Historical demography in Venezuela

The authors provide information on selected sources of demographic data for Venezuela for two historical periods: the pre-statistical years from the beginning of Spanish colonization to the early 1870s and the period from 1870 to the present. A brief bibliography is included     

Approaching Error-Free Customer Satisfaction Through Process Change and Feedback Systems

Employee-based errors result in quality defects that can often impact customer satisfaction. This study examined the effects of a process change and feedback system intervention on error rates of 3 teams of retail furniture distribution warehouse workers. Archival records of error codes were analyzed and aggregated as the measure of quality. The intervention consisted of a process change where teams of 5 employees who had previously been assigned a specific role within the process were cross-trained to know and help with other team members' functions. Additionally, these teams were given performance feedback on an immediate, daily, and weekly basis. Team A reduced mean errors from 7.47 errors per week during baseline to 3.53 errors per week during the intervention phase. Team B experienced a reduction in mean number of weekly errors from a baseline of 11.39 errors per week to 3.82 errors per week during the intervention phase. Team C did not experience significant error rate reduction.     

Risk-Based Analysis of the Danish Pork Salmonella Program: Past and Future

The Danish pork Salmonella control program was initiated in 1993 in response to a prominent pork-related outbreak in Copenhagen. It involved improved efforts at slaughter hygiene (postharvest) and on-farm (preharvest) surveillance and control. After 10 years, 95 million Euros, significant reductions in seropositive herds, Salmonella positive carcasses, and pork-attributable human cases (PAHC), questions have arisen about how best to continue this program. The objective of this study was to provide some analysis and information to address these questions. The methods used include a computer simulation model constructed of a series of Excel workbooks, one for each simulated year and scenario ( http://www.ifss.iastate/DanSalmRisk ). Each workbook has three modules representing the key processes affecting risk: seropositive pigs leaving the farm (Production), carcass contamination after slaughter (Slaughter), and PAHC of Salmonella (Attribution). Parameter estimates are derived from an extensive farm-to-fork database collected by industry and government and managed by the Danish Zoonosis Centre ( http://www.food.dtu.dk ). Retrospective (1994–2003) and prospective (2004–2013) simulations were evaluated. The retrospective simulations showed that, except for the first few years (1994–1998), the on-farm program had minimal impact in reducing the number of positive carcasses and PAHC. Most of the reductions in PAHC up to 2003 were, according to this analysis, due to various improvements in abattoir processes. Prospective simulations showed that minimal reductions in human health risk (PAHC) could be achieved with on-farm programs alone. Carcass decontamination was shown as the most effective means of reducing human risk, reducing PAHC to about 10% of the simulated 2004 level.     

Perceived tax evasion and the importance of trust

Using Swedish individual survey data, we analyze the perception of tax evasion in terms of ten different taxes. We find large variation across taxes, highlighting the importance of studying different taxes separately rather than treating tax evasion as one common phenomenon. We focus on the importance of trust in taxpayers and in politicians. Those who do not trust their fellow citizens are more likely to believe that they are evading taxes, but distrust in politicians has an even greater effect, especially for redistributive and fiscally motivated taxes. Hence, it is important for politicians to be perceived as trustworthy in order to be able to collect taxes for maintaining the welfare state.     

The male immigrant–native employment gap in Sweden: migrant admission categories and human capital

Journal of Population Research - Despite having a celebrated labor market integration policy, the immigrant–native employment gap in Sweden is one of the largest in the OECD. From a...     

Modeling marginal features in studies of recurrent events in the presence of a terminal event

We study models for recurrent events with special emphasis on the situation where a terminal event acts as a competing risk for the recurrent events process and where there may be gaps between periods during which subjects are at risk for the recurrent event. We focus on marginal analysis of the expected number of events and show that an Aalen–Johansen type estimator proposed by Cook and Lawless is applicable in this situation. A motivating example deals with psychiatric hospital admissions where we supplement with analyses of the marginal distribution of time to the competing event and the marginal distribution of the time spent in hospital. Pseudo-observations are used for the latter purpose.