Accountability In The European Union
In ethics and governance, accountability is equated with answerability, culpability, liability, and the expectation of account-giving. As in an aspect of governance, it has been central to discussions related to problems in the public sector, nonprofit, private (corporate), and individual contexts. In leadership roles, accountability is the acknowledgment of and assumption of responsibility for actions, products, decisions, and policies such as administration, governance, and implementation, including the obligation to report, justify, and be answerable for resulting consequences. In governance, accountability has expanded beyond the basic definition of "being called to account for one's actions". It is frequently described as an account-giving relationship between individuals, e.g. "A is accountable to B when A is obliged to inform B about A's (past or future) actions and decisions, to justify them, and to suffer punishment in the case of eventual misconduct." Accountability c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ethics
Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches include normative ethics, applied ethics, and metaethics. Normative ethics aims to find general principles that govern how people should act. Applied ethics examines concrete ethical problems in real-life situations, such as abortion, treatment of animals, and Business ethics, business practices. Metaethics explores the underlying assumptions and concepts of ethics. It asks whether there are objective moral facts, how moral knowledge is possible, and how moral judgments motivate people. Influential normative theories are consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. According to consequentialists, an act is right if it leads to the best consequences. Deontologists focus on acts themselves, saying that they must adhere to Duty, duties, like t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Incumbent
The incumbent is the current holder of an office or position. In an election, the incumbent is the person holding or acting in the position that is up for election, regardless of whether they are seeking re-election. There may or may not be an incumbent on the ballot: the previous holder may have died, retired, resigned; they may not seek re-election, be barred from re-election due to term limits, or a new electoral division or position may have been created, at which point the office or position is regarded as vacant or open. In the United States, an election without an incumbent on the ballot is an open seat or open contest. Etymology The word "incumbent" is derived from the Latin verb ''incumbere'', literally meaning "to lean or lay upon" with the present participle stem ''incumbent-'', "leaning a variant of ''encumber,''''OED'' (1989), p. 834 while encumber is derived from the root ''cumber'', most appropriately defined: "To occupy obstructively or inconveniently; to b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Equilibrium Point
In mathematics, specifically in differential equations, an equilibrium point is a constant solution to a differential equation. Formal definition The point \tilde\in \mathbb^n is an equilibrium point for the differential equation :\frac = \mathbf(t,\mathbf) if \mathbf(t,\tilde)=\mathbf for all t. Similarly, the point \tilde\in \mathbb^n is an equilibrium point (or fixed point) for the difference equation :\mathbf_ = \mathbf(k,\mathbf_k) if \mathbf(k,\tilde)= \tilde for k=0,1,2,\ldots. Equilibria can be classified by looking at the signs of the eigenvalues of the linearization of the equations about the equilibria. That is to say, by evaluating the Jacobian matrix at each of the equilibrium points of the system, and then finding the resulting eigenvalues, the equilibria can be categorized. Then the behavior of the system in the neighborhood of each equilibrium point can be qualitatively determined, (or even quantitatively determined, in some instances), by finding ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Retrospective Voting
Voting is the process of choosing officials or policies by casting a ballot, a document used by people to formally express their preferences. Republics and representative democracies are governments where the population chooses representatives by voting. The procedure for identifying the winners based on votes varies depending on both the country and the political office. Political scientists call these procedures electoral systems, while mathematicians and economists call them social choice rules. The study of these rules and what makes them good or bad is the subject of a branch of welfare economics known as social choice theory. In smaller organizations, voting can occur in many different ways: formally via ballot to elect others for example within a workplace, to elect members of political associations, or to choose roles for others; or informally with a spoken agreement or a gesture like a raised hand. In larger organizations, like countries, voting is generally confin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Zambia
Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bordered to the north by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique to the southeast, Zimbabwe and Botswana to the south, Namibia to the southwest, and Angola to the west. The capital city of Zambia is Lusaka, located in the south-central part of Zambia. The population is concentrated mainly around Lusaka in the south and the Copperbelt Province to the north, the core economic hubs of the country. Originally inhabited by Khoisan peoples, the region was affected by the Bantu expansion of the thirteenth century. Following European colonization of Africa, European colonisers in the 18th century, the British colonised the region into the British protectorates of Barotziland–North-Western Rho ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bayesian Network
A Bayesian network (also known as a Bayes network, Bayes net, belief network, or decision network) is a probabilistic graphical model that represents a set of variables and their conditional dependencies via a directed acyclic graph (DAG). While it is one of several forms of causal notation, causal networks are special cases of Bayesian networks. Bayesian networks are ideal for taking an event that occurred and predicting the likelihood that any one of several possible known causes was the contributing factor. For example, a Bayesian network could represent the probabilistic relationships between diseases and symptoms. Given symptoms, the network can be used to compute the probabilities of the presence of various diseases. Efficient algorithms can perform inference and learning in Bayesian networks. Bayesian networks that model sequences of variables (''e.g.'' speech signals or protein sequences) are called dynamic Bayesian networks. Generalizations of Bayesian networks tha ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sheriff
A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland, the , which is commonly translated to English as ''sheriff''. Description In British English, the political or legal office of a sheriff, term of office of a sheriff, or jurisdiction of a sheriff, is called a shrievalty in England and Wales, and a sheriffdom in Scotland. In modern times, the specific combination of legal, political and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country. * In England, Northern Ireland, or Wales, a sheriff (or high sheriff) is a ceremonial county or city official. * In Scotland, sheriffs are judges. * In the Republic of Ireland, in some counties and in the cities of Dublin and Cork, sheriffs are legal officials similar to bailiffs. * In the United States The United States of America (USA), ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Constituency Development Fund
Constituency Development Funds (CDFs) are central government funds given to members of parliament for expenditure on their constituencies, also called electoral districts. CDFs were first adopted in India. After introduction in Kenya in 2003, CDFs spread to other African countries and across the world.:1 Ghana Ghana's CDF was instituted in 1996, when members of parliament were allocated 5% of the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF).:17 India India has two CDF systems: the Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) at the national level and the Member of Legislative Assembly Local Area Development Fund (MLA-LAD) for the Legislative Assembly of each of India’s 28 states. The MPLADS scheme was instituted in India in 1993. Under the MPLADS, an equal amount is allocated yearly to each parliamentary constituency.:27 Kenya The Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Meta-analysis
Meta-analysis is a method of synthesis of quantitative data from multiple independent studies addressing a common research question. An important part of this method involves computing a combined effect size across all of the studies. As such, this statistical approach involves extracting effect sizes and variance measures from various studies. By combining these effect sizes the statistical power is improved and can resolve uncertainties or discrepancies found in individual studies. Meta-analyses are integral in supporting research grant proposals, shaping treatment guidelines, and influencing health policies. They are also pivotal in summarizing existing research to guide future studies, thereby cementing their role as a fundamental methodology in metascience. Meta-analyses are often, but not always, important components of a systematic review. History The term "meta-analysis" was coined in 1976 by the statistician Gene V. Glass, Gene Glass, who stated ''"Meta-analysis refers t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Non-governmental Organization
A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an independent, typically nonprofit organization that operates outside government control, though it may get a significant percentage of its funding from government or corporate sources. NGOs often focus on humanitarian or social issues but can also include clubs and associations offering services to members. Some NGOs, like the World Economic Forum, may also act as lobby groups for corporations. Unlike international organizations (IOs), which directly interact with sovereign states and governments, NGOs are independent from them. The term as it is used today was first introduced in Article 71 of the UN Charter, Article 71 of the newly formed United Nations Charter in 1945. While there is no fixed or formal definition for what NGOs are, they are generally defined as nonprofit entities that are independent of governmental influence—although they may receive government funding. According to the United Nations Department of Global Communic ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Selectorate Theory
The selectorate theory is a theory of government that studies the interactive relationships between political survival strategies and economic realities. It is first detailed in '' The Logic of Political Survival'', authored by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita of New York University (NYU), Alastair Smith of NYU, Randolph M. Siverson of UC Davis, and James D. Morrow of the University of Michigan. In subsequent years the authors, especially Bueno de Mesquita and Smith, have extended the selectorate theory in various other policy areas through subsequent academic publishings and books. The theory is applicable to all types of organizations with leadership, including (among others) private corporations and non-state actors. The theory is known for its use of continuous variables to classify regimes by describing the ratios of coalitions within the total population. Regimes are classified on a spectrum of coalition size, as opposed to conventional, categorical labels (for example, the authors ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa is the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lie south of the Sahara. These include Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the list of sovereign states and dependent territories in Africa, African countries and territories that are situated fully in that specified region, the term may also include polities that only have part of their territory located in that region, per the definition of the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations (UN). This is considered a non-standardised geographical region with the number of countries included varying from 46 to 48 depending on the organisation describing the region (e.g. United Nations, UN, World Health Organization, WHO, World Bank, etc.). The Regions of the African Union, African Union (AU) uses a different regional breakdown, recognising all 55 member states on the continent—grouping them into five distinct and standard regions. The te ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |