Improved Transferability of Data‐Driven Damage Models Through Sample Selection Bias Correction

Damage models for natural hazards are used for decision making on reducing and transferring risk. The damage estimates from these models depend on many variables and their complex sometimes nonlinear relationships with the damage. In recent years, data‐driven modeling techniques have been used to capture those relationships. The available data to build such models are often limited. Therefore, in practice it is usually necessary to transfer models to a different context. In this article, we show that this implies the samples used to build the model are often not fully representative for the situation where they need to be applied on, which leads to a “sample selection bias.” In this article, we enhance data‐driven damage models by applying methods, not previously applied to damage modeling, to correct for this bias before the machine learning (ML) models are trained. We demonstrate this with case studies on flooding in Europe, and typhoon wind damage in the Philippines. Two sample selection bias correction methods from the ML literature are applied and one of these methods is also adjusted to our problem. These three methods are combined with stochastic generation of synthetic damage data. We demonstrate that for both case studies, the sample selection bias correction techniques reduce model errors, especially for the mean bias error this reduction can be larger than 30%. The novel combination with stochastic data generation seems to enhance these techniques. This shows that sample selection bias correction methods are beneficial for damage model transfer.     

Finding common ground: how superdiversity is unsettling social work education

For social work education in the Netherlands, the rapid transition towards superdiversity means that its capacity to adapt to this new reality and to adjust to diverse students’ backgrounds is fiercely challenged. The key aim of this article is to discuss how social work educators are dealing with the unsettling challenges of increasing diversity, based on the research outcomes of an explorative study amongst Turkish–Dutch and Moroccan–Dutch female professionals. Two different groups of educators were asked to comment on the outcomes of this study. One of the dilemmas for educators is to determine what can be considered supportive and inclusive and as reducing inequality in education. The authors used two key theoretical concepts, ‘superdiversity’ and ‘the capability approach’. These theoretical perspectives were used to deconstruct the rather massive concepts of diversity and social justice, by emphasising contextual approaches. Both perspectives stress the urgent need to involve students as ‘active agents of change’, by building a social work community to stimulate and facilitate an on-going dialogue. To successfully fulfil a pivotal role in the upward mobility or emancipation of ethnic minority students, social work education needs to be adjusted to accommodate diverse student groups.     

Navigating norms and structures: young mothers’ pathways to economic independence

Understanding the complex relationships between childcare, education and work is crucial to acknowledging how young mothers express agency in their pathways to economic independence. Instead of considering them as a policy target group at risk for multiple reasons, this research reverses the perspective by focusing on young mothers’ agency in school and paid employment. The study is set in the Netherlands, where economic independence has become a focal point of social policy and practice, especially for young people. It explores how young mothers navigate norms and structures of education and employment, drawing on 18 months of participant observation and 41 semi-structured interviews with young mothers. Notions of ‘everyday’ and ‘bounded’ agency are used in analysing structural limitations (e.g. irregular working hours in ‘women’s jobs’, a lack of maternity leave at school) and norms (e.g. completing higher education and finding a good job versus being primary caretakers, enjoying children and being role models). School and workplace structures reinforce contradictory discourses of motherhood and economic independence. Young mothers exhibit agency in considering their options around job security, work experience, wages, student loans and spending time with children. In doing so, they navigate structural and normative collisions of economic independence and mothering.     

Sharing the surplus and proportional values

Theory and Decision - We introduce a family of proportional surplus division values for TU-games. Each value first assigns to each player a compromise between her stand-alone worth and the average...     

Radical alternative conceptualizations of the classical welfare state? Contrasting the United Kingdom and the Netherlands with Norway

In many countries, new, broad, and normative “conceptions of society” gained prominence that represent fundamentally different discursive alternatives to the classical welfare state. We present two political projects that contain radical alternative conceptualizations of the classical welfare state, the “Big Society” in Britain and the “Participation Society” in the Netherlands, and contrast these with Norwegian developments, where no such a radical alternative conceptualization of the welfare state can be found. We show that the British and Dutch political projects were attempts to replace the welfare state, whereas there is no comparable big idea about a radical overhaul of the welfare state in Norway. Our analysis contributes to a better understanding of a fundamental shift in welfare state reform, namely a radical reconsidering of the ideational and normative foundation that defines and underpins what the welfare state is or should be.     

Insight into Informant Discrepancies Regarding Psychosexual Functioning of Adolescents with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder

The private nature of psychosexual functioning leads adolescents and their parents to have different perspectives, which highlights studying parent–child informant discrepancies in this domain. We investigated informant discrepancy in psychosexual functioning, using the self‐report and parent report versions of the Teen Transition Inventory (TTI), of adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; 136 parent–child dyads) compared to adolescents from the general population (GP; 70 parent–child dyads). Significantly larger informant discrepancies exist in ASD dyads than GP dyads in most domains of psychosexual functioning, except for Body image, Sexual behavior, and Confidence in the future. It is important to use and pay attention to both informants, as discrepancies are relevant for both research and clinical practice regarding psychosexual functioning.     

Juggling Between Parental and School Expectations: The Development of Domain‐Specific Acculturation Orientations in Early Adolescence

We examined how perceived acculturation expectations from parents and school, and ethnic discrimination predicted early adolescents’ heritage and mainstream acculturation orientations at home (private domain) and in school (public domain) one year later. We surveyed 263 early adolescents of immigrant background in Germany (M_age = 10.44 years, 60% female). Multigroup path analyses revealed that perceived acculturation expectations and ethnic discrimination were more strongly related to adolescents’ private than public acculturation orientations. Parental heritage expectations were the strongest predictor of adolescents’ acculturation orientations. Boys were more susceptible than girls to ethnic discrimination and acculturation expectations in school, which affected their private and public acculturation orientations. Results highlight the importance of integrating domain‐specific and gendered experiences when analyzing adolescents’ acculturative development.     

The Interplay Between Adolescents' Friendships and the Exchange of Help: A Longitudinal Multiplex Social Network Study

The aim of this study was to unravel the interrelatedness of friendship and help, and to examine the characteristics of friendship and help networks. The effects of mutual versus one‐sided help relations on friendship initiation and maintenance, and vice versa, were examined. Friendship and help networks were analyzed (N = 953 students; 41 classrooms; M_age = 12.7). The results illustrate that friendship and help networks show some similarities, but only partly overlap and have distinct characteristics. Longitudinal multiplex social network analyses showed that mutual help was important for the maintenance of friendship, but not for the initiation of friendship. Further, particularly mutual friendships provided a context in which help took place. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

The Child Abuse Risk Evaluation Dutch Version (CARE-NL): A retrospective validation study

Abstract

The Child Abuse Risk Evaluation – Dutch version (CARE-NL) is a structured professional guideline for assessing the risk of all types of child abuse. The CARE-NL comprises 18 risk factors: eight Parental characteristics, three Parent-Child interaction factors, five Family factors, one Child vulnerability factor, and an extra factor for child sexual abuse risk. We examined interrater reliability and predictive accuracy of the instrument in a retrospective study at Advice and Reporting Centers on Child Abuse (ARCCA) in The Netherlands. The ARCCA files contained limited information on Parental risk factors, while parental characteristics, such as mental disorder and substance abuse, are the most important risk factors for (repeated) child abuse. On the other hand, the majority of the files included ample information on child and family characteristics. The CARE-NL could be reliably coded by trained raters and the predictive accuracy for out-of-home placement (AUC = .73) and placement of the child under court supervision (AUC = .78), at two years follow-up, was adequate. Use of the CARE-NL ensures that the assessment of the risk of child abuse focuses on the most important, empirically based risk factors in a structured and coherent way.