government’s plan provoked many controversies and eventually failed. This paper will examine the problem of the welfare ideology and system in Hong Kong from a historical perspective, taking the universal pension scheme as an example. This paper argues that the reason for the failure of the universal pension scheme was that Hong Kong people do not have a complete sense of citizenship and hold a distorted welfare ideology for historical reasons. This paper is one of the first to offer some reflections on the question of poverty and lack of social justice from a historical perspective.

Additional file 1: Supplementary Table 1. Levels of activity of patients with axial spondyloarthritis with age-, gender-matched controls.

Simple Summary The cancer microbiome has been suggested to be closely involved in the immune dysregulation that leads to carcinogenesis. Given that pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PAAD) is one of the most lethal cancers, it is important to identify features of the microbiome that may contribute to more deadly PAAD tumors. In this study, we analyzed PAAD patient RNA-sequencing data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) to correlate abundance of intra-pancreatic microbes to dysregulation of immune and cancer-associated genes and pathways. We discovered that the presence of several bacteria species within PAAD tumors is linked to metastasis and immune suppression. Furthermore, we found that the increased prevalence and poorer prognosis of PAAD in males and smokers are linked to the presence of potentially cancer-promoting or immune-inhibiting microbes. Further study into the roles of these microbes in PAAD is imperative for understanding how a pro-tumor microenvironment may be treated to limit cancer progression. Abstract An intra-pancreatic microbiota was recently discovered in several prominent studies. Since pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PAAD) is one of the most lethal cancers worldwide, and the intratumor microbiome was found to be a significant contributor to carcinogenesis in other cancers, this study aims to characterize the PAAD microbiome and elucidate how it may be associated with PAAD prognosis. We further explored the association between the intra-pancreatic microbiome and smoking and gender, which are both risk factors for PAAD. RNA-sequencing data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were used to infer microbial abundance, which was correlated to clinical variables and to cancer and immune-associated gene expression, to determine how microbes may contribute to cancer progression. We discovered that the presence of several bacteria species within PAAD tumors is linked to metastasis and immune suppression. This is the first large-scale study to report microbiome-immune correlations in human pancreatic cancer samples. Furthermore, we found that the increased prevalence and poorer prognosis of PAAD in males and smokers are linked to the presence of potentially cancer-promoting or immune-inhibiting microbes. Further study into the roles of these microbes in PAAD is imperative for understanding how a pro-tumor microenvironment may be treated to limit cancer progression.

The recent pandemic of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has placed severe stress on healthcare systems worldwide, which is amplified by the critical shortage of COVID-19 tests. In this study, we propose to generate a more accurate diagnosis model of COVID-19 based on patient symptoms and routine test results by applying machine learning to reanalyzing COVID-19 data from 151 published studies. We aimed to investigate correlations between clinical variables, cluster COVID-19 patients into subtypes, and generate a computational classification model for discriminating between COVID −19 patients and influenza patients based on clinical variables alone. We discovered several novel associations between clinical variables, including correlations between being male and having higher levels of serum lymphocytes and neutrophils. We found that COVID-19 patients could be clustered into subtypes based on serum levels of immune cells, gender, and reported symptoms. Finally, we trained an XGBoost model to achieve a sensitivity of 92.5% and a specificity of 97.9% in discriminating COVID-19 patients from influenza patients. We demonstrated that computational methods trained on large clinical datasets could yield ever more accurate COVID-19 diagnostic models to mitigate the impact of lack of testing. We also presented previously unknown COVID-19 clinical variable correlations and clinical subgroups.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the deadliest cancers in the world. Previous studies have identified the importance of alcohol and hepatitis B (HBV) infection on HCC carcinogenesis, indicating synergy in the methods by which these etiologies advance cancer. However, the specific molecular mechanism behind alcohol and HBV-mediated carcinogenesis remains unknown. Because the microbiome is emerging as a potentially important regulator of cancer development, this study aims to classify the effects of HBV and alcohol on the intratumoral liver microbiome. RNA-sequencing data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were used to infer microbial abundance. This abundance was then correlated to clinical variables and to cancer and immune-associated gene expression, in order to determine how microbial abundance may contribute to differing cancer progression between etiologies. We discovered that the liver microbiome is likely oncogenic after exposure to alcohol or HBV, although these etiological factors could decrease the abundance of a few oncogenic microbes, which would lead to a tumor suppressive effect. In HBV-induced tumors, this tumor suppressive effect was inferred based on the downregulation of microbes that induce cancer and stem cell pathways. Alcohol-induced tumors were observed to have distinct microbial profiles from HBV-induced tumors, and different microbes are clinically relevant in each cohort, suggesting that the effects of the liver microbiome may be different in response to different etiological factors. Collectively, our data suggest that HBV and alcohol operate within a normally oncogenic microbiome to promote tumor development, but are also able to downregulate certain oncogenic microbes. Insight into why these microbes are downregulated following exposure to HBV or alcohol, and why the majority of oncogenic microbes are not downregulated, may be critical for understanding whether a pro-tumor liver microbiome could be suppressed or reversed to limit cancer progression.

BackgroundAssociation between diabetes mellitus (DM) and risk of osteoarthritis (OA) can be confounded by body mass index (BMI), a strong risk factor for both conditions. We evaluate the association between DM or hyperglycaemia with OA using systematic review and meta-analysis.MethodsWe searched PubMed and Web of Science databases in English for studies that gave information on the association between DM and OA. Two meta-analysis models were conducted to address: (1) risk of DM comparing subjects with and without OA and (2) risk of OA comparing subjects with and without DM. As far as available, risk estimates that adjusted for BMI were used.Results31 studies with a pooled population size of 295 100 subjects were reviewed. 16 and 15 studies reported positive associations and null/ negative associations between DM and OA. 68.8% of positive studies had adjusted for BMI, compared with 93.3% of null/negative studies. In meta-analysis model 1, there was an increase prevalence of DM in subjects with OA compared with those without (OR 1.56, 95% CI 1.28 to 1.89). In meta-analysis model 2, there was no increased risk of OA (OR 1.14, 95% CI 0.98 to 1.33) in subjects with DM compared with those without, regardless of gender and OA sites. Comparing subjects with DM to those without, an increased risk of OA was noted in cross-sectional studies, but not in case-control and prospective cohort studies.ConclusionsThis meta-analysis does not support DM as an independent risk factor for OA. BMI was probably the most important confounding factor.

At present, the method of passive adsorption, using German technology sorbers, is widely used to search for hydrocarbon deposits in the Polar region. Their efficiency is about 55%. The advantages of using domestic technology "ЭХО с ПКК" in the areal conditions of the Arctic are shown. This is the formation of a digital geochemical database directly during field work. To increase efficiency in the Arctic, methods of passive adsorption require significant refinement.

Biological systems are characterised by a high degree of uncertainty and complexity, which implies that exact mathematical equations to describe biological processes cannot generally be justified. Moreover, models can exhibit sensitivity to the precise formulations of their component functions—a property known as structural sensitivity. Structural sensitivity can be revealed and quantified by considering partially specified models with uncertain functions, but this goes beyond well-established, parameter-based sensitivity analysis, and currently presents a mathematical challenge. Here we build upon previous work in this direction by addressing the crucial question of identifying the processes which act as the major sources of model uncertainty and those which are less influential. To achieve this goal, we introduce two related concepts: (1) the gradient of structural sensitivity, accounting for errors made in specifying unknown functions, and (2) the partial degree of sensitivity with respect to each function, a global measure of the uncertainty due to possible variation of the given function while the others are kept fixed. We propose an iterative framework of experiments and analysis to inform a heuristic reduction of structural sensitivity in a model. To demonstrate the framework introduced, we investigate the sources of structural sensitivity in a tritrophic food chain model.

Mega-sporting events can bring diverse benefits to the hosting areas, such as job creation and image improvement. However, only a handful of studies have explored the antecedents of destination image&mdash, which plays a crucial role in eliciting certain tourist behaviors&mdash, and personal involvement. To fill this gap, this study evaluates the relationships among personal involvement, destination image, place attachment, and behavioral intentions in the context of sporting event tourism to provide destination managers useful information for sustainable sports tourism development. We gathered information from 374 international tourists at the FINA (F&eacute, d&eacute, ration Internationale de Natation&mdash, International Swimming Federation) World Masters Championships Gwangju 2019 in South Korea. We used structural equation modeling was used along with maximum likelihood estimation to examine the predicted relationships. The findings show the positive impacts of (a) personal involvement on destination image, (b) destination image on place attachment, and (c) place attachment on behavioral intentions. Furthermore, (d) place attachment dictated the relationship between destination image and behavioral intentions. The findings confirm the significant role personal involvement plays in the improvement of a destination&rsquo, s image. To ensure sustainable sports tourism, destination managers are advised to pay close attention to research findings on destination image in the development of their plans.

West Nile virus (WNV) is the most common arbovirus infection in the United States. The diagnosis requires consideration of not only a broad spectrum of presenting symptoms, ranging from a mild febrile illness to severe encephalitis and acute flaccid paralysis, but also public health risk factors and seasonality. There is no approved targeted therapy for WNV, so treatment relies on supportive care, management of neurologic sequelae and airway, treatment of other systems including the eye, and aggressive rehabilitation. Here, we describe a series of 3 cases of WNV encountered in September 2018 at one institution. First, we describe a case of WNV encephalitis with worsened dyskinesias and a relatively good recovery. Second, we describe a severe WNV encephalitis with overlying motor neuron involvement with a poor outcome. Finally, we describe a case of a WNV meningitis with significant bilateral chorioretinitis, an underappreciated complication of WNV infections. Through these cases, we review the epidemiology of WNV, risk factors for infection, the neurologic sequalae and long-term outcomes, and the importance of recognizing ocular involvement to prevent ophthalmologic complications.

Despite the burgeoning number of studies that have examined leader–member exchange (LMX) differentiation, definitive conclusions regarding its effects remain scarce. We propose a theoretical framew...

It is demonstrated how superconducting iced particles of the protoplanetary cloud of Saturn are coming to magnetic equator plane and create the stable enough rings disk. There are two steps. First, after appearance of the Saturn magnetic field due to Meissner phenomenon, all particles orbits are moving to the magnetic equator plane. Finally they become distributed as rings and gaps like iron particles around magnet on laboratory table. And they are separated from each other by the magnetic field expelled from them. It takes up to few tens of thousands years with ten meters rings disk thickness. Second, because of quantum locking all particles become to be locked within magnetic well at the magnetic equator plane due to Abrikosov vortex for superconductor. Finally each particle is locked within three-dimensional magnetic well. It works even when particles have small fraction of superconductor. During the rings evolution some contribution to the disk also could come from the collision-generated debris of the current moon, coming meteorites and from the geysers like it happened due to magnetic coupling of Saturn and Enceladus. The rings are relict of the early days of the magnetic field of Saturn system.

The article demonstrates how rings disc of Saturn was created after appearance of the planetary magnetic field from superconducting iced particles of the protoplanetary cloud moving around planet by chaotic orbits. It is based on the fact that Saturn has magnetic field and the temperature of its vicinity is low enough to have superconductivity. Electromagnetic simulation estimates time of rings disc formation with the thickness about few meters from a few thousand years up to few tens of thousands of years. A rings disk has a stable structure located within magnetic equator of Saturn due to quantum locking of the particles by planetary magnetic field. Also may happened contribution to the rings disc from the debris of the moons migrated inward towards Saturn and particles of the frozen water coming from the geyser of the geologically active satellite (as Enceladus contributed to the E-ring). Suggested mechanism of the rings formation works even in case where only a small fraction of the particles poses superconductivity. Presented electromagnetic modeling of the role of superconducting iced particles of the rings disc origin, dynamics and evolution allow us to enrich the classical theories based on gravitational, mechanical, magnetohydrodynamic and plasma interactions.

In this paper, we seek to encourage scholars to consider how reliance on technology-mediated communications can bring both promises and perils to team-based work structures. Specifically, we argue that a team's core characteristics (including skill differentiation, temporal stability, and authority differentiation) will differentially affect the challenges and opportunities presented by the team's reliance on virtual means of communication. First, we will discuss how varying degrees of each core characteristic can affect outcomes when teams rely on virtual communication. We then propose how configurations of the three characteristics and virtuality can enhance understanding in both research and practice. We advance propositions that we hope will serve as a starting point for scholarly discussion about how the literature on virtual teams can leverage the existing theories and knowledge on team structure and interdependencies.