Simultaneous edit-imputation and disclosure limitation for business establishment data

Business establishment microdata typically are required to satisfy agency-specified edit rules, such as balance equations and linear inequalities. Inevitably some establishments' reported data violate the edit rules. Statistical agencies correct faulty values using a process known as edit-imputation. Business establishment data also must be heavily redacted before being shared with the public; indeed, confidentiality concerns lead many agencies not to share establishment microdata as unrestricted access files. When microdata must be heavily redacted, one approach is to create synthetic data, as done in the U.S. Longitudinal Business Database and the German IAB Establishment Panel. This article presents the first implementation of a fully integrated approach to edit-imputation and data synthesis. We illustrate the approach on data from the U.S. Census of Manufactures and present a variety of evaluations of the utility of the synthetic data. The paper also presents assessments of disclosure risks for several intruder attacks. We find that the synthetic data preserve important distributional features from the post-editing confidential microdata, and have low risks for the various attacks.     

A surplus process involving a compound Poisson counting process and applications

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce a surplus process involving a compound Poisson counting process, which is a generalization of the classical ruin model where the claim-counting process is a homogeneous Poisson process. The incentive is to model batch arrival of claims using a counting process that is based on a compound distribution. This reduces the difficulty of modeling claim amounts and is consistent with industrial data. Recursive formula, some properties and relevant main ruin theory results are provided. Further, we consider applications involving zero-truncated negative binomial and zero-truncated binomial batch arrivals when the claim amounts follow exponential or Erlang distribution.     

The effects of pre-IPO corporate activity on newly-public firms' growth

We investigate firms' pre-IPO corporate activity. We find that firms involved in extraordinary – i.e., beyond momentum – amounts of acquisitions, JVs, and alliances in the year leading up to their IPOs (1) are more likely to engage in post-IPO corporate activity; and (2) enter into their first post-IPO transaction twice as fast as other firms. Our results indicate that signaling via extraordinary corporate activity can have a significant effect on entrepreneurial firms’ growth. The implications are discussed.     

Screens in bed: visual art,sleep and handheld screen devices

This article seeks an understanding of sleeping and waking life in bed in relation to the use of handheld screen devices. The bedtime use of these devices has come to public attention through the involvement of this practice in the construction of two contemporary crises of sleep: Sleep science’s crisis of chronic sleep deprivation and the wider cultural crisis of the invasion of sleep by fast capitalism, as proposed by Jonathan Crary. Visual art is employed to gain insights into the two related understandings of sleep: one concerned with individual sleep self-regulation and the other with the corporeal commonality of sleep. The sociology of sleep, based on Michele Foucault’s concept of ‘biopower’, is augmented by philosophical insights from Jean-Luc Nancy and Gilles Deleuze to reconfigure the sleeping body beyond the bounds of disciplinary regimes and permit a reassessment of the affective potential of sleep. Works of digital media art, together with ethnographic and cultural studies on the use of mobile devices, are employed to tease out the entanglement of these screen devices with waking and sleeping bedroom life. An ontology of sleep as a pre-individual affective state is proposed as an alternative basis for resisting the appropriation of sleep by the always-waking world accessed through the use of smartphones and tablets.     

Social-ecological innovation: adaptive responses to urban environmental conditions

Novel approaches to natural resource management, particularly those which promote stakeholder participation, have been put forward as fundamental ingredients for establishing resilient, polycentric forms of environmental governance. This is nowhere more pertinent than in the case of the complex adaptive systems associated with urban areas. Decentralisation of urban green space management has been posited as an element thereof which, according to resilience thinking, should contribute to the adaptive capacity of cities and the ecosystem services upon which they rely. Implicit in this move towards increased adaptive capacity is the ability to manage through innovation. Although the importance of innovation towards system adaptability has been acknowledged, little work has thus far been carried out which demonstrates that innovative use of urban green space represents a form of adaptive response to environmental conditions. The current paper reports on research which maps examples of organised social-ecological innovation (OSEI) in an urban study area and evaluates them as adaptive responses to local environmental conditions which may contribute to system resilience. The results present OSEI as a coherent body of responses to local social and environmental deprivation, exhibiting diversity and adaptability according to individual contexts. The study therefore provides evidence for the importance of local stakeholder-led innovation as in the building of adaptive capacity in urban social-ecological systems.     

The Mediating Role of Emotion Dysregulation in the Relation Between Adult Attachment Insecurity and Depression Among Young Gay and Bisexual Men

Objectives: Attachment insecurity may be more pronounced among young gay and bisexual men (YGBM). Further, attachment insecurity is associated with dysregulated patterns of emotion regulation, which can lead to depression. However, pathways linking attachment insecurity to depression are underexplored among YGBM. Methods: This study used pilot data from N?=?67 YGBM to examine if emotion dysregulation mediated the association between attachment insecurity and depression. Results: Results supported the study hypotheses. Attachment insecurity was associated with emotion dysregulation, which was associated with depression. Conclusion: Findings provide preliminary evidence that emotion regulation training may be a useful approach for addressing depression among YGBM.     

American Indian/Alaska Native Elders: A Growing Demographic that Is Changing How We View Aging

Today, AIAN Elders are more actively engaged in their families and communities, encouraging the development of intergenerational programs, language and cultural revitalization, being stewards in research conducted in their communities, as well passing on their knowledge and experiences on how to live as healthy Native people. Elders have traditionally been quiet and observant of their environment, but the current and future cohorts of Elders are advocates, leaders, and culture bearers for their families and communities and they are now in positions of leadership. Western society acknowledges the value of traditional knowledge and AIAN Elders are viewed as exemplars of healthy aging and their lessons and experiences can be attributed to our own lives. This commentary highlights the paradigm shift in how society views older adults, specifically AIAN Elders and their role in health and wellbeing.     

Sequential Monte Carlo for rare event estimation

This paper discusses a novel strategy for simulating rare events and an associated Monte Carlo estimation of tail probabilities. Our method uses a system of interacting particles and exploits a Feynman-Kac representation of that system to analyze their fluctuations. Our precise analysis of the variance of a standard multilevel splitting algorithm reveals an opportunity for improvement. This leads to a novel method that relies on adaptive levels and produces, in the limit of an idealized version of the algorithm, estimates with optimal variance. The motivation for this theoretical work comes from problems occurring in watermarking and fingerprinting of digital contents, which represents a new field of applications of rare event simulation techniques. Some numerical results show performance close to the idealized version of our technique for these practical applications.     

Can Carbon Nanomaterials Improve CZTS Photovoltaic Devices? Evaluation of Performance and Impacts Using Integrated Life‐Cycle Assessment and Decision Analysis

In emergent photovoltaics, nanoscale materials hold promise for optimizing device characteristics; however, the related impacts remain uncertain, resulting in challenges to decisions on strategic investment in technology innovation. We integrate multi‐criteria decision analysis (MCDA) and life‐cycle assessment (LCA) results (LCA‐MCDA) as a method of incorporating values of a hypothetical federal acquisition manager into the assessment of risks and benefits of emerging photovoltaic materials. Specifically, we compare adoption of copper zinc tin sulfide (CZTS) devices with molybdenum back contacts to alternative devices employing graphite or graphene instead of molybdenum. LCA impact results are interpreted alongside benefits of substitution including cost reductions and performance improvements through application of multi‐attribute utility theory. To assess the role of uncertainty we apply Monte Carlo simulation and sensitivity analysis. We find that graphene or graphite back contacts outperform molybdenum under most scenarios and assumptions. The use of decision analysis clarifies potential advantages of adopting graphite as a back contact while emphasizing the importance of mitigating conventional impacts of graphene production processes if graphene is used in emerging CZTS devices. Our research further demonstrates that a combination of LCA and MCDA increases the usability of LCA in assessing product sustainability. In particular, this approach identifies the most influential assumptions and data gaps in the analysis and the areas in which either engineering controls or further data collection may be necessary.