This textbook offers a fresh approach to the study of comparative politics and public policy. Instead of concentrating on why countries differ, Learning From Comparative Public Policy explores how ...countries can learn from each other about the success and failure of policy initiatives. With its theory and practise focus, the lively narrative analyzes the cultural and resources problems involved in importing policies, and the roles of institutions, regulators, think tanks and experts. In addition to explaining the key tenets of policy analysis, the internationally renowned author offers a wide variety of international case studies and useful boxes to highlight examples. Invaluable reading for students of public policy, for policy makers and practioners working in the public sector, it includes: * learning from comparison * defining a problem and creating awareness * where to look for lessons * applying the policy model * the problems of importing models * using terms to evaluate future consequences.
Professor Richard Rose is Director of the Centre for the Study of Public Policy at the University of Strathclyde. He is a fellow of the British Academy and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His writings have been translated into eighteen languages.
Introduction: Why Learn Lessons from Abroad? Part 1: Getting Started 1. Understanding Programmes and Lessons 2. Creating Awareness of Problems 3. Where to Look for Lessons Part 2: Venturing Home 4. Finding Out How a Programme Really Works 5. Turning Anecdotes into a Model Part 3: Returning Home 6. Drawing Lessons; Applying a Model 7. Should a Lesson Be Adopted? 8. Can a Lesson Be Applied? 9. Increasing Chances of Sucess 10. Looking Ahead
Individuals with fast nicotine metabolism typically smoke more and thus have a greater risk for smoking-induced diseases. Further, the efficacy of smoking cessation pharmacotherapy is dependent on ...the rate of nicotine metabolism. Our objective was to use nicotine metabolite ratio (NMR), an established biomarker of nicotine metabolism rate, in a genome-wide association study (GWAS) to identify novel genetic variants influencing nicotine metabolism. A heritability estimate of 0.81 (95% CI 0.70-0.88) was obtained for NMR using monozygotic and dizygotic twins of the FinnTwin cohort. We performed a GWAS in cotinine-verified current smokers of three Finnish cohorts (FinnTwin, Young Finns Study, FINRISK2007), followed by a meta-analysis of 1518 subjects, and annotated the genome-wide significant SNPs with methylation quantitative loci (meQTL) analyses. We detected association on 19q13 with 719 SNPs exceeding genome-wide significance within a 4.2 Mb region. The strongest evidence for association emerged for CYP2A6 (min p = 5.77E-86, in intron 4), the main metabolic enzyme for nicotine. Other interesting genes with genome-wide significant signals included CYP2B6, CYP2A7, EGLN2, and NUMBL. Conditional analyses revealed three independent signals on 19q13, all located within or in the immediate vicinity of CYP2A6. A genetic risk score constructed using the independent signals showed association with smoking quantity (p = 0.0019) in two independent Finnish samples. Our meQTL results showed that methylation values of 16 CpG sites within the region are affected by genotypes of the genome-wide significant SNPs, and according to causal inference test, for some of the SNPs the effect on NMR is mediated through methylation. To our knowledge, this is the first GWAS on NMR. Our results enclose three independent novel signals on 19q13.2. The detected CYP2A6 variants explain a strikingly large fraction of variance (up to 31%) in NMR in these study samples. Further, we provide evidence for plausible epigenetic mechanisms influencing NMR.
Effectively deploy fully managed workloads using Google Cloud's serverless servicesKey FeaturesUse real-world use cases to understand the core functionalities of Functions as a Service
Explore the ...potential of Cloud Run, Knative, Cloud Build, Google Kubernetes Engine, and Cloud Storage
Get to grips with architectural decisions, seamless deployments, containerization, and serverless solutionsBook DescriptionGoogle Cloud's serverless platform allows organizations to scale fully managed solutions without worrying about the underlying infrastructure. With this book, you will learn how to design, develop, and deploy full stack serverless apps on Google Cloud.
The book starts with a quick overview of the Google Cloud console, its features, user interface (UI), and capabilities. After getting to grips with the Google Cloud interface and its features, you will explore the core aspects of serverless products such as Cloud Run, Cloud Functions and App Engine. You will also learn essential features such as version control, containerization, and identity and access management with the help of real-world use cases. Later, you will understand how to incorporate continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) techniques for serverless applications. Toward the concluding chapters, you will get to grips with how key technologies such as Knative enable Cloud Run to be hosted on multiple platforms including Kubernetes and VMware.
By the end of this book, you will have become proficient in confidently developing, managing, and deploying containerized applications on Google Cloud.What you will learnExplore the various options for deploying serverless workloads on Google Cloud
Determine the appropriate serverless product for your application use case
Integrate multiple lightweight functions to build scalable and resilient services
Increase productivity through build process automation
Understand how to secure serverless workloads using service accounts
Build a scalable architecture with Google Cloud Functions and Cloud RunWho this book is forIf you are a cloud administrator, architect, or developer who wants to build scalable systems and deploy serverless workloads on Google Cloud, then this book is for you. To get the most out of this book, a basic understanding of the serverless ecosystem and cloud computing will be beneficial.
Hands-on Serverless Computing with Google Cloud incorporates a variety of engineering techniques that will show you how to leverage the Google Cloud serverless technology and work towards engineering ...smart solutions to meet your requirements.
To survive, all forms of government require popular support, whether voluntary or involuntary. Following the collapse of the Soviet system, Russia's rulers took steps toward democracy, yet under ...Vladimir Putin Russia has become increasingly undemocratic. This book uses a unique source of evidence, eighteen surveys of Russian public opinion from the first month of the new regime in 1992 up to 2009, to track the changing views of Russians. Clearly presented and sophisticated figures and tables show how political support has increased because of a sense of resignation that is even stronger than the unstable benefits of exporting oil and gas. Whilst comparative analyses of surveys on other continents show that Russia's elite is not alone in being able to mobilize popular support for an undemocratic regime, Russia provides an outstanding caution that popular support can grow when governors reject democracy and create an undemocratic regime.
Background
Do drinking patterns in late adolescence/early adulthood predict lifetime childlessness and number of children? Research on this question has been only tangentially relevant and the ...results inconsistent. The designs used to date have been compromised by genetic and environmental confounds that are poorly controlled; covariate effects of smoking and education that are often ignored; males being understudied; population‐based sampling rare, and long‐term prospective studies with genetically informative designs yet to be reported.
Method
In a 33‐year follow‐up, we linked the drinking patterns of >3500 Finnish twin pairs, assessed at ages 18–25, to registry data on their eventual number of children. Analyses distinguished associations of early drinking patterns with lifetime childlessness from those predictive of family size. Within‐twin pair analyses used fixed‐effects regression models to account for shared familial confounds and genetic liabilities. Childlessness was analyzed with Cox proportional hazards models and family size with Poisson regression. Analyses within‐pairs and of twins as individuals were run before and after adjustment for smoking and education, and for oral contraceptive (OC) use in individual‐level analyses of female twins.
Results
Baseline abstinence and heavier drinking both significantly predicted lifetime childlessness in individual‐level analyses. Few abstinent women used OCs, but they were nonetheless more often eventually childless; adjusting for smoking and education did not affect this finding. Excluding childless twins, Poisson models of family size showed heavier drinking at 18–25 to be predictive of fewer children in both men and women. Those associations were replicated in within‐pair analyses of dizygotic twins, each level of heavier drinking being associated with smaller families. Among monozygotic twins, associations of drinking with completed family size yielded effects of similar magnitude, reaching significance at the highest levels of consumption, ruling out familial confounds.
Conclusions
Compared to moderate levels of drinking, both abstinence and heavier drinking in late adolescence/early adulthood predicted a greater likelihood of lifetime childlessness and eventual number of children. Familial confounds do not fully explain these associations.
We associated alcohol consumption at age 18–25 with registry‐linked childlessness and number of children in a 33‐year follow‐up of >8000 Finnish twins. Individual level analyses were complemented by within‐twin pair fixed‐effect regression models. Abstinence and heavier drinking predicted greater likelihood of lifetime childlessness. Excluding childless twins, each level of heavier drinking associated with smaller families. The associations remained robust after adjustment for smoking, education, and oral contraceptive use, replicated within twin pairs, and cannot be fully explained by familial/genetic confounds.
During the development of research to compare the processes and impact of inclusive education in Sweden with results obtained from a study undertaken in Ireland, a pilot study was conducted and ...documented. The pilot study had three aims: (1) to gather data to provide guidance for a substantive study adapted to Swedish conditions through modification of Irish research procedures and instruments, (2) to critically interrogate how we as researchers could most effectively conduct a pilot study utilizing observational and video-recorded data, and (3) to use the Irish theoretical model as a tool of analysis for studying inclusion in two Swedish schools. Although pilot studies are frequently conducted to assess the efficacy of research instruments for use in qualitative research projects, few publications have drawn upon empirical findings related to such studies. Additionally, while methodological texts recommend the use of pilot studies in qualitative research, there is a lack of reported research focusing on how to conduct such pilot studies. We argue that our methodological findings may contribute to greater awareness of the important role that a pilot study may have for full-scale qualitative research projects, for example, in case study research where semi-structured qualitative interviews are used. This argument is based on the assumption that researchers, and especially novice researchers, having conducted a pilot study will be better informed and prepared to face the challenges that are likely to arise in the substantive study and more confident in the instruments to be used for data collection. A proper analysis of the procedures and results from the pilot study facilitates the identification of weaknesses that may be addressed. A carefully organized and managed pilot study has the potential to increase the quality of the research as results from such studies can inform subsequent parts of the research process.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, most Russians had lived their entire lives in a quintessentially authoritarian culture. Having been socialized in this environment, how could citizens acquire the ...attitudes and behaviors necessary to support a new, more pluralistic regime? Cultural theories of political learning emphasize the primacy of childhood socialization and hold that altering initial attitudes is a decades-long process that depends on generational replacement. Institutional theories emphasize adult relearning in response to changing circumstances regardless of socialization. Lifetime learning integrates the competing perspectives. Multilevel models using New Russia Barometer data from 1992 to 2005 confirm the persistence of some generational differences in Russian political attitudes but demonstrate even larger effects resulting from adult relearning. Lifetime learning provides the most comprehensive account and suggests that Russians would quickly acquire the attitudes and behaviors appropriate to democracy-if Russian elites supply more authentic democratic institutions.
Abstract Background Adolescent substance use is associated with lower educational achievement but the directionality of the association remains uncertain. We analyzed data on drinking, smoking and ...educational achievement to study the associations between substance use and education from early adolescence to young adulthood. Methods Longitudinal data from four time points (ages 12, 14, 17, and 19–27 years) from a population-based cohort study of Finnish twin individuals were used to estimate bivariate cross-lagged path models for substance use and educational achievement, adjusting for sex, parental covariates, and adolescent externalizing behavior. A total of 4761 individuals (49.4% females) were included in the analyses. Educational achievement was assessed with teacher-reported grade point average at ages 12 and 14, and with self-reported student status and completed education at age 17 and in young adulthood. From self-reported questionnaire items, frequency of any drinking, frequency of drinking to intoxication, any smoking and daily smoking were analyzed. Results Alcohol use and smoking behaviors at ages 12 and 14 predicted lower educational achievement at later time points even after previous achievement and confounding factors were taken into account. Lower school achievement in adolescence predicted a higher likelihood of engaging in smoking behaviors but did not predict later alcohol use. Higher educational attainment at age 17 predicted more frequent drinking in young adulthood. Conclusions Adolescent drinking behaviors are associated with lower future educational achievement independently of prior achievement, whereas smoking both predicts and is predicted by lower achievement. Early substance use indexes elevated risk for poor educational outcomes.
Genome-wide association studies have identified numerous loci linked with complex diseases, for which the molecular mechanisms remain largely unclear. Comprehensive molecular profiling of circulating ...metabolites captures highly heritable traits, which can help to uncover metabolic pathophysiology underlying established disease variants. We conduct an extended genome-wide association study of genetic influences on 123 circulating metabolic traits quantified by nuclear magnetic resonance metabolomics from up to 24,925 individuals and identify eight novel loci for amino acids, pyruvate and fatty acids. The LPA locus link with cardiovascular risk exemplifies how detailed metabolic profiling may inform underlying aetiology via extensive associations with very-low-density lipoprotein and triglyceride metabolism. Genetic fine mapping and Mendelian randomization uncover wide-spread causal effects of lipoprotein(a) on overall lipoprotein metabolism and we assess potential pleiotropic consequences of genetically elevated lipoprotein(a) on diverse morbidities via electronic health-care records. Our findings strengthen the argument for safe LPA-targeted intervention to reduce cardiovascular risk.
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