Latin American convergence and divergence towards the mortality profiles of developed countries

It is uncertain whether Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) countries are approaching a single mortality regime. Over the last three decades, LAC has experienced major public health interventions and the highest number of homicides in the world. However, these interventions and homicide rates are not evenly shared across countries. This study documents trends in life expectancy and lifespan variability for 20 LAC countries, 2000–14. By extending a previous method, we decompose differences in lifespan variability between LAC and a developed world benchmark into cause-specific effects. For both sexes, dispersion of amenable diseases through the age span makes the largest contribution to the gap between LAC and the benchmark. Additionally, for males, the concentration of homicides, accidents, and suicides in mid-life further impedes mortality convergence. Great disparity exists in the region: while some countries are rapidly approaching the developed regime, others remain far behind and suffer a clear disadvantage in population health.     

基于犹豫模糊语言信息的前景决策方法

本文首先回顾了模糊信息下前景理论研究的现状，发现犹豫模糊语言这一决策中常见的信息表达形式在前景理论框架中的研究被忽略，同时犹豫模糊环境下的前景决策方法具有一定的应用背景；基于此，本文考虑到决策者在实际决策过程中惯用的信息表达以及面对收益和损失时不同的风险态度，试图在犹豫模糊语言环境下构造新的前景理论决策框架，建立基于犹豫模糊语言信息的前景决策方法，并给出具体的决策步骤；最后通过算例分析展示了该方法的实际应用过程，并与犹豫模糊语言环境下的期望效用决策结果进行对比，说明了该方法更符合实际决策情景。     

Squashed dreams and rare breeds: ableism and the arbiters of life and death

The week beginning 29 June 2015 is not just historic for the closure of the Independent Living Fund in the United Kingdom, but for me was the week they decided that my life is not worth investing in; they being NHS England, NICE and, with them, the Department of Health. They chose not to support the enzyme replacement therapy that has been not only keeping me alive, but giving me a quality of life – enabling me to return to finish my Disability Studies PhD exploring how Christian leaders explain disability, where ethics have become the main topic, and to rebuild my career – or so I thought.     

网络外部性对双渠道供应链信息分享的影响

研究了网络外部性对双渠道供应链信息分享的影响。分别建立了存在网络外部性和不存在网络外部性下的双渠道供应链模型，通过比较零售商信息分享和不分享下其与制造商的期望利润。研究发现：当未考虑产品的网络外部性时，零售商不与制造商分享其市场需求信息，与已有研究一致。当考虑了产品网络外部性且网络外部性较小时，零售商仍不与制造商分享市场需求信息；然而，当网络外部性较大时，零售商与制造商分享其市场需求信息。此外，零售商与制造商共享其市场需求信息有助于增加制造商和供应链利润。     

Impact of older adults' mobility and social participation on life satisfaction in South Korea

South Korea has been experiencing rapid population aging. In an aging society, the need for healthy lives is greater. Two of the fundamental factors to enable independent and active life for the elderly are mobility and social participation. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between older adults’ mobility, social participation, and quality of life in South Korea. We used data from the 2017 National Survey of Older Koreans conducted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs and applied hierarchical regression. The major finding was that older adults’ mobility had a positive impact on their life satisfaction. After controlling for older adults’ mobility, social participation was positively associated with life satisfaction regardless of the place of residence. The findings of this study not only make a valuable contribution to further research on mobility and social participation but also provide new insight into improving older adults’ quality of life.     

The relationship between lifetime health trajectories and socioeconomic attainment in middle age

A large literature demonstrates the direct and indirect influence of health on socioeconomic attainment, and reveals the ways in which health and socioeconomic background simultaneously and dynamically affect opportunities for attainment and mobility. Despite an increasing understanding of the effects of health on social processes, research to date remains limited in its conceptualization and measurement of the temporal dimensions of health, especially in the presence of socioeconomic circumstances that covary with health over time. Guided by life course theory, we use data from the British National Child Development Study, an ongoing panel study of a cohort born in 1958, to examine the association between lifetime health trajectories and socioeconomic attainment in middle age. We apply finite mixture modeling to identify distinct trajectories of health that simultaneously account for timing, duration and stability. Moreover, we employ propensity score weighting models to account for the presence of time-varying socioeconomic factors in estimating the impact of health trajectories. We find that, when poor health is limited to the childhood years, the disadvantage in socioeconomic attainment relative to being continuously healthy is either insignificant or largely explained by time-varying socioeconomic confounders. The socioeconomic impact of continuously deteriorating health over the life course is more persistent, however. Our results suggest that accounting for the timing, duration and stability of poor health throughout both childhood and adulthood is important for understanding how health works to produce social stratification. In addition, the findings highlight the importance of distinguishing between confounding and mediating effects of time-varying socioeconomic circumstances.     

Blinded continuous monitoring in clinical trials with recurrent event endpoints

In studies with recurrent event endpoints, misspecified assumptions of event rates or dispersion can lead to underpowered trials or overexposure of patients. Specification of overdispersion is often a particular problem as it is usually not reported in clinical trial publications. Changing event rates over the years have been described for some diseases, adding to the uncertainty in planning. To mitigate the risks of inadequate sample sizes, internal pilot study designs have been proposed with a preference for blinded sample size reestimation procedures, as they generally do not affect the type I error rate and maintain trial integrity. Blinded sample size reestimation procedures are available for trials with recurrent events as endpoints. However, the variance in the reestimated sample size can be considerable in particular with early sample size reviews. Motivated by a randomized controlled trial in paediatric multiple sclerosis, a rare neurological condition in children, we apply the concept of blinded continuous monitoring of information, which is known to reduce the variance in the resulting sample size. Assuming negative binomial distributions for the counts of recurrent relapses, we derive information criteria and propose blinded continuous monitoring procedures. The operating characteristics of these are assessed in Monte Carlo trial simulations demonstrating favourable properties with regard to type I error rate, power, and stopping time, ie, sample size.     

Accurate computation of single and product moments of order statistics under progressive censoring

An accurate procedure is proposed to calculate approximate moments of progressive order statistics in the context of statistical inference for lifetime models. The study analyses the performance of power series expansion to approximate the moments for location and scale distributions with high precision and smaller deviations with respect to the exact values. A comparative analysis between exact and approximate methods is shown using some tables and figures. The different approximations are applied in two situations. First, we consider the problem of computing the large sample variance–covariance matrix of maximum likelihood estimators. We also use the approximations to obtain progressively censored sampling plans for log-normal distributed data. These problems illustrate that the presented procedure is highly useful to compute the moments with precision for numerous censoring patterns and, in many cases, is the only valid method because the exact calculation may not be applicable.     

融合内容分析和关联分析的短生命周期体验品需求特征模式挖掘方法研究

挖掘特定产品的需求模式无法从整体掌握该类产品的市场特征；短生命周期体验品因缺乏历史销售数据，并且销售总量波动性极大，尤其需要从整体掌握销售总量与产品属性间关系的需求特征规律，但又难以挖掘，亟待提出适用于该类产品的需求特征模式挖掘方法。基于按销售总量分区后各区的需求特征的规律性，提出了一种按销售总量分区、以已有产品介绍集和销售总量为源信息、适用于新产品开发前使用、融合内容分析和关联分析的短生命周期体验品需求特征模式挖掘方法。该方法包括基于内容分析法的产品属性挖掘方法和基于关联分析的产品属性关系模式挖掘方法。前者可以得到较全面的产品属性；后者能够构建不同销售总量区间内产品集的属性关系模式，得到各区间的产品属性关系网，获得高销售总量区间具备，但中、低区间不具备的属性关系模式，从而获得需求特征模式。通过不断更新产品介绍集和销售总量并迭代挖掘，该方法能够动态挖掘需求特征模式。最后利用2013至2016年国产犯罪和爱情类电影数据验证了该方法的可行性，并得到了这两类电影的产品属性及近年的需求特征模式，可用于指导这两类电影的创作。     

为合法经营活动而侵犯公民个人信息的刑法规制

最高人民法院、最高人民检察院《关于办理侵犯公民个人信息刑事案件适用法律若干问题的解释》第六条对为合法经营活动而侵犯公民个人信息行为进行独立规制,是新型犯罪罪状表述抽象化与罪状解释具体化、信息时代信息价值多元化与危害行为多样化、现代社会犯罪治理精细化与刑法评价精准化的内在要求.为合法经营活动而侵犯公民个人信息行为相关规范要素中的“为合法经营活动”应理解为主观超过要素,“获利五万元”应作严格解释,“曾因侵犯公民个人信息”应作广义解释,“其他情节严重”应包括信息数量标准.