Lessons from the American federal-state unemployment insurance system for a European unemployment benefits system

This article reviews practices in the United States (US) federal-state unemployment insurance (UI) system regarding applicant eligibility, benefit generosity, benefit financing and emergency measures with the aim of revealing lessons for a possible European unemployment benefit system (EUBS) for European Union (EU) Member States. We overview the US system for UI and examine important areas of federal leadership. While the US system offers some good ideas for setting up an EUBS, there are also lessons in some shortcomings of the US experience. We overview existing national UI systems in the EU and review the debate on an EUBS in the EU. We identify areas of risk for individual and institutional moral hazard in a multi-tiered UI system and give examples of monitoring methods and incentives to ameliorate such risks. We suggest approaches for gradual system development, encouraging lower-tier behaviour, benefit financing, and responses to regional and system-wide labour market crises.     

ICT,young people and social work: distances and opportunities

ABSTRACT

The relationship between social work and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is an awkward one in Spanish tradition, particularly from social work perspective due to a certain lack of institutional and professional competence in terms of understanding the capabilities of ICTs. Young people use ICTs to connect to each other and express themselves, however. ICTs represent a means—increasingly the main one—for young people to build and communicate their own identities and understand reality. As with other social sciences, social work suffers from a difficult relationship with young people. Youth is often studied differently and sometimes perceived as a problem that ends when adulthood is reached. In this context, the relationship among ICTs, social work and young people is also a difficult one. But this problem may also be a solution. By adopting a critical ICT approach, social work can create innovative initiatives and frameworks to improve communication between social work practitioners and teachers as with young people and students. Imagination and empathy will clearly be key to achieving this, in addition to deeper involvement in the use of new software and applications that can offer enhanced communication and build bridges between social workers and young people.     

Evaluation of the bias of the isotonic regression

The systematic error (bias) of the isotonic regression analysis of temporal spacings between failure events is investigated by means of numerical simulation. Spacings that are sampled from an exponential distribution with a constant failure rate (CFR) arc subjected to an isotonic regression search for a declining failure rate (DFR). The results indicate a considerable declining trend (bias) that is imposed upon these CFR-data by isotonic regression analysis. The corresponding results for an increasing trend can be readily obtained through transformation. For practical applications, the results of 100,000 simulations have been approximated by simple analytical expressions. For the evaluation of a trend in a specific set of isotonized spacings (or rates) the results of the latter analysis can be compared with the isotonic bias of a set of CFR data for the same number of events. Alternatively, the specific set of isotonized spacings can be suitably related to the corresponding isotonized CFR data to reduce the bias by largely eliminating the CFR contribution.     

Cautionary Note about R 2

The coefficient of determination (R ²) is perhaps the single most extensively used measure of goodness of fit for regression models. It is also widely misused. The primary source of the problem is that except for linear models with an intercept term, the several alternative R ² statistics are not generally equivalent. This article discusses various considerations and potential pitfalls in using the R ²'s. Specific points are exemplified by means of empirical data. A new resistant statistic is also introduced.     

Computation of the polygamma functions

An algorithm is presented for computing the psi(digamma) and other polygamma functions.     

A doubly restricted exponential dispersion model

In this paper, we propose and develop a doubly restricted exponential dispersion model, i.e. a varying dispersion generalized linear model with two sets of restrictions, a set of linear restrictions for the mean response, and at the same time, for another set of linear restrictions for the dispersion of the distribution. This model would be useful to consider several situations where it is necessary to control/analyze drug-doses, active effects in factorial experiments, mean-variance relationships, among other situations. A penalized likelihood function is proposed and developed in order to achieve the restricted parameters and to develop the inferential results. Several special cases from the literature are commented on. A simply restricted varying dispersion beta regression model is exemplified by means of real and simulated data. Satisfactory and promising results are found.     

Constructed Realities: Claude Cahun’s Created World in Aveux Non Avenus

ABSTRACT

In her 1930 publication, Aveux non Avenus, Claude Cahun used the relationship between her inwardly focused poetic writing and symbolic photomontages to construct a unique reality for self-expression. This article focuses on three chapters and respective photographic images from the publication to relate Cahun’s, and by association her partner Marcel Moore’s, discussion on sexuality and gender expression. The utopian dreamscape created investigates issues of narcissism and otherness, female homosexuality, dandyism and going beyond gender, individual and social critique, mocking the antiquated views of art and writing, accepting and breaking taboos, while allowing for other departures from the accepted norm. Through analysis of the publication and supporting evidence from early influences, it can be seen that Cahun created a world in Aveux non Avenus where she could exist in a space between the established feminine–masculine binary of 20th-century Europe.     

The inverse weighted Lindley distribution: Properties,estimation and an application on a failure time data

In this paper a new distribution is proposed. This new model provides more flexibility to modeling data with upside-down bathtub hazard rate function. A significant account of mathematical properties of the new distribution is presented. The maximum likelihood estimators for the parameters in the presence of complete and censored data are presented. Two corrective approaches are considered to derive modified estimators that are bias-free to second order. A numerical simulation is carried out to examine the efficiency of the bias correction. Finally, an application using a real data set is presented in order to illustrate our proposed distribution.     

Reviews

International Law in the Service of Soviet Anti‐Zionism

L.A. Modzhoryan, Sionizm kak forma rasizma i rasovoy diskriminatsii (Zionism as a Form of Racism and Racial Discrimination). Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1979. 240 pp.

‘White Book’ Against the Jewish Emigration Movement

L.N. Smirnov and others (eds), Belaya kniga: svidetelstva, fakty, dokumenty (White Book: Evidence, Facts, Documents). Moscow: Yuridicheskaya literatura, 1979. 280 pp. 1.20 roubles.

‘Academic’ Exposition of Soviet Policy

Evgeny Primakov, Anatomiya blizhnevostochnogo konflikta (The Anatomy of the Middle East Conflict). Moscow: Mysl, 1978. 374 pp. Index.

A Report on Human Rights

Human Rights in the Soviet Union: Report of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence, Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1979. xxi+211 pp. Maps. Diagrams. Appendices.

A Monument to Polish Jewry

Moshe Mishkinsky (ed.). Galed. Measef le‐toledot yahadut polin (Galed. On the History of Jews in Poland*). Vols. 1, 2, 3, 4–5. Tel‐Aviv: Tel‐Aviv University, 1973–79.

Romanian Jewry Between the Wars

Shlomo Bickel, Yahadut Romania. Historia, Bikoret Sifrutit, Zikhronot (The Jews of Romania. History, Criticism, Recollections). Tel Aviv: The Association of Romanian Emigrants in Israel and The Groper Legacy Literary Committee, 1978. 429 pp.