Seeking Closure: Competition in Complementary Markets*

When offering a product that has a complementary product in a different market, a firm must consider the interdependence between the complementary products as well as the competition within markets. If the firm participates in both markets, the balancing act becomes even more challenging. This article provides insights about strategies in this latter setting: when should the firm seek to keep its products closed to competing complementary products, and when would the firm be better off by accepting a common standard? To address these questions, we employ standard game theoretic analysis to a simple spatial model that captures aspects of both intermarket externalities and intramarket competition. We find that if a firm participates in both markets and chooses a closed standard, it achieves lower profits compared to an open standard, but gains greater market share. Surprisingly, we find that customers are better off when standards are kept closed.     

Rate of Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus Transmission by Carriers Quantified from Experimental Data

Upon infection with foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) a considerable number of animals become carriers of the virus. These carriers are considered to be a risk for new outbreaks, but the rate at which these animals can transmit the infection has not been quantified. An analysis was carried out using data from previously published experiments in order to quantify the transmission rate parameter β of FMDV infection from carriers to susceptible animals. The parameter β was estimated at 0.0256 (likelihood-based confidence interval: 0.008–0.059) infections per carrier per month. Moreover, analysis of published experimental data indicates that the proportion of FMDV carriers decreases at a rate of 0.115 per month. Both parameters obtained from this study are useful for quantitative risk analyses of the trade of animals from FMDV-infected areas or the lifting of vaccination programs.     

Efficient estimation for incomplete multivariate data

We review the Fisher scoring and EM algorithms for incomplete multivariate data from an estimating function point of view, and examine the corresponding quasi-score functions under second-moment assumptions. A bias-corrected REML-type estimator for the covariance matrix is derived, and the Fisher, Godambe and empirical sandwich information matrices are compared. We make a numerical investigation of the two algorithms, and compare with a hybrid algorithm, where Fisher scoring is used for the mean vector and the EM algorithm for the covariance matrix.     

Correlates of depression in self-neglecting older adults: A cross-sectional study examining the role of alcohol abuse and pain in increasing vulnerability

ABSTRACT

Self-neglect among older adults results in increased morbidity and mortality rates. Depression is strongly linked to self-neglect and when untreated, severely complicates management of health and functional outcomes. The study aims to identify factors correlated with depression to inform approaches to service recruitment and retention that improve long-term outcomes. The sample included urban community-dwelling older adults (n = 96) 65 years of age and older with Adult Protective Services-substantiated self-neglect. All participants completed a range of validated cognitive, functional, and self-report demographic and clinical measures around health and mental health functioning. A secondary data analysis using multivariable logistic regression revealed that a positive screen for alcohol abuse, low self-rated health, and higher self-reported pain were associated with significantly higher odds of self-reported depression. Further research is needed to understand the temporality between these correlates and depression and to inform prevention and intervention practices for self-neglecting older adults.     

Gender,Nation, Rape: Bosnia and the Construction of Security

The mass rapes in Bosnia brought gendered security problems onto the international agenda to an unprecedented extent. This article examines the debate surrounding whether these rapes should be characterized as a security problem which warranted international attention and possibly intervention. This debate evolved around the question whether wartime rape should be understood as an individual risk or a collective security problem;and whether it should be defined in national or in gendered terms. The empirical part of the article analyses the three dominant representations of the Bosnian mass rapes: 'rape as normal/Balkan warfare' argued that rape did not constitute a collective security problem and the international community had therefore no reason or responsibility to intervene; the "rape as exceptional/Serbian warfare" representation read the rapes through national lenses and argued that the international community should intervene militarily in defence of the Bosnian government; and the third representation, "Balkan patriarchy", claimed the privileged of a gendered reading of the rapes, the conflict in Bosnian should, according to this discourse, be understood as involving women on the one side and the patriarchal nationalistic leaderships on the other. The article concludes that the political impact of each of the representations is difficult to assess, but that the willingness of the International Crime Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to pursue rape-related indictments constitutes an important step towards the recognition of wartime rape as a collective security problem.     

Post-Separation Conflict Trajectories: A Longitudinal Study

Although previous studies have shown that parental separation and parental conflict contribute independently to the adaptation difficulties of young people, there is, as of yet, no precise portrait of how post-separation conflicts evolve. Indeed, some fundamental questions remain unanswered: (1) Do parents who experience few conflicts during their break-up continue to enjoy a harmonious relationship afterward? (2) When parents have a conflictual relationship in the first years after separating, do problems eventually subside? (3) Are a family's characteristics associated with the way a post-separation conflict evolves? The present, exploratory study attempts to provide some answers to these three questions. The sample was composed of 123 boys and girls from 8 to 11 years old. The children and their parents were interviewed on two separate occasions at a 1-year interval. The first interview (time 1) took place 2.5 years after the separation on average. The children were notably asked to give their perception of the parental conflict. Four post-separation conflict trajectories were brought to light. Analysis also targeted three more-specific variables that distinguished these conflict trajectories, namely family income, quality of the relationship with the mother, and the degree of agreement at the time of separation.     

The invention of religion: Aspects of the South African case

This paper examines the role played by popular culture in response to the effects of the unfolding social and political repression on the ordinary Zimbabwean after 2000. The arts is one sector where the Zimbabwean government fostered its repressive hegemony. An urban youth music genre called ‘urban grooves’ rose to prominence during the period under focus here and some of the artists colluded with the government in propagating an anti‐Western imperialism campaign. This paper evaluates the nature of the genre’s performance practices and its role in the government’s anti‐Western imperialism campaign. It also discusses the complexities associated with notions of complicity and resistance as urban grooves artists resisted both Western hegemony, as per the government’s campaign, and subverted the same government’s censorship of the urban youth’s and the general society’s imaginary and other freedoms.