IRENA as a glocal actor: pathways towards energy governmentality

For decades renewable energy has remained a “blind spot” within the sphere of international energy governance. The existing institutional network is highly fragmented, resulting in a myriad of international organizations, which all claim to deal with energy issues, yet do not focus on renewables on a global scale. Since 2009, IRENA, the International Renewable Energy Agency, seeks to fill up this vacuum, thereby creating a new (and maybe more Southern-led) political arena for governing renewable energy issues. This article focuses on IRENA’s role as a changemaker in the sphere of global energy governance by investigating IRENA’s governance practices and contributions to knowledge production.     

Exploring the Hierarchical Structure of Pacific Identity and Wellbeing

To understand outcomes for Pacific peoples in New Zealand we need to further our psychological knowledge of the relationship between Pacific identity and wellbeing. We map the hierarchical organization of Pacific identity and wellbeing using a novel top-down factor analytic approach applied to the Pacific Identity and Wellbeing Scale (PIWBS; N = 586). Analyses indicated that Pacific identity experiences were organized within two broad dimensions reflecting Identity Engagement and Cultural Wellbeing. Critically, our analysis showed that Religious Centrality and Embeddedness emerged jointly from these dual broad domains. Religious identification provides a bridging link between identity and wellbeing for Pacific peoples. Identifying the relationships of Pacific identity and wellbeing factors, and how religious identification emerges jointly from these two broad domains, provides valuable information in how the Pacific self may be cognitively organized and may assist in future research directions in this area. We assert that this general statistical model provides broad conceptual insights into how Pacific peoples experience their identity and culture, and how this relates to various social indicators of health and wellbeing at a broad, theoretical level. In particular, we offer a conceptual analysis of possible insights from our hierarchical model of identity and wellbeing for understanding Pacific suicide in New Zealand.     

Point Estimates of Test Sensitivity and Specificity from Sample Means and Variances

In a wide variety of biomedical and clinical research studies, sample statistics from diagnostic marker measurements are presented as a means of distinguishing between two populations, such as with and without disease. Intuitively, a larger difference between the mean values of a marker for the two populations, and a smaller spread of values within each population, should lead to more reliable classification rules based on this marker. We formalize this intuitive notion by deriving practical, new, closed-form expressions for the sensitivity and specificity of three different discriminant tests defined in terms of the sample means and standard deviations of diagnostic marker measurements. The three discriminant tests evaluated are based, respectively, on the Euclidean distance and the Mahalanobis distance between means, and a likelihood ratio analysis. Expressions for the effects of measurement error are also presented. Our final expressions assume that the diagnostic markers follow independent normal distributions for the two populations, although it will be clear that other known distributions may be similarly analyzed. We then discuss applications drawn from the medical literature, although the formalism is clearly not restricted to that application.     

Demand for gambling: development and assessment of a gambling purchase task

Self-report purchase tasks are a novel approach examining the reinforcing value of addictive behaviour relative to increasing monetary costs required to access the addictive behaviour (i.e. demand). These measures reveal a positive relationship between the indices of demand and addiction problem severity and can elucidate factors associated with motivation for substance use. Gambling is an addictive behaviour that has not been examined using this paradigm. This study seeks to adapt and examine the purchase task for gambling behaviour. A gambling purchase task was devised that asked individuals how often per month they would gamble at various cover charges. Participants were 73 adults from the community with either gambling disorder (n = 28) or alcohol use disorder (n = 24) or were a healthy control (n = 21). Both the alcohol and gambling purchase tasks were administered. Results demonstrate discriminant validity of the gambling purchase task, as individuals with gambling disorder have significantly greater demand for accessing gambling than other groups. The alcohol purchase task also evidenced discriminant validity in that individuals with alcohol use disorder have significantly greater demand for alcohol than other groups. These findings support the use of the gambling purchase task to assess the demand for gambling.     

Modelling human immunodeficiency virus ribonucleic acid levels with finite mixtures for censored longitudinal data

The measurement of human immunodeficiency virus ribonucleic acid levels over time leads to censored longitudinal data. Suitable models for dynamic modelling of these levels need to take this data characteristic into account. If groups of patients with different developments of the levels over time are suspected the model class of finite mixtures of mixed effects models with censored data is required. We describe the model specification and derive the estimation with a suitable expectation-maximization algorithm. We propose a convenient implementation using closed form formulae for the expected mean and variance of the truncated multivariate distribution. Only efficient evaluation of the cumulative multivariate normal distribution function is required. Model selection as well as methods for inference are discussed. The application is demonstrated on the clinical trial ACTG 315 data.     

Stock investors’ preference for short-term vs. long-term bonuses

Bonuses in the finance sector may be based on too short time intervals for environmental and social factors to be taken into account in investment decisions. We report two experiments to investigate whether investors prefer short-term to long-term bonuses. In Experiment 1 employing 27 undergraduates, preferences were measured for four short-term certain bonuses, evenly distributed across a time interval, and one certain long-term bonus at the end of the time interval. A majority chose the short-term bonuses, and in order for the long-term bonus to be equally preferred it had to be about 40% higher than the four added short-term bonuses. Experiment 2 employing another 36 undergraduates introduced outcome uncertainty that more accurately reflects the choices stock investors face. The participants again choose between a long-term bonus and four distributed short-term bonuses. It was shown that uncertainty made more participants prefer the long-term bonus to the added short-term bonuses than when the outcome was certain. A smaller increase of the long-term bonus of about 20% was now required to make it equally attractive as the four added short-term bonuses.     

The Comparison of Grandparents’, Parents’, and Young People's Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men in Turkey

ABSTRACT

The present study aimed to compare attitudes toward lesbians and gay men across three generations in Turkey. Participants were 112 young people, 169 parents, and 125 grandparents. A total of 406 men and women were involved. The short form of Herek's (1998) the Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men Scale was used. MANOVAs and ANOVAs were used to analyze the data. Results showed the attitudinal differences toward gay and lesbian people across generations. Grandparents have the most negative attitudes, whereas parents have more negative attitudes than their children. When comparing attitudes of each generation across sex, we found that young women have more liberal attitudes toward gay men compared to all other groups. Discussion focuses on understanding the results within the unique cultural context of Turkey.