Sample size re‐estimation incorporating prior information on a nuisance parameter

Prior information is often incorporated informally when planning a clinical trial. Here, we present an approach on how to incorporate prior information, such as data from historical clinical trials, into the nuisance parameter–based sample size re‐estimation in a design with an internal pilot study. We focus on trials with continuous endpoints in which the outcome variance is the nuisance parameter. For planning and analyzing the trial, frequentist methods are considered. Moreover, the external information on the variance is summarized by the Bayesian meta‐analytic‐predictive approach. To incorporate external information into the sample size re‐estimation, we propose to update the meta‐analytic‐predictive prior based on the results of the internal pilot study and to re‐estimate the sample size using an estimator from the posterior. By means of a simulation study, we compare the operating characteristics such as power and sample size distribution of the proposed procedure with the traditional sample size re‐estimation approach that uses the pooled variance estimator. The simulation study shows that, if no prior‐data conflict is present, incorporating external information into the sample size re‐estimation improves the operating characteristics compared to the traditional approach. In the case of a prior‐data conflict, that is, when the variance of the ongoing clinical trial is unequal to the prior location, the performance of the traditional sample size re‐estimation procedure is in general superior, even when the prior information is robustified. When considering to include prior information in sample size re‐estimation, the potential gains should be balanced against the risks.     

Economic Conditions of Young Adults Before and After the Great Recession

Transition to adulthood has undoubtedly changed in the last few decades. For youth today, an important marker of adulthood is self-actualization in their professional career, and, consequently, also the achievement of stable financial conditions. Economic conditions of youth are greatly subject to fluctuations in the economy, and the subsequent governmental response. Using the Luxembourg Income Study, this work investigates the trends in income from work of young adults before and after the Great Recession of 2008 in five countries—US, UK, Norway, Germany, and Spain. The findings showed deterioration in economic conditions of young men, but with differences across countries. Young women suffered less from the crisis, and in some countries, their economic situation improved. The general negative trend was especially pronounced for those with high education, which is primarily because they stayed in education longer.     

Aerodynamic roughness variation with vegetation: analysis in a suburban neighbourhood and a city park

Urban Ecosystems - Local aerodynamic roughness parameters (zero-plane displacement, z d , and aerodynamic roughness length, z 0 ) are determined for an urban park and a suburban neighbourhood with...     

Deep Uncertainties in Sea-Level Rise and Storm Surge Projections: Implications for Coastal Flood Risk Management

Sea levels are rising in many areas around the world, posing risks to coastal communities and infrastructures. Strategies for managing these flood risks present decision challenges that require a combination of geophysical, economic, and infrastructure models. Previous studies have broken important new ground on the considerable tensions between the costs of upgrading infrastructure and the damages that could result from extreme flood events. However, many risk-based adaptation strategies remain silent on certain potentially important uncertainties, as well as the tradeoffs between competing objectives. Here, we implement and improve on a classic decision-analytical model (Van Dantzig 1956) to: (i) capture tradeoffs across conflicting stakeholder objectives, (ii) demonstrate the consequences of structural uncertainties in the sea-level rise and storm surge models, and (iii) identify the parametric uncertainties that most strongly influence each objective using global sensitivity analysis. We find that the flood adaptation model produces potentially myopic solutions when formulated using traditional mean-centric decision theory. Moving from a single-objective problem formulation to one with multiobjective tradeoffs dramatically expands the decision space, and highlights the need for compromise solutions to address stakeholder preferences. We find deep structural uncertainties that have large effects on the model outcome, with the storm surge parameters accounting for the greatest impacts. Global sensitivity analysis effectively identifies important parameter interactions that local methods overlook, and that could have critical implications for flood adaptation strategies.     

Social mobility and demand for redistribution in Europe: a comparative analysis

The literature on preferences for redistribution has paid little attention to the effect of social mobility on the demand for redistribution and no systematic test of the hypotheses connecting social mobility and preferences for redistribution has yet been done to date. We use the diagonal reference model to estimate the effect of origin and destination classes on preferences for redistribution in a large sample of European countries using data from the European Social Survey. Our findings are consistent with the logic of acculturation in the sense that newcomers tend to adapt their views to those of the destination class at early stages and that upward and downward mobility do not have distinctive effects on the formation of political preferences. However, even though social origins seem to have a limited impact on preferences for redistribution, the evidence does not support the hypothesis that mobile and non‐mobile individuals are alike. We also find that the effect of social origin on preferences varies largely across countries. The empirical evidence leads to the conclusion that the effect of social origin on preferences for redistribution increases in contexts of strong familism.     

Your lying,incompetent and selfish member of Congress: Cynical appeals in U.S. Senate advertising

Scholars still do not fully understand what activates cynicism in citizens. Although many expect that negative campaigning contributes to this, no consistent evidence has been found. This research introduces a new measure of appeals to cynicism that expands the commonly used positive–negative taxonomy of tone in advertising. Through a content analyses of more than 600 political advertisements aired during U.S. Senate elections, we identify the extent to which candidates use cynical appeals and the conditions under which these are used. We find that appeals to cynicism are common, are distinct from negative appeals, and that most often, ad sponsors target opponents with cynical appeals, describing them as selfish, dishonest and incompetent. Cynicism appears to be a central part of American campaign rhetoric, used by all sorts of candidates, regardless of party, in many different situations. The prevalence of appeals to cynicism may help explain rising cynicism among the public.     

The Interview for Decisional Abilities (IDA): a tool to assess the decisional capacity of abused and neglected older adults

We present the Interview for Decisional Abilities (IDA), a semi-structured tool for use by adult protective services (APS) workers as part of their comprehensive assessments of clients. The IDA was created in response to a Federal mandate to standardize the procedures and competencies of APS agencies with a view to improving client assessments and facilitating cross-jurisdictional research on adult mistreatment. The proximal aim of the IDA is to guide workers in gathering information on the ability of suspected victims of adult mistreatment to make decisions about the risks they face.