Characterizing best–worst voting systems in the scoring context

An increasing body of theoretical and empirical work on discrete choice considers a choice design in which a person is asked to select both the best and the worst alternative in an available set of alternatives, in contrast to more traditional tasks, such as where the person is asked to: select the best alternative; select the worst alternative; rank the alternatives. Here we consider voting systems motivated by such “best–worst” choice; characterize a class of “best–worst” voting systems in terms of a set of axioms in the context of scoring rules; and discuss briefly possible extensions to approval–disapproval systems.     

Modeling of Acoustic Signal Energies with a Generalized Frank Copula. A Linguistic Conjecture is Reviewed

In this article a generalized Frank copula was selected to model the dependence between the energy on two frequency bands of the speech signal, coming from eight languages. An algorithm was developed that uses maximum likelihood to choose the best fitting copula’s parameters. Through bootstrap, the algorithm estimates the variability of the parameters for each language and also computes confidence regions by means of Voronoi tesselations. A linguistic conjecture which claims that the languages are organized in three rhythmic classes, was confirmed by the Voronoi regions. Modeling with a uniparametric Frank copula, the different degrees of dependence between the energies were quantified.     

Social support and life satisfaction among gay men in Spain

Since the early 1960s, social support has been a topic of interest and study among social psychologists and other professionals investigating social issues. In spite of this growing interest by the scientific community, there are few studies on social support in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, and even fewer on the impact of social support on life satisfaction. In this regard, in Spain, there are very few psychosocial studies on homosexual groups. In the present study, the authors analyze social support data and life satisfaction in a sample of 220 gay residents of Málaga and Sevilla. The results show that friends are the most important source of overall social support, and that, in the family, sisters provide the most support and contribute to increased life satisfaction. On the other hand, social support had an effect on the level of life satisfaction, although the results indicate that factors associated with homosexual identity are the best predictors of life satisfaction. The implications of these results are discussed as well as potential future research.     

Therapeutic residential care in Spain. Population treated and therapeutic coverage

Therapeutic residential care (TRC) is the name given to specialized children's homes for treating cases with severe emotional and behavioural problems that have been placed in residential care. A recent international review has revealed great diversity in the referral criteria of cases and in the models of intervention carried out. The goal of this study is to describe the population treated in these types of facilities in Spain and the therapeutic coverage given. The sample is made up of 215 young people in children's homes, of whom 93 are in TRC. The cases referred to TRC have been in residential care for less time but have gone through a greater number of placements. These young people also exhibit more problems of drug use, and there is a larger percentage of clinical‐range cases in the Child Behaviour Checklist scales of attention problems and aggressive behaviour. Nevertheless, the results of logistic regression indicate that the only variables that significantly increase the probability of being referred to TRC are drug use and changes of care placements. With regard to therapeutic care, there is a higher percentage in the TRC group receiving psychiatric care, and the sessions are also more frequent.     

A reweighting approach to robust clustering

An iteratively reweighted approach for robust clustering is presented in this work. The method is initialized with a very robust clustering partition based on an high trimming level. The initial partition is then refined to reduce the number of wrongly discarded observations and substantially increase efficiency. Simulation studies and real data examples indicate that the final clustering solution has both good properties in terms of robustness and efficiency and naturally adapts to the true underlying contamination level.     

Advances in estimation by the item sum technique using auxiliary information in complex surveys

To collect sensitive data, survey statisticians have designed many strategies to reduce nonresponse rates and social desirability response bias. In recent years, the item count technique has gained considerable popularity and credibility as an alternative mode of indirect questioning survey, and several variants of this technique have been proposed as new needs and challenges arise. The item sum technique (IST), which was introduced by Chaudhuri and Christofides (Indirect questioning in sample surveys, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2013) and Trappmann et al. (J Surv Stat Methodol 2:58–77, 2014), is one such variant, used to estimate the mean of a sensitive quantitative variable. In this approach, sampled units are asked to respond to a two-list of items containing a sensitive question related to the study variable and various innocuous, nonsensitive, questions. To the best of our knowledge, very few theoretical and applied papers have addressed the IST. In this article, therefore, we present certain methodological advances as a contribution to appraising the use of the IST in real-world surveys. In particular, we employ a generic sampling design to examine the problem of how to improve the estimates of the sensitive mean when auxiliary information on the population under study is available and is used at the design and estimation stages. A Horvitz–Thompson-type estimator and a calibration-type estimator are proposed and their efficiency is evaluated by means of an extensive simulation study. Using simulation experiments, we show that estimates obtained by the IST are nearly equivalent to those obtained using “true data” and that in general they outperform the estimates provided by a competitive randomized response method. Moreover, variance estimation may be considered satisfactory. These results open up new perspectives for academics, researchers and survey practitioners and could justify the use of the IST as a valid alternative to traditional direct questioning survey modes.     

Linking Disconnected Spaces or Venue Shopping? Trade-Offs in Participatory Opportunities in the EU

This article discusses why national civil society organisations (CSOs) use or abstain to use the participatory opportunities that the EU has developed in the last years. This is done by analysing the role of French and Spanish civil society groups in the debates on participatory democracy during the drafting and the referendum debates of the European Constitution (2002–2005). The paper departs from existing assessments of the role of national civil society in the Convention and demonstrates that national organisations built on their expertise on certain EU policies, on access to EU-level political actors and on contacts and alliances with other CSOs. It also differs from previous studies in finding that participation does not entail sharing the interpretive frame promoted by the EU. The finding that access opportunities do not fundamentally influence the frames of the organisations is related to their ability to strategically choose to participate in European and national venues. The paper finds that because of their scepticism on the constitution's participatory framing, French organisations preferred a stronger role at the national level, whereas Spanish organisations did not have real incentives to develop a campaign at the national level. While it is expected that dialogue with CSOs can contribute to bridging the gap between the EU and its citizens, this paper finds that the institutional setting provided incentives for national organisations to get involved only in one of the levels rather than to link them.     

Growing Parental Economic Power in Parent–Adult Child Households: Coresidence and Financial Dependency in the United States, 1960–2010

Research on coresidence between parents and their adult children in the United States has challenged the myth that elders are the primary beneficiaries, instead showing that intergenerationally extended households generally benefit the younger generation more than their parents. Nevertheless, the economic fortunes of those at the older and younger ends of the adult life course have shifted in the second half of the twentieth century, with increasing financial well-being among older adults and greater financial strain among younger adults. This article uses U.S. census and American Community Survey (ACS) data to examine the extent to which changes in generational financial well-being over the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have been reflected in the likelihood of coresidence and financial dependency in parent–adult child U.S. households between 1960 and 2010. We find that younger adults have become more financially dependent on their parents and that while older adults have become more financially independent of their adult children, they nevertheless coreside with their needy adult children. We also find that the effect of economic considerations in decisions about coresidence became increasingly salient for younger adults, but decreasingly so for older adults.     

Shortcomings in the Measurement of Innovation: Implications for Accounting Standard Setting

Innovation is nowadays a fundamental determinant of value creation in business companies and economic growth. Therefore, the measurement of innovation has become a significant concern both for business companies and governments. Traditionally, attempts to measure innovation have adopted a macroeconomic approach, as they have been largely based on broad surveys. However, no attempt has been made to date in order to complement the information provided by such surveys with aggregated data obtained from the financial reports of individual companies. This paper analyses the conceptual and methodological problems underlying the measurement of business innovation by means of surveys and discusses the lack of ability of accounting standards to accurately reflect innovative activities in the financial statements of business firms.In the light of the evidence provided by the empirical studies published to date, we analyse the Spanish situation by reviewing innovation studies conducted by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), and assessing the relationship between the value relevance of accounting information and the firm's technological level. Our results suggest that both, micro- and macroeconomic approaches towards the measurement of innovation have significant shortcomings. Thus, a joint effort seems to be needed in order to overcome the methodological limitations affecting innovation studies based on surveys and those relying on financial accounting information. Despite their limitations, surveys provide a sound basis for the identification of trends, key factors and explanatory variables. On the other hand, financial statements could provide a sound basis for the measurement of innovation if they included more relevant information on the intangible determinants of the value of companies. This has obvious implications for the standard setting process.