Gutachten im Wissenschaftsprozess

In der heutigen Wissenschaft ist hinsichtlich des Publikationsprozesses nicht alles zum Besten bestellt. Das geltende Verfahren, dem sich ein Forscher unterwerfen muss, um publizieren zu k?nnen, ist nicht nur zeitraubend und fortschrittschemmend, sondern stellt die auf Ver?ffentlichungen angewiesenen Wissenschaftler vor schwierige moralische Probleme. Viele gerade der originellsten und eigenwilligsten jungen Forscher empfinden diesen Zwang zum Kompromiss oder gar zur „akademischen Prostitution“ als belastend. Einige unter ihnen verzichten gar auf eine akademische Karriere, um diesem zu Dilemma entgehen. Die vorgeschlagene Alternative zum bestehenden Publikationssystem verpflichtet die Redaktoren, zuerst eine Grundsatzentscheidung zu f?llen, ob sie einen Aufsatz in ihrer Zeitschrift ver?ffentlichen wollen. Erst nach erfolgter grunds?tzlicher Zusage werden die Gutachter gebeten, Verbesserungsvorschl?ge zu unterbreiten, die der Autor frei ist, anzunehmen oder abzulehnen. Der Verfasser hat ein Eigeninteresse, diejenigen Verbesserungsvorschl?ge zu berücksichtigen, die den Aufsatz verbessern. Ein solches Vorgehen r?umt den einzelnen Wissenschaftlern mehr Raum für ihre eigenen Ideen ein, was zu innovativeren und interessanteren Publikationen führt.     

Editorial

Social Indicators Research -     

Understanding Transnational Labour Market Trajectories of African‐European Migrants: Evidence from the MAFE Survey

Labor market trajectories of migrants are seldom explored in a longitudinal and comparative perspective. However, a longitudinal approach is crucial for a better understanding of migrants' long‐term occupational attainments, while comparative research is useful to disentangle specificities and general processes across destination and origin countries. This article explores the labor market outcomes of migrants from Senegal, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Ghana in different European countries, using the MAFE data to compare their occupational attainments before migration, upon arrival and during the first 10 years of stay in Europe in a longitudinal perspective. Results highlight different pattern of migrants' selection across destinations, influenced by prior employment status and education, gender and colonial legacies, and which impact subsequent trajectories into the European labor markets. Our analyses also show a severe worsening of migrants' occupational status in Europe compared to their situation prior to migration, which is the resultant of a dramatic downgrading upon entry and of a slow occupational recovering during the first 10 years of stay in Europe. Results suggest that the educational–occupational mismatch of skilled workers might represent a long‐lasting “price” for migrants, unless (further) educational credentials are achieved in destination countries.     

Non parametric space-time modeling of SO2 in presence of many missing data

Given pollution measurement from a network of monitoring sites in the area of a city and over an extended period of time, an important problem is to identify the spatial and temporal structure of the data. In this paper we focus on the identification and estimate of a statistical non parametric model to analyse the SO₂ in the city of Padua, where data are collected by some fixed stations and some mobile stations moving without any specific rule in different new locations. The impact of the use of mobile stations is that for each location there are times when data was not collected. Assuming temporal stationarity and spatial isotropy for the residuals of an additive model for the logarithm of SO₂ concentration, we estimate the semivariogram using a kernel-type estimator. Attempts are made to avoid the assumption of spatial isotropy. Bootstrap confidence bands are obtained for the spatial component of the additive model that is a deterministic function which defines the spatial structure. Finally, an example is proposed to design an optimal network for the mobiles monitoring stations in a fixed future time, given all the information available.     

A Study of the Determinants and of the Impact of Flexibility on Employee Benefit Satisfaction

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of individual characteristics and organizational justice on employee benefit satisfaction, and to explore the role of flexible benefit plans. Employees from three Canadian organizations were surveyed. A total of 285 usuable questionnaires were returned, for a response rate of 42%. The variables in the model accounted for more than 40% of the variance in benefit satisfaction. The findings showed that while distributive and procedural justice were useful in predicting benefit satisfaction, the concept of process justice had the greatest effect on satisfaction. Among the variables, communication had the greatest impact. The effect of flexibility, although significant, was ambiguous. Sociodemographic factors had a very limited effect when perceptual variables were introduced into the equation. The paper also sets out the limitations of the study and its practical implications, and makes some suggestions for future research.     

Dynamic models for spatiotemporal data

We propose a model for non-stationary spatiotemporal data. To account for spatial variability, we model the mean function at each time period as a locally weighted mixture of linear regressions. To incorporate temporal variation, we allow the regression coefficients to change through time. The model is cast in a Gaussian state space framework, which allows us to include temporal components such as trends, seasonal effects and autoregressions, and permits a fast implementation and full probabilistic inference for the parameters, interpolations and forecasts. To illustrate the model, we apply it to two large environmental data sets: tropical rainfall levels and Atlantic Ocean temperatures.     

Quality of Life in Jasper,Alberta

This paper describes and explains citizen beliefs andattitudes about the quality of life in Jasper, Albertain the summer of 1997. We report on 447 surveyrespondents' satisfaction with a wide variety ofaspects of their community and their lives, the bestand worst things about living in Jasper, and thethings they would change first to improve the qualityof their lives. There was not much enthusiasm foruse-fees or the value received from tax dollars.Fifteen new indices of satisfaction with fundamentalaspects of people's lives were created. Happiness,life satisfaction and overall satisfaction with thequality of life were explained from a limited set of14 variables, providing comparisons with results fromseven other surveys taken over nearly 20 years.Finally, we used a simple linear model to account for63% of the variance in life satisfaction scores, 44%of the variance in satisfaction with the quality oflife scores and 37% of the variance in happinessscores.