Child Poverty Measurement in the UK: Assessing Support for the Downgrading of Income-Based Poverty Measures

Social Indicators Research - In 2016 the UK’s Conservative Government radically changed the official approach to child poverty measurement, scrapping targets for income poverty and material...     

Topics in Microbial Risk Assessment: Dynamic Flow Tree Process

Microbial risk assessment is emerging as a new discipline in risk assessment. A systematic approach to microbial risk assessment is presented that employs data analysis for developing parsimonious models and accounts formally for the variability and uncertainty of model inputs using analysis of variance and Monte Carlo simulation. The purpose of the paper is to raise and examine issues in conducting microbial risk assessments. The enteric pathogen Escherichia coli O157:H7 was selected as an example for this study due to its significance to public health. The framework for our work is consistent with the risk assessment components described by the National Research Council in 1983 (hazard identification; exposure assessment; dose-response assessment; and risk characterization). Exposure assessment focuses on hamburgers, cooked a range of temperatures from rare to well done, the latter typical for fast food restaurants. Features of the model include predictive microbiology components that account for random stochastic growth and death of organisms in hamburger. For dose-response modeling, Shigella data from human feeding studies were used as a surrogate for E. coli O157:H7. Risks were calculated using a threshold model and an alternative nonthreshold model. The 95% probability intervals for risk of illness for product cooked to a given internal temperature spanned five orders of magnitude for these models. The existence of even a small threshold has a dramatic impact on the estimated risk.     

Entrepreneurial orientation in vertical alliances: joint product innovation and learning from allies

This paper clarifies how a firm’s entrepreneurial orientation (EO) affects joint product innovation within a vertical alliance and how this is influenced by increasing technological uncertainty and the absorption of knowledge from the alliance partners. The results of a structural equation model with latent interactions on 171 firms in the manufacturing industry indicate that the focal firm’s EO increases joint innovation, although this positive effect declines when a high level of uncertainty increases. On the other hand, the ability to absorb partners’ knowledge increases joint product innovation. As such, this study’s results contribute to research in the field of vertical alliances, EO, and the theoretical foundation of a dynamic capability perspective.     

Convergence of Slice Sampler Markov Chains

We analyse theoretical properties of the slice sampler. We find that the algorithm has extremely robust geometric ergodicity properties. For the case of just one auxiliary variable, we demonstrate that the algorithm is stochastically monotone, and we deduce analytic bounds on the total variation distance from stationarity of the method by using Foster–Lyapunov drift condition methodology.     

Psychosocial predictors of self-esteem in a multiethnic sample of women over 50 at risk for HIV

Self-esteem is linked to high-risk behaviors in other populations but has not been examined in women aged 50 and older. This study explored how self-esteem is related to variables that can influence high-risk sexual behaviors in women over 50. A multiethnic community-based sample of 572 women aged 50 and older completed an anonymous questionnaire on sexual behaviors, sociodemographic characteristics, and psychosocial measures relevant to midlife and older women. Regression analysis showed sensation-seeking, HIV stigma, sexual assertiveness, and self-silencing predicted self-esteem in women over 50 (F = 43.632, p < .001). Factors such as relational context, interpersonal power, and silencing can affect self-esteem and may be contributing to HIV risk in this group.     

Needs, rights, and the human family: the practicality of the Convention on the Rights of the Child

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is an important document that has both policy and practice implications. Its practicality as a working document hinges on its implementation. This article proposes that the CRC be viewed from a child rights perspective that has five building blocks. These building blocks relate to specific articles in the CRC. They also each allow for the CRC to be realistically interpreted and to be actively promoted.     

Improving OpenURL Menus: User Testing of Revisions to SFX® Menus

Twenty-one volunteers tested the usability of revisions to the Texas A&M University Libraries' SFX® OpenURL link resolver menus, including the addition of Ex Libris' new bX™ recommendation service and a plug-in which pulls additional information about the journal into the menu. The volunteers also evaluated the quality and desirability of the bX recommendations and discussed their preferences for help options and full-text format. Results of the usability testing are reported along with the resultant menu changes. This study will be of interest to librarians implementing or redesigning OpenURL menus as well as those interested in the user experience.     

Time as a limited resource: Communication strategy in mobile phone networks

We used a large database of 9 billion calls from 20 million mobile users to examine the relationships between aggregated time spent on the phone, personal network size, tie strength and the way in which users distributed their limited time across their network (disparity). Compared to those with smaller networks, those with large networks did not devote proportionally more time to communication and had on average weaker ties (as measured by time spent communicating). Further, there were not substantially different levels of disparity between individuals, in that mobile users tend to distribute their time very unevenly across their network, with a large proportion of calls going to a small number of individuals. Together, these results suggest that there are time constraints which limit tie strength in large personal networks, and that even high levels of mobile communication do not fundamentally alter the disparity of time allocation across networks.