Conditions for Exercising Residents’ Voting Rights in Long-Term Care Residences: A Prospective Multicenter Study

To assess voting conditions in long-term care settings, we conducted a multicenter survey after the 2009 European elections in France. A questionnaire about voting procedures and European elections was proposed in 146 out of 884 randomized facilities. Sixty-four percent of facilities answered the questionnaire. Four percent of residents voted (national turnout: 40%), by proxy (58%) or at polling places (42%). Abstention related to procedural issues was reported in 32% of facilities. Sixty-seven percent of establishments had voting procedures, and 53% declared that they assessed residents’ capacity to vote. Assistance was proposed to residents for voter registration, for proxy voting, and for voting at polling places, respectively, in 33%, 87%, and 80% of facilities. This survey suggests that residents may be disenfranchised and that more progress should be made to protect the voting rights of residents in long-term care facilities.     

Transformational leadership and optimal functioning at work: On the mediating role of employees' perceived job characteristics and motivation

This study aimed to deepen our understanding of the motivational mechanisms involved in the relationship between transformational leadership (TFL) and employee functioning. Drawing on the TFL literature, the job demands–resources model and self-determination theory, we propose an integrative model that relates TFL to employee psychological health (burnout and psychological distress), attitudes (occupational commitment and turnover intention) and performance (professional efficacy, self-reported individual and objective organizational performance) through two explanatory mechanisms: perceived job characteristics (job demands and resources) and employee motivation (autonomous and controlled). This research was conducted in two occupational settings (nurses and school principals), using a distinct variable operationalization for each. Results of both studies provide support for the hypothesized model, suggesting that TFL relates to optimal job functioning (psychological health, job attitudes and performance) by contributing to favourable perceptions of job characteristics (more resources and less demands) and high-quality work motivation (more autonomous motivation and less controlled motivation) in employees. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications as well as directions for future research are presented.     

On the psychological and motivational processes linking job characteristics to employee functioning: Insights from self-determination theory

The aim of this study was to provide insight into the differential relationships between job characteristics (job demands and resources) and employee functioning by examining the psychological and motivational processes involved. Drawing on self-determination theory, we tested a model in which job demands are positively related to negative manifestations of employee functioning (psychological distress and psychosomatic complaints) through psychological need frustration and low-quality work motivation (controlled motivation), whereas job resources are positively related to positive manifestations of employee functioning (work engagement and job performance) through need satisfaction and high-quality work motivation (autonomous motivation). Data were collected from 699 Canadian nurses. Structural equation modelling (SEM) results support the proposed model: psychological needs and work motivation partially mediated the relationship between job characteristics and employee functioning. Specifically, job demands negatively predicted employee functioning (high distress and psychosomatic complaints, low engagement and performance) through need frustration and controlled motivation. In contrast, while positively predicting need satisfaction and negatively predicting need frustration, job resources fostered optimal work motivation (more autonomous and less controlled motivation) and employee functioning. The implications for self-determination theory (SDT) and research on occupational health and stress are discussed.     

The mobility problem in Britain: new findings from the analysis of birth cohort data

Social mobility is now a matter of greater political concern in Britain than at any time previously. However, the data available for the determination of mobility trends are less adequate today than two or three decades ago. It is widely believed in political and in media circles that social mobility is in decline. But the evidence so far available from sociological research, focused on intergenerational class mobility, is not supportive of this view. We present results based on a newly‐constructed dataset covering four birth cohorts that provides improved data for the study of trends in class mobility and that also allows analyses to move from the twentieth into the twenty‐first century. These results confirm that there has been no decline in mobility, whether considered in absolute or relative terms. In the case of women, there is in fact evidence of mobility increasing. However, the better quality and extended range of our data enable us to identify other ‘mobility problems’ than the supposed decline. Among the members of successive cohorts, the experience of absolute upward mobility is becoming less common and that of absolute downward mobility more common; and class‐linked inequalities in relative chances of mobility and immobility appear wider than previously thought.     

Using repeated-prevalence data in multi-state modeling of renal replacement therapy

Multi-state models help predict future numbers of patients requiring specific treatments but these models require exhaustive incidence data. Deriving reliable predictions from repeated-prevalence data would be helpful. A new method to model the number of patients that switch between therapeutic modalities using repeated-prevalence data is presented and illustrated. The parameters and goodness of fit obtained with the new method and repeated-prevalence data were compared to those obtained with the classical method and incidence data. The multi-state model parameters’ confidence intervals obtained with annually collected repeated-prevalence data were wider than those obtained with incidence data and six out of nine pairs of confidence intervals did not overlap. However, most parameters were of the same order of magnitude and the predicted patient distributions among various renal replacement therapies were similar regardless of the type of data used. In the absence of incidence data, a multi-state model can still be successfully built with annually collected repeated-prevalence data to predict the numbers of patients requiring specific treatments. This modeling technique can be extended to other chronic diseases.     

Wavelet Shrinkage with Double Weibull Prior

In this article, we propose a denoising methodology in the wavelet domain based on a Bayesian hierarchical model using Double Weibull prior. We propose two estimators, one based on posterior mean (Double Weibull Wavelet Shrinker, DWWS) and the other based on larger posterior mode (DWWS-LPM), and show how to calculate them efficiently. Traditionally, mixture priors have been used for modeling sparse wavelet coefficients. The interesting feature of this article is the use of non-mixture prior. We show that the methodology provides good denoising performance, comparable even to state-of-the-art methods that use mixture priors and empirical Bayes setting of hyperparameters, which is demonstrated by extensive simulations on standardly used test functions. An application to real-word dataset is also considered.     

Food Insecurity Measurement: Stakeholder Comparisons of the EU-SILC and HFSSM Indicators and Considerations Towards the Usefulness of a Headline Indicator

Social Indicators Research - Prior to the February 2019 announcement that the Household Food Security Survey Module (HFSSM) will be used to estimate household food insecurity, there has not been a...     

The impact of risk aversion and ambiguity aversion on annuity and saving choices

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty - We analyze the impact of risk aversion and ambiguity aversion on the competing demands for annuities and bequeathable savings using a lifecycle recursive utility...     

The Direct and Indirect Impact of Religion on Well-Being in Germany

A European Social Survey (ESS)—based study of Clark and Lelkes on the European level showed a double positive connection between religion and life-satisfaction: not only did a personal involvement have a positive impact, but there was also a regional externality. Even atheists seemed to be happier in areas with many religious people. However, the regional structure of the ESS can be seen as methodologically doubtful. We therefore replicated the study with more rich German data. In our study we confirm the positive individual effect of religion, but we did find a negative regional externality. However, further analysis revealed, this was an effect of an omitted variable: the degree of urbanization. In a more detailed approach we show that this effect is confined to areas with a protestant majority. We conclude that the positive degree of urbanization influence on life-satisfaction is presumably due to the chance for more political participation in the (protestant) city states in Germany.     

Prince George is Not (and never was) Canada’s Most Dangerous City: Using Police-Recorded Data for Comparison of Volume and Seriousness of Crimes

This article is based on the idea that crime should be analyzed in terms of both volume and seriousness. Crime rates are the most usual measure of the volume of criminality at a given time or a given place. Statistics Canada recently developed a Crime Severity Index to account for variations in the seriousness of police-recorded criminal infractions. A close look at its construction reveals that the Index is a weighted rate influenced by both the volume and the seriousness of recorded infractions. This article introduces a new indicator designed to measure the seriousness of recorded infractions. The measure is based on simple calculations and easy to interpret. It suggests that serious crime has decreased since the 1980s. It also suggests that city and province rankings based solely on crime rates are misleading because high levels of crime do not necessarily indicate high levels of the more serious crimes.