No abstract

The paper provides extensive methodological discussion of the network approach to legislative studies and gives an overview to different methods and techniques that show great promise to the research of parliamentary politics. The key points of the proposed network theoretical framework are the informal interactions and collaborations of actors and their respective groups, that are tied by linkages of trust and mutual interests. We also keep the focus on the influence of the nodes (MPs) which is being accumulated due to the access to various resources, performance, and individual interests. This article also suggests description of the public data used to reveal the networks of legislative co-sponsorship, which is the well-developed method of legislative studies. In this context we also review some other approaches to obtain information about the ties between the MPs, that have been suggested in the academic literature: the voting data, personal interactions revealed by the interviews, range of connections in the online social networks, official mail, public speech, and others. We show that the network analysis appears to be very insightful for the legislative studies because it allows to perceive parliaments as the “small worlds” each with its own highly institutionalized composition of nodes and ties. We also argue that it is critical to take into consideration the influence of several exogenic forces – voters, the public, and other authorities on the MPs persistent interactions and the respective network structure of the parliament. Finally, we propose two methodological solutions to the research of complex network structures. We debate on the potential implications of the discourse-network analysis in legislative studies. It provides the opportunity to map the advocacy coalitions and model the relations between the nodes, which are based on the similarities and differences of their ideas in the public speeches. We also discuss the potential of the inferential network analysis in regard to the quantitative research in legislative studies. Specifically, we provide a critical review of the modern studies of the innerparliamentary networks, that are based on ERGMs and their variations (SAOM and TERGM). We show that dyadic interactions between the MPs and political parties can be modeled taking into account both individual covariates (exogenous and endogenous) and network parameters of the current structure of parliament as a whole.

The use of litz wire in their optimized frequency range can provide increased efficiency of high-frequency coils and lead to higher SNR in MR measurements. This work experimentally explores the added value of such a litz wire using equivalent solenoid coils in the range of 1 to 61 MHz. An improvement could be measured up to a frequency of 15 MHz, whereas the maximum effectiveness of the investigated wire was at 3 MHz. In addition, the SNR gain was validated in agreement on an 0.26 T MR system by comparing 1H FID signals.

Field mapping devices are used to determine the spatial distribution of magnetic fields. As magnetic devices are very unique in shape and size, commercially available mapping devices are often complex and customised and therefore too costly for small-format magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) systems and the open-source community. A low-cost field mapping device with a Hall sensor for the OCRA tabletop MRI system1 is developed. Field maps are measured and compared against a commercial Hall probe. The presented measurements show that the developed device can compete with commercially available devices.