Socioeconomic disparities in climate vulnerability: neonatal mortality in northern Sweden, 1880–1950

Population and Environment - The aim of this study was to analyse the association between season of birth, temperature and neonatal mortality according to socioeconomic status in northern Sweden...     

Family support services buffer the effect of child welfare notifications on child removals

Previous studies have found mixed results about the effects of family support services within the child protection system. The purpose of the study is to examine whether family support services are associated with the need for child removals at the community level. The material of the study consists of Finnish municipalities (N = 292) and their child protection indicators. Linear regression analysis was conducted to analyse the associations between the dependent variable (child removals) and the main predictors (child welfare notifications and family support services). It was found that family support services are associated with child removals. The more children there are in family support services, the more there are also child removals in a municipality. The key finding of the analysis is that a higher rather than lower proportion of clients in family support services buffers the increased effect of demand (child welfare notifications) on child removals better. In this sense, the demand for child removals is not only associated with the characteristics of children and families but may be partly explained by the role of family support services in a municipality. The present study underlines the significance of a system-level approach to child protection.     

Occurrence of breeding bird species in urban parks: Effects of park structure and broad-scale variables

Occurrences of breeding bird species in 54 urban parks were investigated in the city of Oulu in northern Finland. Park area, human activity, habitat, and landscape structure within a 9-ha square surrounding the study park were related to the bird species richness and occurrence of individual bird species. A total of 22 species was observed. The area of the park explained 39% of the variance of species richness. Seven species (wheatear [Oenanthe oenanthe], common rosefinch [Carpodacus erythrinus], garden warbler [Sylvia borin], lesser whitethroat [Sylvia curruca], linnet [Acanthis cannabina], redpoll [Carduelis flammea], and yellowhammer [Emberiza citrinella]) were not detected in parks of >0.75 ha. Species with lower area demands occurred closer to the town center than species with greater area requirements. Ground-nesting species were poor colonizers of urban parks, whereas high numbers of nest boxes in urban parks attracted many cavity-nesting species. The willow warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus) and the magpie (Pica pica) bred more often in unmanaged than in managed parks, probably because of the greater vegetation cover in unmanaged parks. Park structure variables were entered into models for 7 of the 12 most common bird species, whereas broad scale variables were entered into models for 6 of the 12 species. The number of adjacent buildings had a negative affect on three bird species (the willow warbler, hooded crow [Corvus corone cornix], and spotted flycatcher [Muscicapa striata]). The occurrence of breeding species in urban parks depends on the size of the park, park structure, and landscape structure outside the park.     

Zur Integration ehrenamticher Mitarbeiter/innen in Organisationen

The integration of volunteers in organizations On the background of the current changes in the general work conditions, a professional volunteer management in organizations is necessary. The author demonstrates, that in organizations a professional staff with management competences is a precondition. The peculiarities in leading volunteers are explained. The focus of the article are suggestions to a personnel development, in order to instruct and to attend individual employees or larger organizational units for a successful cooperation with volunteers. A special training as well as coaching and organizational development are delineated.     

Estimation of the variance of an adaptive estimator by bootstrapping

In this paper we propose a bootstrap-based method to estimate the standard error of adaptive estimators. We apply it in the standard problem of location estimation discussed in Randies and Hogg (1973) and in Hogg and Lenth (1984). Our adaptive estimator is based on a choice between the mean the 35% trimmed mean and the median. Finally, we carry out a simulation study to see how well the proposed method performs in small and moderate sample sizes.     

De copulis non est disputandum

Normal distribution of residuals is a traditional assumption in multivariate models. It is, however, not very often consistent with real data. Copulae allow for an extension of dependency models to nonellipticity and for separation of margins from the dependency. This paper provides a survey of copulae where different copula classes, estimation and simulation techniques and goodness-of-fit tests are considered. In the empirical section we apply different copulae to the static and dynamic Value-at-Risk of portfolio returns and Profit-and-Loss function.     

Monotony relations between distribution functions and their application to experimental design

In a linear regression model an estimator of the unknown coefficients is considered which, in special cases, includes the least squares estimator. In the ease of stable symmetric error distribution and by means of a certain monotony relation between distribution functions optimality of this estimator is proved and the designing problem is investigated. A robustness property of optimal designs against the designing criterion and some conclusions are given concerning the least squares estimator in the case of G- and C-optimality.