Detection and correction of artificial shifts in climate series

Summary.  Many long instrumental climate records are available and might provide useful information in climate research. These series are usually affected by artificial shifts, due to changes in the conditions of measurement and various kinds of spurious data. A comparison with surrounding weather-stations by means of a suitable two-factor model allows us to check the reliability of the series. An adapted penalized log-likelihood procedure is used to detect an unknown number of breaks and outliers. An example concerning temperature series from France confirms that a systematic comparison of the series together is valuable and allows us to correct the data even when no reliable series can be taken as a reference.     

Implicit and Explicit Sexual Attitudes: How Are They Related to Sexual Desire and Sexual Satisfaction in Men and Women?

This article examines individual variability in sexual desire and sexual satisfaction by exploring the relation between these sexual aspects and sexual attitudes (implicit and explicit) and by taking gender into account, as this has been shown to be an influential factor. A total of 28 men and 33 women living in heterosexual relationships completed questionnaires assessing sexual desire (dyadic, solitary), sexual satisfaction, and explicit sexual attitudes. An adapted version of the Affect Misattribution Procedure was used to assess implicit sexual attitudes. Results showed higher levels of dyadic and solitary sexual desire in men than in women. No gender differences were found regarding sexual satisfaction or sexual attitudes. High dyadic sexual desire was associated with positive implicit and explicit sexual attitudes, regardless of gender. However, solitary sexual desire was significantly higher in men than women and was associated, in women only, with positive implicit sexual attitudes, suggesting that solitary sexual desire may fulfill different functions in men and women. Finally, sexual satisfaction depended on the combination of explicit and implicit sexual attitudes in both men and women. This study highlights the importance of considering both implicit and explicit sexual attitudes to better understand the mechanisms underlying individual variability in sexual desire and satisfaction.     

Infant Sex Moderates the Effects of Maternal Pre‐ and Postnatal Stress on Executive Functioning at 8 Months of Age

Previous studies report that early life stress, including maternal pre‐ and postnatal stress, has adverse effects on cognitive development and that these associations might be sex‐specific. However, no studies exist on early life stress and infant executive functioning (EF). The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between maternal pre‐ and postnatal stress and infant EF, and whether these associations are moderated by infant sex. Maternal prenatal depressive, general anxiety, and pregnancy‐specific anxiety symptoms were measured three times, and postnatal depressive and general anxiety symptoms were measured 6 months postpartum. Infant EF was assessed with a modified A‐not‐B task 8 months postpartum (N = 214). Maternal postnatal general anxiety predicted poorer EF in girls in comparison with boys. Moreover, there was a trend toward an interaction between prenatal anxiety and infant sex such that prenatal anxiety predicted infant EF differently in girls and in boys. No association was found between depressive symptoms or pregnancy‐specific anxiety symptoms and infant EF. These findings suggest that maternal anxiety may have sex‐specific effects on early EF and that pre‐ and postnatal stress may differently affect infant EF/cognitive development. The implications of these findings and important future directions are discussed.     

Education and wage inequality in the informal sector: The case of Cameroon

This article analyses the effects of education on wage inequality in the informal sector in Cameroon. The author uses quantile regression on data from the Second survey on employment and the informal sector in Cameroon (EESI 2) of 2010. The results indicate that both wages and wage inequality increase with education in the informal sector, with tertiary education creating greatest inequality. These findings point to a number of policy recommendations for a transition to formality, such as the creation of more jobs for a skilled workforce, the development of sites adapted to informal sector activities and the creation of more vocational schools.     

Gender and social conformity: Do men and women respond differently to social pressure to vote?

In this paper, we re-analyze data from a large-scale field experiment (N = 344,084) on voter turnout in order to determine whether men and women respond differently to social pressure aimed at voter mobilization. To date, there have been mixed results regarding the interaction between a person’s gender and receptivity to social influence. On the whole, our analyses confirm prior findings that social pressure increases voter turnout but uncover little to no evidence of gender differences in receptivity to social pressure cues in the context of political participation.     

Online Poker Tilt Scale (OPTS): creation and validation of a tilt assessment in a French population

Tilt in poker implies a deviation from an individual’s usual playing style, at a strategic, emotional and behavioural level. It is a specific characteristic of poker, which can affect all kinds of players with varying degrees of frequency. In addition, tilt could be a transitional form of pathological gambling behaviour and a gateway to addiction. The main objective of this research is therefore the design and validation of a measuring scale for tilt episode frequency in an online poker gamblers’ group. Twenty-one items based on the literature and interviews with 10 poker players were created. An online self-administered questionnaire was completed by 263 poker players to validate this scale. The mean age of the sample was 26.7 (SD = 4.45). The Online Poker Tilt Scale (OPTS) consists of 17 items and is the first validated tool for measuring the frequency of tilt episodes associated with online poker. It is composed of two factors: ‘emotional and behavioural tilt’ and ‘cognitive tilt’. Tilt seems to be an essential part of understanding online poker behaviour. This tool will enable researchers studying online poker addiction to perform research on the mechanisms and processes that lead to tilt and its consequences.     

On Modeling Wood Formation Using Parametric and Semiparametric Regressions for Count Data

Understanding how wood develops has become an important problematic of plant sciences. However, studying wood formation requires the acquisition of count data difficult to interpret. Here, the annual wood formation dynamics of a conifer tree species were modeled using generalized linear and additive models (GLM and GAM); GAM for location, scale, and shape (GAMLSS); a discrete semiparametric kernel regression for count data. The performance of models is evaluated using bootstrap methods. GLM was useful to describe the wood formation general pattern but had a lack of fitting, while GAM, GAMLSS, and kernel regression had a higher sensibility to short-term variations.     

A new estimate of permanent sterility by age: sterility defined as the inability to conceive

The proportion of couples permanently sterile beyond a certain age is an important component of the reproductive process. Unless medical assistance is used, this age is the upper bound of the fecund period. Most estimates of sterility by age of the woman have been derived from natural fertility populations, in which the number of births and the timing of the last birth (of the complete reproductive history) were not controlled by the couples. Because data on these populations do not include pregnancies not ending in a live birth, the sterility estimates apply to the proportion of couples unable to conceive and to have a live birth. For this reason, it is useful to have an estimate of sterility based on the risk of conceiving, independently of the fate of the pregnancy. Using this new estimate, sterility increases with age much more slowly than with most previous estimates.     

Flexicurity in Belgium: A reform proposal based on economic principles

Belgium's systems of unemployment insurance and employment protection legislation were set up in the context of typically enduring and stable relationships between workers and firms. Economic globalization and rapid technological and organizational change, however, are now demanding more flexibility of both workers and firms. As a result, current labour market institutions are in urgent need of reform to reconcile such increased flexibility with adequate security for workers. Though the call for a “flexicurity” approach is not new, there is no single view of what institutional model the latter implies. This paper proposes a reform explicitly guided by economic principles.     

从噪声产生有序的原理：非指导性的学习和做梦

文章从两个方面阐述了生物的自组织亦即其复杂性的问题：一、生物后天行为的性状不是机械地由遗传基因决定的，而是由基因组与细胞内理化环境（包括被基因决定产生的蛋白质）之间的相互作用所形成的调节机制决定的；二、生物的自组织和复杂化是通过生物在充满随机作用的环境中自主地摸索自身行为可以遵循的概率性规律、从而减少自身结构中的冗余性以增加异质性而实现的。