Women's political leadership participation around the world: An institutional analysis

Understanding institutional systems is critical for the advancement of women's participation in leadership in varying contexts. A unique and global analysis of the contextual factors that affect women in political leadership, this paper extends prior research in the field. This is a cross-country study where we ask, “How are societal-level institutional forces related to women's participation in political leadership?” We collected data from 8 secondary sources on 181 countries and conducted linear regression analyses with six institutional influences: the business environment, societal development, the economic environment, physical and technological infrastructure, political freedom, and culture. Results indicate that to increase the political leadership participation of women, we need to evaluate the following: customs and trade regulations, graft, the gender gap in political empowerment, public spending on education, the economic viability of the country, access to power and the internet, political freedom, and cultural variables like performance orientation, collectivism, and power distance.     

Accommodating stochastic departures from percentile invariance in causal models

Summary.  Consider a clinical trial in which participants are randomized to a single-dose treatment or a placebo control and assume that the adherence level is accurately recorded. If the treatment is effective, then good adherers in the treatment group should do better than poor ad- herers because they received more drug; the treatment group data follow a dose–response curve. But, good adherers to the placebo often do better than poor adherers, so the observed adherence–response in the treatment group cannot be completely attributed to the treatment. Efron and Feldman proposed an adjustment to the observed adherence–response in the treatment group by using the adherence–response in the control group. It relies on a percentile invariance assumption under which each participant's adherence percentile within their assigned treatment group does not depend on the assigned group (active drug or placebo). The Efron and Feldman approach is valid under percentile invariance, but not necessarily under departures from it. We propose an analysis based on a generalization of percentile invariance that allows adherence percentiles to be stochastically permuted across treatment groups, using a broad class of stochastic permutation models. We show that approximate maximum likelihood estimates of the underlying dose–response curve perform well when the stochastic permutation process is correctly specified and are quite robust to model misspecification.     

A comparison of random balance and two-stage group screening designs: A case study

In this paper we focus on the problem of supersaturated (fewer runs than factors) screening experiments. We consider two major types of designs which have been proposed in this situ¬ation: random balance and two-stage group screening. We discuss the relative merits and demerits of each strategy. In addition, we compare the performance of these strategies by means of a case study in which 100 factors are screened in 20,42,62, and 84 runs.     

How Ego Depletion Affects Sexual Self-Regulation: Is It More Than Resource Depletion?

Rational thinking and decision making are impacted when in a state of sexual arousal. The inability to self-regulate arousal can be linked to numerous problems, like sexual risk taking, infidelity, and sexual coercion. Studies have shown that most men are able to exert voluntary control over their sexual excitation with various levels of success. Both situational and dispositional factors can influence self-regulation achievement. The goal of this research was to investigate how ego depletion, a state of low self-control capacity, interacts with personality traits—propensities for sexual excitation and inhibition—and cognitive absorption, to cause sexual self-regulation failure. The sexual responses of 36 heterosexual males were assessed using penile plethysmography. They were asked to control their sexual arousal in two conditions, with and without ego depletion. Results suggest that ego depletion has opposite effects based on the trait sexual inhibition, as individuals moderately inhibited showed an increase in performance while highly inhibited ones showed a decrease. These results challenge the limited resource model of self-regulation and point to the importance of considering how people adapt to acute and high challenging conditions.     

Biomarkers in drug development: friend or foe? A personal reflection gained working within oncology

Hopes and expectations for the use and utility of new, emerging biomarkers in drug development have probably never been higher, especially in oncology. Biomarkers are exalted as vital patient selection tools in an effort to target those most likely to benefit from a new drug, and so to reduce development costs, lessen risk and expedite developments times. It is further hoped that biomarkers can be used as surrogate endpoints for clinical outcomes, to demonstrate effectiveness and, ultimately, to support drug approval. However, I perceive that all is not straightforward, and, particularly in terms of the promise of accelerated drug development, biomarker strategies may not in all cases deliver the advances and advantages hoped for.