Migrant Indebtedness: Bangladeshis in the GCC Countries

Labour migration affects family economics in at least two ways: one is the outflow of indispensable family resources to meet the expenses incurred in the migration process and the other is the transfer in cash or kind from migrants to their non‐migrating families. This study primarily addresses the former flow, that is sources of funds for migration and resulting migrant indebtedness. Drawing on the experiences of Bangladeshi migrants in the GCC countries, this study explores the economic cost of migration, the extent of migrant indebtedness, and the implications of remittances on migrant families. This research exposes the complexity and multiplicity of the economic costs of migration to the GCC countries and reports that Bangladeshi migration to the Gulf states runs on debt, with migrants and their families indebting themselves in the migration process.     

Integration policy in Singapore: a transnational inclusion approach

A number of models of integration have been developed to highlight the experiences of immigration and integration in the Western world. However, the existing models do not adequately capture the complexities of contemporary international immigration and integration, especially the integration process in the light of migrant transnationalism in Asia. This study examines the models of integration through a case study of Singapore. This paper introduces a new concept ‘transnational inclusion’ to conceptualize Singapore's initiative to embrace its transnational global Singaporeans as well as its transnational immigrants, estimated to make up one-fourth of the total population. The paper shows that a transnational inclusion model of integration can provide better insights into the dynamics of transnationalism and integration in today's complex migration scenario. We point to Singapore's integration approach that regards integrating migrants into the different spheres of the society as a process rather than an end.     

Spatio-temporal modeling of infectious disease dynamics

A stochastic model, which is well suited to capture space–time dependence of an infectious disease, was employed in this study to describe the underlying spatial and temporal pattern of measles in Barisal Division, Bangladesh. The model has two components: an endemic component and an epidemic component; weights are used in the epidemic component for better accounting of the disease spread into different geographical regions. We illustrate our findings using a data set of monthly measles counts in the six districts of Barisal, from January 2000 to August 2009, collected from the Expanded Program on Immunization, Bangladesh. The negative binomial model with both the seasonal and autoregressive components was found to be suitable for capturing space–time dependence of measles in Barisal. Analyses were done using general optimization routines, which provided the maximum likelihood estimates with the corresponding standard errors.     

Comparison of location parameters of two exponential distributions when scale parameters are different and unknown

Letx _i(1)≤x _i(2)≤…≤x _i(r_i) be the right-censored samples of sizesn _i from theith exponential distributions $\sigma _i^{ - 1} exp\{ - (x - \mu _i )\sigma _i^{ - 1} \} ,i = 1,2$ where μ_i and σ_i are the unknown location and scale parameters respectively. This paper deals with the posteriori distribution of the difference between the two location parameters, namely μ₂-μ₁, which may be represented in the form $\mu _2 - \mu _1 \mathop = \limits^\mathcal{D} x_{2(1)} - x_{1(1)} + F_1 \sin \theta - F_2 \cos \theta $ where $\mathop = \limits^\mathcal{D} $ stands for equal in distribution,F _i stands for the central F-variable with [2,2(r _i?1)] degrees of freedom and $\tan \theta = \frac{{n_2 s_{x1} }}{{n_1 s_{x2} }}, s_{x1} = (r_1 - 1)^{ - 1} \left\{ {\sum\limits_{j = 1}^{r_i - 1} {(n_i - j)(x_{i(j + 1)} - x_{i(j)} )} } \right\}$ The paper also derives the distribution of the statisticV=F ₁ sin σ?F ₂ cos σ and tables of critical values of theV-statistic are provided for the 5% level of significance and selected degrees of freedom.     

Structural social work and the compatibility of NGO approaches: a case analysis of Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC)

This article offers a comparative analysis between the ideological orientation of structural social work (SSW) and the programmatic orientation of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC). SSW sees social problems as arising from specific socio-economic contexts rather than from the failings of individuals. This perspective recognises that patriarchy is a central feature of life in Bangladesh. BRAC analyses poverty, broadly defined, from a perspective that is political, making use of feminist principles. By assessing SSW as it pertains to the programme coverage of BRAC, this article presents the consistencies and inconsistencies of the approaches. Yet, SSW and BRAC share a common objective of shifting the locus of power to facilitate the empowerment of marginalised communities.     

Likelihood Prediction for Generalized Linear Mixed Models under Covariate Uncertainty

This article presents the techniques of likelihood prediction for the generalized linear mixed models. Methods of likelihood prediction are explained through a series of examples; from a classical one to more complicated ones. The examples show, in simple cases, that the likelihood prediction (LP) coincides with already known best frequentist practice such as the best linear unbiased predictor. This article outlines a way to deal with the covariate uncertainty while producing predictive inference. Using a Poisson errors-in-variable generalized linear model, it has been shown in certain cases that LP produces better results than already known methods.     

Ergonomic evaluation of postural stress in school workshop

The objective of this study is to compare the evaluation of postural analysis between a self-report questionnaire and physical assessments methods for students aged 13 to 15 years old in school workshop. 336 students were volunteered as participants to fill in the questionnaire and being observed in the workshop. Total of 104 positions were selected and analyzed while students performing their tasks. Questionnaire data was examined to specify the prevalence of postural stress symptoms. The relationship of postural stress by physical assessment methods (RULA and REBA methods) was defined to identify the risk level of students' working posture. From the results, comparison of four factors categorized from total of 22 questions among ages, the mean values were lower for 13 years old students meaning that they were faced higher posture problems while using the workstation. The obtained results from both physical assessment methods and questionnaire analysis have identified 13 years old students faced higher risk exposure. Analysis results emphasized the fact that self-reports questionnaire method has almost accurate as postural evaluation methods to identify physical risks in workplace. The result also shows that an intervention is needed to overcome the posture problems.     

Predictive assessment of copula models

Copulas are powerful explanatory tools for studying dependence patterns in multivariate data. While the primary use of copula models is in multivariate dependence modelling, they also offer predictive value for regression analysis. This article investigates the utility of copula models for model‐based predictions from two angles. We assess whether, where, and by how much various copula models differ in their predictions of a conditional mean and conditional quantiles. From a model selection perspective, we then evaluate the predictive discrepancy between copula models using in‐sample and out‐of‐sample predictions both in bivariate and higher‐dimensional settings. Our findings suggest that some copula models are more difficult to distinguish in terms of their overall predictive power than others, and depending on the quantity of interest, the differences in predictions can be detected only in some targeted regions. The situations where copula‐based regression approaches would be advantageous over traditional ones are discussed using simulated and real data. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 47: 8–26; 2019 © 2018 Statistical Society of Canada