Generations and turnout : The generational effect in electoral participation in Finland

The relationship between age and turnout has been curve-linear as electoral participation first increases with age, remains relatively stable throughout middle-age and then gradually declines as certain physical infirmities set in (see e.g. Milbrath 1965). Alongside this life-cycle effect in voting, recent pooled cross-sectional analyses (see e.g. Blais et al. 2004; Lyons and Alexander 2000) have shown that there is also a generational effect, referring to lasting differences in turnout between various age groups. This study firstly examines the extent to which the generational effect applies in the Finnish context. Secondly, it investigates the factors accounting for that effect. The first article, based on individual-level register data from the parliamentary elections of 1999, shows that turnout differences between the different age groups would be even larger if there were no differences in social class and education. The second article examines simultaneously the effects of age, generation and period in the Finnish parliamentary elections of 1975-2003 based on pooled data from Finnish voter barometers (N = 8,634). The results show that there is a clear life cycle, generational and period effect. The third article examines the role of political socialisation in accounting for generational differences in electoral participation. Political socialisation is defined as the learning process in which an individual adopts various values, political attitudes, and patterns of actions from his or her environment. The multivariate analysis, based on the Finnish national election study 2003 (N=1,270), indicated that if there were no differences in socialisation between the youngest and the older generations, the difference in turnout would be much larger than if only sex and socioeconomic factors are controlled for. The fourth article examines other possible factors related to generational effect in voting. The results mainly apply to the Finnish parliamentary elections of 2003 in which we have data available. The results show that the sense of duty by far accounts for the generational effect in voting. Political interest, political knowledge and non-parliamentary participation also narrowed the differences in electoral participation between the youngest and the second youngest generations. The implication of the findings is that the lower turnout among the current youth is not a passing phenomenon that will diminish with age. Considering voting a civic duty and understanding the meaning of collective action are both associated with the process of political socialisation which therefore has an important role concerning the generational effect in turnout.

Reputation model based on rating data and application in recommender systems

This thesis introduced two novel reputation models to generate accurate item reputation scores using ratings data and the statistics of the dataset. It also presented an innovative method that incorporates reputation awareness in recommender systems by employing voting system methods to produce more accurate top-N item recommendations. Additionally, this thesis introduced a personalisation method for generating reputation scores based on users' interests, where a single item can have different reputation scores for different users. The personalised reputation scores are then used in the proposed reputation-aware recommender systems to enhance the recommendation quality.

Is it the economy, stupid? The role of social versus economic factors in people’s support for hosting the Olympic Games: Evidence from 12 democratic countries

Public referenda have gained momentum as a democratic tool to legitimize public mega projects such as hosting the Olympic Games. Interest groups in favour of hosting the Olympics therefore try to influence voters through public campaigns that primarily focus on economic benefits. However, recent studies find no or hardly any economic impact of hosting the Olympics, instead providing evidence for a positive social impact. This raises the question whether citizens consider economic or social factors when deciding on hosting the Olympics. Based on representative survey data from 12 countries, our results suggest that economic factors can influence voting behaviour, although the influence of social factors is stronger.

Fault-Tolerant Average Execution Time Optimization for General Purpose Multi-Processor System-on Chips

Fault-tolerance is due to the semiconductor technology development important, not only for safety-critical systems but also for general-purpose (non-safety critical) systems. However, instead of guaranteeing that deadlines always are met, it is for general-purpose systems important to minimize the average execution time (AET) while ensuring fault-tolerance. For a given job and a soft (transient) error probability, we define mathematical formulas for AET that includes bus communication overhead for both voting (active replication) and rollback-recovery with checkpointing (RRC). And, for a given multi-processor system-on-chip (MPSoC), we define integer linear programming (ILP) models that minimize AET including bus communication overhead when: (1) selecting the number of checkpoints when using RRC, (2) finding the number of processors and job-to-processor assignment when using voting, and (3) defining fault-tolerance scheme (voting or RRC) per job and defining its usage for each job. Experiments demonstrate significant savings in AET.

Crop stage classification of hyperspectral data using unsupervised techniques

The presence of a large number of spectral bands in the hyperspectral images increases the capability to distinguish between various physical structures. However, they suffer from the high dimensionality of the data. Hence, the processing of hyperspectral images is applied in two stages: dimensionality reduction and unsupervised classification techniques. The high dimensionality of the data has been reduced with the help of Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The selected dimensions are classified using Niche Hierarchical Artificial Immune System (NHAIS). The NHAIS combines the splitting method to search for the optimal cluster centers using niching procedure and the merging method is used to group the data points based on majority voting. Results are presented for two hyperspectral images namely EO-1 Hyperion image and Indian pines image. A performance comparison of this proposed hierarchical clustering algorithm with the earlier three unsupervised algorithms is presented. From the results obtained, we deduce that the NHAIS is efficient.

Scalar field visualization via extraction of symmetric structures

Identifying symmetry in scalar fields is a recent area of research in scientific visualization and computer graphics communities. Symmetry detection techniques based on abstract representations of the scalar field use only limited geometric information in their analysis. Hence they may not be suited for applications that study the geometric properties of the regions in the domain. On the other hand, methods that accumulate local evidence of symmetry through a voting procedure have been successfully used for detecting geometric symmetry in shapes. We extend such a technique to scalar fields and use it to detect geometrically symmetric regions in synthetic as well as real-world datasets. Identifying symmetry in the scalar field can significantly improve visualization and interactive exploration of the data. We demonstrate different applications of the symmetry detection method to scientific visualization: query-based exploration of scalar fields, linked selection in symmetric regions for interactive visualization, and classification of geometrically symmetric regions and its application to anomaly detection.

Coarse-to-fine vision-based localization by indexing scale-invariant features

This paper presents a novel coarse-to-fine global localization approach inspired by object recognition and text retrieval techniques. Harris-Laplace interest points characterized by scale-invariant transformation feature descriptors are used as natural landmarks. They are indexed into two databases: a location vector space model (LVSM) and a location database. The localization process consists of two stages: coarse localization and fine localization. Coarse localization from the LVSM is fast, but not accurate enough, whereas localization from the location database using a voting algorithm is relatively slow, but more accurate. The integration of coarse and fine stages makes fast and reliable localization possible. If necessary, the localization result can be verified by epipolar geometry between the representative view in the database and the view to be localized. In addition, the localization system recovers the position of the camera by essential matrix decomposition. The localization system has been tested in indoor and outdoor environments. The results show that our approach is efficient and reliable. © 2006 IEEE.

Vision-based global localization using a visual vocabular

This paper presents a novel coarse-to-fine global localization approach that is inspired by object recognition and text retrieval techniques. Harris-Laplace interest points characterized by SIFT descriptors are used as natural land-marks. These descriptors are indexed into two databases: an inverted index and a location database. The inverted index is built based on a visual vocabulary learned from the feature descriptors. In the location database, each location is directly represented by a set of scale invariant descriptors. The localization process consists of two stages: coarse localization and fine localization. Coarse localization from the inverted index is fast but not accurate enough; whereas localization from the location database using voting algorithm is relatively slow but more accurate. The combination of coarse and fine stages makes fast and reliable localization possible. In addition, if necessary, the localization result can be verified by epipolar geometry between the representative view in database and the view to be localized. Experimental results show that our approach is efficient and reliable. ©2005 IEEE.

Image-based localization and pose recovery using scale invariant features

In this paper, we propose a vision based mobile robot localization strategy. Local scale-invariant features are used as natural landmarks in unstructured and unmodified environment. The local characteristics of the features we use prove to be robust to occlusion and outliers. In addition, the invariance of the features to viewpoint change makes them suitable landmarks for mobile robot localization. Scale-invariant features detected in the first exploration are indexed into a location database. Indexing and voting allow efficient recognition of global localization. The localization result is verified by epipolar geometry between the representative view in database and the view to be localized, thus the probability of false localization will be decreased. The localization system can recover the pose of the camera mounted on the robot by essential matrix decomposition. Then the position of the robot can be computed easily. Both calibrated and un-calibrated cases are discussed and relative position estimation based on calibrated camera turns out to be the better choice. Experimental results show that our approach is effective and reliable in the case of illumination changes, similarity transformations and extraneous features. © 2004 IEEE.

Turnout Intention and Social Networks

How can networking affect the turnout in an election? We present a simple model to explain turnout as a result of a dynamic process of formation of the intention to vote within Erdös-Renyi random networks. Citizens have fixed preferences for one of two parties and are embedded in a given social network. They decide whether or not to vote on the basis of the attitude of their immediate contacts. They may simply follow the behavior of the majority (followers) or make an adaptive local calculus of voting (Downsian behavior). So they either have the intention of voting when the majority of their neighbors are willing to vote too, or they vote when they perceive in their social neighborhood that elections are "close". We study the long run average turnout, interpreted as the actual turnout observed in an election. Depending on the combination of values of the two key parameters, the average connectivity and the probability of behaving as a follower or in a Downsian fashion, the system exhibits monostability (zero turnout), bistability (zero turnout and either moderate or high turnout) or tristability (zero, moderate and high turnout). This means, in particular, that for a wide range of values of both parameters, we obtain realistic turnout rates, i.e. between 50% and 90%.

Oposição e obstrução na Câmara dos Deputados

Investiga o Regimento Interno da Câmara dos Deputados com o objetivo de verificar se suas regras favorecem excessivamente a prática da obstrução, o que pode levar ao desequilíbrio da disputa parlamentar em favor daqueles - sobretudo os oposicionistas - que decidem obstruir as deliberações mediante a utilização de táticas protelatórias. O estudo centra sua análise na quantidade de tempo gasto com a votação dos diversos mecanismos de obstrução, tendo em vista o tempo regimental disponível para a Ordem do Dia, fase da sessão destinada exclusivamente à discussão e votação das diversas propostas legislativas. O objetivo é apurar se o tempo despendido com artifícios procrastinatórios (requerimentos, dentre outros) supera em demasia o destinado à apreciação da matéria principal. Na apreciação de medidas provisórias (MP), por exemplo, os cálculos efetuados nas simulações demonstram que a votação dos requerimentos, por si só, pode consumir mais da metade do tempo utilizado para votar uma única MP, o que foi confirmado pelos resultados verificados na análise dos casos concretos selecionados.

A influência da oposição no resultado do processo legislativo : estudo de caso da tramitação da PEC nº 40/03 sobre a reforma da previdência na Câmara dos Deputados

Analisa as influências das oposições minoritárias no processo legislativo no caso específico da PEC nº 40, de 2003 durante a tramitação na Câmara dos Deputados. Analisa, ainda, a atuação da oposição por meio dos instrumentos regimentais da Câmara dos Deputados e seus impactos sobre as variáveis tempo e mérito que envolvem a tramitação da proposta. Verifica a atuação da oposição nas Comissões e no Plenário da Câmara e quantifica as interferências sobre o processamento da proposta quanto ao tempo de tramitação e ao mérito.

A participação da mulher na política brasileira : a lei de cotas

Apresenta e discute os dados obtidos em uma pesquisa sobre a participação da mulher na política brasileira a partir da Lei de Cotas. Estuda a questão das cotas como ação afirmativa e a sua votação no legislativo brasileiro como resultado de discussões e embates nacionais e internacionais que constataram a falta ou a pouca participação da mulher na política. Aborda a conquista da cidadania feminina, a dívida da sociedade para com elas e a conquista do voto feminino no Brasil. Apresenta a trajetória do feminismo brasileiro na ditadura militar, destacando-o como um movimento de caráter mais político, que lutava contra o regime ditatorial.

Capacidad informativa de los resultados contables en la empresa familiar

[ES] El presente trabajo analiza la relación entre el control familiar y la credibilidad de los resultados contables. Utilizando un panel de datos de empresas españolas cotizadas no financieras para el período 1997-2003, los resultados alcanzados muestran que la credibilidad de la información contable de la empresa familiar es inferior a la de la no familiar. Asimismo, el incremento de los derechos de voto en manos del último propietario familiar incide negativamente en la credibilidad de sus resultados divulgados. Las únicas empresas en las que la naturaleza familiar incide positivamente en la credibilidad de la información contable son aquellas en las que el presidente del consejo de administración no pertenece a la familia controladora.

Reforma política na Câmara dos Deputados : a rejeição política do modelo de lista fechada e financiamento público exclusivo

Discute o processo de reforma política no Brasil a partir do estudo de caso da não aprovação do projeto de lei de n. 1.210, de 2007, da Câmara dos Deputados. Por meio de process tracing, reconstruiu-se a tramitação da proposta, buscando razões para a sua rejeição política. Para tanto, o estudo parte de breve revisão da literatura acerca de reformas institucionais e de reforma política. Em seguida, tece considerações sobre a reforma política brasileira a partir da identificação das principais variáveis que interferiram na trajetória do PL 1.210/2007. Finalmente, discute-se a rejeição política, fenômeno de descarte de uma matéria por meio de mecanismos informais que passam ao largo das regras constitucionais e regimentais de rejeição e arquivamento das proposições, como conceito útil para a compreensão do processo legislativo.