Aggregate age-at-marriage patterns from individual mate-search heuristics

The distribution of age at first marriage shows well-known strong regularities across many countries and recent historical periods. We accounted for these patterns by developing agent-based models that simulate the aggregate behavior of individuals who are searching for marriage partners. Past models assumed fully rational agents with complete knowledge of the marriage market; our simulated agents used psychologically plausible simple heuristic mate search rules that adjust aspiration levels on the basis of a sequence of encounters with potential partners. Substantial individual variation must be included in the models to account for the demographically observed age-at-marriage patterns.     

Advocacy for Black and Minority Ethnic Communities: Understandings and Expectations

Recent policy has promoted ‘advocacy’ as a meansof promoting social justice for many disadvantaged groups. Yet‘advocacy’ is a contested concept, and the understandingsthat members of disadvantaged groups themselves have of advocacyhave rarely been explored. Previous research indicates thatunderstandings may vary considerably. Using empirical evidencefrom research conducted in Glasgow, Scotland, this paper examinesthe understandings and expectations of ‘advocacy’held by black and minority ethnic (BME) service providers andpotential service users. The BME service providers believedthat they were offering advocacy, and did so in the contextof a marginalized position for their services. The BME communitymembers supported the development of advocacy services, buttheir own marginalization was in many ways reinforced by servicesthey were already using. They had clear ideas about appropriateadvocacy services for their situation. These ideas were groundedin their current situation, and did not necessarily conformto dominant ideas about advocacy. In conclusion, the prospectsfor successful advocacy are assessed.     

Statistical Analysis for the Inverse Trinomial Distribution

This article considers parameter estimation, goodness of fit, likelihood ratio and score tests, and model selection by Akaike information criterion for the inverse trinomial (IT) distribution, a classical one-dimensional random walk distribution. The IT distribution has a cubic variance function of the mean and is a generalization of the negative binomial distribution. Basic distributional properties and expressions for the probability mass function, recurrence formula, moments, and score functions are also presented.     

Predicting burrowing owl flight trajectories in urban environments

Urban Ecosystems - It is important to understand how animals respond to changes in landscape structure, especially when considering habitat alteration and urbanization. Using the burrowing owl...