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This article analyzes the use of crowdsourcing to promote corporate sustainability by assessing compliance with supply chain disclosure laws. It draws on a case study of WikiRate.org as a novel example of crowdsourcing compliance with respect to the UK Modern Slavery Act and U.S. conflict minerals legislation (section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act). WikiRate is an open research platform whose mission is to crowdsource better companies by motivating corporations to be transparent about their environmental, social, and governance performance. In particular, WikiRate's projects on modern slavery and conflict minerals harness the power of citizens to evaluate the quality of corporate disclosures produced in accordance with these laws. Following an analysis of its projects on modern slavery and conflict minerals, I evaluate the challenges of using crowdsourcing to assess legal compliance, including the potential manipulation of data and the difficulty of relying on non-expert citizens to assess complex information in corporate disclosures. I argue that one must identify the appropriate "crowd" that would be most capable of assessing compliance with a given law. While crowdsourcing platforms such as WikiRate invite a broad range of stakeholders to assess compliance, the reality is that only a limited set of individuals may be able to meaningfully participate given the complexity of supply chain disclosures. Thus, "expertsourcing" may be a more appropriate tool for assessing compliance with certain laws as it limits participation to citizens with specialized expertise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the meaning and context of crowdsourcing at the municipal scale. In order to legitimately govern, local governments seek feedback and engagement from actors and bodies beyond the state. At the same time, crowdsourcing efforts are increasingly being adopted by entities – public and private – to digitally transform local services and processes. But how do we know what the "the right to the city" (RTTC) means when it comes to meaningful and participatory decision-making? And how do we know if participatory efforts called crowdsourcing—a practice articulated in a 2006 Wired article in the context of the tech sector—when policy ideas are sought at the municipal scale? Grounded in the ideals of Henri Lefebvre's RTTC, the article brings together typologies of public participation to advance a conceptualization of 'crowdsourcing' specific to local governance. Applying this approach to a smart city initiative in Toronto, Canada, I argue that for crowdsourcing to be taken seriously as a means of inclusive and participatory decision-making that seeks to advance the RTTC, it must have connection to governance mechanisms that aim to integrate public perspectives into policy decisions. Where crowdsourcing is disconnected to decision-making processes, it is simply lip service, not meaningful participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patients with ulcerative colitis are at increased risk for colorectal cancer, especially at younger ages. Our aim was to determine, in our patient cohort, the clinicopathological features, incidence, and prognosis of ulcerative colitis-associated colorectal cancer. A single-center, population-based study including all 1241 patients with ulcerative colitis who underwent surgery in Helsinki University Hospital, 1991–2018. All data were from medical records, collected retrospectively. In total, 71 patients with ulcerative colitis-associated cancer were operated on in Helsinki University Hospital during 1991–2018; 108 patients undergoing surgery during 2002–2018 showed dysplasia in the surgical specimen. Cancer was diagnosed preoperatively in 47 patients (66.2%). Ten patients (14.1%) had synchronous colorectal cancer, and 24 (33.8%) had synchronous dysplasia. The incidence of colorectal cancer has not changed during the study period (p =.113). Overall survival was 71.8%, and the 5-year colorectal cancer-specific survival was 81.5%. The incidence of ulcerative colitis-associated colorectal cancer remained constant in our study population over three decades. The prognosis of ulcerative colitis-associated colorectal cancer and the prognosis of sporadic colorectal cancer were comparable. One-third of the cancers were not diagnosed in preoperative colonoscopy, and the indication for surgery in such cases was dysplasia. We therefore do not recommend the endoscopic management of ulcerative colitis-associated dysplasia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In traditional sectors, the intervention of private parties in the regulatory system tends to be justified by their enhanced expertise, government cuts or efficiency gains. In the sharing economy (e.g., home-sharing services offered by Airbnb), quality control and regulatory tasks (e.g., inspections) are to, a great extent, informally delegated to online platforms and peer-to-peer communities that rate and review performance. These communities consist of users that do not have more than their personal experience and the guidance of online platforms to underpin their assessments. Existing literature has extensively criticized the reliability of these online reputational mechanisms, but it has overlooked other far-reaching effects of outsourcing regulatory tasks to private parties. This Article offers a more complete analysis of the regulatory value of online reputation. I argue that reputational mechanisms have the potential of creating democratic spaces where users can provide unique, regular, and first-hand insights that would otherwise be disregarded in a traditional regulatory system. Nevertheless, in their current form, these mechanisms still offer inadequate protection to the public values that typically underlie the regulation of certain services. This Article explains this problem by comparing the protection of public values in the sharing economy to that of traditional regulated sectors. This Article contributes to the literature by reflecting on whether the sharing economy is inviting us to rethink the broader involvement of citizens in the protection of public values and the challenges thereof. It suggests a framework to improve online reputational mechanisms and a better dialogue between traditional regulation and online reputation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the drivers of community structure is an important topic in ecology. We examined whether different species trait groups of stream diatoms (ecological guilds and specialization groups) show divergent responses to spatial and environmental factors in a subarctic drainage basin. We used local- and catchment-scale environmental and spatial variables in redundancy analysis and variation partitioning to examine community structuring. Local and catchment conditions and spatial variables affected diatom community structure with different relative importance. Local-scale environmental variables explained most of the variation in the low-profile and motile guilds, whereas local and spatial variables explained the same amount of the variation in the high-profile guild. The variations in the planktic guild and the specialist species were best explained by spatial variables, and catchment variables explained most variation only in generalist species. Our study showed that diatom communities in subarctic streams are a result of both environmental filtering and spatial processes. Our findings also suggested that dividing whole community into different groups by species traits can increase understanding of metacommunity organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the present study was to investigate how levels of suicidal ideation changed during treatment in an early intervention service. One hundred and thirty adolescents from an early intervention and detection team in southern Finland were assessed before and after treatment. The proportion of participants endorsing suicidal ideation declined significantly between baseline and follow up, and this was unrelated to medication. Results suggest that the early intervention service may be beneficial in reducing suicidal feelings in young people at risk of psychosis. However, the lack of a control group means that caution should be taken in linking the decline to the treatment itself. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]