Rota-Risk-Profile-Analysis

Abstract

In this article an update of the Rota-Risk-Profile-Analysis (RRPA) is presented. This RRPA is based on 9 rota-risk criteria that are central to a more encompassing rota theory. The RRPA allows coherent assessment of the physical and social risks of a working-time schedule (rota). comparison of schedules with one another in quantitative terms and interpretations of possible differential effects more adequately. First, a closer look at the instrument-a computer program-is taken. Afterwards the criteria and their way of implementation are discussed briefly. To get an impression of the way that RRPA functions an example will be given by applying the instrument to the working rotas from a study on shiftwork in the Netherlands.     

Modeling Selectivity in Count-Data Models

This article presents a method for modeling endogenous selectivity in count data. As in the case of the switching-regression model, two regimes are distinguished with potentially different data-generating processes. The regime choice is allowed to be correlated with the observed count in each of the regimes. An estimable model is obtained by transforming the underlying processes to the bivariate normal distribution. An empirical application on trip count is provided.     

以后期维特根斯坦为导向探讨宗教理解的语言哲学前提

哈贝马斯主张,为使宗教进入公共领域,必须对它们的文本进行分类和翻译,从而把它们的命题含义与它们的神圣外衣加以分离,以便使它们的意义成为公众可理解的.作者以后期维特根斯坦的哲学为基础进行论证,认为宗教语言不同于科学语言,因为它们涉及不同的生活形式、处理不同的主题,宗教所关心的是对作为整体的世界的生活态度,而科学则对作为物的总和的世界加以说明,因而把宗教的话语翻译成命题的表达方式的做法既无必要也无助益.     

Institutions and Policies for Pro‐poor Agricultural Growth

Global experience with pro‐poor growth and empirical work spanning India, Malawi and Zimbabwe demonstrates the importance of agricultural growth for poverty reduction in poor rural areas, while also pointing to the need for complementary non‐farm sector growth. Theoretical arguments, historical evidence and livelihoods modelling in poor medium‐potential rural economies suggest that, contrary to thinking dominating much of current development policy, subsidies to relieve critical seasonal credit and cash restraints and reduce market and input supply uncertainties need to help in ‘kick‐starting’ agricultural markets if increased smallholder productivity in food‐grains is to drive rural non‐farm growth. Establishing the base conditions for these to work, designing and implementing them to be effective, and then phasing them out are major challenges facing policymakers.     

Financial Responsibilities Toward Older Parents and Stepparents Following Divorce and Remarriage

We assessed beliefs about adult children’s responsibilities to financially assist parents and stepparents following later-life divorce and remarriage using a multiple-segment factorial vignette with a national sample (N = 1,121). Ordered logistic regression analyses indicated that beliefs about financial responsibilities to older adults declined after marital transitions, and responsibilities to assist stepparents were more tenuous than to parents. Beliefs about intergenerational responsibilities were affected by adult children’s financial resources and by changes in older adults’ marital statuses. Kinship obligation norms, the adult children’s financial resources, and reciprocity norms were the most common reasons used to explain beliefs about responsibilities to financially assist older parents and stepparents, but these reasons became less salient following divorce and remarriage of the older adult. After marital transitions, beliefs about intergenerational financial responsibilities were more often based on the older adult’s culpability for being in a position of need, relationship quality, and diminished kinship obligations.     

Mountain chickadees adjust songs,calls and chorus composition with increasing ambient and experimental anthropogenic noise

Vocal plasticity may allow birds to reduce masking effects of noise pollution arising from urbanization. Mountain chickadees (Poecile gambeli) use both songs and calls during the dawn chorus, which vary in masking susceptibility. Thus, increasing song or call frequency, or switching between vocalization types are all potential mechanisms to reduce masking during fluctuating noise conditions. Further, prior experience with noise pollution may be a necessary precursor to allow birds to alter signals in response to sudden noisy conditions. To determine how mountain chickadee songs, calls, and chorus composition are affected by noise, we recorded 55 males across gradients of local ambient noise and habitat urbanization in three cities in British Columbia, Canada. Of these individuals, 31 were also exposed to 5-min experimental noise treatments. Habitat urbanization was quantified through a continuous index reflecting properties of urbanized areas. Only song frequency increased with local ambient noise, and this effect varied regionally. In response to experimental noise exposure, males increased the frequency of their calls (but not of their songs), and varied their use of songs vs. calls. Interestingly, this response was dependent on local ambient noise levels: males in noisy areas shifted to using relatively more songs, whereas males in quiet areas shifted to using relatively more calls. These findings may suggest that although mountain chickadees are capable of adjusting their vocalizations, choosing a response which can lead to masking release may require prior exposure to high levels of ambient noise.     

Collective Labor Supply,Taxes, and Intrahousehold Allocation: An Empirical Approach

ABSTRACT

Most empirical studies of the impact of labor income taxation on the labor supply behavior of households use a unitary modeling approach. In this article, we empirically analyze income taxation and the choice of working hours by combining the collective approach for household behavior and the discrete hours choice framework with fixed costs of work. We identify the sharing rule parameters with data on working hours of both the husband and the wife within a couple. Parameter estimates are used to evaluate various model outcomes, like the wage elasticities of labor supply and the impacts of wage changes on the intrahousehold allocation of income. We also simulate the consequences of a policy change in the tax system. We find that the collective model has different empirical outcomes of income sharing than a restricted model that imposes income pooling. In particular, a specification with income pooling fails to capture asymmetries in the income sharing across spouses. These differences in outcomes have consequences for the evaluation of policy changes in the tax system and shed light on the effectiveness of certain policies.     

On level and powee of anderson and hauck's peocedure for testing equivalence in compative bioavailability

The paper refers to a new procedure of Anderson and Hauck for the well-known problem of deciding whether two means of normal distributions with common but unknown variance differ within an admissible range. Analytical expressions for level and power of this method are derived and some numerical examples are given. A bound for the difference between real and no¬minal level is obtained which does not involve the variance.