Quality of experience in residential care programmes: Retrospective perspectives of former youth participants

This exploratory study examined perceptions of care quality within parent‐pay youth treatment programmes such as therapeutic boarding schools, residential treatment centres, wilderness therapy programmes, and intensive outpatient programmes. Reflecting on their personal experiences as youths, 214 adults reported on a total of 75 different treatment settings. Two indices developed for this study measured participants' perceptions of quality of experience and the totalistic programme characteristics of their care settings. Regression analyses and ANOVA tests of means indicated a negative relationship between totalistic programme characteristics and quality of experience index scores. Significant relationships were not found between quality of experience and forcible transport, intake decade, or the amount of time in treatment.     

EWMA charts: ARL considerations in case of changes in location and scale

Widely spread tools within the area of Statistical Process Control are control charts of various designs. Control chart applications are used to keep process parameters (e.g., mean \(\mu \) , standard deviation \(\sigma \) or percent defective \(p\) ) under surveillance so that a certain level of process quality can be assured. Well-established schemes such as exponentially weighted moving average charts (EWMA), cumulative sum charts or the classical Shewhart charts are frequently treated in theory and practice. Since Shewhart introduced a \(p\) chart (for attribute data), the question of controlling the percent defective was rarely a subject of an analysis, while several extensions were made using more advanced schemes (e.g., EWMA) to monitor effects on parameter deteriorations. Here, performance comparisons between a newly designed EWMA \(p\) control chart for application to continuous types of data, \(p=f(\mu ,\sigma )\) , and popular EWMA designs ( \(\bar{X}\) , \(\bar{X}\) - \(S^2\) ) are presented. Thus, isolines of the average run length are introduced for each scheme taking both changes in mean and standard deviation into account. Adequate extensions of the classical EWMA designs are used to make these specific comparisons feasible. The results presented are computed by using numerical methods.     

On the existence of sports sentiment: the relation between football match results and stock index returns in Europe

We test for a relation between football match results and the specific national stock index returns during the period 1990–2006 by means of an event study approach. We employ two different econometric frameworks to cross-check our results and prevent them from being solely model driven: the constant mean model and a two-state Markov-switching market model. Both approaches find no significant results. Consequently, in a modified setup, we control for expectations about probable game results by applying a “surprise” variable, which is computed from betting odds and is integrated into a regression analysis. Again, there does not seem to be a connection between a specific national soccer team’s win or loss and stock index prices. In addition, through a few modifications in our empirical setup, we show how easy it would be to “produce” significant results. Our results are contrary to those of Ashton et al. (Appl Econ Lett 10:783–785, 2003) and Edmans et al. (J Finance 62(4):1967–1998, 2007) and support market efficiency.     

Hedonic price indices for the Paris housing market

Summary: In this paper, we calculate a transaction–based price index for apartments in Paris (France). The heterogeneous character of real estate is taken into account using an hedonic model. The functional form is specified using a general Box–Cox function. The data basis covers 84 686 transactions of the housing market in 1990:01–1999:12, which is one of the largest samples ever used in comparable studies. Low correlations of the price index with stock and bond indices (first differences) indicate diversification benefits from the inclusion of real estate in a mixed asset portfolio.*This paper has been developed at the Research Program Real Estate Finance at Goethe-University of Frankfurt/Main (Germany). We gratefully acknowledge iii Internationales Immobilien Institut, IVG Holding AG and Stiftung Rheinische Hypothekenbank for their financial support. For further information, see www.real-estate-finance.de. We thank the participants of the 8th Conference of the European Real Estate Society (ERES), the International Conference of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association (AREUEA), the 10th Global Finance Conference 2003 and the anonymous referees for helpful comments, which improved the paper substantially.     

The Infant Orienting With Attention Task: Assessing the Neural Basis of Spatial Attention in Infancy

Infant visual attention develops rapidly over the first year of life, significantly altering the way infants respond to peripheral visual events. Here, we present data from 5‐, 7‐, and 10‐month‐old infants using the Infant Orienting With Attention (IOWA) task, designed to capture developmental changes in visual spatial attention and saccade planning. Results indicate rapid development of spatial attention and visual response competition between 5 and 10 months. We use a dynamic neural field (DNF) model to link behavioral findings to neural population activity, providing a possible mechanistic explanation for observed developmental changes. Together, the behavioral and model simulation results provide new insights into the specific mechanisms that underlie spatial cueing effects, visual competition, and visual interference in infancy.     

Clustering of electrical transmission systems based on network topology and stability

A proper understanding and modelling of the behaviour of heavily loaded large-scale electrical transmission systems is essential for a secure and uninterrupted operation. In this paper, we present methods to cluster electrical power networks based on different criteria into regions. These regions are useful for the efficient modelling of large transcontinental electricity networks, switching operation decisions or placement of redundant parts of the monitoring and control system. In alternating current electricity networks, power oscillations are normal, but they can become dangerous if they build up. The first approach uses the correlation between results of a stability assessment for these oscillations at every node for the cluster criterion. The second method concentrates on the network topology and uses spectral clustering on the network graph to create clusters where all nodes are interconnected. In this work, we also discuss the problem how to choose the right number of clusters and how the discussed clustering methods can be used for an efficient modelling of large electricity networks or in protection and control systems.     

The Impact of Privatization on the Earnings of Restructured Workers: Evidence From the Oil Industry

We study the long-term impact of job displacement from a big state owned enterprise as a result of its privatization in a developing country. Our results suggest large reductions in earnings, which persist throughout the years. However, we also find that the displaced worker’s post-displacement earnings are in line with competitive market wages, and unrelated to sector of employment or to tenure losses, indicating that the long-term reduction in earnings as a result of displacement because of privatization can be traced to the loss of wage rents. Our results indicate that job displacement in SOEs may have very large redistributive implications for the workers involved but that this loss does not necessarily reflect the loss of specific human capital associated to these jobs.

Contextual movement models based on normalizing flows

AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis - Movement models predict positions of players (or objects in general) over time and are thus key to analyzing spatiotemporal data as it is often used in...     

Murphy Scale: A locational equivalent intensity scale for hazard events

Empirical cross-hazard analysis and prediction of disaster vulnerability, resilience, and risk requires a common metric of hazard strengths across hazard types. In this paper, the authors propose an equivalent intensity scale for cross-hazard evaluation of hazard strengths of events for entire durations at locations. The proposed scale is called the Murphy Scale, after Professor Colleen Murphy. A systematic review and typology of hazard strength metrics is presented to facilitate the delineation of the defining dimensions of the proposed scale. An empirical methodology is introduced to derive equivalent intensities of hazard events on a Murphy Scale. Using historical data on impacts and hazard strength indicators of events from 2013 to 2017, the authors demonstrate the utility of the proposed methodology for computing the equivalent intensities for earthquakes and tropical cyclones. As part of a new area of research called hazard equivalency, the proposed Murphy Scale paves the way toward creating multi-hazard hazard maps. The proposed scale can also be leveraged to facilitate hazard communication regarding past and future local experiences of hazard events for enhancing multi-hazard preparedness, mitigation, and emergency response.