The Access/Impact Problem and the Green and Gold Roads to Open Access

Abstract

The research access/impact problem arises because journal articles are not accessible to all of their would-be users; hence, they are losing potential research impact. The solution is to make all articles Open Access (OA; i.e., accessible online, free for all). OA articles have significantly higher citation impact than non-OA articles. There are two roads to OA: the “golden” road (publish your article in an OA journal) and the “green” road (publish your article in a non-OA journal but also self-archive it in an OA archive). Only 5% of journals are gold, but over 90% are already green (i.e., they have given their authors the green light to self-archive); yet only about 10–20% of articles have been self-archived. To reach 100% OA, self-archiving needs to be mandated by researchers' employers and funders, as the United Kingdom and the United States have recently recommended, and universities need to implement that mandate.     

Asymptotic power efficiency for a location and scale problem

The asymptotic power efficiency of the class of linear rank tests relative to the asymptotically most powerful rank test is derived for a two sample location and scale problem and numerical evaluations are presented for two special tests.     

ERRATA CORRIGE: “ARE MUSLIM IMMIGRANTS DIFFERENT IN TERMS OF CULTURAL INTEGRATION?”

We are thankful to Michael Lundholm and Mahmood Arai for pointing us towards a coding error which invalidates the regressions in our paper. Correcting the code leads to a decrease in sample sizes, though much smaller than Arai et al. (2011) claim based on their “replication”. An appropriate redefinition of the variables and of the model specification allows us to reproduce the substance of the empirical analysis in our original published paper. Although the results are now less clear‐cut, our analysis remains essentially unchanged.     

Toward a comprehensive demography: rethinking the research agenda on change and response

This essay drafts a new interdisciplinary agenda for research on population and development. Starting from Kingsley Davis's 1963 formulation of change and response, Davis's analytical categories are broadened to include inertia as well as change and to encompass both demographic and non-demographic responses at the micro, meso, and macro levels. On that basis the essay proposes what can be called a comprehensive demography, an approach drawing principally on micro-level methodologies like those employed in anthropological demography. Like anthropological demography, comprehensive demography questions the rationality of actors, emphasizes cultural infuences, and stops short of the postmodernist extremes of anthropology. But it also takes explicit account of higher-level social, economic, and political factors bearing on demographic behavior and outcomes. The conclusion raises some epistemological issues. Illustrative examples are offered throughout to demonstrate the feasibility of the approach, mainly referring to sub-Saharan africa and the Caribbean and often drawn from the authors' own fieldwork.     

Exploring user experience and technology acceptance for a fall prevention system: results from a randomized clinical trial and a living lab

Background

Falls are common in older adults and can result in serious injuries. Due to demographic changes, falls and related healthcare costs are likely to increase over the next years. Participation and motivation of older adults in fall prevention measures remain a challenge. The iStoppFalls project developed an information and communication technology (ICT)-based system for older adults to use at home in order to reduce common fall risk factors such as impaired balance and muscle weakness. The system aims at increasing older adults’ motivation to participate in ICT-based fall prevention measures. This article reports on usability, user-experience and user-acceptance aspects affecting the use of the iStoppFalls system by older adults.

Methods

In the course of a 16-week international multicenter study, 153 community-dwelling older adults aged 65+ participated in the iStoppFalls randomized controlled trial, of which half used the system in their home to exercise and assess their risk of falling. During the study, 60 participants completed questionnaires regarding the usability, user experience and user acceptance of the iStoppFalls system. Usability was measured with the System Usability Scale (SUS). For user experience the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale (PACES) was applied. User acceptance was assessed with the Dynamic Acceptance Model for the Re-evaluation of Technologies (DART). To collect more detailed data on usability, user experience and user acceptance, additional qualitative interviews and observations were conducted with participants.

Results

Participants evaluated the usability of the system with an overall score of 62 (Standard Deviation, SD 15.58) out of 100, which suggests good usability. Most users enjoyed the iStoppFalls games and assessments, as shown by the overall PACES score of 31 (SD 8.03). With a score of 0.87 (SD 0.26), user acceptance results showed that participants accepted the iStoppFalls system for use in their own home. Interview data suggested that certain factors such as motivation, complexity or graphical design were different for gender and age.

Conclusions

The results suggest that the iStoppFalls system has good usability, user experience and user acceptance. It will be important to take these along with factors such as motivation, gender and age into consideration when designing and further developing ICT-based fall prevention systems.

     

Unexplored dimensions of discrimination in Europe: homosexuality and physical appearance

We study labor-market discrimination of individuals with “specific” characteristics in Italy. We conduct a field experiment in two Italian cities: Rome and Milan, by sending “fake” CVs to real ads. We find that there is a strong penalty for homosexuals, i.e., about 30 % less chance to be called back compared to a heterosexual male and even more so if they are highly skilled. On the other hand, we find no penalty for homosexual females. We also find a beauty premium for females only but this premium is much lower when the “pretty” woman is skilled.     

On multivariate separating Hill estimator under estimated location and scatter

We consider estimating the tail-index of a distribution under the assumption of multivariate ellipticity. Recently, a separating Hill estimator for multivariate elliptical distributions was proposed. This estimator is an affine invariant alternative to using the marginal observations in tail-index estimation and is hence unaffected by, e.g. change of units of measurement. However, the separating Hill estimator depends on the location and scatter of the elliptical distribution, which, in practice, have to be estimated. The effect of replacing the true location and scatter of the distribution by estimates has previously been only examined through simulations. In this article we show that the error caused by replacing the location and scatter of the distribution by estimates indeed is asymptotically negligible. This fact is essential for the practicality of the separating Hill estimator. In addition to providing the theoretical results, we present simulation results on the asymptotic behaviour of the estimators.     

Bain: a program for Bayesian testing of order constrained hypotheses in structural equation models

This paper presents a new statistical method and accompanying software for the evaluation of order constrained hypotheses in structural equation models (SEM). The method is based on a large sample approximation of the Bayes factor using a prior with a data-based correlational structure. An efficient algorithm is written into an R package to ensure fast computation. The package, referred to as Bain, is easy to use for applied researchers. Two classical examples from the SEM literature are used to illustrate the methodology and software.     

Personalized information and willingness to pay for non-financial risk prevention: An experiment

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty - When receiving personalized rather than population-based information, agents improve their knowledge about their probability of experiencing adverse events (e.g....