In October 2020, President Donald Trump sought to convert many US federal civil servants to at-will employees by executive order. Trump's initiative, referred to as Schedule F, has stimulated a... Show moreIn October 2020, President Donald Trump sought to convert many US federal civil servants to at-will employees by executive order. Trump's initiative, referred to as Schedule F, has stimulated a partisan debate about dismantling the merit system in the US federal government. A substantial international body of evidence has developed during the last three decades about the effects of administrative practices associated with meritocracy and the likely consequences of changes to civil service systems, such as those embedded in Schedule F. This article employs guidelines established under the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) to conduct a systematic review of the evidence to address the question: What does the evidence tell us about merit principles and government performance? This systematic review summarizes what empirical research tells us about effects of civil service practices, such as meritocratic appointments, meritocratic advancement, and tenure protection, for government performance and the quality of government. The findings indicate that factors such as meritocratic appointments/recruitment, tenure protection, impartiality, and professionalism are strongly associated with higher government performance and lower corruption. We conclude by discussing implications of our findings for public policy and management and for future research. Show less
Gallardo-Amores, F.J.; Real, C. del; Díaz Fernández, A.M. 2022
Background: The smart city approach is one of the most widely implemented urban development frameworks to solve the challenges brought about by urbanization. While the smart city approach has been... Show moreBackground: The smart city approach is one of the most widely implemented urban development frameworks to solve the challenges brought about by urbanization. While the smart city approach has been evaluated across several urban dimensions. However, the extent to which the key performance indicators (KPI) assess security and safety dimensions is unknown. This protocol presents a systematic review of current KPIs to fill this gap. Objectives: This protocol details the work plan for a systematic review of KPI for public safety smartness designed to provide a comprehensive summary and their limitations in the scientific literature. Particularly, the study seeks to critically review the applicability of current public safety KPI to the Andalusian context. Specifically, the systematic review aims to synthesize: (RQ1) What indicators have been designed and used to measure urban public safety smartness; (RQ2) Within which smart city dimensions have the KPI been located; and (RQ3) How are the KPI defined and measured? Design: This systematic review follows the PRISMA statement. Five databases are searched for thematically relevant studies published in English or in Spanish. Studies included peer?reviewed publications, books, book chapters, conference papers, government and company documents, technical reports and doctoral theses. After the initial search, a pilot study was conducted on a sample of the total number of titles identified through the databases searches. After acceptable inter-rater reliability was reached among the three coders, screening of abstracts was carried out by the first author. Next, full-text screening of documents will determine the final sample. Finally, data will be extracted from the final selection of documents. Show less
Background: While current public policy scholarship can take advantage of a decades-long accumulated knowledge base on the relationship between evidence and policy, it is hard to keep the overview... Show moreBackground: While current public policy scholarship can take advantage of a decades-long accumulated knowledge base on the relationship between evidence and policy, it is hard to keep the overview across different literatures. Over time, the ever more differentiated branches of public policy research have developed their own perspectives, languages, and conceptualisations of ‘evidence’ and ‘policy’, as well as their connections.Aims and objectives: Existing reviews have stressed that studies often do not provide clear definitions of ‘policy’ or ‘evidence’, and have outlined the importance of investigating underlying conceptualisations in the literature. Against this backdrop, this article investigates how present-day public policy scholarship approaches the concepts of ‘evidence’, ‘policy’, and their connections.Methods: We conducted a qualitative systematic review following the PRISMA method. Using a keyword search, we identified relevant articles (n=85) in eleven Q1 and Q2 policy journals included in Web of Science in the period 2015 to 2019.Findings: The synthesis confirms that ‘evidence’ and ‘policy’ are often not clearly defined, yet different trends regarding understandings can be identified. There are two approaches taken on the evidence and policy connection: a ‘use of evidence’ or a ‘use for policy’ perspective.Discussion and conclusions: Research on evidence and policy would benefit from more explicit conceptual discussions. This review may provide a heuristic for explicating conceptual choices when working with the notions of ‘evidence’, ‘policy’, and their connections. It also suggests several avenues that are worth exploring in future research. Show less
This dissertation focuses on the overall study, as well as the nuances, of bullying behaviours among school-going youth in India. A systematic review of past literature from India is presented by... Show moreThis dissertation focuses on the overall study, as well as the nuances, of bullying behaviours among school-going youth in India. A systematic review of past literature from India is presented by synthesizing 37 empirical studies examining psychometric properties of the instruments adopted, methodological characteristics, sample size and procedures, and characteristics of bullying behaviour. Results show that bullying is widely spread, and certain factors, like caste and religion, and their association with bullying behaviours are typical to the Indian culture. This dissertation also examines if dimensions of psychopathy, namely callous-unemotional traits, narcissism, and impulsivity, can differentiate between, bullies, victims, and bully-victims in a longitudinal capacity. Using a multi-informant approach and multinomial logistic regression analyses, it was found that psychopathy dimensions taken together provide a better fit in predicting bullying than the independent psychopathic subscales. The dissertation further investigates the structure and context of the relationship between victimization and Body Mass Index through a transactional model. Key results of structural equation modeling analyses yielded mainly concurrent relations between BMI and victimization, emphasizing that results from western countries may not generalize to India. Finally, bullying behaviours among youth as a function of their socio-economic status (SES) in classroom and self-perceptions of minority status are examined using a moderated-mediation growth model. Results show classroom level SES plays a significant role in predicting victimization cross-sectionally, and is mediated through perceptions of self. However, in the long run, being part of a minority, and perceiving self as such, leads to decreased victimization among youth in India. Show less
Hoek, D.; Doorn, J. van; Wingerden, S.G.C. van 2021
Previous research has shown that gruesome evidence influences guilt decisions. Several scholars have put forward that the emotional response to gruesome evidence drives this effect. The current... Show morePrevious research has shown that gruesome evidence influences guilt decisions. Several scholars have put forward that the emotional response to gruesome evidence drives this effect. The current systematic review aims to critically scrutinize the current literature on this underlying emotion mechanism, by reviewing studies on the potential mediating role of emotion. A synthesis of the literature suggests that specific emotions have different effects: disgust shows a mediating effect, fear and sadness do not, whereas the effect of anger is inconsistent. The question remains whether an emotional effect is desirable in the courtroom. Recommendations for future research and the legal practice are made. Show less
This study provides a systematic review of literature from India on traditional bullying and victimization among school-going adolescents. A search of bibliographic electronic databases PsycINFO,... Show moreThis study provides a systematic review of literature from India on traditional bullying and victimization among school-going adolescents. A search of bibliographic electronic databases PsycINFO, MEDLINE, ERIC, Web of Science, and PubMed was performed in May 2020. Thirty-seven studies were included in the review. For each study included, the following specifics were examined: (a) methodological characteristics, (b) prevalence estimates of bullying behavior, (c) forms of bullying, (d) risk factors, and (e) consequences of bullying. Itwas found that bullying happens in India, and some risk factors for bullying and victimization in India are typical to the Indian context. In addition, bullying in India is associated with adverse consequences for both the aggressor and the victim. Many studies on bullying from India should be interpreted cautiously because of problems with data collection processes, instrumentation, and presentation of the findings. Cross-cultural comparisons for prevalence estimates, and longitudinal studies to examine the direction of possible influence between bullying and its correlates need to be conducted, tocater to the large adolescent population of India. Show less
This systematic review examined the evidence on factors influencing the flow of homicide, from suspicious death to imprisonment. Bibliographic databases and thesis portals were searched. The total... Show moreThis systematic review examined the evidence on factors influencing the flow of homicide, from suspicious death to imprisonment. Bibliographic databases and thesis portals were searched. The total number of hits was 15,986, of which 15,830 were irrelevant, 35 did not include a quantitative sample, 26 did not focus on homicide, 18 did not present flow data, and for seven there was no full text available. The remaining 70 papers were analyzed. With the exception of one, no study presented a complete longitudinal flow. Results indicated that both legal and extralegal characteristics influence the likelihood of cases to drop out. Aside from a first mapping of homicide case flows, future research should explore false positives and false negatives, to come to a first understanding of funnel selectivity in homicide cases. Show less
In this thesis first we show that patients after total hip replacement are more satisfied than patients after total knee replacement (TKR). The indication to perform TKR is important. We studied... Show moreIn this thesis first we show that patients after total hip replacement are more satisfied than patients after total knee replacement (TKR). The indication to perform TKR is important. We studied the reason for orthopedic surgeons to recommend TKR. It seemed that the radiological osteoarthritis and age were most important. We compared Dutch orthopedic surgeons with those from other countries. Also we studied how well the oldest old patients (85+) perform with or without total joint replacement. In part 2 of the thesis more technical issues are addressed. A RCT studying the effect of fibrin sealant on postoperative knee function. No beneficial effect could be shown for the fibrin sealant. A Cochrane review and meta-analysis studying whether to sacrifice or retain the posterior cruciate ligament in TKR. It seemed there was no clinical difference between the two. Finally a RCT studying two different kinds of warming blankets applied during total joint replacement showed no evident difference between the two. Show less
