The Influence of Gender Equality on Volunteering Among European Senior Citizens

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - This research analyzes how gender equality influences the participation of European senior citizens in a range of...     

Who Needs the Experts? The Politics and Practices of Alternative Humanitarianism and Its Relationship to NGOs

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Drawing on fieldwork in Greece, we examine the politics and practices of autonomous volunteering in the context of the...     

University Students’ Attitudes Toward Same-Sex Parenting and Gay and Lesbian Rights in Portugal

The purpose of this study was to explore university students’ attitudes toward same-sex parenting and toward gay and lesbian rights. A total of 292 participants, aged between 18 and 27 (M = 21) responded to a questionnaire measuring attitudes toward parenting by gay men and lesbians, gay and lesbian rights, and beliefs about the etiology of homosexuality. Results revealed that the majority of students were against gay and lesbian parenting, gay and lesbian equal rights, and believed that homosexuality has a social/environmental basis. It was found that sexual prejudice is highly prevalent in Portuguese university students, and implications of these findings are discussed.     

Personality and Subjective Well-Being: What Hides Behind Global Analyses?

The relation between personality and subjective well-being (SWB) remains involved in a considerable ambiguity and the numerous studies conducted have neglected an approach at a more detailed level of analysis. This study explores the idea that neuroticism, extraversion and conscientiousness facets predict differentially each SWB component. A battery of self-report questionnaires was used to assess personality and SWB in 398 teachers of primary and high schools. Findings of a cross-sectional study showed that neuroticism, extraversion and conscientiousness facets contributed to significantly explain the variance in positive affect, negative affect and life satisfaction. Moreover, these facets predicted differentially each of the three SWB components. At same time, this study corroborates two important premises: the specificity of facets as discrete traits and the independence of the three SWB components.     

Integer-valued autoregressive processes with periodic structure

In this paper the periodic integer-valued autoregressive model of order one with period T, driven by a periodic sequence of independent Poisson-distributed random variables, is studied in some detail. Basic probabilistic and statistical properties of this model are discussed. Moreover, parameter estimation is also addressed. Specifically, the methods of estimation under analysis are the method of moments, least squares-type and likelihood-based ones. Their performance is compared through a simulation study.     

A Study of the Role Played by Manufacturing Strategic Objectives and Capabilities in Understanding the Relationship between Porter's Generic Strategies and Business Performance

An appropriate alignment between business strategy, manufacturing strategic objectives and manufacturing capabilities reportedly influences business performance positively. However, few papers empirically analyse this proposition for the case of Porter's generic strategies of cost leadership and differentiation, and none jointly considers all four elements. This paper integrates strategies, capabilities and performance in a single model and proposes that both manufacturing competitive priorities and capabilities, articulated in terms of cost and flexibility, are essential for explaining the link between generic business strategies and business commercial and financial performance. Within this analytic framework, we test whether companies that emphasize one business strategy rather than another achieve a better alignment and superior performance. The analyses conducted with a sample of 148 Spanish manufacturers provide general support for these propositions and contribute to a deeper understanding of the role played by functional strategies in understanding the outcomes of business strategy.     

Nonparametric Methods in Continuous Time Model Specification

Some popular parametric diffusion processes have been assumed as such underlying diffusion processes. This paper considers an important case where both the drift and volatility functions of the underlying diffusion process are unknown functions of the underlying process, and then proposes using two novel testing procedures for the parametric specification of both the drift and diffusion functions. The finite-sample properties of the proposed tests are assessed through using data generated from four popular parametric models. In our implementation, we suggest using a simulated critical value for each case in addition to the use of an asymptotic critical value. Our detailed studies show that there is little size distortion when using a simulated critical value while the proposed tests have some size distortions when using an asymptotic critical value in each case.     

Health Technology Literacy: A Transdisciplinary Framework for Consumer-Oriented Practice

Abstract

The present study developed a typology of self-reported coping strategies used by older adults in adapting to vision impairment using qualitative analyses. Narrative data were examined from three previous quantitative studies of adaptation to vision loss. Major themes in coping with vision loss included difficulty in balancing norms of independence with the functional losses resulting from eye disease, and the importance of the informal social network. Importantly, a number of coping mechanisms that have not been examined in prior quantitative work were identified through the present qualitative analyses. Implications of this typology of self-reported coping with age-related vision loss for research and practice are discussed.     

When Precaution Creates Misunderstandings: The Unintended Effects of Precautionary Information on Perceived Risks,the EMF Case

In the past decade, growing public concern about novel technologies with uncertain potential long‐term impacts on the environment and human health has moved risk policies toward a more precautionary approach. Focusing on mobile telephony, the effects of precautionary information on risk perception were analyzed. A pooled multinational experimental study based on a 5 × 2 × 2 factorial design was conducted in nine countries. The first factor refers to whether or not information on different types of precautionary measures was present, the second factor to the framing of the precautionary information, and the third factor to the order in which cell phones and base stations were rated by the study participants. The data analysis on the country level indicates different effects. The main hypothesis that informing about precautionary measures results in increased risk perceptions found only partial support in the data. The effects are weaker, both in terms of the effect size and the frequency of significant effects, across the various precautionary information formats used in the experiment. Nevertheless, our findings do not support the assumption that informing people about implemented precautionary measures will decrease public concerns.