Frequentist and Bayesian approaches for a joint model for prostate cancer risk and longitudinal prostate-specific antigen data

The paper describes the use of frequentist and Bayesian shared-parameter joint models of longitudinal measurements of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and the risk of prostate cancer (PCa). The motivating dataset corresponds to the screening arm of the Spanish branch of the European Randomized Screening for Prostate Cancer study. The results show that PSA is highly associated with the risk of being diagnosed with PCa and that there is an age-varying effect of PSA on PCa risk. Both the frequentist and Bayesian paradigms produced very close parameter estimates and subsequent 95% confidence and credibility intervals. Dynamic estimations of disease-free probabilities obtained using Bayesian inference highlight the potential of joint models to guide personalized risk-based screening strategies.     

Families' values and attitudes regarding responsibility for the frail elderly: implications for aging policy

This study examines the norms and values associated with care to disabled and frail aging parents, in particular those with regard to the sharing of responsibilities for care between families and formal services, and this within three age cohorts in Quebec, Canada. It is based on a telephone interview of 1,315 people. Factor analysis yielded four factors: (1) family responsibility; (2) uncompromising family obligations; (3) acceptance of services; (4) distrust of services. Analyses of the data indicate that all three age cohorts consider that families have responsibilities for their aging family members, at the same time that they score very high on the acceptance of service scale. This article discusses these seemingly paradoxical results and their implications for aging policy.     

中国经济改革与城镇劳动力市场分割——不同地区职工工资收入差距的分析

文章利用1995、2002年的中国城镇职工工资收入数据与Oaxaca Blinder分解方法的扩展形式,分析了这一时期中国城镇地区劳动力市场分割效应对不同地区之间职工收入差距变动的影响作用.分解分析结果证实了不同地区之间城镇职工收入决定中的分割效应不仅是存在的,而且仍有不断增强的趋势.这主要表现在沿海地区、直辖市与其他地区(包括中部、西部、东北地区)之间职工收入差距受到市场分割因素的影响出现了明显扩大的趋势.     

The Influence of Facial Emotion Displays, Gender, and Ethnicity on Judgments of Dominance and Affiliation

Facial expressions of emotions convey not only information about emotional states but also about interpersonal intentions. The present study investigated whether factors known to influence the decoding of emotional expressions—the gender and ethnicity of the stimulus person as well as the intensity of the expression—would also influence attributions of interpersonal intentions. For this, 145 men and women rated emotional facial expressions posed by both Caucasian and Japanese male and female stimulus persons on perceived dominance and affiliation. The results showed that the sex and the ethnicity of the encoder influenced observers' ratings of dominance and affiliation. For anger displays only, this influence was mediated by expectations regarding how likely it is that a particular encoder group would display anger. Further, affiliation ratings were equally influenced by low intensity and by high intensity expressions, whereas only fairly intense emotional expressions affected attributions of dominance.     

Population monotonic rules for fair allocation problems

We consider the property of population monotonicity in the context of fair allocation problems in private good economies. It is already known that the property is compatible with the equal division lower bound. We show that if the equal division lower bound is replaced with no envy, the compatibility does not hold. We also show that the incompatibility persists even though no envy is weakened to no domination or -no domination. Hence, among the fairness criteria mentioned above, only the equal division lower bound is compatible with population monotonicity.This part of my dissertation thesis. I thank to my advisor William Thomson for many valuable comments. I also thank to Youngsub Chun and Yangkyu Byun for their comments. All remaining errors are, of course, mine.     

Affection and conflict in marital and parent-child relationships

In this study, we examined affection and conflict in marital and parent-child relationships, as reported by mothers, fathers, and 9- and 10-year-old children in a community sample of 87 families. Affection and conflict were inversely related within relationships, with mixed findings across relationships. Most reports showed an association between marital and parent-child conflict as well as between marital and parent-child affection. According to fathers, however, the association between marital affection and father-child affection is moderated by marital conflict. Clinical implications of the associations between positive and negative dimensions of family interaction and of the links between marital and parent-child relations are discussed.     

Are game theoretic concepts suitable negotiation support tools? From Nash equilibrium refinements toward a cognitive concept of rationality

If game theory is to be used as a negotiation support tool, it should be able to provide unambiguous recommendations for a target to aim at and for actions to reach this target. This need cannot be satisfied with the Nash equilibrium concept, based on the standard instrumental concept of rationality. These equilibria, as is well known, are generally multiple in a game. The concept of substantive or instrumental rationality has proved to be so pregnant, however, that researchers, instead of re-evaluating its use in game theory, have simply tried to design concepts related to the Nash equilibrium, but with the property of being unique in a game — i.e., they have devised ways ofselecting among Nash equilibria. These concepts have been labeledrefined Nash equilibria. The purpose of this paper is to show the following.

1. The different types of refined Nash equilibria, based on the principle of backward induction, can lead to severe contradictions within the framework itself. This makes these concepts utterly unsatisfactory and calls for a new appraisal of the reasoning process of the players.
2. The degree of confidence in the principle of backward induction depends upon the evaluation of potential deviations with respect to the extended Nash equilibrium concept used and upon the possible interpretations of such deviations by the different players. Our goal is to show that the nature of these possible interpretations reinforces the argument that a serious conceptual reappraisal is necessary.
3. Some form of forward induction should then become the real yardstick of rationality, extending Simonianprocedural rationality towards the concept ofcognitive rationality. This could open the way to a renewed game theoretic approach to negotiation support systems. Such a research program, which would be a revision of the basic game theoretic concepts, is dealt with in the end of the paper.

     

The Norwegian state railways—Profit-motivated enterprise or a community service?

In Norway there is increasing realization among politicians and the general public that it will be to the advantage of the community to make better use of the transport facilities offered by the railways. There is extensive agreement, across party lines, that the railways should not be operated on purely business principles and that railway policy must be formulated to contribute to the overall aims of social policy.However, general views and political claims of this kind are far removed from the problems encountered in putting theory into practice. Where is the boundary line between the proper extent of railway facilities to be provided for the community and the facilities to be provided by other forms of transport?Assuming that we were able to draw such a line, what measures would we have to take in our endeavour to approach the proper economic balance of transport work between the railways and other forms of transport?The political parties are sharply divided in their views as to what measures are acceptable. Controversial measures include economic sanctions or support and regulatory legislation. There is no reason to suppose that these problems are peculiar to Norway. They are no doubt shared by many other countries.     

Effects of the physical accessibility of maternal health services on their use in rural Haiti

An analysis of data from the 2000 Demographic and Health Survey shows that little use is made of antenatal and delivery-care services in rural Haiti. After adjusting for individual-level factors, poor road conditions significantly reduce the likelihood of timely receipt of antenatal care and of four or more antenatal care visits, while the availability of a health centre within 5 kilometres significantly increases the odds of each outcome. The odds of being attended at delivery by trained medical personnel and of institutional delivery are significantly reduced by mountainous terrain and distance from the nearest hospital, and are increased if a health worker providing antenatal care is present in the neighbourhood. Neighbourhood poverty reduces the likelihood of safe delivery care. The findings suggest that improving the use made of maternal healthcare services would require, among other things, improvement of the availability of services and road conditions, and the reduction of poverty.