Multi-level Voting Research Articles

Detection of COVID-19 Cases from Chest X-Rays using Deep Learning Feature Extractor and Multilevel Voting Classifier

Purpose: During the current pandemic scientists, researchers, and health professionals across the globe are in search of new technological methods for tackling COVID-19. The magnificent performance reported by machine learning and deep learning methods in the previous epidemic has encouraged researchers to develop systems with these methods to diagnose COVID-19. Methods: In this paper, an ensemble-based multi-level voting model is proposed to diagnose COVID-19 from chest x-rays. The multi-level voting model proposed in this paper is built using four machine learning algorithms namely Random Forest (RF), Logistic Regression (LR), Support Vector Machine (SVM) with a linear kernel, and K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN). These algorithms are trained with features extracted using the ResNet50 deep learning model before merging them to form the voting model. In this work, voting is performed at two levels, at level 1 these four algorithms are grouped into 2 sets consisting of two algorithms each (set 1 — SVM with linear kernel and LR and set 2 — RF and KNN) and intra set hard voting is performed. At level 2 these two sets are merged using hard voting to form the proposed model. Results: The proposed multilevel voting model outperformed all the machine learning algorithms, pre-trained models, and other proposed works with an accuracy of 100% and specificity of 100%. Conclusion: The proposed model helps for the faster diagnosis of COVID-19 across the globe.

Modelling a Behavioral Scoring System for Lending Loans using Twitter

Traditionally, banks follow a risk assessment model in sanctioning loans. Risk assessment is performed by computing a credit score considering certain financial factors. This work proposes a behavioral score that can be computed from social media data. Social media covers almost all aspects of a person’s life. Integrating the credit score with the behavioral score of a person lowers the risk that comes with traditional assessment models. The behavioral score is measured by the profile score, financial attitude, and twit score. A general profile score is computed for the data fetched from Twitter. The twit score of a person is calculated by considering multiple parameters like relevance, usage, and authenticity. Additionally, to strengthen the model, a novel multi-level voting ensemble is implemented with 84% accuracy to scrutinize the financial attitude of the individuals. Pair wise comparison is used to reveal the importance of the various criteria analyzed. The behavioral score is derived by aggregating the three scores accordingly. This research work proposes fusing social media details as an added risk evaluation feature in granting loans.

AUTOMATED ROAD INFORMATION EXTRACTION FROM HIGH RESOLUTION AERIAL LIDAR DATA FOR SMART ROAD APPLICATIONS

Abstract. Automatic extraction of road features from LiDAR data is a fundamental task for different applications, including asset management. The availability of updated and reliable models is even more important in the context of smart roads. One of the main advantages of LiDAR data compared with other sensing instruments is the possibility to directly get 3D information. However, the task of deriving road networks form LiDAR data acquired with Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) may be quite complex due to occlusions, low feature separability and shadowing from contextual objects. Indeed, even if roads elements can be identified in the ALS point cloud, the automated identification of the network starting form them can be involved due to large variability in the size of roads, shapes and presence of connected off-road features such as parking lots. This paper presents a workflow aimed at partially solving the automatic creation of a road network from high-resolution ALS data. The presented method consists of three main steps: (i) labelling of road points; (ii) a multi-level voting scheme; and (iii) the regularization of the extracted road segments. The developed method has been tested using the “Vaihingen”, “Toronto” and “Tobermory” data set provided by the ISPRS.

Automating fake news detection system using multi-level voting model

The issues of online fake news have attained an increasing eminence in the diffusion of shaping news stories online. Misleading or unreliable information in the form of videos, posts, articles, URLs is extensively disseminated through popular social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. As a result, editors and journalists are in need of new tools that can help them to pace up the verification process for the content that has been originated from social media. Motivated by the need for automated detection of fake news, the goal is to find out which classification model identifies phony features accurately using three feature extraction techniques, Term Frequency–Inverse Document Frequency (TF–IDF), Count-Vectorizer (CV) and Hashing-Vectorizer (HV). Also, in this paper, a novel multi-level voting ensemble model is proposed. The proposed system has been tested on three datasets using twelve classifiers. These ML classifiers are combined based on their false prediction ratio. It has been observed that the Passive Aggressive, Logistic Regression and Linear Support Vector Classifier (LinearSVC) individually perform best using TF-IDF, CV and HV feature extraction approaches, respectively, based on their performance metrics, whereas the proposed model outperforms the Passive Aggressive model by 0.8%, Logistic Regression model by 1.3%, LinearSVC model by 0.4% using TF-IDF, CV and HV, respectively. The proposed system can also be used to predict the fake content (textual form) from online social media websites.

한국 지방선거의 다층적 회고적 투표 : 2018년 광역단체장선거를 중심으로

한국 지방선거의 다층적 회고적 투표 : 2018년 광역단체장선거를 중심으로

All aboard? Scottish and Welsh multi-level voting; competence, leadership and blame-attribution

ABSTRACTScotland and Wales went to the polls on the same day in 2016, the former in a post- independence referendum environment and the latter shortly after receiving further devolved powers. Despite this horizontal simultaneity, the results in these elections displayed considerable diversity. Sub-state elections are often classified as second-order and as such are characterized by lower turnouts, anti-government voting and small party support. However regional elections in the United Kingdom sit uncomfortably in this definition. This article focuses on the experience of Scotland and Wales, exploring regional and national factors that help to explain regional electoral outcomes. It examines valence models, multi-level blame attribution, and relative national and regional party leader support. In a second stage, a multinomial logistic regression is undertaken, finding that the relative importance of regional and national factors differs between the two regions.

Optimum placement of gas detectors considering voting strategy with different detection set points

Voting logic or k out of p redundancy is widely used in safety systems to meet two key objectives: enhancing reliability and reducing spurious performance. Even so, in designing gas detector systems especially of flammable gas type, it is a common engineering practice to consider at least two different detection levels in addition to normal voting. Under such circumstances, the presence of gas is confirmed if sensed by two detectors at two different concentrations: one at a low level and another one in the same voting network at a high level. Existing formulations for optimal placement of gas detectors do not consider this type of voting. In this study, first the general form of multi-level voting arrangement (mlv) with arbitrary levels of detection is defined. Then, two extended integer linear programming (ILP) formulations are proposed to address mlv in optimal gas detector placement. The first one called MCLPm maximizes coverage, and the second one called SP-Vm seeks to minimize an expected damage parameter such as detection time against a set of pre-defined leak scenarios. In a simple test case, the proposed formulations are examined, verified and compared with the original (non-extended) formulations. The results confirm the necessity and importance of using the extended formulations when mlv has been applied as the desired type of voting.

Multi-level voting and party competition in vertically simultaneous elections: the case of Ukraine

Vertically simultaneous elections to state-wide and regional legislatures provide us with a naturally occurring experiment in which to examine regionalism and multi-level voting. We examine the 2006 vertically and horizontally simultaneous state-wide and regional elections in Ukraine to determine how the internal dynamics of regionalism within a state account for the dissimilarity of voting behavior across electoral levels. Drawing on the party competition literature, we demonstrate that variations in both supply (parties) and demand (voters) produce considerable dissimilarity between regional and state results, with lower levels of consolidation and greater fractionalization at the regional level. We show that political cleavages operate differently across levels, that regional distinctiveness rather than regional authority better predicts first order-ness in regional elections, and that voters display varying tolerance for polarization at the regional and state level.

Multi-Level Voting: A Stabilising Force or a Push towards Increasing Voter Volatility?

Germany has witnessed a drastic decline in turnout and, at the same time, a clear increase in voter volatility, late deciding and party switching. These changes affected all layers of the federal system to different degrees and with varying speed. While standard explanations refer to processes of modernisation and value change to explain the decline of stable and loyal partisanship, this article focuses on the role of an – until now – neglected aspect: the significance of multi-level voting in both maintaining voter stability and fostering its decline. After all, party loyalty needs to be re-activated and mobilised across individuals' life-cycles. Electoral campaigns are the prime occasion for parties to revive the link with ‘their’ core clientele. When campaigning is frequent, as in federal systems, mobilising takes place almost constantly. This article argues that multi-level voting contributed considerably to the stability which characterised German party politics for decades after World War II. However, since parties increasingly use campaigns to recruit new voter segments at the expense of mobilising core voters, today, multi-level voting has negative effects on stable party attachments and thus contributes to the increase in fluidity and volatility we witness today.

Voters and Voting in Multilevel Systems – An Introduction

This Special Issue, ‘Voters and Voting in Multilevel Systems', is a contribution to a better understanding of the functioning and logics of the present-day German electoral system, but its findings and consequences stretch beyond the German case. After all, Germany is ideally suited for studying multilevel voting and the interdependences and mutual repercussions of multilayer electoral systems. The Special Issue takes the challenges and changes in voting behaviour as a starting point and searches for links and causal relationships between levels. Overall, it has two major goals: first, to examine how (increasing) volatility in voting behaviour and declining participation rates manifest themselves at all layers of the multilevel system, possibly amplifying each other; second, to turn the usual perspective on its head by examining the impact of second-order elections and vote choices on parties' fortunes and electoral outcomes at the national level.

The Principle of Cyclicality of the Second-Order Election Theory for Simultaneous Multi-Level Elections

The principle of cyclicality in the leading theory of multi-level voting – second-order election theory – assumes that simultaneous multi-level voting should be congruent and that regional electoral contests should have no second-order election effects: regional turnout should not decrease, parties in office should not lose support, while opposition, small and new parties should not attract more votes. This article tests the principle of cyclicality of second-order election theory against a set of simultaneous multi-level elections in order to explain why second-order election effects rise and fall.

Wales and the 2010 General Election

Wales is distinctive in British general elections for its higher than average levels of support for the Labour Party. However, following evidence of Labour decline and public opposition after its unprecedented 13 years of office, there were questions over whether perceived Labour one-partyism in Wales would be finally superseded. In practice, although the election resulted in an increased fragmentation of vote share, the Labour Party lost only three seats net and its dominance in the Welsh party system was basically preserved. The implications of the election for politics in the National Assembly for Wales, where a more proportional electoral system and multi-level voting have contributed to lower vote shares for Labour and higher ones for Plaid Cymru, also appeared to favour the Labour Party. Party campaigns in the British-wide parties to a large extent followed leads set by the British-level leadership, although there were specific Welsh dimensions. Plaid Cymru shared a platform with the SNP in seeking to stand up for Wales and Scotland against expected expenditure cuts. Overall, while the Conservative Party enjoyed some renewed success, the election in Wales was primarily notable for the Labour Party holding on to its dominant position in Westminster elections despite very adverse circumstances and an historic drop in vote share.

Electoral participation and communicative voting in Europe

This paper provides an empirical investigation of electoral participation and communicative voting in 14 European countries. We estimate a multi-level voting process where individuals face a participation decision (whether to vote or abstain) and a voting decision (whether to vote strategically for a likely winner party or as communicating for a sure loser party). Our main findings can be summarized as follows. First, individuals who are either independent or uninformed are less likely to turnout. However, being both independent and uninformed does not have any statistically significant effect on electoral participation. Thus, our results question the empirical relevance of the swing voter's curse theory in large elections. Second, the probability of voting as communicating is positively related with the level of education and the degree of dissatisfaction with the political system. Finally, political preferences and institutional features characterizing the functioning of the political system and of the media market have a significant effect both on electoral participation and on the voting decision.

Understanding Post-Devolution Elections in Scotland and Wales in Comparative Perspective

In this article, we explore the electoral dynamics of multi-level political systems for the case of the United Kingdom (Scotland and Wales) through a comparison with multi-level voting behaviour in Germany, Spain and Canada. The analysis suggests that sub-state elections can be `second order' in relation to state-wide elections, but that this `second orderness' is reduced when more powers are decentralized to the sub-state level (and, thus, more is at stake in sub-state elections), and if sub-state identities and parties are stronger. Consequently, elections in Scotland and Wales are unlikely to be or become only `second order' to Westminster elections, and British state-wide parties will continue to face challenges and pressures to adapt their organizations and programmes to the devolution of the British state.

Regional Elections in Multi-Level Systems

This article sets out to find ways of analysing the relationship of regional and statewide electoral processes in multi-level systems. First, we analyse a number of `top down' approaches with the aim of assessing how and when statewide issues are perceived as shaping regional election outcomes. Second, we discuss a `bottom up' approach in which the importance of territorial politics can be measured. Both of these approaches, although not originally developed for use in this particular context, provide at least initial techniques for mapping out the dynamics of multi-level voting. They test for the subordination of regional elections to the electoral rhythms of statewide politics as well as exploring how different patterns of voting behaviour compare from region to region and from election to election. Finally, we move on to apply these two basic models to the cases of Germany, Canada and Spain, illustrating that in contexts which lack deep territorial cleavages, regional and statewide election results are broadly similar. However, in territorially heterogeneous environments, this pattern of subordination of regional elections is broken up by territorially specific influences.

The Prospect of Multi-Level Voting in Post-Peace Accord Northern Ireland

This article reviews the possibility of multi-level voting in Northern Ireland in the wake of the 1998 peace accord. Post-peace accord elections can act as powerful indicators of the fate of a peace. Using Reif and Schmitt’s framework of second-order elections, it finds some evidence of varying electoral behaviour according to the electoral arena. The article also uses original data from a major opinion survey to assess public attitudes towards the suite of governing institutions with powers in or over a devolved Northern Ireland. The evidence of multi-level voting is limited and does not extend to electors abandoning ethnic voting patterns in the new political dispensation. In fact, it is argued that the very nature of the peace process has encouraged a re-entrenchment of exclusive nationalism and unionism.

Small-Group, Multi-Level Democracy: Implications of Austrian Public Choice for Governance Structure.

This paper examines the process of mass democracy as the fundamental cause of transfer seeking and the centralization of governance, using Austrian-school theory and methodology such as decentralized knowledge, disaggregated phenomena, and the structure of capital goods. The alternative of decentralized, small-group gov- ernance reduces the demand for campaign financing and makes more effective use of decentralized knowledge. In addition, when public revenues originate in the local districts and are passed on to higher levels of governance, it provides incentives for revenue sources which do not have an excess burden on production. The governance struc- ture of cellular, bottom-up, multi-level voting, with public revenue flowing up from the lower to the upper levels, provides a contrast for a comparative systems analysis that can yield insight into the transfer seeking endemic in mass democracy.

The Electoral Cycle and Multi-Level Voting in Germany

The aim of this contribution is to analyse whether Land elections may (have) become uncoupled from the federal electoral process, and, if they have, to explore the implications for party competition in Germany. Initially, an overview is presented of the relevant theoretical models that can help unpack the relationship between different electoral arenas. Secondly, how these ideas have been applied to national and sub-national electoral competition in Germany is outlined, before an examination of the 'fit' of the data in both the pre- and post-unification periods. We conclude with reflections on two key features that have regularly surfaced in Gordon Smith's writings: party system change and political stability.

On multilevel voting

In a distributed system mutual exclusion is often used to maintain consistency when restricted operations are performed. Mechanisms guaranteeing mutual exclusions should be both resilient and efficient. Resiliency implies high resource availability in the face of failures, while efficiency implies low overhead incurred by performing restricted operations. In this paper, we propose and study a general paradigm, called multilevel voting, which provides a general framework to assist in the design of resilient and efficient mutual exclusion mechanisms. The proposed method uses multiple level quorum consensus. Unlike another method based on the use of multiple quorum consensus, the proposed model only contains one type of integrity constraints. This has the benefit of being conceptually simple and easy to reason about. The strong resemblance with the traditional quorum consensus makes it easy for the proposed paradigm to embed any technique based on traditional quorum schemes. We show that the proposed model represents the exact class of coteries. This means that not only does it have all the power of coteries, but also all schemes under the model are correct. Thus, should the need arise, we can interchange two schemes freely without using any extra mechanisms to ensure correctness. We study a number of issues that have impact on performance such as the degree of a multilevel scheme and the order of a coterie. We explain how the model can be extended also to model the schemes for the synchronization of read and write of replicated data. We provide algorithms for the design of multilevel schemes in the context of mutual exclusion and that of read and write of replicated data.