Subsequent Voting Research Articles

Development of an Emergency Department Trigger Tool Using a Systematic Search and Modified Delphi Process.

This study aimed to develop an emergency department (ED) trigger tool to improve the identification of adverse events in the ED and that can be used to direct patient safety and quality improvement. This work describes the first step toward the development of an ED all-cause harm measurement tool by experts in the field. We identified a multidisciplinary group of emergency medicine safety experts from whom we solicited candidate triggers. We then conducted a modified Delphi process consisting of 4 stages as follows: (1) a systematic literature search and review, including an independent oversampling of review for inclusion, (2) solicitation of empiric triggers from participants, (3) a Web-based survey ranking triggers on specific performance constructs, and (4) a final in-person meeting to arrive at consensus triggers for testing. Results of each step were shared with participants between each stage. Among an initial 804 unique articles found using our search criteria, we identified 94 that were suitable for further review. Interrater reliability was high (κ = 0.80). Review of these articles yielded 56 candidate triggers. These were supplemented by 58 participant-submitted triggers yielding a total of 114 candidate triggers that were shared with team members electronically along with their definitions. Team members then voted on each measure via a Web-based survey, ranking triggers on their face validity, utility for quality improvement, and fidelity (sensitivity/specificity). Participants were also provided the ability to flag any trigger about which they had questions or they felt merited further discussion at the in-person meeting. Triggers were ranked by combining the first 2 categories (face validity and utility), and information on fidelity was reviewed for decision making at the in-person meeting. Seven redundant triggers were eliminated. At an in-person meeting including representatives from all facilities, we presented the 50 top-ranked triggers as well as those that were flagged on the survey by 2 or more participants. We reviewed each trigger individually, identifying 41 triggers about which there was a clear agreement for inclusion. Of the seven additional triggers that required subsequent voting via e-mail, 5 were adopted, arriving at a total of 46 consensus-derived triggers. Our modified Delphi process resulted in the identification of 46 final triggers for the detection of adverse events among ED patients. These triggers should be pilot field tested to quantify their individual and collective performance in detecting all-cause harm to ED patients.

The Role of Institutional Investors in Voting: Evidence from the Securities Lending Market

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates voting preferences of institutional investors using the unique setting of the securities lending market. Investors restrict lendable supply and/or recall loaned shares prior to the proxy record date to exercise voting rights. Recall is higher for investors with greater incentives to monitor, for firms with poor performance or weak governance, and for proposals where returns to governance are likely higher. At the subsequent vote, recall is associated with less support for management and more support for shareholder proposals. Our results indicate that institutions value their vote and use the proxy process to affect corporate governance.

Field experiment evidence of substantive, attributional, and behavioral persuasion by members of Congress in online town halls

Do leaders persuade? Social scientists have long studied the relationship between elite behavior and mass opinion. However, there is surprisingly little evidence regarding direct persuasion by leaders. Here we show that political leaders can persuade their constituents directly on three dimensions: substantive attitudes regarding policy issues, attributions regarding the leaders' qualities, and subsequent voting behavior. We ran two randomized controlled field experiments testing the causal effects of directly interacting with a sitting politician. Our experiments consist of 20 online town hall meetings with members of Congress conducted in 2006 and 2008. Study 1 examined 19 small meetings with members of the House of Representatives (average 20 participants per town hall). Study 2 examined a large (175 participants) town hall with a senator. In both experiments we find that participating has significant and substantively important causal effects on all three dimensions of persuasion but no such effects on issues that were not discussed extensively in the sessions. Further, persuasion was not driven solely by changes in copartisans' attitudes; the effects were consistent across groups.

Off the Fence, Onto the Bandwagon? A Large-Scale Survey Experiment on Effect of Real-Life Poll Outcomes on Subsequent Vote Intentions

Despite decades of scholarly inquiry, the debate on the existence of a bandwagon effect in politics remains undecided. This article aims to overcome the limitations of previous experimental and survey research. We test to what extent success in real-life polling outcomes of the previous weeks influences subsequent vote intentions. To this end, we designed a large-scale survey experiment among a diverse cross-section of the Dutch electorate (N = 23,421). We find that simple polling outcomes by themselves do not affect subsequent vote intentions. We do find evidence for a subtle but relevant bandwagon effect: An emphasis on growth in the opinion polls stimulates subsequent support. However, there is no evidence that the bandwagon effect is more apparent among people who were on the fence.

Evidence on the outcome of Say-On-Pay votes: How managers, directors, and shareholders respond

The economic value of the Say-On-Pay (SOP) provision of the Dodd–Frank Act has been a subject of debate. Proponents of this provision suggest these votes benefit shareholders by increasing investor influence over managerial compensation. Opponents of the SOP provision believe compensation contracting is better done by well-informed and unobstructed boards of directors. Our study provides direct evidence on the impact of the shareholder SOP votes by examining responses to the vote. We find that overcompensated managers with low SOP support tend to react by increasing dividends, decreasing leverage and increasing corporate investment. However, we find no evidence that management's response to the vote affects subsequent vote outcomes, nor do we find a subsequent change in firm value. Finally, we find excess compensation increases for managers that were substantially overpaid prior to the SOP vote, regardless of the outcome of the vote. Thus, it does not appear that the SOP legislation has had the intended effect of improving executive contracting.

English

With the movement of Russian troops into the Crimean peninsula, the subsequent vote on secession from Ukraine and joining with Russia, many voices wanted to be heard. The focus of this study is to provide insight as to the views from an interested, but arguably a neutral player in the discussion, the second largest country in the world, but one with the third largest population of those with Ukrainian heritage outside of Ukraine and Russia, Canada. Newspaper articles from the period of the crisis from February and March 2014 were collected and analyzed. The articles were published in three national newspapers and also three newspapers with a significant population of those with Ukrainian heritage. Evidence from this sample of suggests that there was a dominance of negative coverage as to the role of Russia consistent with prior research. The articles reviewed were found to present non-neutral coverage particularly through opinion pieces, which also tended to be both longer and more frequently published than neutral, or alternative articles.

English

With the movement of Russian troops into the Crimean peninsula, and the subsequent vote on secession from Ukraine and joining with Russia, many voices wanted to be heard. The focus of this study is to provide insight as to the views from an interested, but arguably neutral player in the discussion; the second largest country in the world, but one with the third largest population of those with Ukrainian heritage outside of Ukraine and Russia, Canada. Newspaper articles from the period of the crisis from February and March 2014 were collected and analyzed. The articles were published in three national newspapers and also three newspapers with a significant population of those with Ukrainian heritage. Evidence from this sample of suggests that there was a dominance of negative coverage as to the role of Russia consistent with prior research. The articles reviewed were found to present non-neutral coverage particularly through opinion pieces, which also tended to be both longer and more frequently published than neutral, or alternative articles.

OMERACT Endorsement of Measures of Outcome for Studies of Acute Gout

To determine the extent to which participants at the Outcome Measures in Rheumatology (OMERACT) 11 meeting agree that instruments used in clinical trials to measure OMERACT core outcome domains in acute gout fulfill OMERACT filter requirements of truth, discrimination, and feasibility; and where future research efforts need to be directed. Results of a systematic literature review and analysis of individual-level data from recent clinical studies of acute gout were presented to OMERACT participants. The information was discussed in breakout groups, and opinion was defined by subsequent voting in a plenary session. Endorsement was defined as at least 70% of participants voting in agreement with the proposition (where the denominator excluded those participants who did not vote or who voted "don't know"). The following measures were endorsed for use in clinical trials of acute gout: (1) 5-point Likert scale and/or visual analog scale (0 to 100 mm) to measure pain; (2) 4-point Likert scale for joint swelling; (3) 4-point Likert scale for joint tenderness; and (4) 5-point Likert scale for patient global assessment of response to treatment. Measures for the activity limitations domain were not endorsed. Measures of pain, joint swelling, joint tenderness, and patient global assessment in acute gout were endorsed at OMERACT 11. These measures should now be used in clinical trials of acute gout.

Do nationalist parties shape or follow sub‐national identities? A panel analysis on the rise of the nationalist party in the Flemish Region of Belgium, 2006–11

AbstractIn this article, we examine the steep and unprecedented rise of the New Flemish Alliance (N‐VA), a Flemish nationalist party in Belgium that succeeded in gaining almost thirty per cent of the vote in a couple of years. During this period, a panel survey among 3,025 late adolescents and young adults was conducted. Our analyses suggest that support for a sub‐nationalist ideology is far more successful in explaining a subsequent vote for the nationalist party than vice versa. In terms of supply and demand mechanisms, we find that N‐VA has managed to address a preexisting reservoir of Flemish nationalist voters (demand), rather than attributing to a development of a stronger Flemish identity among its followers (supply). We should therefore not overestimate the constructionist power of (sub‐)nationalist political elites for the development of (sub‐)nationalist identities.

Counterfactuals, the National Economy, and Voting Choice

Previous research has shown that counterfactual thinking (“if only…”) is related to event explanation, blame assignment, and future decisions. Using data from a large-scale electoral panel survey (ITANES), we investigated the association between pre-election counterfactual thoughts on the national economy and subsequent voting choice. Results revealed that voters focused counterfactuals on the government and other political or economic actors but also, and more frequently, on unspecified or reified actors. Whereas counterfactuals focused on the government were associated with voting for the challenger, counterfactuals focused on political or economic actors or on reified actors were associated with voting for the incumbent. These associations were even stronger when counterfactuals had a subtractive (“if only X had not…”) rather than an additive (“if only X had…”) structure. The inclusion of the targets of the counterfactuals added significantly to the predictive value of a model of voting choice based on voters’ evaluation of the national economy.

Responsiveness in Rheumatoid Arthritis. A Report from the OMERACT 11 Ultrasound Workshop

To summarize the work performed by the Outcome Measures in Rheumatology (OMERACT) Ultrasound (US) Task Force on the validity of different US measures in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) presented during the OMERACT 11 Workshop. The Task Force is an international group aiming to iteratively improve the role of US in arthritis clinical trials. Recently a major focus of the group has been the assessment of responsiveness of a person-level US synovitis score in RA: the US Global Synovitis Score (US-GLOSS) combines synovial hypertrophy and power Doppler signal in a composite score detected at joint level. Work has also commenced examining assessment of tenosynovitis in RA and the role of US in JIA. The US-GLOSS was tested in a large RA cohort treated with biologic therapy. It showed early signs of improvement in synovitis starting at Day 7 and increasing to Month 6, and demonstrated sensitivity to change of the proposed grading. Subsequent voting questions concerning the application of the US-GLOSS were endorsed by > 80% of OMERACT delegates. A standardized US scoring system for detecting and grading severity of RA tenosynovitis and tendon damage has been developed, and acceptable reliability data were presented from a series of exercises. A preliminary consensus definition of US synovitis in pediatric arthritis has been developed and requires further testing. At OMERACT 11, consensus was achieved on the application of the US-GLOSS for evaluating synovitis in RA; and work continues on development of RA tenosynovitis scales as well as in JIA synovitis.

Contour-driven regression for label inference in atlas-based segmentation.

We present a novel method for inferring tissue labels in atlas-based image segmentation using Gaussian process regression. Atlas-based segmentation results in probabilistic label maps that serve as input to our method. We introduce a contour-driven prior distribution over label maps to incorporate image features of the input scan into the label inference problem. The mean function of the Gaussian process posterior distribution yields the MAP estimate of the label map and is used in the subsequent voting. We demonstrate improved segmentation accuracy when our approach is combined with two different patch-based segmentation techniques. We focus on the segmentation of parotid glands in CT scans of patients with head and neck cancer, which is important for radiation therapy planning.

The Impact of the Dodd-Frank Act on Executive Compensation

Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) on July 21, 2010, which became effective for shareholder meetings held on, or after January 21, 2011. The Dodd-Frank Act requires U.S. public companies to conduct an initial advisory, non-binding vote on executive compensation called say-on-pay and a subsequent vote on the frequency of say-on-pay. This study investigates the voting pattern of the say-on-pay and the say-on-frequency and examines the impact of the Dodd-Frank Act on the amount and structure of executive compensation. The say-on-pay and say-on-frequency patterns of over 1,700 companies from the ExecuComp database are investigated using the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Forms DEF 14A, 8-K, and 10-Q. A further study of S&P 500 companies, from 1992 – 2009, found in the Wharton Research Data Services is used in the regression analysis to forecast executive compensation. Results show that 98% of the sample firms are supported by a majority of shareholders who voted on executive compensation, while 2% of the sample firms failed the say-on-pay. Preliminary results show that 60% of companies initially recommended every three years as the preferred say-on-frequency, while the shareholders voted in favor of every one year (90% of the companies). However, company recommendations for say-on-frequency have grown from 60% in favor of every three years in March 2011 to 63% in favor of every one year in December 2011, suggesting that companies are responding to shareholder pressure. Further results indicate that executive total cash compensation (salary plus bonus) has been decreasing since 2006. Additional analyses, comparing 2010 to 2009 total cash compensation, show that firms reduced total cash compensation in 2010 prior to the advisory vote on executive compensation.

‘Demographic Modernity’ in Ireland: A Cultural Analysis of Citizenship, Migration, and Fertility

AbstractIn June 2004 citizens in Ireland voted on a constitutional referendum which proposed “to change the rules about the constitutional entitlement to citizenship by birth.” Te proposed change and subsequent vote in favor of the referendum generated a variety of commentary and scholarship. While factors of political economy and a racialized discourse regarding immigration are central to understanding contemporary change in Ireland, this article examines the changing demographic and related cultural conditions corresponding with the referendum through three interrelated yet analytically distinguishable strands: a) population change, specifically patterns of migration and fertility; b) changing notions of Irish and European modernity and identity; and c) Ireland's historical experience of colonialism and diaspora. ‘Demographic modernity’ in Ireland is a cultural complex that interprets social demographic factors such as (low) fertility, high life expectancy, timing of first births and of marriage, low infant/child mortality, and variable standards of migration and mobility in relation to political and historical discourses about nation and person.

Political preferences, revealed positions and strategic votes: explaining decision-making in the EU Council

This paper summarizes the state of affairs regarding formal and quantitative studies on decision-making in the Council of the European Union. We compare recent empirical studies in the field and distinguish between work that utilizes actors' ideal preferences, their revealed positions in the bargaining process, and their subsequent voting records in the area of EU legislative politics. We argue that document analysis remains an underemployed tool that could help formal modellers in confronting their theories with quantitative empirical information.

Research needs for new construction using trenchless technologies

This paper presents a considered view of research needs associated with new pipeline construction using trenchless techniques, such as pipe jacking, microtunnelling and horizontal directional drilling. These research needs were compiled by core members of NETTWORK prior to, and then debated at, a UK workshop involving those with specific interests in the topic from academia, industry and other stakeholders. The aims of the workshop were to assess whether the suggested needs were accurately stated, to determine whether there were any omissions and to attach a priority to the research needs. This was achieved by a process of debates and subsequent voting. For convenience, the issues have been categorised under the topic headings of generic issues, machine–ground interaction, pipes and joints, and associated works. In each case the important research studies that have been carried out, or were known to be in progress, have been highlighted so that research needs could be assessed in this context and references have been made to the most important documents arising out of the studies. The areas considered to be most important for research were: whole life costing of trenching and trenchless technology operations; issues associated with connections and laterals; mapping of underground infrastructure; multi-utility tunnels; drilling fluid reuse and disposal; improved modelling of ground movements; development of ‘see ahead’ technology; and the development of economic (remotely interrogated) sensors for pipes and joints. Work in many of these topics has since got underway.

Research needs for on-line pipeline replacement techniques

This paper presents suggested research needs associated with on-line pipeline replacement techniques, such as pipe bursting and pipe splitting. These research needs were compiled prior to, and then debated at, a workshop involving both academia and industry. The aim of the workshop was to assess whether the suggested needs were accurately stated, whether there were additions to make, and most importantly to attach a priority to the research needs. This was achieved by a process of debates and subsequent voting. The areas considered to be most important for research are highlighted in paper. It is concluded that although there has been extensive research into some of the more common types of on-line replacement techniques, for example pipe bursting, there is still a need for further research. The priority research identified from the workshop are in the areas of decision making tools, improved information on safe distances to adjacent utilities and techniques for minimising open excavation when disconnecting and reconnecting laterals.

Stem Cell Research in Brazil: A Difficult Launch

It has been one year since Brazil passed a law enabling scientists to work with human embryonic stem cells and to derive new stem cell lines from human embryos. But several major hurdles have put human embryonic stem cell research on hold.

Validation of stated preferences for public goods: a comparison of contingent valuation survey response and voting behaviour

This study reports the results from an in-person comparison of contingent valuation (CV) survey response and subsequent voting behaviour on comparable propositions to increase public spending for landscape protection. A substantial proportion of CV responses were not consistent with self-reported actual voting decisions, suggesting an upward bias of stated willingness to pay. Item non-response and protest zero bids were more frequently given by those rejecting than those approving the actual proposition. Self-reported actual decisions yielded a more consistent explanatory pattern than did hypothetical choices. The official aggregate voting records show that these results cannot be explained simply by errors in self-reported votes. We conclude that referenda provide a valuable opportunity to test stated preference methods for public goods, particularly public goods with significant passive-use values. However, an important requirement is that the stated choices to be compared with the referendum decisions, unlike in previous studies, come from independent contingent valuation surveys.

Diverging parties: social change, realignment, and party polarization

Party polarization in the House of Representatives has increased in recent decades. Explaining this development has been difficult, given current interpretations of American elections. The dominant framework for interpreting elections has been to see them as candidate-centered, or individualistic. This framework may have seemed appropriate as a way to see elections during the 1970s and 1980s, when identification with parties declined and split-ticket voting increased. With increasing party differences, however, the presumptions that campaigns focus on candidates separate from parties, and that voters are less partisan in their voting, do not provide a satisfactory framework for understanding our current situation. This proposed book explains the emergence of party polarization by focusing on how the constituencies of House districts affect partisan outcomes and the subsequent voting behavior of House members. This proposed analysis is premised on the simple argument that members are elected from districts, and an explanation of polarization must begin with districts. The origins of polarization lie in the realignment of the electoral bases of the parties, and the shifting demographic composition of America. Liberal voting is more likely among members from urban, lower-income, largely non-white districts. Conservative voting is more likely among members from higher-income, largely white districts. Realignment has resulted in Democrats representing urban, lower-income, heavily non-white districts, while Republicans are more likely to come from suburban-rural, more affluent, white districts. Perhaps most important, the percentage of districts with a substantial proportion of non-whites is steadily increasing in the United States. The analysis will focus primarily on changes since the 1960s.