Confidence bands for bivariate quantiles

The problem of calculating joint confidence bands for the quantiles of the bivariate normal distribution is solved. Numerical implementation of the results is discussed and calculations are presented for selected cases.     

Design catalogue for eco-engineering of coastal artificial structures: a multifunctional approach for stakeholders and end-users

Urban Ecosystems - Coastal urbanisation, energy extraction, food production, shipping and transportation have led to the global proliferation of artificial structures within the coastal and marine...     

Group-sequential logrank methods for trial designs using bivariate non-competing event-time outcomes

We discuss the multivariate (2L-variate) correlation structure and the asymptotic distribution for the group-sequential weighted logrank statistics formulated when monitoring two correlated event-time outcomes in clinical trials. The asymptotic distribution and the variance–covariance for the 2L-variate weighted logrank statistic are derived as available in various group-sequential trial designs. These methods are used to determine a group-sequential testing procedure based on calendar times or information fractions. We apply the theoretical results to a group-sequential method for monitoring a clinical trial with early stopping for efficacy when the trial is designed to evaluate the joint effect on two correlated event-time outcomes. We illustrate the method with application to a clinical trial and describe how to calculate the required sample sizes and numbers of events.

     

Someone to check in on me: social capital,social support and vulnerable parents with very young children in the Australian Capital Territory

Although knowledge of how social support can mediate stress is now well known, finding ways to enable isolated parents to access social resources that could make a positive difference for children during their critical early years remains difficult. This paper reported on the findings of a telephone survey aimed at understanding levels of social capital and social support experienced by isolated parents raising young children on their own in Canberra, Australia. Specifically, it discussed a successful methodology for reaching isolated parents, those whom services find hard to reach. The survey found that despite the relative affluence of Canberra's population, there is a significant group of parents who are isolated from both formal and informal support and the social capital that can help them cope with the stresses and demands of raising young children. These parents were unsure where to get parenting information and had a strong sense that they were judged by their local communities and services. We identified lost opportunities by general practitioners and other widely used systems such as public housing and security to take more proactive roles and connect parents to formal service support systems. Flexible, affordable child care was identified as an unmet need for these parents, not only as a source of relief from extreme isolation but also to enable them to work or prepare for work through study.     

Integrating service delivery in a regional homelessness service system

All tiers of government in Australia are focused on service integration as a key response to homelessness. However, service integration strategies need to consider particular service system characteristics and location‐specific conditions. This paper reports on an investigation of service integration strategies suitable for a regional context undertaken in 2010 and 2011. A three‐phase participatory action research (PAR) framework was utilised to collect data about the homelessness service system in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, and about the existing and potential service integration strategies in the region. The findings suggest that strategies for better integration should take into account specific local conditions and be developed and implemented at a local level with support from government. The paper concludes by presenting an argument that the development and implementation of strategies should be based on a place‐based assessment of demand and suitability.     

Ethnic concerns and Latino party identification

The accelerated growth of the Latino population in the United States has made Latinos a coveted addition to each major political party's base. In this paper we examine the influence of ethnic concerns on the party identification of Latinos in the U.S. In contrast to previous studies, we account for Latinos’ perceptions of the political parties’ concern for their ethnic interests, allowing such interests to be self-defined. In a multinomial logit analysis of pooled data from three surveys of Latinos taken in 1999, 2004, and 2006, we find such perceptions do affect Latino partisanship, along with variables such as nativity and country of origin or ancestry. We also find a tendency toward independence among Latinos. Finally, we find movement toward the Democratic Party in 2004, once ethnic concerns are taken into account. One implication of the findings is that the party that can best persuade Latinos of their concern for their interests is the party most likely to gain their loyalties; indeed, the parties must earn those loyalties.     

Anima

Abstract

The ANSI Standard on Serial Holdings Statements at the Summary Level is being withdrawn and a new holdings standard developed by NISO, entitled Serial Holdings Statements, is being approved in its place. This article compares the two standards, and describes the changes users will need to make when adopting the new standard.     

Public Policy and Inequalities of Choice and Autonomy

Choice by service users has been promoted in social policy across many developed welfare states, often on the grounds that it will incentivize providers to enhance quality and efficiency. But this instrumental motivation for the promotion of choice overlooks the possibility that choice, understood in the deeper sense of autonomy, has intrinsic value, as suggested by egalitarian and capability‐based theories of social justice. This article argues that the narrow motivation of choice policies leads to a focus on services rather than outcomes for individuals and fails to address deep‐seated inequalities in the opportunities people have for real autonomy. We test this concept using newly collected data for the UK. Our empirical findings indicate that disabled people are more likely to experience constrained autonomy in all respects, while being from a low socio‐economic group and/or lacking educational qualifications is a risk factor across several components. We conclude that improving the ‘choice’ agenda for policy requires: (1) adopting a more sophisticated concept of ‘choice’ such as the conceptualization of ‘choice as autonomy’ outlined here; (2) developing a better understanding of existing inequalities in autonomy, such as we begin to explore in our empirical results; and (3) tackling these inequalities through, for example, the removal of obstacles to active decision‐making by providing effective support and advocacy, especially for disabled people, and addressing the major structural barriers – poverty, ill health and geographical inequality – which place significant restrictions on the autonomy of those who are already disadvantaged.     

Multiple recapture methods when sampling without replacement in the last occasion

A technique is presented for estimating the size of a closed population from multiple recapture data when sampling is performed without replacement on the last trapping occasion. The estimator of the population size along with the variance estimator is derived from a log-linear model.