Suchergebnisse

AbstractIn this study, we examine substantive representation of women in the 2011–15 Turkish Parliament by focusing on sponsorship of private members' bills by members of parliament (MPs) across eight major issue areas. The Turkish case offers new insights into women's representation, not only because this topic is unexplored in the Turkish context but also because it provides an opportunity to examine the tension between gender as a social identity and ideology as a political identity in a legislature characterized by disciplined political parties and low gender parity. Findings indicate that women MPs in Turkey substantively represent women by sponsoring more bills on women's rights and equality issues than their male colleagues, despite their low numbers in parliament and affiliation with highly disciplined parties. Party ideology also shapes women MPs' issue priorities depending on the emphasis placed by the parties on different issue areas. Whereas left-wing women MPs sponsor more bills on women's rights and equality issues defined with a feminist accent, right-wing women MPs sponsor more bills on issues regarding children and family. Left-wing women also differ significantly from right-wing women in their sponsorship of bills on health and social affairs issues, as left-wing parties prioritize those issues more than right-wing parties.

We consider the problem of determining realistic and easy-to-schedule lot sizes in a multiproduct, multistage manufacturing environment. We concentrate on a specific type of production, namely, flow shop type production. The model developed consists of two parts, lot sizing problem and scheduling problem. In lot sizing problem, we employ binary integer programming and determine reorder intervals for each product using power-of-two policy. In the second part, using the results obtained of the lot sizing problem, we employ mixed integer programming to determine schedules for a multiproduct, multistage case with multiple machines in each stage. Finally, we provide a numerical example and compare the results with similar methods found in practice.

Background: To control epidemic waves, it is important to know the susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 and its evolution over time in relation to the control measures taken. Aim: To assess the evolving SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence and seroincidence related to the first national lockdown in Belgium, we performed a nationwide seroprevalence study, stratified by age, sex and region using 3,000-4,000 residual samples during seven periods between 30 March and 17 October 2020. Methods: We analysed residual sera from ambulatory patients for IgG antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 S1 protein with a semiquantitative commercial ELISA. Weighted seroprevalence (overall and by age category and sex) and seroincidence during seven consecutive periods were estimated for the Belgian population while accommodating test-specific sensitivity and specificity. Results: The weighted overall seroprevalence initially increased from 1.8% (95% credible interval (CrI): 1.0-2.6) to 5.3% (95% CrI: 4.2-6.4), implying a seroincidence of 3.4% (95% CrI: 2.4-4.6) between the first and second collection period over a period of 3 weeks during lockdown (start lockdown mid-March 2020). Thereafter, seroprevalence stabilised, however, significant decreases were observed when comparing the third with the fifth, sixth and seventh period, resulting in negative seroincidence estimates after lockdown was lifted. We estimated for the last collection period mid-October 2020 a weighted overall seroprevalence of 4.2% (95% CrI: 3.1-5.2). Conclusion: During lockdown, an initially small but increasing fraction of the Belgian population showed serologically detectable signs of exposure to SARS-CoV-2, which did not further increase when confinement measures eased and full lockdown was lifted. ; This work received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program - project EpiPose (No 101003688), the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement 682540 TransMID), the Flemish Research Fund (FWO 1150017N) and from The Antwerp University Fund, which is a community of donors who contribute to research and education with their personal commitment through a donation, gift, bequest or through academic chairs. The funders had no role in study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, writing or submitting of the report. The corresponding author had full access to all the data in the study and had final responsibility for the decision to submit for publication. We acknowledge the Belgian laboratories that voluntarily collected sera and data for this study: Algemeen Medisch Laboratorium (AML, Antwerpen), Laboratoire Luc OLIVIER (Fernelmont), Declerck Klinisch Laboratorium (Ardooie), Klinisch Labo RIGO (Genk), Labo Anacura/Nuytinck (Evergem), Labo Somedi (Heist-op-den-Berg), Labo LBS (Brussels), Laboratoire Bauduin (Enghien), Medisch labo Bruyland (Kortrijk), Synlab (Luik).