The Women’s Empowerment in Livestock Index

Social Indicators Research - The empowerment of women in the livestock sector is fundamental to achieve gender equality. It also is instrumental for increased household productivity and improved...     

Reshaping state/local communities relations in Tunisia: The socio-cultural and institutional challenges of the decentralization project

International development agencies believe that by adopting institutional reforms based on the best practices that have proved effective elsewhere, so-called « developing countries » could take their places in the globalised economy. Based on a case study carried out on the implementation challenges of a decentralization project in Tunisia, I will argue by using an interpretive approach that this thesis is not sustained. This article shows that institutions cannot be reduced to their technical functions but that they are based on particular collective imaginaries that ground what is legitimate or not and structure the relationship of individuals to power and the meaning given to their actions. It encourages the consideration of cultural framework of meaning; these local cultural references structure the governance modalities of a society, understood in terms of the modalities of exercise of power in a given group (state, company, local authority, etc.). It advocates the necessity to move from a technic-prone approach in the implementation of institutional changes towards a socio-cultural approach that integrates the local expectations of what “good governance” should be and on which depends the legitimacy of institutions and their appropriation by local populations.     

Looking Too Old? How an Older Age Appearance Reduces Chances of Being Hired

Building on theories of impression formation based on faces, this research investigates the impact of job candidates’ facial age appearance on hiring as well as the underlying mechanism. In an experiment, participants decided whether to hire a fictitious candidate aged 50 years, 30 years or without age information. The candidate's age was signalled either via chronological information (varied by date of birth) or via facial age appearance (varied by a photograph on the résumé). Findings showed that candidates with older‐appearing faces – but not chronologically older candidates – triggered impressions of low health and fitness, compared to younger‐appearing candidates. These impressions reduced perceptions of person–job fit, which lowered hiring probabilities for older‐appearing candidates. These findings provide the first evidence that trait impressions from faces are a determinant of age discrimination in personnel selection. They call for an extension of current models of age discrimination by integrating the effects of face‐based trait impressions, particularly with respect to health and fitness.     

Das 360-Grad-Feedback zur Unterstützung der Kompetenzerweiterung von Führungskräften

Zusammenfassung:  Der Beitrag beschreibt die Einbettung des 360-Grad-Feedbacks in ein Programm der Führungskr?fteentwicklung. 360-Grad-Feedback ist eine Voraussetzung für die systematische Kompetenzentwicklung der Führungskr?fte eines Unternehmens. Darüber hinaus k?nnen die Entwicklungs- und Lernm?glichkeiten, die ein individuelles Coaching bietet, durch ein vorheriges 360-Grad-Feedback optimiert werden. Die bei ThyssenKrupp Services mit dem F?rderprogramm „best-for-best“ gesammelten Erfahrungen zeigen deutlich, dass die Kombination von einem 360-Grad-Feedback mit gezielten Coaching-Angeboten ein echtes Erfolgsmodell darstellt.

Decision‐making in child welfare services: Professional discretion versus standardized templates

The article explores differences in the assessment and decision‐making processes, in child welfare services where a standardized template is implemented and in services where it is not. Child welfare services in several countries use different approaches to assess children's and families' need for intervention. In Norway, as in other European countries, there is a shortage of knowledge about decision‐making strategies. The article examines how 36 child welfare caseworkers in 6 different teams in Norway investigate, assess, and make decisions at the phase of an incoming referral. The analysed data were collected by focus group interviews. We use decision theory as a theoretical frame of reference. The analysis shows variation in the assessment procedure at different points of the process, depending on which approach was used. Despite such differences, the final decisions made were almost identical. Even though the data has its limitations because of the small number of informants, the results indicate that choice of approach is not decisive for decision‐making in the child welfare services.     

Key decisions in child protection services in cases of domestic violence: maintaining services and out‐of‐home placement

This paper looks at the response of the child protection services (CPS) system in cases where exposure to domestic violence occurs alone or together with abuse or neglect, focusing on the factors involved in decisions to maintain the case open for ongoing services or remove children from the home. The study is based on an analysis of clinical and administrative data from the files on children reported to a CPS agency in Montreal, Canada. A total of 1 071 substantiated reports were documented, including 337 cases of co‐occurrence (32%). Analysis of the data shows that domestic violence does not by itself constitute a factor liable to lead to more intrusive intervention. The CPS response appears to be influenced more by the existence of other forms of maltreatment and risk factors. Additionally, while domestic violence may be associated with more severe individual and family problems, it does not influence the decision to keep the case open because the child still need services. The lack of any connection between domestic violence and this decision is a cause for concern, as results indicate that such families need help. Knowing how to respond to their needs therefore remains a major challenge.     

Tribute to Jean-Yves Jaffray

Tribute to Jean-Yves Jaffray by the French Group of Decision Theory.     

Free energy methods for Bayesian inference: efficient exploration of univariate Gaussian mixture posteriors

Because of their multimodality, mixture posterior distributions are difficult to sample with standard Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods. We propose a strategy to enhance the sampling of MCMC in this context, using a biasing procedure which originates from computational Statistical Physics. The principle is first to choose a “reaction coordinate”, that is, a “direction” in which the target distribution is multimodal. In a second step, the marginal log-density of the reaction coordinate with respect to the posterior distribution is estimated; minus this quantity is called “free energy” in the computational Statistical Physics literature. To this end, we use adaptive biasing Markov chain algorithms which adapt their targeted invariant distribution on the fly, in order to overcome sampling barriers along the chosen reaction coordinate. Finally, we perform an importance sampling step in order to remove the bias and recover the true posterior. The efficiency factor of the importance sampling step can easily be estimated a priori once the bias is known, and appears to be rather large for the test cases we considered.     

Significant others and the dynamics of the family network (from the Proches et Parents survey to the Biographies et Entourage survey)

With the increase in separations, family recomposition, and new modes of cohabitation, the contours of the family have become less clearly defined. It has become important to separate the family group from its statistical framework – the household – while taking account, in both time and space, of the interpersonal relationships built up over the life-course. In response to these objectives, the French National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED) conducted two surveys, Proches et Parents in 1990 and Biographies et Entourage in 2001, which use new concepts to address these new family realities: the local family circle which, for an individual, includes family members living in the same municipality, with whom he/she has a close and strong relationship in terms of mutual support and regular contact, and the concept of entourage (contact circle), which includes close relatives, all co-resident persons, whether relatives or not, but also significant others who have marked the individual's life. Far from being limited to the immediate family, the universe of familial and elective relationships covers a much more complex reality whose contours may be limited to the family or extended to a wider circle of relatives and friends. It describes an affective and residential proximity that reveals a mutual support network of varying strength, which may or may not be solicited, which may be avoided or, on the contrary, revived in response to events affecting its members.