The role of litigation in human research accountability

This essay examines and analyzes the recent and dramatic series of personal injury lawsuits instituted against those individuals and institutions that conduct and monitor human research. It discusses the social engineering functions of tort litigation, outlines the legal elements and viability of lawsuits against those who conduct and monitor human research, and evaluates and predicts what role tort litigation will play in fulfilling the goals of accountability in the context of human research and human research regulation. In general, tort law engenders two forms of accountability: retrospective and prospective. Retrospective accountability is backward looking, focusing on harms that have already occurred, their culprits, and the reimbursement of individuals for their injuries. Prospective accountability is forward looking in that it encourages actors and institutions to fulfill responsibilities toward individuals in order that harm does not occur, or at least that the risk of harm is decreased. This article argues that research litigation is not, and will probably never become, an effective means of ensuring retrospective accountability in regard to research injuries and ethical violations. Paradoxically though, the current wave of research litigation may serve an important and even key role in encouraging and ensuring prospective accountability.     

Vascular plants along an urban-rural gradient in the city of Tampere,Finland

The aim of this study was to analyse the spatial distribution of vascular plants along a 21-kilometre rural–urban–rural transect in the city of Tampere, Finland. The study emphasised the distribution of native and non-native species, both in absolute numbers and proportionally. The observed differences are explained by the share of forest land, the number of detached houses, distance from the city centre, and human population. Non-natives showed the highest values in suburban areas. Still, the difference in number of non-natives between suburban and central areas was quite small. In the city of Tampere, there are not continuous large areas devoid of vegetation. The number of native species remained high until the urban core and natives dominated in the rural-type areas of the city. However, there was not a great difference in the number of native species between rural and suburban areas. In the suburban areas, the detached houses and block-of-flats have little effect on the general vegetation. Proportionally, the share of natives decreases in line with the urban traits of the city. Urbanisation therefore affects native species in Finland. Overall, the characteristic features of a Finnish city, such as dispersed urban structure, small population, late urbanisation, abundant natural vegetation (forest) and the qualities of Finnish forests, guarantee the continuing diversity of urban vascular plants.     

Implementation without rationality assumptions

Hurwicz (Social Choice and public decision making. Essays in honor of Kenneth J. Arrow, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986) was the first to study an approach to implementation theory based on choice functions instead of preference relations. We argue that the solution concept used by him, the generalized Nash equilibrium, is not really compatible with the idea that individual behavior is describable by a choice function. A new solution concept that better fits the choice function framework is then introduced. Using this, we investigate what behavioral assumptions are needed for the full characterizations of Nash implementable social choice correspondences to still hold. We will show that a condition known as Property α is central.     

Can service innovations be procured? An analysis of impacts and challenges in the procurement of innovation in social services

This paper addresses the challenges that arise when service innovations are being promoted through public procurement. The academic and policy debate on public procurement of innovation has recently been very vivid, but it has mostly focused on procurement of technologies and tangible goods while considerably less attention has been paid to public procurement of innovation in services. By drawing on conceptual tools from the literature on service innovation and public procurement of innovation, the paper examines an empirical case of procurement of social services for substance abusers carried out by the city of Helsinki, Finland. In particular, the article analyzes whether the characteristics of services and service innovation are compatible with processes and requirements of public procurement. The article shows that service innovations can be procured, but the features of services and service innovation such as intangibility, interactivity, and difficulty to measure the impacts of new services affect the procurement process and set particular requirements for it.     

A method of choosing multiway partitions for classification and decision trees

A method is given of choosing k-way partitions (where 2 ≤ k ≤ (number of categories of predictor variable)) in classification or decision tree analyses. The method, like that proposed by Kass, chooses the best partition on the basis of statistical significanceand uses the Bonferroni inequality to calculate the significance. Unlike Kass's algorithm, the algorithm does not favour simple partitions (low values of k) nor does it discriminate against free-type (no restriction on order of values) predictor variables with many categories. A method of adjusting the significance for the number of predictor variables and of using multiple comparisons to put an upper bound on the significance is given. Monte Carlo tests show that the algorithm gives slightly conservative tests of significance for both small and large samples and does not favour one type of predictor variable over another. The algorithm is incoroporated in a PC software program, Knowledgeseeker,which is briefly described.     

The Role of Litigation in Human Research Accountability

This essay examines and analyzes the recent and dramatic series of personal injury lawsuits instituted against those individuals and institutions that conduct and monitor human research. It discusses the social engineering functions of tort litigation, outlines the legal elements and viability of lawsuits against those who conduct and monitor human research, and evaluates and predicts what role tort litigation will play in fulfilling the goals of accountability in the context of human research and human research regulation. In general, tort law engenders two forms of accountability: retrospective and prospective. Retrospective accountability is backward looking, focusing on harms that have already occurred, their culprits, and the reimbursement of individuals for their injuries. Prospective accountability is forward looking in that it encourages actors and institutions to fulfill responsibilities toward individuals in order that harm does not occur, or at least that the risk of harm is decreased. This article argues that research litigation is not, and will probably never become, an effective means of ensuring retrospective accountability in regard to research injuries and ethical violations. Paradoxically though, the current wave of research litigation may serve an important and even key role in encouraging and ensuring prospective accountability.     

Social innovation: Buzz word or enduring term?

The term ‘social innovation’ has come into common parlance in recent years. Some analysts consider social innovation no more than a buzz word or passing fad that is too vague to be usefully applied to academic scholarship. Some social scientists, however, see significant value in the concept of social innovation because it identifies a critical type of innovation. In this paper, we suggest one possible definition of social innovation and show that when its empirical meaning is distilled, the term is of great importance. We distinguish social innovation from business innovation, and identify a subset of social innovations that requires government support.     

‘Between heaven and hell’: Subjective well‐being of asylum seekers

Nearly 1.4 million asylum seekers arrived in Europe in 2015. With an unprecedented 822% increase in the number of asylum applicants, Finland experienced the largest increase in applicants than any other European country that year. In this study, we investigated asylum seekers’ experienced subjective well‐being (ExSWB) construct in comparison with their evaluated subjective well‐being (EvSWB) construct. A mixed methods approach with convergent design was adopted for the study, which combined quantitative data on asylum seekers’ (n = 181) ExSWB and EvSWB with qualitative data on the elements of ExSWB and EvSWB. The findings point at a limbus phase in asylum seekers’ livelihood transition between the borders for international protection in Finland. The Cantril self‐anchoring striving scale was used by the participants to describe this passage ritual of ambiguity. Furthermore, we also found gender differences related to coping and subjective well‐being, which supports previous findings on asylum seekers’ well‐being. Key Practitioner Message: ? The concept of the limbus phase of the asylum seeker livelihood transition is useful for describing asylum seekers’ experiences while waiting for an asylum decision; ? Asylum seeker SWB is closely related to status dissonance, separation and capitals, causing anxiety, worry and fear, and inflicting cognitive disruption; ? Equal, institutional‐level functions should be organised in the reception centre for easing the anxiety related to the asylum‐seeking process.     

Public–Private Partnerships in European Old‐Age Pension Provision: An Accountability Perspective

Over the last few decades, the boundary between public and private responsibility in old‐age pension provisions has been redrawn throughout Europe. A new, public–private mix has emerged, not only in pension policy, but also in pension administration. The purpose of this article is to map and conduct a comparative analysis of the administrative design of public–private partnerships (PPPs) in European pension regimes, with a specific focus on how accountabilities are institutionally enforced within the PPP design. Previous literature has recognized accountability as an important factor in promoting trust in mandated pension schemes. However, as the literature on PPPs suggests, institutional arrangements of accountability are more complex in the case of PPPs than has been suggested by previous studies on pension administration. Thus, there is a need for further elaboration of existing comparative models. This study's analysis examines 19 old‐age pension schemes that existed in 18 European countries at the beginning of 2013. The findings suggest that significant variations in accountability structures exist, even among schemes that are similar in terms of their pension policy targets. It is concluded that various schemes suffer from ineffective accountability structures that may compromise the legitimacy and sustainability of PPP‐type pension schemes.