Understanding foraging flexibility in urban vervet monkeys,Chlorocebus pygerythrus,for the benefit of human-wildlife coexistence

Urban Ecosystems - Generalist wildlife species often thrive in urban environments because of increased anthropogenic resources. However, human-wildlife interactions, especially if negative, raise...     

Palm snags are a critical nesting resource for woodpeckers in an urbanized tropical region

Urban Ecosystems - Critical resources for birds nesting in cities can support populations in spite of the challenges imposed by urbanization, and the identification of such resources can shed light...     

Infant screen exposure links to toddlers' inhibition,but not other EF constructs: A propensity score study

Technology is pervasive in homes of families with young children, despite evidence for negative associations between infant exposure to screen‐based media and cognitive development that has led the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to discourage parents from exposing children under the age of 18 months to any kind of screen time (AAP, 2016). Here, we apply a propensity score matching approach to estimate relations between electronic screen‐based media use in infancy and executive function in early toddlerhood. In an international sample of 416 firstborn infants, parental report of regular exposure to screen‐based media at 4 months predicted poorer performance on a test of inhibition at 14 months, but was unrelated to either cognitive flexibility or working memory at 14 months. Results of this study are therefore consistent with the view that early exposure to screen‐based media adversely affects the development of executive function.     

Ageing Population: Identifying the Determinants of Ageing in the Least Developed Countries

Population Research and Policy Review - The issue of population ageing is no longer exclusively centred on developed countries. Empirical studies have proven that the rise in the proportion of the...     

Interactive Effects of Major Response Facilitators

Practitioners and researchers have long been interested in achieving the highest response rate within resource constraints on their mailed surveys. Achieving this high response rate typically has required the selection of the right mix of response-facilitating techniques. The selection decisions were generally made under the assumption that the response-facilitating techniques act independently of one another. The authors have examined the validity of this independence assumption by identifying the major response facilitators in use and then analyzing the results of 531 independent mail survey studies. The authors conclude that major facilitators do not function independently. In fact, it was found that significant joint action interactive effects on response rates do exist. Practitioners and researchers who are faced with the survey design decisions of choosing response facilitators can receive assistance by reviewing the results of this diverse collection of reported experiences.     

Assessing the market values of soccer players – a robust analysis of data from German 1. and 2. Bundesliga

The paper examines to what extent a player's market value depends on his skills. Therefore, a data set covering 28 performance measures and the market values of about 493 players from 1. and 2. German Bundesliga is analysed. Applying robust analysis techniques, we are able to robustly estimate market values of soccer players. The results show (1) that there are significantly underrated and overrated players and (2) that a player's affiliation to a certain team may contribute to his market value. We conclude that a club's reputation affects the market values of its players and that star players are in tendency overrated.     

Ordering results for series and parallel systems comprising heterogeneous exponentiated Weibull components

In this paper, we discuss the usual stochastic and reversed hazard rate orders between the series and parallel systems from two sets of independent heterogeneous exponentiated Weibull components. We also obtain the results concerning the convex transform orders between parallel systems and obtain necessary and sufficient conditions under which the dispersive and usual stochastic orders, and the right spread and increasing convex orders between the lifetimes of the two systems are equivalent. Finally, in the multiple-outlier exponentiated Weibull models, based on weak majorization and p-larger orders between the vectors of scale and shape parameters, some characterization results for comparing the lifetimes of parallel and series systems are also established, respectively. The results of this paper can be used in practical situations to find various bounds for the important aging characteristics of these systems.     

Confidence intervals based on the deviance statistic for the hyperparameters in state space models

The main objective of this work is to evaluate the performance of confidence intervals, built using the deviance statistic, for the hyperparameters of state space models. The first procedure is a marginal approximation to confidence regions, based on the likelihood test, and the second one is based on the signed root deviance profile. Those methods are computationally efficient and are not affected by problems such as intervals with limits outside the parameter space, which can be the case when the focus is on the variances of the errors. The procedures are compared to the usual approaches existing in the literature, which includes the method based on the asymptotic distribution of the maximum likelihood estimator, as well as bootstrap confidence intervals. The comparison is performed via a Monte Carlo study, in order to establish empirically the advantages and disadvantages of each method. The results show that the methods based on the deviance statistic possess a better coverage rate than the asymptotic and bootstrap procedures.     

A new aging concept derived from the increasing convex ordering

In this paper, a comparison between the life distribution of a new unit with that of a used unit in the increasing convex order is made leading to a new class of life distributions which we call “new better than used in convex ordering of second order”. This class includes as subclasses the NBU and the NBUC and is a subclass of the NBUCA class. Preservation properties under convolution, random maxima, mixing and formation of coherent structures are established. Stochastic comparisons of the excess lifetime when the inter-arrival times belong to the NBUC(2) class are developed. Some applications of Poisson shock models and a test of exponentiality against NBUC(2) alternative are presented.     

Extending Bayesian back-calculation to estimate age and time specific HIV incidence

Lifetime Data Analysis - CD4-based multi-state back-calculation methods are key for monitoring the HIV epidemic, providing estimates of HIV incidence and diagnosis rates by disentangling their...