Modelling the management of underground water assets

Central to the activities of any industry is the modernization of its assets. This paper describes the application of statistical methods to the asset management plan of a large water company. A model for the underground assets is given in detail, and the extensive computations required are illustrated. A Bayesian model shows the consequences of various policy options and provides realistic measures of the uncertainty connected with them.     

Bayes model averaging with selection of regressors

Summary. When a number of distinct models contend for use in prediction, the choice of a single model can offer rather unstable predictions. In regression, stochastic search variable selection with Bayesian model averaging offers a cure for this robustness issue but at the expense of requiring very many predictors. Here we look at Bayes model averaging incorporating variable selection for prediction. This offers similar mean-square errors of prediction but with a vastly reduced predictor space. This can greatly aid the interpretation of the model. It also reduces the cost if measured variables have costs. The development here uses decision theory in the context of the multivariate general linear model. In passing, this reduced predictor space Bayes model averaging is contrasted with single-model approximations. A fast algorithm for updating regressions in the Markov chain Monte Carlo searches for posterior inference is developed, allowing many more variables than observations to be contemplated. We discuss the merits of absolute rather than proportionate shrinkage in regression, especially when there are more variables than observations. The methodology is illustrated on a set of spectroscopic data used for measuring the amounts of different sugars in an aqueous solution.     

Parental mental health: disruptions to parenting and outcomes for children

The association between parental mental health problems and negative outcomes for children has been long known. This paper addresses three issues in relation to this. First, the scale of the problem is outlined, in terms of both the prevalence of mental health problems in parents and the likelihood of children exhibiting negative outcomes in these circumstances. Secondly, the specificity, or lack of it, of particular outcomes in the child in relation to different parental mental health problems is explored. Thirdly, the paper focuses on the importance of disruptions to parenting as a mechanism in the transmission of mental health problems to negative impacts on the child. Examples are given of how parenting is disrupted in non‐clinical community populations, and the subsequent impacts on the child. The case is made for the preventative importance of parenting and family support in mediating between parental mental health problems and negative impacts on the child.     

The Spread of Disability Living Allowance

This article examines the spread of Disability Living Allowance across a group of low income households in an industrial town in North West England from the introduction of the new benefits in 1992 until the Spring of 1996. We focus on the changes over time of the incidence of Disability Living Allowance in the low income population and look at the relative spread of different elements of the benefit. We speculate on whether the new benefits have provided the most effective way of fulfilling the aims of the White Paper, The Way Ahead , and discuss the implications for social and medical models of disability.     

Older Workers: Who are the working poor in the U.S.?

With data from the 2000 Health and Retirement Study (HRS), the purpose of this study was to provide a profile of older workers who live poverty, and to compare the demographic, financial, employment, and health attributes of such individuals to similar persons not living in poverty. This study found that 3.5% of employed individuals between the ages of 51 and 61 belonged to the class of working poor. The results of the multivariate logistic regression analyses indicated that the older working poor were more likely to be non-White, less educated, non-married, and had lower levels of net worth than the working non-poor. They were more likely to be employed part time and were less likely to be covered by employee-sponsored health insurance.     

UNIONS, PLANTS, JOBS, AND WORKERS

The relationship between unions and their members is an important, yet neglected, subject in recent studies of the sociology of work. This study develops and tests a theory of union satisfaction and participation that combines recent research in the sociology of work with previous explanations of union satisfaction and participation provided by industrial relations researchers, in an attempt to understand the relationship between unions, plants, jobs, and workers in U.S. manufacturing industries. This theory predicts that union members will be satisfied with their unions and participate more in them if there are extensive ties between workers, employers, and unions. These ties stem from the focus of labor/management relations in particular, and class struggles in general, on market outcomes and the historical linkage of union membership with employment in the United States. The theory also predicts that unions them-selves act as ties to specific work settings and that union participation is a forum for voicing dissatisfaction with specific characteristics of workers' jobs. Testing these predictions is complicated by contradictory nature of the structure and organization of work in advanced industrial societies. The analysis provides qualified support for this theory, with data drawn from more unions, plants, and union members than have been used to date. In addition to discussing modifications to the theory and analysis presented here, the study includes a discussion of its implications for the future of unionization and the organization of work, in light of declines in union membership, increased efforts to decertify unions and resist union organizing efforts, and deindustrialization in the United States.