Juvenile firesetting in schools

This article examines why, and under what circumstances, young people illegally set fire to schools. Utilizing court and police records from cases of illegal firesetting in Swedish schools where offenders were aged 21 or younger, a number of crime scene and offender characteristics are compiled and analysed using correspondence analysis. First, four main clusters of such characteristics are identified. Next, offenders’ accounts of their motives are examined and factored in, with a total of six different types of school fires identified as a result: obstructing school activities, destroying evidence of school burglary, play vandalism, vindictive vandalism, psychiatric problems and school fire as a side effect. The types of school fires obtained are then classified into two main groups: school fires related to education and school fires unrelated to education. The findings show illegal firesetting in schools to be a much more complex phenomenon than previously recognized, and that accounts of motives can help us better understand this complexity and to develop apropriate preventive measures.     

Exploring structural habitat heterogeneity in sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) for urban biodiversity support

Implementation of sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) as part of cities’ transition towards climate resilience encompasses unique opportunities to enhance urban nature qualities. SUDS include individual elements integrated in the urban landscape, e.g. rain gardens or wet basins, which are usually constructed with low structural heterogeneity. Structural heterogeneity of habitats is, however, associated with a high degree of biodiversity. This study explored potentials of habitat heterogeneity enhancement in SUDS using structural heterogeneity as a proxy for biodiversity potential. In an interdisciplinary workshop, landscape architects and urban ecologists designed individual SUDS elements with enhanced structural habitat heterogeneity, hereafter bio-SUDS. The redesigned SUDS elements were infiltration trench, curb extension, rain garden, swale, wet basin, and dry basin. To evaluate the bio-SUDS designs, we developed an index of habitat heterogeneity in SUDS based on registration of 45 structurally important components. The conversion from standard SUDS to bio-SUDS entailed substantial increases in structural heterogeneity ranging from 4 to 18 additional components within elements. Larger bio-SUDS elements returned higher index scores, but the relative score increases were substantial for all bio-SUDS and in the range of a factor of 2–5.5. Increased terrain differences, meandering edges, stones, gravel, boulders, deadwood, and brown roof-like vegetation were the components most often employed in the bio-SUDS designs. In conclusion, implementation of bio-SUDS has potential to increase structural habitat heterogeneity thereby providing habitat for biodiversity in urban green areas. The developed bio-SUDS index can assist in future assessments of ecological qualities in designs and real-world SUDS elements.     

The discourse of powerlessness and repression: Identity construction in domestic helper narratives1

This article analyses domestic helper narratives focusing on identity construction in diaspora. It reports on an ongoing research project in a church shelter in Hong Kong where foreign domestic helpers (FDHs) seek help when they have been abused. Many of the stories told by FDHs are trauma narratives about physical assault, starvation, underpayment, and exploitation, and the article explores how narratives may be used as a means for identity construction, but also as a site for empowering FDHs to re‐author their stories and become agents in their own lives. The analyses show how linguistic resources are used to index different identities. They also show that FDHs have to accept forced identities and fight for their right to re‐author their own life stories. Finally, the article provides examples of private and public discourses about FDHs in Hong Kong and suggests that ideologies of moral exclusion, or the local codes of argument, serve to legitimise their dehumanisation. 本文分析散居香港的外籍家庭傭工有關身份建構的敘事話語。本文資料取自一個尚在進行中的研究項目。該項目的受訪者為棲身教會收容所尋求幫助的受虐外傭。項目所收集的訪問內容許多為創傷敘事,涉及身體傷害、飢餓、薪酬不足和剝削。除了探討創傷敘事如何用作身份建構的手段,本文還將探討這些敘事如何賦與受虐外傭話語權,讓她們重敘故事,主宰自己的生活。本文的分析將展現 語言資源如何成為標示不同身份的工具,並將說明：外傭被迫接受強加的身份,並為獲得重敘自己故事的權利而鬥爭。文章提供了關涉香港外傭的個人和公眾話語實例,並認為,道德排外的意識形態或本地輿論準則,對外傭所受非人道待遇的合理化發生了作用。[Chinese]     

Insights into Flood Risk Misperceptions of Homeowners in the Dutch River Delta

Flooding is one of the most significant natural disasters worldwide. Nevertheless, voluntary take-up of individual damage reduction measures is low. A potential explanation is that flood risk perceptions of individual homeowners are below objective estimates of flood risk, which may imply that they underestimate the flood risk and the damage that can be avoided by damage reduction measures. The aim of this article is to assess possible flood risk misperceptions of floodplain residents in the Netherlands, and to offer insights into factors that are related with under- or overestimation of perceived flood risk. We analyzed survey data of 1,848 homeowners in the Dutch river delta and examine how perceptions of flood probability and damage relate to objective risk assessments, such as safety standards of dikes, as well as heuristics, including the availability heuristic and the affect heuristic. Results show that many Dutch floodplain inhabitants significantly overestimate the probability, but underestimate the maximum expected water level of a flood. We further observe that many respondents apply the availability heuristic.     

Using bootstrap method to evaluate the estimates of nicotine equivalents from linear mixed model and generalized estimating equation

Twenty-four-hour urinary excretion of nicotine equivalents, a biomarker for exposure to cigarette smoke, has been widely used in biomedical studies in recent years. Its accurate estimate is important for examining human exposure to tobacco smoke. The objective of this article is to compare the bootstrap confidence intervals of nicotine equivalents with the standard confidence intervals derived from linear mixed model (LMM) and generalized estimation equation. We use percentile bootstrap method because it has practical value for real-life application and it works well with nicotine data. To preserve the within-subject correlation of nicotine equivalents between repeated measures, we bootstrap the repeated measures of each subject as a vector. The results indicate that the bootstrapped estimates in most cases give better estimates than the LMM and generalized estimation equation without bootstrap.     

Rate estimation in partially observed Markov jump processes with measurement errors

We present a simulation methodology for Bayesian estimation of rate parameters in Markov jump processes arising for example in stochastic kinetic models. To handle the problem of missing components and measurement errors in observed data, we embed the Markov jump process into the framework of a general state space model. We do not use diffusion approximations. Markov chain Monte Carlo and particle filter type algorithms are introduced which allow sampling from the posterior distribution of the rate parameters and the Markov jump process also in data-poor scenarios. The algorithms are illustrated by applying them to rate estimation in a model for prokaryotic auto-regulation and the stochastic Oregonator, respectively.     

On the procedure of hodges and lehmann for testing composite hypotheses of the mean of a normal distribution with unknown variance

In 1954 Hodges and Lehmann gave a test procedure for testing the hypothesis that the mean of an identically independently normally distributed random sample with unknown variance is contained within a certain interval [μ1, μ2]. The test is similar on the boundary of the zero-hypothesis and superior in power to the composite t-test usually applied to this problem. However Hodges and Lehmann could prove the unbiasedness of their test only for the special case that the sample consists of two elements. From numerical computations they guessed that unbiasedness would be valid for arbitrary sample sizes. This question is discussed here and partially answered.     

Everyday Meaning of Neighboring in Old Age in an Urban District

ABSTRACT

Contact and assistance between neighbors are prominent forms of social exchange in a spatial context. For older adults, the neighborhood gains in importance when mobility disabilities increase. This explorative study, therefore, aimed to investigate given and received neighborhood help and the everyday meaning of neighboring among older adults in an urban district. Study participants were aged 60 years and older (N = 100) living in an urban district of Zurich, Switzerland. Results highlight that older adults reported vivid interactions with their neighbors and that reciprocity exists between given and received neighborhood help. Besides that, daily contact and neighborhood help affect the perceived feeling of neighboring. Data indicate that neighboring is a meaningful resource for coping with everyday life situations in old age in an urban context.     

“Hard workers” and labor restrictions

This paper analyzes the effects of changes in relative bargaining power within two-member households participating in labor and product markets. The most striking effects occur when household members differ in individual preferences and enjoy positive leisure-dependent externalities. For instance, a global change in relative bargaining power where the hardworking member becomes more influential in each working class household can render the working class worse off. Moreover, we show that restrictions on labor supply can prevent hard workers from exerting too much pressure on their hedonistic partners to work more. A restriction on individual labor supply improves welfare of the working class population, which adds a new twist to the literature on why working hours are limited in many European countries.     

Self-perceived origins of attitudes toward homosexuality

Undergraduate students (N = 417) at a large southern university responded to open-ended questions designed to assess self-perceived origins of attitudes toward homosexuality and circumstances that may prompt a shift in attitudes. Inductively coded responses pointed to a positive correlation between attitudes toward homosexuality and experience interacting with gay men or lesbians; this is discussed in the context of Allport's (1954 ) contact hypothesis and Herek's (1984 , 1986 ) theory of functional attitudes. Implications are discussed for education and intervention efforts aimed at facilitating understanding and tolerance of gay men and lesbians.