‘Between heaven and hell’: Subjective well‐being of asylum seekers

Nearly 1.4 million asylum seekers arrived in Europe in 2015. With an unprecedented 822% increase in the number of asylum applicants, Finland experienced the largest increase in applicants than any other European country that year. In this study, we investigated asylum seekers’ experienced subjective well‐being (ExSWB) construct in comparison with their evaluated subjective well‐being (EvSWB) construct. A mixed methods approach with convergent design was adopted for the study, which combined quantitative data on asylum seekers’ (n = 181) ExSWB and EvSWB with qualitative data on the elements of ExSWB and EvSWB. The findings point at a limbus phase in asylum seekers’ livelihood transition between the borders for international protection in Finland. The Cantril self‐anchoring striving scale was used by the participants to describe this passage ritual of ambiguity. Furthermore, we also found gender differences related to coping and subjective well‐being, which supports previous findings on asylum seekers’ well‐being. Key Practitioner Message: ? The concept of the limbus phase of the asylum seeker livelihood transition is useful for describing asylum seekers’ experiences while waiting for an asylum decision; ? Asylum seeker SWB is closely related to status dissonance, separation and capitals, causing anxiety, worry and fear, and inflicting cognitive disruption; ? Equal, institutional‐level functions should be organised in the reception centre for easing the anxiety related to the asylum‐seeking process.     

Relations Between Media,Perceived Social Support and Personal Well-Being in Adolescence

This paper’s main objective is to show relations between interest in media, perceived social support and adolescents’ personal well-being. For this purpose, 1,589 Brazilian adolescents answered a questionnaire containing Cummins’ Personal Well-Being, Vaux’s Social Support Appraisals and Casas’ interest in media scales. The media in study are: The Internet, computer games, video games, computer, cell phone and television. For the data analysis this research used Structural Equation Modeling, a statistical methodology based on the confirmation of hypotheses previously established by theoretical frameworks on data. A final model of relations between media, support and well-being was obtained with a fit considered satisfactory by the literature. Implications of media on adolescents’ well-being based on this model are considered.     

Happiness and Childbearing Across Europe

Using happiness as a well-being measure and comparative data from the European social survey we focus in this paper on the link between happiness and childbearing across European countries. The analysis motivates from the recent lows in fertility in many European countries and that economic wellbeing measures are problematic when considering childbearing. We find significant country differences, though the direct association between happiness and childbearing is modest. However, partnership status plays an important role for both men and women. Working fathers are always happier, whereas working mothers are not, though mothers?? happiness tends to increase with household income.     

Likelihood-based risk estimation for variance-gamma models

Although the variance-gamma distribution is a flexible model for log-returns of financial assets, so far it has found rather limited applications in finance and risk management. One of the reasons is that maximum likelihood estimation of its parameters is not straightforward. We develop an EM-type algorithm based on Nitithumbundit and Chan (An ECM algorithm for skewed multivariate variance gamma distribution in normal mean–variance representation, arXiv:1504.01239, 2015) that bypasses the evaluation of the full likelihood, which may be difficult because the density is not in closed form and is unbounded for small values of the shape parameter. Moreover, we study the relative efficiency of our approach with respect to the maximum likelihood estimation procedures implemented in the VarianceGamma and ghyp R packages. Extensive simulation experiments and real-data analyses suggest that the multicycle ECM algorithm gives the best results in terms of root-mean-squared-error, for both parameter and value-at-risk estimation. The performance of the routines in the ghyp R package is similar but not as good, whereas the VarianceGamma package produces worse results, especially when the shape parameter is small.     

Bayesian joint modelling of benefit and risk in drug development

To gain regulatory approval, a new medicine must demonstrate that its benefits outweigh any potential risks, ie, that the benefit‐risk balance is favourable towards the new medicine. For transparency and clarity of the decision, a structured and consistent approach to benefit‐risk assessment that quantifies uncertainties and accounts for underlying dependencies is desirable. This paper proposes two approaches to benefit‐risk evaluation, both based on the idea of joint modelling of mixed outcomes that are potentially dependent at the subject level. Using Bayesian inference, the two approaches offer interpretability and efficiency to enhance qualitative frameworks. Simulation studies show that accounting for correlation leads to a more accurate assessment of the strength of evidence to support benefit‐risk profiles of interest. Several graphical approaches are proposed that can be used to communicate the benefit‐risk balance to project teams. Finally, the two approaches are illustrated in a case study using real clinical trial data.     

Getting out of the European Paradox trap: Making European research agile and challenge driven

The ‘European Paradox’ encapsulates concerns that although European research institutions play a leading role in terms of top-level scientific output, they lag behind in their ability to convert this strength into successful innovations in the market. This paradox and the related intriguing problematic aspects of European research institutions have inspired a significant number of research papers, reports and studies by academics, innovation think tanks and the European Commission itself. In this position paper, we review the literature on the European paradox, identify gaps and contradictions in the understanding of the actual situation and discuss possible ways of moving forward towards a European research and innovation system that taps into diversity and complementarity of resources as a competitive innovation advantage.     

Some Remarks on Latent Variable Models in Categorical Data Analysis

We present an overview of some important and/or interesting contributions to the latent variable literature for the analysis of multivariate categorical responses, beginning with Lazarsfeld's introduction of latent class models. There is by now an enormous literature on latent variable models for categorical responses, especially in the context of including random effects in generalized linear mixed models, so this is necessarily a highly selective overview. Due to space considerations, we summarize the main ideas, suppressing details. As part of our presentation, we raise a couple of questions that may suggest future research work.