Economic and social inclusion of person with disability and transgender through skills development program of BRAC: A qualitative study

This article is based on the Skills Training for Advancing Resources (STAR) project for the youth initiative of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) in Bangladesh. The objective was to explore the consequences of social and economic inclusion of this project for the persons with disability (PWDs) and transgender (TG) youth people. The research focused on how inclusive programmatic interventions created multidimensional impacts among the “marginalized” and “excluded” PWD and TG youths at the grassroots level. This study adopted a qualitative approach where in-depth case interviews and observation were applied for data collection. PWD and TG graduates, master craft persons (MCPs), employers, and program staff members were the participants in this study. Results found that PWD and TG youths faced vulnerabilities and social stigma in their lives and livelihood trajectories due to their physical inability and low level of social dignity. The STAR project has a certain level of contribution to the livelihoods of PWD and TG people, where these helped them to gain their social, cultural, and economic capital. Findings would be an important guideline for policymakers, NGO managers, and human rights workers.     

Distribution of home help services in an elderly urban population: data from the Kungsholmen Project

Data from the total urban population 75 years and older in Kungsholmen, Stockholm were used to calculate the distribution of home help services. A structured questionnaire was used to collect information about education, occupation, living conditions, Katz Activities of Daily Living Scale, contact with the family, medical treatment and also questions about help needed and functional ability. Home help was considered to be provided when the subjects reported receiving home help service from the municipality. The number of hours of home help and the services received were registered. The results show that 86% of the elderly population in the Municipality of Kungsholmen live in their own homes, even when they are very old. Twenty-seven percent of those over 74 years and 33% of those over 80 years received home help services. The people receiving help were mostly women, single living, older and with disability detected by the Katz Activities of Daily Living Scale. The predicting factors of hours of home help are older age, condition of single living, disability detected by the Katz Activities of Daily Living Scale and less years of education. Our results also show that, among those who receive home help service, those with disability in the activities of daily living get more hours of help. However, a considerable group of elderly people are disabled but do not receive any home help. Our data stress the need for more attention by health care planners of domiciliary and intensive care and residential facilities for the high risk population (very old, living alone and with disability).     

Model-based hierarchical clustering with Bregman divergences and Fishers mixture model: application to depth image analysis

Model-based clustering is a method that clusters data with an assumption of a statistical model structure. In this paper, we propose a novel model-based hierarchical clustering method for a finite statistical mixture model based on the Fisher distribution. The main foci of the proposed method are: (a) provide efficient solution to estimate the parameters of a Fisher mixture model (FMM); (b) generate a hierarchy of FMMs and (c) select the optimal model. To this aim, we develop a Bregman soft clustering method for FMM. Our model estimation strategy exploits Bregman divergence and hierarchical agglomerative clustering. Whereas, our model selection strategy comprises a parsimony-based approach and an evaluation graph-based approach. We empirically validate our proposed method by applying it on simulated data. Next, we apply the method on real data to perform depth image analysis. We demonstrate that the proposed clustering method can be used as a potential tool for unsupervised depth image analysis.     

Tests of homogeneity of intercepts after a preliminary test

For the multl-sample regression model , the problem of testing equality of intercepts following a preliminarytest on the equality o f slopes is considered. The t e s t s are based on the conventional least squares estimators (without necessarily assuming the normality of the underlying error distributions ) , and the impact of a

preliminary test on the asymptotic size and power of the final test is studied.     

On shrinkage r-estimation in a multiple regression model

For a multiple regression model, bearing the plausibility of a subset of the regression parameters being close to a pivot, for the complementary subset, based on the usual James-Stein rule, a general formulation of shrinkage R-estimation is considered. In the light of asymptotic distributional risks of estimators, performance characteristics ( under local alternatives) of the classical R-est-imator and its preliminary test and shrinkage versions (all based on the common score function ) are studied. These shed light on the relative dominance picture in a meaningful asymptotic setup.     

Estimation of parameters of location-scale family of distributions in complete and type ii censored samples

In this paper we consider the estimation of location, scale and quantile-function of a location-scale family of distributions in complete and Type II multicensored samples. Our method integrates the two well-known approaches to probability plotting, namely, the analytic method of Blom (1958) and the hazard plotting method due to Nelson (1972). Some important special cases of location-scale family of distributions are considered for details.     

Estimating quantiles using optimally selected order statistics

This expository paper deals with the linear estimation of quantiles of location-scale families of distributions using a few selected order statistics.The general theory for the problem i s reviewed for the exact as well as the asymptotic cases.     

Geriatric Care during Public Health Emergencies: Lessons Learned from Novel Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) Pandemic

ABSTRACT

Geriatric care in public health emergencies is a serious concern, while, high case-fatalities among older adults across the globe in COVID-19 pandemic implies lack of preparedness. Most of the countries irrespective of developing and developed one enormously struggling because of an inchoate response system ignorant of geriatric health needs. Therefore, a robust approach is highly essential that requires an integrated emergency preparedness by addressing geriatric care.     

Comments on ‘Application of an adaptive design to a randomized phase II selection trial in gastric cancer: a report of the study design’ by Satoshi Morita and Junichi Sakamoto. Pharmaceutical Statistics

In this commentary, we show that the treatment selection probabilities in Morita and Sakamoto [1] could be different if safety information is considered. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.