Exploring the absolutist vs relativist perception of poverty using a cross-country questionnaire survey

Questionnaires eliciting the absolutist vs relativist perception of poverty are administered to 1941 undergraduate students in eight countries - Bolivia, Brazil, Italy, Kenya, Laos, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. We find that the perception of poverty expressed by a large fraction of respondents exhibits both absolutist and relativist concerns, with the former components prevailing over the latter. High-income countries exhibit a significantly more pronounced relativist attitude. Personal characteristics such as past experience of material hardship and relative standard of living play a germane role in shaping respondents’ views.     

Some measures of kurtosis and their inference on large datasets

AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis - This paper deals with the estimation of kurtosis on large datasets. It aims at overcoming two frequent limitations in applications: first, Pearson's...     

Refusal to Answer Specific Questions in a Survey: A Case Study

It is well known that non ignorable item non response may occur when the cause of the non response is the value of the latent variable of interest. In these cases, a refusal by a respondent to answer specific questions in a survey should be treated sometimes as a non ignorable item non response. The Rasch-Rasch model (RRM) is a new two-dimensional item response theory model for addressing non ignorable non response. This article demonstrates the use of the RRM on data from an Italian survey focused on assessment of healthcare workers’ knowledge about sudden infant death syndrome (that is, a context in which non response is presumed to be more likely among individuals with a low level of competence). We compare the performance of the RRM with other models within the Rasch model family that assume the unidimensionality of the latent trait. We conclude that this assumption should be considered unreliable for the data at hand, whereas the RRM provides a better fit of the data.     

A note on a universal random variate generator for integer-valued random variables

A universal generator for integer-valued square-integrable random variables is introduced. The generator relies on a rejection technique based on a generalization of the inversion formula for integer-valued random variables. This approach allows to create a dominating probability function, whose evaluation solely involves two integrals depending on the characteristic function of the random variable to be generated. The proposal gives rise to a simple algorithm which may be implemented in a few code lines and which may show good performance when the classical families of distributions—such as the Poisson and the Binomial—are considered. In addition, applications to the Poisson-Tweedie and the Luria-Delbrück distributions are provided.     

Assessors

The application of technology, such as interactive digital whiteboards, in the online environment of higher education, is growing at an accelerated pace. Much is known about the tools used in an on-ground course to promote student engagement, but the literature is scant on tools to promote student engagement in the online environment. The purpose of this study is to explore qualitative data from students on faculty efforts to promote student engagement through leveraged digital whiteboard technology. A qualitative review of feedback from graduate students (n = 81) qualitative responses from open-ended questions and follow up online focus group sessions (n = 9) indicate that this technology can be useful to promote a sense of social engagement among students. It is expected that this knowledge will help instructors to better understand what promotes student engagement in an online graduate social work cohort. This learning tool can be used to promote further engagement in future assignments.     

The Tempered Discrete Linnik distribution

We introduce a new family of integer-valued distributions by considering a tempered version of the Discrete Linnik law. The proposal is actually a generalization of the well-known Poisson–Tweedie law. The suggested family is extremely flexible since it contains a wide spectrum of distributions ranging from light-tailed laws (such as the Binomial) to heavy-tailed laws (such as the Discrete Linnik). The main theoretical features of the Tempered Discrete Linnik distribution are explored by providing a series of identities in law, which describe its genesis in terms of mixture Poisson distribution and compound Negative Binomial distribution—as well as in terms of mixture Poisson–Tweedie distribution. Moreover, we give a manageable expression and a suitable recursive relationship for the corresponding probability function. Finally, an application to scientometric data—which deals with the scientific output of the researchers of the University of Siena—is considered.     

Goodness-of-Fit Testing for the Newcomb-Benford Law With Application to the Detection of Customs Fraud

The Newcomb-Benford law for digit sequences has recently attracted interest in antifraud analysis. However, most of its applications rely either on diagnostic checks of the data, or on informal decision rules. We suggest a new way of testing the Newcomb-Benford law that turns out to be particularly attractive for the detection of frauds in customs data collected from international trade. Our approach has two major advantages. The first one is that we control the rate of false rejections at each stage of the procedure, as required in antifraud applications. The second improvement is that our testing procedure leads to exact significance levels and does not rely on large-sample approximations. Another contribution of our work is the derivation of a simple expression for the digit distribution when the Newcomb-Benford law is violated, and a bound for a chi-squared type of distance between the actual digit distribution and the Newcomb-Benford one.     

Interval Estimation for the Sortino Ratio and the Omega Ratio

In this article, asymptotic confidence intervals (CIs) for the Sortino and Omega ratios are proposed and analyzed. First, the CIs are derived under the assumption of temporal independence and identical distribution of returns. Later they are obtained assuming that the returns process is strictly stationary and α-mixing of a certain size. In order to evaluate the minimum sample size for a good coverage accuracy of the asymptotic CIs, a simulation study is performed. It is obtained that the minimum sample sizes are very high, especially under the more realistic assumption of not-iid returns.     

Do Quality of Services and Institutional Image Impact Students’ Satisfaction and Loyalty in Higher Education?

Social Indicators Research - The objective of this study is to investigate whether the quality of educational services and the university’s institutional image influence students’...     

A comparative study between enteric parasites of Coyotes in a protected and suburban habitat

Coyotes (Canis latrans) have inhabited Florida (USA) since the 1960s and are currently found throughout the state. Our objective was to obtain information on enteric parasites of coyotes from two different habitats. Fresh coyote fecal samples were collected from protected and suburban habitats in Pinellas County, Florida, USA (27^o54′ N, 82^o41′W) from May 2005 to March 2007. A standard fecal flotation examination and formalin-ethyl acetate sedimentation protocol were utilized on fecal samples from both habitats. Five newly documented coyote parasites were documented: one cestode (Hymenolepis spp.), one nematode (Ascaris spp.), and three protozoa (Balantidium coli, Blastocystis spp., and Entamoeba histolytica). Nine hitherto unreported parasites for FL coyotes were also discovered: two cestodes (Diphyllobothrium latum and Dipylidium caninum), two nematodes (Toxocara canis and Uncinaria stenocephala), one trematode (Paragonimus spp.), and four protozoa (Cryptosporidium spp., Giardia canis, Cystoisospora spp., and Sarcocystis cruzi). The protected area supported significantly more undocumented (i.e., newly identified) parasites for FL coyotes, and Protozoa as compared to the suburban area. Florida coyotes are likely more susceptible to infection by novel parasites because of their rapid range expansion and lack of acquired immunity. In addition, rapid habitat loss and urbanization in Florida may increase the probability of disease transmission between wild and domestic canids. We suggest preventative measures that may lower the risk of parasitic infection and promote co-existence with coyotes in urban landscapes.