Community councils as a medium for public participation: a case study in Grampian region

Planning authorities in Scotland are obliged to consult the public before finalising policies and proposals to be included in their development plans. Community councils are intended to operate as ‘the voice of a neighbourhood’ and this paper analyses an attempt by a regional planning authority to use community councils as a vehicle for consulting the public in the preparation of a structure plan for a rural area. The paper concludes that the attempt was unsuccessful because the community councils were not clear about the role they were expected to play; nor were they adequately prepared for their role. The authors believe, however, that the involvement of community councils has potential for promoting greater public participation in the preparation of development plans.     

Using the EM-algorithm for survival data with incomplete categorical covariates

Incomplete covariate data is a common occurrence in many studies in which the outcome is survival time. With generalized linear models, when the missing covariates are categorical, a useful technique for obtaining parameter estimates is the EM by the method of weights proposed in Ibrahim (1990). In this article, we extend the EM by the method of weights to survival outcomes whose distributions may not fall in the class of generalized linear models. This method requires the estimation of the parameters of the distribution of the covariates. We present a clinical trials example with five covariates, four of which have some missing values.     

Modelling the management of underground water assets

Central to the activities of any industry is the modernization of its assets. This paper describes the application of statistical methods to the asset management plan of a large water company. A model for the underground assets is given in detail, and the extensive computations required are illustrated. A Bayesian model shows the consequences of various policy options and provides realistic measures of the uncertainty connected with them.     

Tort claims for road accident compensation and social security in South Africa

The statutory scheme of road accident compensation in South Africa encapsulates both the common law of tort or delict and the residue of liability insurance principles. The absence of meaningful interaction between the road accident compensation scheme and the broader social security system raises significant challenges. There are dissonant responses to the targeted misfortune, provision of benefits, financing, choice of remedies and socioeconomic-political priorities selected by the South African government. It is argued that the current scheme should be identified as falling squarely within a state-funded and regulated scheme of comprehensive social protection.     

The Association of Survey Setting and Mode with Self-Reported Health Risk Behaviors among High School Students

This study examined whether the prevalence of self-reportedhealth risk behaviors among high school students varied by surveysetting (school versus home) and mode of administration (paperand pencil versus computer). Students in grades 9 and 11 wereassigned randomly to one of four conditions—school paper-and-pencilinstrument (PAPI), school computer-assisted self-interview (CASI),home PAPI, and home CASI. During the spring of 2004, 4,506 studentscompleted identically worded questionnaires based on the YouthRisk Behavior Survey questionnaire. Logistic regression analysescontrolling for sex, grade, and race/ethnicity revealed thatsetting was associated significantly with the reporting of 30of the 55 risk behaviors examined, and mode was associated significantlywith the reporting of 7 of the 55 behaviors. For all behaviorswith a significant setting main effect, the odds of reportingthe behavior were greater among students who completed questionnairesat school than among students who completed questionnaires athome. For all behaviors with a significant mode main effect,PAPI mode students had lower odds of reporting the behaviorthan CASI mode students. Because social measurement researchassumes that higher prevalence estimates are more valid thanlower estimates, methodological factors shown to increase estimates,such as setting and mode, should be considered when planningsurveys.     

The Impact of Candidate Sex on Evaluations of Candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives*

Objectives. To examine how voters and the general public evaluate women candidates by examining ideological and issue‐based evaluations of women candidates for the House of Representatives. Methods. Data are drawn from the National Election Study for all U.S. House elections from 1990 to 2000. OLS and logistic regression models examining the role of candidate sex in evaluations are tested. Results. When evaluating Democratic candidates, people see them as more liberal and utilize more female issues in their evaluations when the candidate is a woman. For Republican candidates, candidate sex is much less likely to be related to how people evaluate them. Conclusion. The central role of party in public evaluations of women candidates suggests that the impact of candidate sex on voters is more complex than previous works have suggested.     

Employment motivations of farm spouses

In the study reported here, reasons for working off the farm and reasons for not working off the farm are examined as a function of gender and socioeconomic characteristics. Women are significantly less likely than men to work off the farm to supplement farm income, and significantly more likely to work off the farm for personal reasons. A logistic regression analysis finds that men, those employed fulltime off the farm, and those with lower household incomes are most likely to cite economic reasons for working off the farm. Men are nearly twice as likely as women to cite time constraints as the primary reason for not working off the farm, while only women cite family responsibilities. Logistic regression reveals that men, those with higher household incomes, and those with livestock operations are most likely to cite lack of time as the primary reason for not working off the farm.Patricia J. Wozniak is Associate Professor in the Department of Experimental Statistics, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803. Her research interests include family life and family economics, as well as the application of statistics to the social sciences. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee.Kathleen K. Scholl is Senior Coordinator of the Economics Team of the Public Policy Institute at the American Association of Retired Persons, 1909 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20049. She received her Ph.D. from Purdue University.     

Laplace-normal mixtures fitted to wind shear data

A mixture model with Laplace and normal components is fitted to wind shear data available in grouped form. A set of equations is presented for iteratively estimating the parameters of the model using an application of the EM algorithm. Twenty-four sets of data are examined with this technique, and the model is found to give a good fit to the data. Some hypotheses about the parameters in the model are discussed in light of the estimates obtained.     

Integrated marked Poisson processes with application to image correlation spectroscopy

Image correlation spectroscopy (ICS) is an experimental technique used in the study of cell tissue, specifically to obtain information about protein aggregates. This paper discusses a filtered Poisson process model of ICS, and uses this to obtain the sampling distribution of an estimator of interest, using spectral methods. Integrals of third- and fourth-order spectra are involved, and methods proposed in the literature are studied numerically. They are found to be infeasible methods, requiring months of computing time. An alternative method is proposed and is illustrated on some actual ICS experiments. A novel feature in this study is the use of a SIMD-class parallel computer, a MasPar MP-2 machine, to obtain some statistical properties of the estimation method.