Communicating Risks and Benefits from Fish Consumption: Impact on Belgian Consumers' Perception and Intention to Eat Fish

Communicating about the health effects of fish and seafood may potentially result in a conflict situation: increasing intake is desirable because of health and nutritional benefits, but higher consumption may also lead to an increased intake of potentially harmful environmental contaminants. In order to anticipate the communication challenge this conflict may pose, the research presented here aimed to assess the impact of risk/benefit communication on Belgian consumers' fish consumption behavior and fish attribute perception. Data were collected in June 2005 from a sample of 381 women, aged between 20 and 50 years. An experimental design consisting of four message conditions (benefit‐only; risk‐only; benefit‐risk; and risk‐benefit) combined with three information sources (fish and food industry; consumer organization; government) was used. Exposure to the benefit‐only message resulted in an increase from a self‐reported fish consumption frequency of 4.2 times per month to an intended fish consumption frequency of 5.1 times per month (+21%), while fish attribute perceptions only marginally improved. The risk‐only message resulted in a strong negative perceptual change in the range of two points on a seven‐point scale. This translated into an 8% decrease of behavioral intention (from eating fish 4.5 times per month to an intention of eating fish 4.1 times per month). Balanced messages referring to both risks and benefits yielded no significant change in behavioral intention, despite a significant worsening of fish attribute perception. The presentation order of benefits and risks in the balanced message showed a tendency to affect both behavioral intention and attribute perception, with the first message component being most influential. Information source did not yield any significant impact either on behavioral intention or on attribute perceptions, independent of the message content. The results from this study provide valuable insights for future risk/benefit and balanced communication about seafood.     

Semiparametric Bayesian classification with longitudinal markers

Summary.  We analyse data from a study involving 173 pregnant women. The data are observed values of the β human chorionic gonadotropin hormone measured during the first 80 days of gestational age, including from one up to six longitudinal responses for each woman. The main objective in this study is to predict normal versus abnormal pregnancy outcomes from data that are available at the early stages of pregnancy. We achieve the desired classification with a semiparametric hierarchical model. Specifically, we consider a Dirichlet process mixture prior for the distribution of the random effects in each group. The unknown random-effects distributions are allowed to vary across groups but are made dependent by using a design vector to select different features of a single underlying random probability measure. The resulting model is an extension of the dependent Dirichlet process model, with an additional probability model for group classification. The model is shown to perform better than an alternative model which is based on independent Dirichlet processes for the groups. Relevant posterior distributions are summarized by using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods.     

西方会计信息价值相关性研究的简要回顾

从上世纪30年代以来,会计信息价值相关性一直是西方学术界致力研究的重大课题.国外的研究表明,要发展和完善资本市场,必须充分发挥会计信息的作用,同时也必须加强会计信息价值相关性水平的经验研究.近几年,尽管已有专家、学者对我国资本市场会计信息质量进行了研究,但总体上讲,尚缺乏系统性、全面性.另外,在引荐和借鉴西方比较成熟的证券市场理论和研究方法方面也存在着一定的"滞后"现象.这将不利于我国资本市场的长期发展和会计信息质量的提高.因此,本文按西方会计信息价值相关性的经验研究成果为主线索,对其理论发展进行系统性回顾,希望这些研究成果对我国会计信息价值相关性研究的发展有所帮助.同时,就促进我国会计信息价值相关性研究提出了一些政策建议.     

Remarriage,Unmarried Cohabitation,Living Apart Together: Partner Relationships Following Bereavement or Divorce

Substantial proportions of people enter into new partner relationships after bereavement or divorce. Nowadays in Europe, unmarried cohabitation and living‐apart‐together relationships are frequently opted for at repartnering. Drawing on the Netherlands’ Living Arrangements and Social Networks survey of men and women aged 55 to 89 years (N = 4,494), this article explicates the determinants that lead widowed or divorced people to enter into old and new types of partner relationships. Cox proportional hazard regression analyses revealed that age at most recent union dissolution, the number of partner dissolutions, working during and after the most recent union dissolution, and other demographic variables are important in weighing the pros and cons of different types of living arrangements.     

An individual treatment programme for sexually abused adult males: description and preliminary findings

Growing recognition of male sexual abuse and its potentially debilitating effects has underscored the need to develop effective treatment interventions for this population. The present study describes an individual treatment programme that was developed for adult males who have experienced childhood sexual abuse. The treatment programme focused on three areas related to sexual abuse, specifically feelings of self‐blame, anger and anxiety. The study also presents preliminary findings on treatment effects, using self‐report measures that five participants completed prior to treatment and at various assessments following treatment termination. Overall findings indicated improvements in behavioural self‐blame, anger, state anxiety and trait anxiety. Treatment did not appear to have an effect on characterological self‐blame over the long term. The study's findings are limited by the reliance on self‐report data and the absence of a comparison group. As such, our findings should be viewed as an initial contribution to the currently limited empirical data on treatment effects for sexually abused adult males. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Explorative study into support needs of caregivers in short-term foster care regarding problem behaviour and dealing with biological parents

Family supporting foster care (FSFC) is a directly accessible, short-term and preventive form of foster care for children under the age of 12. Caregivers in this type of foster care need comprehensive support to deal with their complex tasks. In this contribution, the support needs arising from the behaviour of the foster child as well as concerning dealing with the biological parents of 85 Flemish FSFC-parents are examined, as these are areas FSFC-parents specifically ask support for. These support needs are evaluated for possible links with child and foster parent characteristics. More experienced foster parents and foster parents with a foster child showing more externalising problem behaviour ask for more support in managing the child's behaviour.     

评学术界对马克思资本二重性的研究

马克思资本概念的本质是商品,在商品中包含着学者们所说的资本二重性的具体内容。能够增殖的资本只是马克思三种资本中的一种类型,学术界的失误在于把这种类型的资本普遍化为资本的唯一形式。马克思资本概念的局限性,主要表现在两个方面：一是把早期资本主义社会中的奴隶制残余,当做资本主义生产方式的基本现象;二是对资本和资本家强烈的憎恶感情,妨碍了他对资本认识的客观性和公正性。     

Flexible modelling of simultaneously interval censored and truncated time‐to‐event data

This paper deals with the analysis of data from a HET‐CAM^VT experiment. From a statistical perspective, such data yield many challenges. First of all, the data are typically time‐to‐event like data, which are at the same time interval censored and right truncated. In addition, one has to cope with overdispersion as well as clustering. Traditional analysis approaches ignore overdispersion and clustering and summarize the data into a continuous score that can be analysed using simple linear models. In this paper, a novel combined frailty model is developed that simultaneously captures all of the aforementioned statistical challenges posed by the data. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Data Dependent Cells Chi‐Square Test With Recurrent Events

We consider a recurrent event wherein the inter‐event times are independent and identically distributed with a common absolutely continuous distribution function F. In this article, interest is in the problem of testing the null hypothesis that F belongs to some parametric family where the q‐dimensional parameter is unknown. We propose a general Chi‐squared test in which cell boundaries are data dependent. An estimator of the parameter obtained by minimizing a quadratic form resulting from a properly scaled vector of differences between Observed and Expected frequencies is used to construct the test. This estimator is known as the minimum chi‐square estimator. Large sample properties of the proposed test statistic are established using empirical processes tools. A simulation study is conducted to assess the performance of the test under parameter misspecification, and our procedures are applied to a fleet of Boeing 720 jet planes' air conditioning system failures.     

季羡林的多元文化观和文化交流论

季羡林先生的义理之学集中在两个方面 ,其一是文化多元观 ,其二是文化交流论。文化的产生是多元的 ,不能说是一个地方产生文化 ,或者一个民族产生文化。民族不管大小 ,都对世界文化做出过贡献。文化一旦产生 ,就必然要发生交流。交流是双向的 ,而不是单向的。交流的双方都获益 ,并由此推动整个人类文化不断前进。鲁迅提倡的拿来主义已经证明不是全面的 ,应该既拿来 ,又送去。拿来主义与送去主义相结合 ,就会使我们的文化政策比较全面 ,也会使中国了解世界 ,世界了解中国