Modelling the Inverse Association between Breastfeeding and Contraceptive Use

Previous studies of the inverse association between breastfeeding and contraceptive use have relied on current status data on at least one of the variables. In this paper we suggest a new way of modelling the joint temporal association of the adoption of contraception and the termination of breastfeeding over the course of a birth interval. The approach is implemented with survey data from rural Mexico. It involves first estimating a competing-risks model in which both hazards are considered simultaneous, together with a set of relevant covariates. Conditional analyses are then carried out to estimate the hazards of each event conditional on the timing of the other. By comparing the covariates, we gauge the extent to which the occurrence of one event raises or lowers the hazard of the other. The results show that, in rural Mexico, the timing of the termination of breastfeeding and that of starting contraceptive use are closely related, and that there exists a surprisingly neat interval of 120 days in which the action takes place.     

Risk factors of severity of abuse against older women in the home setting: A multinational European study

ABSTRACT

This article examines the ecological risk factors of abuse against older women. Data from 2,880 older women were randomly collected in five European countries (Austria, Belgium, Finland, Lithuania, and Portugal) using a standardized questionnaire. Results indicate that overall 30.1 % older women had at least one experience of abuse in the past year. The findings demonstrate that a single emphasis on personal risk factors (e.g., health, coping) is important but too simple: Abuse is multifaceted and is embedded in environmental (e.g., loneliness, household income) as well as macrocultural contexts (e.g., old age dependency ratio).     

Toward a Refined Insight Into the Importance of Volunteers’ Motivations for Need-Based Experiences,Job Satisfaction,Work Effort,and Turnover Intentions in Nonprofit Sports Clubs: A Person-Centered Approach

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Extensive variable-centered research guided by Self-Determination Theory (SDT) has provided insights into...     

Delay analysis of a discrete-time GI − GI − 1 queue with reservation-based priority scheduling

In this paper, we study a discrete-time single-server queueing system where the arriving traffic consists of both delay-sensitive and delay-tolerant streams. We analyze the effects of a reservation-based scheduling discipline on the delay characteristics of both types of traffic. Under this discipline, a placeholder packet is inserted in the queue to accommodate future delay-sensitive arrivals, allowing them to bypass a part of the queue, without suppressing the delay-tolerant traffic.

On the basis of a probability generating functions (pgf) approach, we analyze the system state distribution and the delay distribution for either traffic type and present closed-form expressions for the expected delays as well as the tail probabilities of the packet delays. We illustrate the results comparing the delay performance of our reservation-based scheduling discipline to the performance achieved by the traditional Absolute Priority (AP) and First In First Out (FIFO) disciplines.     

皮尔士符号学说再评价

皮尔士对符号研究的主要贡献,就在于发现:符号之所以成为符号,之所以能通过一定的形式系统代替或代表不同于符号自身的其他事物、现象、过程,无非是由于符号的解释者依据一定的共同体或社会的规范所作的解释或认知.符号自身无所谓指称和表达,而是人把它作如是观,是人这样理解和规定的结果.也正是人赋予符号以生命,并以符号为工具发展了人自身.人类文明所经历的漫漫长路,可以说就是人运用符号承载文化,传递知识,并将人自身的劳动过程浓缩于符号系统的漫长历史.     

Visiting borders in education: A creative approach with children in primary education

This study engages with children sharing experiences of belonging at school, of receiving access and of exploring complex relationalities along shifting borders in educational spaces. Their understandings offer a magnifying glass on normativity, difference and social positions in school spaces. Through ‘flattening and folding’ with material and theoretical concepts, the authors map how qualitative data images made by children and theory constitute one another to make sense of complex relationalities discussed by children. The project desires to make sense of blurry borders that exclude children in educational contexts and to push borders in methods and ethics in research with children.     

Incidence of Social Accountability in Local Governance: The Case of the Network for Fair,Democratic and Sustainable Cities and Territories in Latin America

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - In Latin America, the emergence of a series of civil society initiatives aimed at citizen engagement for social...     

Ethical and despotic leadership, relationships with leader's social responsibility, top management team effectiveness and subordinates' optimism: A multi-method study

In this multi-method study, we examined the relationships of leader's social responsibility with different aspects of ethical leadership (morality and fairness, role clarification, and power sharing) as well as with despotic leadership. We also investigated how these leadership behaviors relate to effectiveness and optimism, using multiple-source ratings. Interviews with CEOs (N = 73) were coded for the presence of leader's social responsibility and its facets. Also, using questionnaires, direct reports rated each CEOs' leader behavior (n = 130) and a second group of direct reports (n = 119) rated effectiveness and optimism. As expected, leaders high on social responsibility were rated higher on ethical leadership and lower on despotic leadership. Ethical leadership was also positively related to perceived top management team effectiveness and subordinates' optimism about the future of the organization and their own place within it.     

Lifetime estimation from doubly censored data and dirichlet process prior knowledge on the observable random vector

The purpose of this paper is to present a nonparametric Bayesian procedure for estimating a survival curve in a double censoring situation. Assuming a proportional hazard rates model, we propose a consistent estimation of lifetime, based on a Dirichlet process prior knowledge on the observable random vector. Some large sample properties of this estimator are also derived, We prove strong consistency and asymptotic weak convergence to a Gaussian pro cess. Finally, a simulation study is presented in order to analyze the behavior of the proposed estimator, and establish some comparisons to other estimators.