Men's experiences of violence: extent, nature and 'determinants'

We examined the extent, nature and 'determinants' of violence in a randomly selected sample of men from the general population (18–64 years, n = 520). The men were assessed on various factors (e.g. demographics). The design was cross-sectional and data were collected over eight consecutive weeks. About 68 per cent of the men reported experiencing violence at some point during their lifetime, and just over 14 per cent in the past 12 months. The violence occurred mainly in public and work settings, with threatening/aggressive language/physical assaults as the most common forms. The main perpetrators were strangers or clients. Sexual abuse was rare. Repeated/multiple abuses were common and injuries were sustained. The victims and non-victims were similar for many factors (e.g. alcohol use). Only younger age and being a blue-collar/low white-collar worker were risk factors for violence. Men's experiences of violence (e.g. physical assaults/multiple abuses) should be a source of concern as they can have profound negative effects. Extensive research on the impact of violence on men's health appears necessary in light of the present findings.     

A WEIGHTED RANK MEASURE OF CORRELATION

Spearman's rank correlation coefficient is not entirely suitable for measuring the correlation between two rankings in some applications because it treats all ranks equally. In 2000, Blest proposed an alternative measure of correlation that gives more importance to higher ranks but has some drawbacks. This paper proposes a weighted rank measure of correlation that weights the distance between two ranks using a linear function of those ranks, giving more importance to higher ranks than lower ones. It analyses its distribution and provides a table of critical values to test whether a given value of the coefficient is significantly different from zero. The paper also summarizes a number of applications for which the new measure is more suitable than Spearman's.     

Does export concentration matter in economic adjustment programs? Evidence from the euro-area

The recent crisis in some euro area countries is intensively fueling the political and economic policy debate about the effectiveness of the applied adjustment programs. This paper aims to contribute to explaining why the results of these programs could be different across countries, flagging the crucial role of exports. In view of recent economic literature about substitution between domestic and foreign sales, helping exports when domestic demand is adjusting, this paper uses panel data techniques to assess the role of the export structure in explaining this substitution effect in the euro area countries. Building a novel indicator for product concentration, the results suggest that domestic demand developments are more relevant to explaining exports in countries with a lower product concentration index (that is, more diversified exports). This contributes to explain why euro area countries under stress registered different economic performance, in particular the clearly less favorable behavior of Greece, where exports structure is concentrated more strongly in some goods and services than in other euro area countries. With different export behavior the final evaluation of the Greek adjustment would be certainly different. These results suggest that export structure should be taken into consideration when designing or evaluating this type of adjustment programs.     

Assessment of dispersal and population structure of Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) in a seaport setting

Seaports are introduction hotspots for invasive alien species (IAS). This is especially true for rodents, which have accompanied humans around the globe since the earliest days of ocean-going voyages. The rapid spread of IAS soon after arrival in a new environment is facilitated by further human-mediated transport or landscape features, like roads. By measuring genetic diversity and structure to investigate dispersal pathways, we gained insight into the transport, spread and establishment stages of a biological invasion, leveraging the most common rodent species (R. norvegicus) in this setting. We characterized the genetic structure of three Norway rat populations along a busy industrial road used by trucks to access the Port area in Paranaguá city (Brazil). A total of 71 rats were genotyped using 11 microsatellite markers. The results revealed a pattern of gene flow contrary to the expected stepping-stone model along the linear transect, with the two furthest apart populations being clustered together. We hypothesize that the observed outcome is explained by natural dispersal along the corridor being lower than human-mediated transport. The sampled area furthest from the port is a gas station frequented by trucks which are considered the most likely mode of transportation. In terms of management strategies, we suggest more emphasis should be put on cargo surveillance to lower the risk of Norway rat dispersal, not only for biosecurity, but also for sanitary reasons, as this port is a major grain trading point.

     

Dynamic survival models with spatial frailty

In many survival studies, covariates effects are time-varying and there is presence of spatial effects. Dynamic models can be used to cope with the variations of the effects and spatial components are introduced to handle spatial variation. This paper proposes a methodology to simultaneously introduce these components into the model. A number of specifications for the spatial components are considered. Estimation is performed via a Bayesian approach through Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. Models are compared to assess relevance of their components. Analysis of a real data set is performed, showing the relevance of both time-varying covariate effects and spatial components. Extensions to the methodology are proposed along with concluding remarks.     

The Relevance of Self-Determination for Corporate Volunteering Intentions

Corporate volunteering programs are increasingly used to bolster community involvement, address social issues and improve the reputation of organisations. Despite this growing trend, our understanding of what motivates corporate volunteers is scant. Drawing on self-determination theory, this study investigates motivational differences among employees engaging in different corporate volunteering types and in independent volunteering, and examines the relationships between these volunteering types and employees’ intent to volunteer in the future. Findings obtained from a survey of 318 employees suggest that higher levels of motivation to volunteer for reasons of ego enhancement or guilt prevention (introjection) were associated with a higher likelihood of participation in employer-organised, large-scale volunteering. Lastly, compared to the other types of volunteers, corporate volunteers had the highest intentions to volunteer through their company in the future, while independent volunteers had the highest intentions to continue volunteering in their own time without employer support. These results highlight the importance of offering various types of corporate volunteering opportunities to employees, as people engaging in corporate volunteering do not make up a homogeneous group, and that different corporate volunteering activities fulfil different motivational needs.

     

The ARL of modified Shewhart control charts for conditionally heteroskedastic models

In this article we consider the modified Shewhart control chart for ARCH processes and introduce it for threshold ARCH (TARCH) ones. For both charts, we determine bounds for the distribution of the in-control run length (RL) and, consequently, for its average (ARL), both depending only on the distribution of the generating white noise, the model parameters and the critical value. For the ARCH model, we compare our bounds with others available in literature and show how they improve the existing ones. We present a simulation study to assess the quality of the bounds calculated for the ARL.