What Does a Swiss Franc Mortgage Cost? The Tale of Polish Trust for Foreign Currency Denominated Mortgages: Implications for Well-Being and Health

It is commonly agreed that excessive household financial debts are detrimental to psychological and physical health. Research also demonstrates that housing instability, mortgage indebtedness and mortgage foreclosure negatively influence subjective well-being. In Poland at the beginning of 2015, homeowners with Swiss franc denominated mortgages suffered from an abrupt swing in the Swiss franc/Polish zloty (CHF/PLN) exchange rate, which resulted in considerable increase in the local currency value of their mortgages. These adverse financial circumstances were hypothesised to affect not only household finance but also negatively affect the psychological well-being and physical health of peoples. The 2013 and 2015 waves of the Polish representative household panel ‘Social Diagnosis’ were used to examine impact of the abrupt change in the CHF/PLN exchange rate in Jan. 2015 on well-being and health. Causal inference was investigated using a difference-in-differences matching estimator. Results showed that although impact of Swiss franc appreciation on the mortgage related financial burden was considerable, it did not affect well-being or health outcomes. Any manifestation of adverse effects was absent in the short term, which does not however preclude their long term existence.     

Are cities hotspots for bees? Local and regional diversity patterns lead to different conclusions

Urban Ecosystems - With the decline of natural habitats, there is an ongoing debate about the importance of the urban environment for pollinating insects. Our research assessed patterns in wild bee...     

A note on consistent estimation of Kullback–Leibler discrepancy in Poisson regression

A recent theorem by Hannig and Lee on consistency of their estimator of Kullback–Leibler discrepancy is re-proved under assumptions suitably modified to correct a fault in the original proof.     

Neyman-type sample allocation for domains-efficient estimation in multistage sampling

We consider a problem of allocation of a sample in two- and three-stage sampling. We seek allocation which is both multi-domain and population efficient. Choudhry et al. (Survey Methods 38(1):23–29, 2012) recently considered such problem for one-stage stratified simple random sampling without replacement in domains. Their approach was through minimization of the sample size under constraints on relative variances in all domains and on the overall relative variance. To attain this goal, they used nonlinear programming. Alternatively, we minimize here the relative variances in all domains (controlling them through given priority weights) as well as the overall relative variance under constraints imposed on total (expected) cost. We consider several two- and three-stage sampling schemes. Our aim is to shed some light on the analytic structure of solutions rather than in deriving a purely numerical tool for sample allocation. To this end, we develop the eigenproblem methodology introduced in optimal allocation problems in Niemiro and Wesołowski (Appl Math 28:73–82, 2001) and recently updated in Wesołowski and Wieczorkowski (Commun Stat Theory Methods 46(5):2212–2231, 2017) by taking under account several new sampling schemes and, more importantly, by the (single) total expected variable cost constraint. Such approach allows for solutions which are direct generalization of the Neyman-type allocation. The structure of the solution is deciphered from the explicit allocation formulas given in terms of an eigenvector \({\underline{v}}^*\) of a population-based matrix \(\mathbf{D}\). The solution we provide can be viewed as a multi-domain version of the Neyman-type allocation in multistage stratified SRSWOR schemes.

     

Reproductive rights or duties? The rhetoric of division in social media debates on abortion law in Poland

ABSTRACT

This study explores the argumentative schemas used in claim-making and the rhetorical resources for stance-taking in the online abortion law debate in Poland in late 2016. It shows how these discursive devices were used to divide and discredit the opponent in the social media by two social movements: the Stop Abortion coalition of conservative and religious organizations that sponsored the legislative proposal to considerably restrict abortion, and the Save Women committee that stood behind the ‘black’ protests opposing the project. The textual material is drawn from social media profiles of the two movements following a week of intense street protests and publicity activities (19–26 October 2016). It is subjected to contrastive argument analysis and critical discourse analysis of rhetorical resources. The analysis involves comparing (1) the discrepant premises underpinning arguments in the process of claim-making; (2) the reverse distribution of legitimization techniques deployed; and (3) the choices of name-calling devices aimed at discrediting antagonists.     

On nested block designs geometry

Nested block designs and block designs properties such as orthogonality, orthogonal block structure and general balance are examined using the concept of a commutative quadratic subspace and standard properties of orthogonal projectors. In this geometrical context conditions for existence of the best linear unbiased estimators of treatment contrasts are also discussed.     

The permutation flow shop problem with blocking. A tabu search approach

This paper develops a fast tabu search algorithm to minimize makespan in a flow shop problem with blocking. Some properties of the problem associated with the blocks of jobs have been presented and discussed. These properties allow us to propose a specific neighbourhood of algorithms. Also, the multimoves are used that consist in performing several moves simultaneously in a single iteration and guide the search process to more promising areas of the solutions space, where good solutions can be found. It allow us to accelerate the convergence of the algorithm. Besides, a dynamic tabu list is proposed that assists additionally to avoid being trapped at a local optimum. The proposed algorithms are empirically evaluated and found to be relatively more effective in finding better solutions than attained by the leading approaches in a much shorter time. The presented ideas can be applied in many local search procedures.