A Bayesian model for ranking hazardous road sites

Summary.  Road safety has recently become a major concern in most modern societies. The identification of sites that are more dangerous than others (black spots) can help in better scheduling road safety policies. This paper proposes a methodology for ranking sites according to their level of hazard. The model is innovative in at least two respects. Firstly, it makes use of all relevant information per accident location, including the total number of accidents and the number of fatalities, as well as the number of slight and serious injuries. Secondly, the model includes the use of a cost function to rank the sites with respect to their total expected cost to society. Bayesian estimation for the model via a Markov chain Monte Carlo approach is proposed. Accident data from 519 intersections in Leuven (Belgium) are used to illustrate the methodology proposed. Furthermore, different cost functions are used to show the effect of the proposed method on the use of different costs per type of injury.     

The praxiological validity of natural scientific practices as a criterion for identifying their unique social-object character: The case of the ‘authentication’ of Goethe's morphological theorem

The author would like to thank Mike Lynch, Eric Livingston, Shelley Schweizer-Bjelic, and the anonymous reviewers of this text for their comments.     

A Note on Simultaneous Confidence Intervals for Ratio of Variances

An explicit formula for confidence intervals for ratios of variances of several populations is presented. The intervals are based on jackknife statistics and the critical point of the studentized range distribution. The asymptotic probability of coverage is not less than the nominal value provided that the distributions of the sampled populations belong to a location-scale family of probabilities with finite fourth moment.     

A bibliography of statistical tolerance regions

The bibliography contains about 270 references dealing with statistical tolerance regions. These are classified according to the type of probability distribution concerned and according to some other criteria as well.     

Projection Measures And Estimation Variances Of Intensities

The paper investigates random processes of geometrical objects in Euclidean spaces. General properties of the measure of total projections are derived by means of Palm distribution. Explicit formulas for variances of the projection measure are obtained for Poisson point processes of compact sets.

Intensity estimators of fibre (surface) processes are then studied by means of projection measures. Classification of direct and indirect probes is introduced. The indirect sampling design of vertical sections and projections is generalized and its statistical properties derived.     

A bibliography of statistical tolerance regions,II

This bibiliography (completing the previous one, JILEK 1981a) contains about 130 references dealing with statistical tolerance regions. References are classified according to the type of probability distribution concerned and according to some other criteria as well     

Minimum income in the Western Balkans: From socialism to the European Pillar of Social Rights

In this article, we examine the evolution of minimum income programmes in the Western Balkans (comprising Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia). During socialism, Yugoslavia developed a rudimentary minimum income protection programme, while Albania did not have one. As countries moved towards a market economy, socialism's legacy remained relevant, but especially since 2000, governments have taken more direct responsibility for the minimum income schemes—typically under the influence of the World Bank. The attention was paid to strict targeting accuracy rather than to adequacy or sufficient coverage of the lowest deciles. In essence, neither socialist nor neoliberal policymakers ever recognised anything but the poverty relief function of the minimum income. Both ideologies were hostile, or at best indifferent, to increasing the adequacy and generosity of minimum income programmes, perceiving them as impediments and distractions that slowed socialist and neoliberal transformations. Despite some reform initiatives supported by the World Bank and, more recently, the European Union, the generosity and adequacy of minimum income programmes remain low, and coverage keeps declining. There have been very few efforts to develop inclusion function of the minimum income, while the activation aspect has achieved very little, sometimes degrading into punitive programmes of unpaid community work. In this dismal picture, the European Pillar of Social Rights action framework could serve as a guide for a long overdue third phase in the Western Balkans' minimum income policy evolution.     

A Nonstationary Cylinder–Based Model Describing Group Dispersal in a Fragmented Habitat

□ A doubly nonstationary cylinder-based model is built to describe the dispersal of a population from a point source. In this model, each cylinder represents a fraction of the population, i.e., a group. Two contexts are considered: The dispersal can occur in a uniform habitat or in a fragmented habitat described by a conditional Boolean model. After the construction of the models, we investigate their properties: the first and second order moments, the probability that the population vanishes, and the distribution of the spatial extent of the population.