Theorizing notions of the participation of people in poverty in social policymaking: Policing,politics and subjectification

Since the 1990s, a paradigm of participation has gained prominence and become a dominant policy rhetoric in anti-poverty policymaking in Europe, embracing the key idea that people in poverty should participate as equal citizens in political decision-making processes. Based on a historical case study of the production process of a Belgian white paper, the General Report on Poverty (1994), we investigate who participated in the GRP production process, and whether the underlying participatory and democratic mechanisms produced a shift in power and might have led to a more socially just and equal society. We rely on a central set of ideas of the French philosopher Jacques Rancière to theorize different notions of participation, and tease out whether the processing of equality had the capacity to move from policing towards politics through subjectification. Our research study demonstrates how social change and a reconfiguration of the democratic order can appear as a moment of democracy, yet inevitably leads to a new police.     

Interdependence and accounting information exchanges in inter-firm relationships

These days, the locus of business operations is difficult to define and is subject to continuous modifications. On the one hand, firms form clusters of quasi-integrated partners; on the other, they outsource internal activities to external entities. Such inter-firm relationships have been studied in both the strategic and organizational fields, because they possess specific characteristics that challenge the extant theoretical frameworks and conclusions. Management accounting scholars have recently recognized the importance of these agreements and have started to study inter-organizational accounting information sharing, which supports inter-firm collaboration. Yet, the conditions that foster the exchange of this information between external partners, i.e., open book accounting, are still underexplored. Through some exploratory evidence, and a case study in the fashion industry, we focus on analysing one under-investigated factor, i.e., interdependence, suggesting that, ceteris paribus, this variable may explain several functions played by the accounting information in inter-organizational settings.     

A Bernoulli autoregressive moving average model applied to rainfall occurrence

Abstract

In this article, we propose a new model for binary time series involving an autoregressive moving average structure. The proposed model, which is an extension of the GARMA model, can be used for calculating the forecast probability of an occurrence of an event of interest in cases where these probabilities are dependent on previous observations in the near term. The proposed model is used to analyze a real dataset involving a series that contains only data 0 and 1, indicating the absence or presence of rain in a city located in the central region of São Paulo state, Brazil.     

Fitting insurance and economic data with outliers: a flexible approach based on finite mixtures of contaminated gamma distributions

Insurance and economic data are frequently characterized by positivity, skewness, leptokurtosis, and multi-modality; although many parametric models have been used in the literature, often these peculiarities call for more flexible approaches. Here, we propose a finite mixture of contaminated gamma distributions that provides a better characterization of data. It is placed in between parametric and non-parametric density estimation and strikes a balance between these alternatives, as a large class of densities can be implemented. We adopt a maximum likelihood approach to estimate the model parameters, providing the likelihood and the expected-maximization algorithm implemented to estimate all unknown parameters. We apply our approach to an artificial dataset and to two well-known datasets as the workers compensation data and the healthcare expenditure data taken from the medical expenditure panel survey. The Value-at-Risk is evaluated and comparisons with other benchmark models are provided.     

Examining residence status as a risk factor for health risk behaviors among college students

Objective: The current study is aimed to evaluate college student residence as a unique risk factor for a range of negative health behaviors. Participants: We examined data from 63,555 students (66% females) from 157 campuses who completed the National College Health Assessment Survey in Spring 2011. Methods: Participants answered questions about the frequency of recent use of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and illicit drugs, as well as sexual risk behavior in the last 30 days. Sexual risk behaviors were operationalized as having unprotected vaginal sex (yes/no) and the number of sexual partners. Results: Logistic regression analyses revealed that living off-campus is a unique predictor of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and illicit drug use, as well as engaging in unprotected sex and a greater number of sexual partners (all ps <. 01). Conclusions: Students living off-campus exhibit more substance use and sexual risk behaviors than students living on-campus, independent of gender, age, or race.     

The problem of being a paradigm: the emergence of neural stem cells as example for “Kuhnian” revolution in biology or misconception of the scientific community?

In a thought experiment we want to test how the emergence of adult neural stem cells could constitute an example for a scientific revolution in the sense of Thomas Kuhn. In his major work, “The structure of scientific revolutions, 3rd edn, University of Chicago Press, Chicago” (Kuhn 1996), the philosopher of science, Thomas Kuhn, states that scientific progress is not a cumulative process, but new theories appear by a rather revolutionary sequence of events. Kuhn built his theory on landmark events taken from chemistry and physics, lacking examples from biology. Beginning with Ramon y Cajal’s famous quote, “no new neurons after birth”, from the early years of the twentieth century, and Reynolds and Weiss’s conflicting finding in 1992 of adult neural stem cells giving rise to new neurons, we will test how the finding of neural stem cells in the adult brain matches with Kuhn’s theory. The pivotal problem of defining a paradigm will be our main focus, since the emergence of adult neural stem cells has been acclaimed by the scientific community as the rebuttal of Ramon y Cajal’s paradigm.     

Recoverable robust timetabling for single delay: Complexity and polynomial algorithms for special cases

In this paper, we study the problem of planning a timetable for passenger trains considering that possible delays might occur due to unpredictable circumstances. If a delay occurs, a timetable could not be able to manage it unless some extra time has been scheduled in advance. Delays might be managed in several ways and the usual objective function considered for such purpose is the minimization of the overall waiting time caused to passengers. We analyze the timetable planning problem in terms of the recoverable robustness model, where a timetable is said to be recoverable robust if it is able to absorb small delays by possibly applying given limited recovery capabilities. The quality of a robust timetable is measured by the price of robustness that is the ratio between the cost of the recoverable robust timetable and that of a non-robust optimal one.     

After the “Great Recession”: Excluding “Able-Bodied” Adults from Food Entitlements in the United States

A little-known provision to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), excluding those who are “able-bodied adults without dependents” (ABAWDs) from accessing long-term benefits without conforming to work requirements or eligibility guidelines, was recently reinstated at federal and state levels. States have considerable discretion in implementing the ABAWD provision, resulting in differential access to SNAP benefits. This article provides an analysis of the historical and political context of the ABAWD provision and its relevance to social work. An examination of several states’ different approaches to implementing the ABAWD rule underscores the limits of this policy and the consequent need for social work engagement and advocacy.