Trends in Development Aid,Negotiation Processes and NGO Policy Change

Non-governmental organizations (NGO) and government donor agencies (GDA) are often caught in a dilemma; an NGO between responsiveness to its target group(s), expectations of individual donors and demands of its GDA; GDA between its policy to respect NGO’s integrity, its wish to keep NGOs accountable for received fund and its operation within the bounds of its general policies. This dilemma is mirrored in the NGO–GDA negotiation for funds. Based on negotiation theory and using three explanatory approaches, 18 years of negotiations between an NGO, Vi Skogen (ViS) and its GDA, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), are analyzed in order to demonstrate how organizational structures, power relations and the context influence the outcome of the negotiations. All three approaches help to explain how ViS managed, mainly in the interest of its individual donors, to resist changes demanded by Sida and also to explain how the agendas of ViS and Sida finally converged.     

Disentangling the sources of variation in the survival of the European dipper

The population growth rate of the European dipper has been shown to decrease with winter temperature and population size. We examine here the demographic mechanism for this effect by analysing how these factors affect the survival rate. Using more than 20 years of capture-mark-recapture data (1974-1997) based on more than 4000 marked individuals, we perform analyses using open capture-mark-recapture models. This allowed us to estimate the annual apparent survival rates (probability of surviving and staying on the study site from one year to the next one) and the recapture probabilities. We partitioned the variance of the apparent survival rates into sampling variance and process variance using random effects models, and investigated which variables best accounted for temporal process variation. Adult males and females had similar apparent survival rates, with an average of 0.52 and a coefficient of variation of 40%. Chick apparent survival was lower, averaging 0.06 with a coefficient of variation of 42%. Eighty percent of the variance in apparent survival rates was explained by winter temperature and population size for adults and 48% by winter temperature for chicks. The process variance outweighed the sampling variance both for chick and adult survival rates, which explained that shrunk estimates obtained under random effects models were close to MLE estimates. A large proportion of the annual variation in the apparent survival rate of chicks appears to be explained by inter-year differences in dispersal rates.     

The transition from in-home services to out-of-home care: A Danish register-based study

Objective

This register-based study describes the transition from in home-based care to placements in out-of-home care. It also describes whether children who enter care directly differ from children who enter care after episodes of in home-based care.

Method

The study includes all children who entered the child protection system of a larger regional social service system in Denmark from 1993 to 2006 (N = 9961). Graphs of cumulative incidences were used to describe transitions into out-of-home care within two years after in home-based care started. Cox regression models are used to estimate the impacts of child and parental characteristics. In addition, Chi² tests are used to identify differences between children who enter care directly and children who receive in home-based care.

Results

Results indicate that the majority of children do not enter out-of-home care but that risks differ among age groups. Covariates did not predict transitions into out-of-home care for those who entered in-home care after becoming teenagers. Especially for those who entered in-home care before entering their teens, the psychiatric histories of the mothers and the children predicted the transitions into out-of-home care. Immigration background was a protective factor for those who entered in-home care as pre-scholars. Depending on the age group, low birth weight, children's fathers' and mothers' psychiatric histories, and single parentship were all characteristics more likely to be associated with children who entered care directly. Children who entered care directly differed from children who entered care within two years after an in home-based service had been initiated on covariates that described psychiatric history.     

Problem gambling in poker: money,rationality and control in a skill-based social game

The article explores problem gambling in poker. The distinctions between chance and skill and between bank games and social games are applied to demonstrate how poker is structurally different from most other gambling games. Bank games are organised around a central actor such as the house, the casino or the bookmaker. In social games, players compete against each other on equal statistical footing. Poker is a skill-based social game where players with superior skills may be expected to win even in the long run. Fourteen poker playing problem gamblers were recruited through a treatment program and 15 professional and recreational poker players were recruited through snowball sampling (N = 29). Through qualitative interviews, the paper shows that the particular structural composition of poker has implications for the ways problem gambling arises in poker players. It is argued that poker challenges existing theoretical conceptions about problem gambling relating to money, rationality and control.     

Predicting Well‐Being and Internalizing Symptoms in Late Adolescence From Trajectories of Externalizing Behavior Starting in Infancy

This study aimed to examine the long‐term prediction of well‐being and internalizing symptoms from trajectories of externalizing behavior problems in 921 children from a population‐based sample. We found that a high stable trajectory of externalizing behavior from infancy (age 1.5) to mid‐adolescence (age 14.5) predicted lower scores on life satisfaction and flourishing for both girls and boys (age 18.5). The high stable trajectory also predicted higher levels of depressive symptoms in boys and anxiety symptoms in girls (age 18.5). The findings are noteworthy as they document how a person‐oriented study of externalizing behavior problems starting in infancy can predict well‐being and internalizing in late adolescence. The findings underline the importance of early health promotion and problem intervention efforts.     

Exact Distributional Results for Random Resistance Trees

With a view to the study of, for instance, arterial trees, this paper presents some exact distributional results on finite trees with (reciprocal) inverse Gaussian and gamma resistances. In particular, it is shown that under the specified model the conditional distribution of the minimal sufficient statistic given the total resistance of the tree is a convolution of gamma distributions and two-dimensional reciprocal inverse Gaussian distributions.     

Econometric Analysis of Realized Covariation: High Frequency Based Covariance,Regression, and Correlation in Financial Economics

This paper analyses multivariate high frequency financial data using realized covariation. We provide a new asymptotic distribution theory for standard methods such as regression, correlation analysis, and covariance. It will be based on a fixed interval of time (e.g., a day or week), allowing the number of high frequency returns during this period to go to infinity. Our analysis allows us to study how high frequency correlations, regressions, and covariances change through time. In particular we provide confidence intervals for each of these quantities.     

Integer‐valued Trawl Processes: A Class of Stationary Infinitely Divisible Processes

This paper introduces a new continuous‐time framework for modelling serially correlated count and integer‐valued data. The key component in our new model is the class of integer‐valued trawl processes, which are serially correlated, stationary, infinitely divisible processes. We analyse the probabilistic properties of such processes in detail and, in addition, study volatility modulation and multivariate extensions within the new modelling framework. Moreover, we describe how the parameters of a trawl process can be estimated and obtain promising estimation results in our simulation study. Finally, we apply our new modelling framework to high‐frequency financial data.     

Computationally efficient familywise error rate control in genome-wide association studies using score tests for generalized linear models

In genetic association studies, detecting phenotype–genotype association is a primary goal. We assume that the relationship between the data—phenotype, genetic markers and environmental covariates—can be modeled by a generalized linear model. The number of markers is allowed to be far greater than the number of individuals of the study. A multivariate score statistic is used to test each marker for association with a phenotype. We assume that the test statistics asymptotically follow a multivariate normal distribution under the complete null hypothesis of no phenotype–genotype association. We present the familywise error rate order k approximation method to find a local significance level (alternatively, an adjusted p-value) for each test such that the familywise error rate is controlled. The special case k=1 gives the Šidák method. As a by-product, an effective number of independent tests can be defined. Furthermore, if environmental covariates and genetic markers are uncorrelated, or no environmental covariates are present, we show that covariances between score statistics depend on genetic markers alone. This not only leads to more efficient calculations but also to a local significance level that is determined only by the collection of markers used, independent of the phenotypes and environmental covariates of the experiment at hand.     

Psychosocial factors and safety behaviour as predictors of accidental work injuries in farming

Abstract

Farming is one of the most hazardous occupations in terms of the incidence and seriousness of accidental injuries. Research with other occupational groups has drawn attention to the role of psychosocial factors and stress. Such research needs to be extended to agriculture. Since stress may be a problem faced by farmers, there is a particular need to investigate the associations between farm accidents and work stressors and stress reactions. Using multivariate logistic regression analyses, this study aimed to uncover the best psychosocial predictors of injury, while controlling for exposure-related confounders. From a randomly selected sample of 794 farms, 10% of all farms in Ringkoebing County, Denmark, 393 farmers completed completed weekly accident registration over 12 months. The study sample consisted of 310 farmers who also completed questionnaires on psychosocial factors. Results indicated that farm stressors (including perceived economic problems), stress symptoms, and safety behaviour were predictors of occupational farm accidents. Higher levels of stressors and stress symptoms and poor safety behaviour were all associated with an elevated risk of injury. In the case of stress symptoms, the relation with accidents occurred via an interaction with safety behaviour. The combination of high levels of stress symptoms and poor safety behaviour was associated with a particularly high accident risk.