Dr Andrew Garthwaite

Martin Fayulu was the clear winner of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s presidential elections last month, a Financial Times analysis of two separate collections of voting data shows, contradicting claims from authorities that rival contender Felix Tshisekedi had won the historic vote. The analysis points to huge fraud in the first change of power since Joseph Kabila took over the presidency of the mineral-rich central African nation almost 18 years ago. It is likely to embolden critics of Mr

A warning to markets over the exit poll Sterling traders could be at risk of getting ahead of themselves if they respond too aggressively to tonight’s exit poll, which may be less precise than in recent years, leading academics have warned. Overconfidence in the exit poll, due to be released at 10pm London time, may lead to dramatic fluctuations later in the evening as election results are declared, warned David Firth, the Warwick University statistician who, along with Sir John Curtice of Str

Empty stadiums, canceled fixtures and a massive loss of revenue: the pandemic has wrought havoc on everything from the Olympics to the Superbowl. But some sports have adapted better than others. The Super Bowl is usually America’s biggest sporting event, on a par with Thanksgiving and Christmas. COVID-19 took the shine off this year. There were 25,000 fans allowed at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium, far short of the 65,890 capacity. Hit hard by the pandemic...

In many parts of the world, the outcome of the Covid-19 outbreak has a lot to do with the choices people make about social distancing and obeying restrictions, as well as choices about their own personal care, such as maintaining a more thorough approach to handwashing or, more controversially, when it is appropriate to wear a mask. Those decisions will be influenced by each individual’s knowledge and beliefs, which – in turn – are shaped by the information they receive from government, from hea

Political campaign groups with no obvious affiliation to any of the UK’s main parties have bought thousands of Facebook ads in the first month of the general election campaign, in a digital battle for votes that transparency campaigners warn is too opaque to be adequately monitored. According to Financial Times analysis, these non-party groups, sometimes referred to as shadow campaigns, have spent more than half a million pounds on ads with Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram, as well as other online networks such as Google and Snapchat.

Startups need effective data collection and reporting to set up KPIs, speed up inefficient internal processes and deliver value for their customers. But how do you decide which data is worth tracking? At our latest Sifted Talks, we asked this and more to our expert panel: Charles Miglietti, CEO and founder of leading data storytelling platform Toucan Toco; Jessica Graves, founder and chief data officer for retail and luxury data science advisor Sefleuria; and Derek Skaletsky, CEO and founder of

Delving into the data gathered for masters in management rankings over the past decade underscores the inequality in pay between male and female alumni three years after graduation — but it also highlights some surprises. Other data show the most popular and lucrative careers for alumni and what happens to graduates’ incomes when they move abroad. Three years after graduating with a masters in management, the median salary for men is higher than that for women in every sector of employment. W

The number of people sleeping rough rose by 169% between 2010 and 2017. During the bitter cold of the 2017-2018 winter, some deaths made headlines, including that of a man who died close to the Palace of Westminster. Despite many vulnerable people being known to the authorities, local journalists and charities were often the only ones that reported these deaths. The Bureau spoke to councils, hospitals, coroners' offices, police forces and NGOs. While there is a charitable network recording in

“And I was like, ‘An MBA? But that’s not for doctors!’ And he said, ‘Precisely’.” Pelayo de Merlo, 39, recalls the night five years ago, when his husband-to-be startled him out of complacency. While working as an anaesthesiologist, Mr De Merlo enrolled on an online MBA with IE Business School in Spain. Three years after graduation, he became the managing director of Quirònsalud Hospital, Madrid. Mr De Merlo’s medical career was thriving, but he felt that something was amiss. “I didn’t see much

European deep tech companies are now worth a combined €700B, and account for a quarter of all VC investment in Europe. But what even is Deep Tech, what's special about a Deep Tech startup, why is it important that Europe shows global leadership, and how can that come about? This new European Startups report, in collaboration with Sifted, supported by the European Commission and European Parliament, shows that deep tech – including Artificial Intelligence, blockchain, robotics and quantum technology - explores the next frontiers of innovation, and Europe's place in the deep tech race.

Breaking into the Chinese healthcare market is notoriously difficult for foreigners. It usually requires lengthy relationship cultivation or strong local partners to front up any deal – often both. One expert well grounded in introducing foreign investors to the market tells Healthcare Nova things are about to get even harder. We hear that without an official announcement, government officials have effectively put health provider feasibility studies on hold. Our source tells us: “We were doing

Rising rough sleeping is a major concern, people in Birmingham have told HuffPost UK, as they shared their experiences of seeing an increase in homelessness in the city centre. Local Jonny Betteridge said he had walked past five homeless people “in as many metres” as people shared their reactions as part of HuffPost Listens, a project to go out in the city and listen to people.

The German nursing homes market looks ripe for consolidation – 15,000 homes are run by 6,000 providers, but the market is heavily regulated. This is what every investor or operator looking at the market ought know according to Hermann Thiel, CEO of healthcare real estate consultancy Terranus. There is huge scope for consolidation Public providers cover 5% of the market, 35-40% is covered by private providers, and the sizeable remainder, 55-60%, is provided by charity-based and religious non-pr

The national media has “skipped” Birmingham and most of the coverage of the area is relentlessly negative, according to people HuffPost spoke to in the UK’s second biggest city. Local views on topics like Brexit are overlooked by the London-focused media, they said, while the newspapers, internet and broadcast media could not always be trusted to tell “the truth” without “agenda”.

We’ve expanded our Autocare scheme with the opening of a new workshop in Boston, Lincolnshire. The new vehicle maintenance workshop opened at Boston delivery office last month and is equipped with a dedicated MOT service area. Boston is now one of 72 in-house MOT facilities across the country. We have almost doubled our MOT capability in recent times as part of our drive towards greater commercialisation of the business. Fleet technician Paul Hartnett is excited by the new range of commercial work being carried out at the site. ‘It’s brilliant for our apprenticeships,’ he says. ‘You’ve got to make them interested, and apparently we’re doing a good job at that.’

Police cuts could have led to a rise in violent crime and the media needs to cover knife attacks more, people in Birmingham have told HuffPost UK. People frequently mentioned policing and crime in their area when asked what they cared about most for HuffPost Listens, a project which saw us go out in the city and listen to people.

In this section, we start off our analysis with a model that allows the pulse lifetime to vary, while keeping the exponential distribution for initial pulse depth. One way to do this is to take the pulse lifetime d as a random variable with a specified distribution. Another approach is to take d as a parameter of the model and seek to estimate it from the data, along with other parameters. We take this second approach in this paper. When d is taken as a parameter, the expressions (4) to (6) for

New report by John Crowley and myself shedding light on how the coronavirus pandemic and working from home have affected journalists’ mental health.

The religious and ethnic diversity in Birmingham makes the city “wonderful”, but can also lead to tensions, abuse and segregation, residents of the UK’s second-largest city have told HuffPost UK. British white people are set to become the minority in “super diverse” Birmingham by 2021, according to a report last month.

Several Markov modulated Poisson process (MMPP) models are developed to describe winter season rainfall with parsimonious parameter use. We propose a methodology for determining the best form of seasonal model for fine-scale rainfall within a MMPP framework. Of those proposed here, a model with a fixed transition rate is shown to be superior over the other MMPP models considered. The model is expanded to include covariate data for sea-level air pressure, relative humidity, and temperature using