Mass Transference Principle: From Balls to Arbitrary Shapes

The mass transference principle, proved by Beresnevich and Velani in 2006, is a strong result that gives lower bounds for the Hausdorff dimension of limsup sets of balls. We present a version for limsup sets of open sets of arbitrary shape.

Prospects for North Africa in 2020

Subject Prospects for North Africa in 2020. Significance The region is divided between areas of government stability, in Egypt and Morocco, and significant upheaval and turmoil, as in Algeria and Libya. Tunisia is also experiencing change as recent elections produced a strong result for anti-establishment parties, posing governance challenges in 2020.

Recalibrating Our Understanding of Retention

In a study exploring how organizational identification impacted college retention and performance outcomes at a university in the United States, we found the mere act of taking the survey emerged as an unexpectedly strong result. Using propensity score matching, we found that those who took the voluntary survey during the first week of school were 6%, 9%, and 11% more likely to retain by the second, third, and fourth semesters, respectively. Participation in a short survey had notable retention predictive power 18 months later. These results provoke a series of questions on retention much more broadly considered and invite us to recalibrate our understanding of mechanisms for improving retention.

An Iterative, Mixed Usability Approach Applied to the Telekit System from the Danish TeleCare North Trial

Objective. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the usability of the telehealth system, coined Telekit, by using an iterative, mixed usability approach. Materials and Methods. Ten double experts participated in two heuristic evaluations (HE1, HE2), and 11 COPD patients attended two think-aloud tests. The double experts identified usability violations and classified them into Jakob Nielsen’s heuristics. These violations were then translated into measurable values on a scale of 0 to 4 indicating degree of severity. In the think-aloud tests, COPD participants were invited to verbalise their thoughts. Results. The double experts identified 86 usability violations in HE1 and 101 usability violations in HE2. The majority of the violations were rated in the 0–2 range. The findings from the think-aloud tests resulted in 12 themes and associated examples regarding the usability of the Telekit system. The use of the iterative, mixed usability approach produced both quantitative and qualitative results. Conclusion. The iterative, mixed usability approach yields a strong result owing to the high number of problems identified in the tests because the double experts and the COPD participants focus on different aspects of Telekit’s usability. This trial is registered with Clinicaltrials.gov, NCT01984840, November 14, 2013.

Performance management systems for senior civil servants: how strong is the managerial public service bargain?

During the past couple of decades we have witnessed important reforms in the public sector in OECD countries. Various forms of performance management systems have been introduced. This had an impact on the role and position of senior civil servants. The traditional public service bargain (PSB) came under pressure and was replaced by – at least partially – a managerial PSB. This article looks at the performance management systems that have been introduced for senior civil servants in five countries (Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Belgium) and their impact on the managerial PSB. When there is strong result-based control in the different phases of the performance management cycle, we assume a strong managerial PSB. The finding is that the Anglo-Saxon countries have stronger result-based control systems than the European continental countries. Therefore we conclude that in the former countries the managerial PSBs are stronger than in the latter countries. Points for practitioners Performance management systems for senior civil servants show a different degree of result-based control. Following the four steps in a control process (plan, do, check, act) we can divide the performance management cycle into four phases: planning, monitoring, evaluation, and acting. When there is strong result-based control in each stage, we can speak of a strong managerial public service bargain (PSB). When there is moderate or weak result-based control, there is a moderate or weak managerial PSB, respectively. Each country can make its own choices regarding the performance management system for senior civil servants, but one must be aware that this has an impact on political-administrative relations.

A Formal Analysis of the French Temporal Connective alors

This paper presents an analysis of the French adverbial alors (then, at that time, so). Among the linguistic markers that establish a temporal relation between the eventualities introduced by two clauses, we define as \textit{temporal connectives} those that introduce at the same time some sort of discourse relation. We argue that alors can be such a connective. Within the framework of Segmented Discourse Representation Theory, our investigation concerning the discourse information conveyed by sentence initial alors reveals at least three sorts of relations close to the Result relation of SDRT. Alors alone conveys a weak causal relation, which we formalize using Lewis’ counterfactual, and encode in the discourse relation Weak-Result. We distinguish it from Strong-Result, which is inferred when lexical or other contextual information suggests a causal, discursive link. We also show that alors can, when Weak-Result is blocked, suggest an inferential relation, which we express using the weak conditional already present in SDRT.

Does Stability Preclude Contractionary Devaluation?

In this paper we attempt to assess the relevance of correspondence principle in determining the possible effects of currency devaluation on balance of payments and employment. We developed a model in line with Buffie (1986) who derived a very strong result that if the model is locally stable and if labour and imported inputs are gross substitutes then devaluation will certainly improve labour employment and balance of payments at the same time. For the general production function the Buffie model predicts that devaluation cannot contract both employment and balance of payments at the same time since either of them is incompatible with the stability of the model. Buffie results by and large depend upon stability conditions of the model and what we have demonstrated that stability analysis of the model unfortunately is not free of error. In the corrected model we observe that the results derived by Buffie do not hold in general.

Strong result for real zeros of random algebraic polynomials

An estimate is given for the lower bound of real zeros of random algebraic polynomials whose coefficients are non-identically distributed dependent Gaussian random variables. Moreover, our estimated measure of the exceptional set, which is independent of the degree of the polynomials, tends to zero as the degree of the polynomial tends to infinity.