A behavioral model of residential energy use

The energy use in the residential sector is an important area for compaigns to conserve energy. In the first section of this article, a model is proposed that relates personal, environmental (e.g. home) and behavioral factors to energy use. This model is instrumental in relating variables that determine energy use in the home.In the following these determinants of household energy use: socio-demographic factors, family life-style, energy prices, energy-related behavior, cost-benefit trade offs, effectiveness and responsibility, feedback, information, home characteristics are discussed.In the third section several options for energy-saving campaigns and related research are discussed.     

Empathy and Emotional Responsiveness in Delinquent and Non-delinquent Adolescents

Two groups of male adolescents, incarcerated young offenders (N = 64, mean age = 16.3 years) and a comparison group of community youth (N = 60; mean age = 16.6 years), were administered the Empathy Continuum (measuring cognitive‐affective responses to persons in emotionally evocative videotaped vignettes) and questionnaire measures of empathy, emotional responsiveness, guilt, shame, and antisocial attitudes and behaviors. Although both groups endorsed general statements of empathy, young offenders responded with empathy less often to particular persons in particular situations, and reasoned regarding their empathic responses in more self‐referencing ways. They also described their emotional responses to stimulus persons as less intense. In addition to the expected group differences, responsive empathy was a stronger predictor of delinquency than self‐reported antisocial behavior, and correctly classified 69 percent of young offenders and comparison youths. Although guilt was consistently related to lower self‐reported antisocial attitudes and behaviors, guilt (and shame) only weakly differentiated the two groups, limiting the usefulness of the TOSCA‐A as a predictor of delinquency.     

Evaluating new product decision processes

The development of a new product is often a sequential-decision process with many available stages at which the product may take any one of a number of alternate courses of action. This paper identifies an efficient algorithm for solving this sequential-decision process. A computer program, involving the algorithm, has been written to solve problems containing up to one thousand stages. Input into the program includes the subjective probabilities of success for each decision branch, the cost associated with each decision stage and level, the rate for discounting all monetary values to the present plus an indicator for each decision stage and level of the desired decision criterion. The algorithm utilizes the dynamic-programming solution approach. The output of the algorithm contains the minimum, or maximum, expected discounted decision values for each stage and level of the network. The algorithm and computer program have been primarily utilized in the pharmaceutical industry. An illustrative, exemplary use of the algorithm in this industry is presented.     

Consulting the Children: Interviews with Children Using Residential Respite Care Services

The Children Act, 1989, requires that services for children are provided in partnership with parents and that the wishes and feelings of the child and his/her parents are ascertained and given due consideration (sect. 22). As part of a research project assessing the quality of services to children with disabilities under the Children Act, the authors carried out evaluations of six residential respite care services. The services were used mainly by children with learning difficulties, some of whom had little or no speech. Staff at the schools attended by the children were asked to interview them, so that their views could be included in the evaluation reports. Interview schedules and aids to communication were devised to try and enable all the children to express their views. This article describes the initial schedules and the changes made in the light of experience during the research. The authors then summarise the children's responses and consider how the process of consultation could be improved in future.     

A world of cities

Amin , Ash and Thrift , Nigel 2002 Cities: Reimagining the Urban Cambridge : Polity Press 192 pp. £ (hardback) £ (paperback)     

Density of the quotient of non-negative quadratic forms in normal variables with application to the F-statistic

The density of the quotient of two non-negative quadratic forms in normal variables is considered. The covariance matrix of these variables is arbitrary. The result is useful in the study of the robustness of theF-test with respect to errors of the first and second kind. An explicit expression for this density is given in the form of a proper Riemann-integral on a finite interval, suitable for numerical calculation.     

Simulations on the Jelinski-Moranda model of software reliability; application of some parametric bootstrap methods

In software reliability theory many different models have been proposed and investigated. some of these models intuitively match reality better than others. The properties of certain statistical estimation procedures in connection with these models are also model-dependent. In this paper we investigate how well the maximum likelihood estimation procedure and the parametric bootstrap behave in the case of the very well-known software reliability model suggested by Jelinski and Moranda (1972). For this study we will make use of simulated data.     

Bayes and admissibility properties of estimators in truncated parameter spaces

For the problem of estimating a parameter θ when θ is known to lie in a closed, convex subset D of R^k, conditions are given under which estimators δ of θ cannot be Bayes estimators, as well as conditions under which δ is inadmissible. The estimators considered are so-called “boundary estimators”. Maximum-likelihood estimators in truncated parameter spaces are examples to which our results often apply. For the special case when k = 1 and D is compact, two classes of estimators dominating the inadmissible ones are constructed. Some examples are given.