New bounds for locally irregular chromatic index of bipartite and subcubic graphs

A graph is locally irregular if the neighbors of every vertex v have degrees distinct from the degree of v. A locally irregular edge-coloring of a graph G is an (improper) edge-coloring such that the graph induced on the edges of any color class is locally irregular. It is conjectured that three colors suffice for a locally irregular edge-coloring. In the paper, we develop a method using which we prove four colors are enough for a locally irregular edge-coloring of any subcubic graph admiting such a coloring. We believe that our method can be further extended to prove the tight bound of three colors for such graphs. Furthermore, using a combination of existing results, we present an improvement of the bounds for bipartite graphs and general graphs, setting the best upper bounds to 7 and 220, respectively.     

Population growth and economic development

The paper deals with the relationship between the population growth and economic development in Yugoslavia and its republics, covering the period after the Second World War. Yugoslavia is a developing country with a specific demographic and economic structure which makes her unique in Europe. Its territory is comprised of both relatively developed regions where demographic transition is over, and underdeveloped regions with high natural increase of population where the demographic transition is only just beginning. Correlation and regression methods were used to quantify this relationship. The economic development and structural changes are discussed, relating to human factor. An adequate population policy through family planning is stressed as important in obtaining an increased return to scale with a more positive role of demographic factor.     

How Successful are Highly Qualified Return Migrants in the Lithuanian Labour Market?

This article analyses whether the human capital gained abroad helps returning migrants to integrate into the Lithuanian labour market. The analysis focuses on highly qualified migrants, defined narrowly as people with higher education who held qualified jobs when working abroad. The article found that for this group of returnees professional aims were important when taking a decision to return, together with other motives such as family reasons and home‐sickness. Most of the returnees were able to find employment and pursue their careers without major difficulties, although a significant minority signalled an intention to emigrate again. The article examines the key factors that sometimes helped and sometimes hindered integration of the returnees and discusses the role of the public policy.     

A Note on Selection and Gender Unemployment Gaps

Previous research has documented the impact of positive selection into employment on the ranking of countries by gender wage gaps. This note focuses on the impact of selection into labor force on cross-country differences in gender unemployment gaps. We construct the Manski bounds for the selection-free gender unemployment gaps in 26 EU countries and show that - without additional assumptions - the observed gender unemployment gaps carry little information about the selection-free gender differences in unemployment. Contrary to the common assumption of positive selection into labor force (similar to positive selection into employment documented in the gender wage gap research), we also point at an example of negative-selection bias. We show that labor force withdrawal of mothers on job-protected family leaves may lead to an overestimation of the selection-free gender unemployment gaps by as much as 1 p.p.     

Multilevel maximum likelihood estimation with application to covariance matrices

The asymptotic variance of the maximum likelihood estimate is proved to decrease when the maximization is restricted to a subspace that contains the true parameter value. Maximum likelihood estimation allows a systematic fitting of covariance models to the sample, which is important in data assimilation. The hierarchical maximum likelihood approach is applied to the spectral diagonal covariance model with different parameterizations of eigenvalue decay, and to the sparse inverse covariance model with specified parameter values on different sets of nonzero entries. It is shown computationally that using smaller sets of parameters can decrease the sampling noise in high dimension substantially.     

Self-Stigma of seeking help and job burnout in mental health care providers: the comparative study of Lithuanian and the USA samples

This study aimed to explore the correlation between job burnout and self-stigma of seeking help among nonmedical mental health care providers (psychologists, social workers, and counselors) in two countries – Lithuania and the US. The study included 234 professionals (111 social workers and 123 psychologists) from Lithuania and 93 professionals (33 counselors, 23 social workers, and 37 psychologists) from the US on a voluntary basis (93% females, mean age – 39.81?years). They completed a self-reported questionnaire with the Self-Stigma of Seeking Help Scale (SSOSH) and the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS). The results revealed a statistically significant positive correlation between self-stigmatization and burnout in the Lithuanian sample, but only weak positive correlation between depersonalization and self-stigma of seeking help in the US sample. The relationship between the self-stigma of seeking help and burnout was stronger in the Lithuanian sample of professionals when compared to their colleagues in the US.     

Prediction of posttraumatic stress disorder symptomatology after childbirth – A Croatian longitudinal study

Background

Following childbirth, a vast number of women experience some degree of mood swings, while some experience symptoms of postpartum posttraumatic stress disorder.

Limited Role of Body Satisfaction and Body Image Self-Consciousness in Sexual Frequency and Satisfaction in Pregnant Women

This cross-sectional study examined the role of maternal body image and body image self-consciousness in sexual satisfaction and intercourse frequency during pregnancy when controlling for satisfaction with partnership. Pregnant women in their third trimester of pregnancy (N = 150) participated in the study. Body image was measured by the Body Areas Satisfaction Scale (BASS) and Body Image Self-Consciousness Scale (BISC), while relationship satisfaction was measured by different subscales of the Perceived Quality of Marital Relationship (PQMR) Scale. Sexual satisfaction was also measured by one of the subscales of the PQMR (Intimate Relationship). The sexual behavior questionnaire comprised questions about frequency of sexual intercourse, desire, and other aspects of sexual functioning as well as the reasons that might prevent women from having intercourse during pregnancy. Findings suggested that satisfaction with body image and body image self-consciousness were related to sexual satisfaction. Nevertheless, other aspects of partnership, such as communication, appeared to be much more important predictors of sexual satisfaction than body image variables. The best predictor of sexual frequency was fear that intercourse might harm the fetus. Implications for education about sexuality issues in pregnancy are discussed.     

On probabilistic parametric inference

This paper formulates a theory of probabilistic parametric inference and explores the limits of its applicability. Unlike Bayesian statistical models, the system does not comprise prior probability distributions. Objectivity is imposed on the theory: a particular direct probability density should always result in the same posterior probability distribution. For calibrated posterior probability distributions it is possible to construct credible regions with posterior-probability content equal to the coverage of the regions, but the calibration is not generally preserved under marginalization. As an application of the theory, the paper also constructs a filter for linear Gauss–Markov stochastic processes with unspecified initial conditions.