NationStates Jolt Archive

To: Member States of the United Nations
Re: Stem Cell Research Funding Resolution

Press Release from the Office of Projections:
At this time, the Pilot United Nations News Service is ready to project that Resolution #82, Stem Cell Research Funding, will pass through the U.N. by a margin of 76% to 24%. That porjection is made with a possible five percentage point margin of error.
Up to this point, PUNNS has correctly projected seventeen out of twenty-one U.N. resolutions within the five percentage point margin of error, inlcuding the most recent Definition of Marriage resolution.

To: United Nations Member States
Re: Update on Stem Cell Research Funding Resolution

The United Nations is reporting that the counted ballots on Resolution #82, "Stem Cell Research Funding", stand at 80% in favor and 20% opposed. This is just within PUNNS five percentage poin margin of error for our projection. At this point, with still two and a half days left to voting, it is difficult to tell what nations are planning to vote on this resolution and which way. However, throughout the course of today, the percentage has rapidly shifted from 78% to 80% and in between. Yesterday, the same rapid shift could be seen between 80% and 82%. That suggests that there are slightly more opposed votes coming in than favorable ones at this point. Notably, most of the larger delegates who were predicted to vote in favor of the resolution already have, so it is reasonable to assume that, over the next two days, we could see the same rapid shift between 77% and 79% until voting slows down in the first half of Tuesday. Likewise, the vote tallies are also coming close to the usual amount of votes cast for any resolution (which usually totals around 13,000-14,000 ballots). It cane be assumed that vote of the favorable votes have already come in and the precentage of the vote that the resolution gets will depend on whether the rest of the likely-to-vote nations abstain or vote against.

We will issue another report Sunday night, around 11:00 P.M. EST.

To: United Nations Member States
Re: Update on Stem Cell Research Funding Resolution

The United Nations is reporting that the counted ballots on Resolution #82, "Stem Cell Research Funding", stand at 80% in favor and 20% opposed. This is just within PUNNS five percentage poin margin of error for our projection. At this point, with still two and a half days left to voting, it is difficult to tell what nations are planning to vote on this resolution and which way. However, throughout the course of today, the percentage has rapidly shifted from 78% to 80% and in between. Yesterday, the same rapid shift could be seen between 80% and 82%. That suggests that there are slightly more opposed votes coming in than favorable ones at this point. Notably, most of the larger delegates who were predicted to vote in favor of the resolution already have, so it is reasonable to assume that, over the next two days, we could see the same rapid shift between 77% and 79% until voting slows down in the first half of Tuesday. Likewise, the vote tallies are also coming close to the usual amount of votes cast for any resolution (which usually totals around 13,000-14,000 ballots). It cane be assumed that vote of the favorable votes have already come in and the precentage of the vote that the resolution gets will depend on whether the rest of the likely-to-vote nations abstain or vote against.

We will issue another report Sunday night, around 11:00 P.M. EST.

Interesting.

You were right that it would continue to drop, as the resolution finished with 73% of the votes being cast in favour, which also is 3% away from your original forecast of 76%.

What is interesting is that the median (not mean) Human Rights resolution support is at 78%. There also have been enough Human Rights resolutions that the past three Human Rights resolutions have not altered the quartiles to the nearest 1% yet, in part because they all were not extreme results.

Interesting.

You were right that it would continue to drop, as the resolution finished with 73% of the votes being cast in favour, which also is 3% away from your original forecast of 76%.

What is interesting is that the median (not mean) Human Rights resolution support is at 78%. There also have been enough Human Rights resolutions that the past three Human Rights resolutions have not altered the quartiles to the nearest 1% yet, in part because they all were not extreme results.

And within the 5% margin of projection error. Another victory for PUNNS.

And within the 5% margin of projection error. Another victory for PUNNS.

First, I am honestly very impressed with your analysis and surveys. :)

But +/- 5% gives you a 10% range to play in. Where are you estimating your margin of error from?

I'd have to dust off the old statistics texts from college, but if we are taking samples of approximately 200 voting nations out of 36,000 votes (and probably somewhere around 25,000 nations -- remember UN Delegates get additional votes to cast), the survey is hitting less than 1% of the population.

I'm hoping if you continue to put out PUNNS projections, and if I continue to examine the historical trends and conduct independent surveys that together we'll be able to knock that uncertainity down a point or two. :)

i'll vote for it

UN STEM CELL Debated agrument

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I am all for that stem cell research but where is the money coming from?

I do not want my citizens taxed more then they are for research that only effects a small minority of my populous. The money should come from the private sector via donations and grants. I mean come on would you want to be needlessly taxed for somehting you didnt belive in nor had any effect on your very life--so take that into consideration before voting for the stem cell without knowing where the money is going to come from.

Proprietor of the Generated States

The nation of Donlikus supports stem cell research. It is our understanding that funding for such research will be done collectively through the UN.
If this is indeed the case, all break-throughs in treatment of deseases, ect, would also be shared with the member nations.
This is our concern, Do we as members of the UN share the advances with non-member nations?, or do we use this information as a tool to recruit other nations to join and, contribute to these as well as other causes?


DONLIKUS
Fearless Leader Chris

I noticed that the last three nations are relatively new to the UN and I'd like to be the first to welcome you.

However, this thread isn't actually a debate on the Stem Cell Research Funding resolution, but rather a poll where we are talking about voting behavior.

No worries. It is easy to see how the two threads are very similiar. However, if you want your nation's position on stem cell research to be included in the "official" thread along side all of the other opinions, you might want to repost your comments here (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=373860).

Again, it is always great to see new nations active in the UN and my government looks forward to reading future statements from your governments with the possibility of working together on some of your proposed resolutions in the near future! :)

First, I am honestly very impressed with your analysis and surveys. :)

But +/- 5% gives you a 10% range to play in. Where are you estimating your margin of error from?

I'd have to dust off the old statistics texts from college, but if we are taking samples of approximately 200 voting nations out of 36,000 votes (and probably somewhere around 25,000 nations -- remember UN Delegates get additional votes to cast), the survey is hitting less than 1% of the population.

I'm hoping if you continue to put out PUNNS projections, and if I continue to examine the historical trends and conduct independent surveys that together we'll be able to knock that uncertainity down a point or two. :)

~~ Dear Mikitivity,

First of all, thank you for your inquiry.

We have a +/- 5% margin or error rating because it is sometimes hard to tell how many nations are going to vote for a proposal. Most of the time, we have in between 13,000 and 16,000 votes recorded. However, like you said, delegates often have more than one vote to case (e.g. Pilot has six). Sometimes, we have delegates voting and not individual nations or vice versa. It's a difficult thing to predict. Also, the MoE is based upon our polling, which has a 3.5% MoE and, in the case of this resolution, also projected the final results accurately. Finally, just about all of our projection models show, voting patterns, specifically for social issues, that come to the plate as U.N. Resolutions tend to get alot more votes cast (16,000 to 19,000). In that case, it is harder to tell what nations that are usually dormant when it comes to the United Nations will click "For" or "Against".

Nevertheless, we remain committed to improving the quality and precision of our projections and, in the future, we may be able to confidently lower our margin of error ratings.

~ Office of the Press
~ Pilot United Nations News Service
~ COO Steven Connolly