Bericht zur Tagung „Die Jurisprudenz zwischen Verrechtlichung und Rechtsferne der Alltagspraxis“

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Age at first marriage in Malawi: a Bayesian multilevel analysis using a discrete time-to-event model

Summary.  The paper presents a hierarchical discrete time survival model for the analysis of the 2000 Malawi Demographic and Health Survey data to assess the determinants of transition to marriage among women in Malawi. The model explicitly accounts for the unobserved heterogeneity by using family and community random effects with cross-level correlation structure. A nonparametric technique is used to model the base-line discrete hazard dynamically. Parameters of the model are computed by using a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm. The results show that rising age at marriage is a combination of birth cohort and education effects, depends considerably on the family and to some extent on the community in which a woman resides and the correlation between family and community random effects is negative. These results confirm a downward trend in teenage marriage and that raising women's education levels in sub-Saharan Africa has the beneficial effect of increasing age at marriage, and by implication reducing total fertility rates. The negative correlation between family and community random effects has policy implications in that targeting communities with an intervention to increase age at first marriage may not necessarily yield reduced fertility levels in individual families. A campaign that is geared towards individual families would achieve the desired goals. Overall, the findings point to the need for the Government in Malawi to enact public policies which are geared at vastly improving women's education at higher levels. The variation in marriage rates over families poses problems in delivering the policy, since particular policies must be devised for specific groups of families to accomplish the required social and health objectives.     

Exit behaviour of investment companies: the choice of exit channel

For investment companies, selling a portfolio company represents a critical phase in the investment life cycle. The choice of exit channel (initial public offering, secondary buyout, or trade sale) is of particular importance. This paper analyses factors relevant to exit channel selection, deploying a sample of 1,435 European buyout exits between 1992 and 2010. We differentiate between factors which refer to characteristics of the selling investment company and characteristics of the transaction object. Our analysis yields evidence that the reputation of the selling investment company, syndicate size, quality of the transaction object, as well as partial exit are associated with exit channel type. Moreover, our analysis reveals that the economic context and conditions in the capital markets significantly influence the choice of exit channel.     

An Interview with Joyce Edward: Exemplary Clinician, Advocate, and Scholar

Over the years, noteworthy social workers have been interviewed for the Clinical Social Work Journal. This article features an interview with Joyce Edward who is recognized for her many extraordinary contributions to clinical social work. Joyce has co-written or co-edited three exceptional books for the social work clinician, she has been an esteemed teacher and a vocal activist for quality mental health care. In this interview Joyce reflects on family influences, her work as a social caseworker, the psychoanalytic luminaries with whom she trained, her concerns about the clinical education of today's social work students, and finally, her perspective on managed mental health care.     

Cyclic Evaluation of Transitivity of Reciprocal Relations

A general framework for studying the transitivity of reciprocal relations is presented. The key feature is the cyclic evaluation of transitivity: triangles (i.e. any three points) are visited in a cyclic manner. An upper bound function acting upon the ordered weights encountered provides an upper bound for the ‘sum minus 1’ of these weights. Commutative quasi-copulas allow to translate a general definition of fuzzy transitivity (when applied to reciprocal relations) elegantly into the framework of cycle-transitivity. Similarly, a general notion of stochastic transitivity corresponds to a particular class of upper bound functions. Ample attention is given to self-dual upper bound functions.     

Biomechanical aspects of dynamic stability

Walking is a fundamental motor skill that significantly affects the level of independence in older adults. The amount of variability present in a walking pattern reflects the quality of neuromuscular control. It is well established that a large proportion of falls in older people occurs when walking. The prevention of falls is vital for minimizing disability, preventing injury, and impeding the development of frailty and subsequent deterioration in quality of life. The present literature review focuses on dynamic stability. In dynamic stability, both the base of support and the center of mass are in motion, and effective balance function is required. In general, older adults are expected to have different movement patterns from younger adults, expressed by differences in limb kinematics and kinetics. A better understanding of the biomechanical variables involved can help anticipate and prevent potential falls.     

Licensing Marriage and Family Counselors: A Model Act

The author presents a model bill for the licensing of marriage and family counselors and describes some of the historical context in which it developed within the Conciliation Court movement. The model bill is similar to the one proposed by the American Association of Marriage and Family Counselors. Editor.     

Subset Selection Toward Optimizing the Best Performance at a Second Stage

In the search for the best of n candidates, two-stage procedures of the following type are in common use. In a first stage, weak candidates are removed, and the subset of promising candidates is then further examined. At a second stage, the best of the candidates in the subset is selected. In this article, optimization is not aimed at the parameter with largest value but rather at the best performance of the selected candidates at Stage 2. Under a normal model, a new procedure based on posterior percentiles is derived using a Bayes approach, where nonsymmetric normal (proper and improper) priors are applied. Comparisons are made with two other procedures frequently used in selection decisions. The three procedures and their performances are illustrated with data from a recent recruitment process at a Midwestern university.