Urban poverty and labor market dynamics in five Latin American countries: 2003–2008

Latin America experienced a long period of sustained growth since 2003 that positively impacted social and labor market indicators, including poverty. This paper contributes to the understanding of this process as it carries out a comparative study of poverty dynamics in five Latin American countries during 2003–2008. It analyzes the extent to which countries with different levels of poverty incidence diverge in terms of poverty exit and entry rates, identifies the relative importance of the frequency and impact of events associated to poverty transitions and examines how these events affect households with different characteristics. For this, a dynamic analysis of panel data is carried out using regular household surveys. Sizeable rates of poverty movements were observed in all five countries and it was found that a large proportion of household experienced positive events, mainly related to the labor market; however, only a small fraction of them actually exited poverty. Demographic events and public cash transfers proved to be of little relevance; in particular, the latter did not contribute much either to intensify poverty exits or to prevent poverty entries. Households with children experienced more (less) negative (positive) events than those without children. It appeared therefore that even when the economy behaved reasonably well at the aggregate level, high levels of labor turnover and income mobility (even of a negative nature) still prevail, mainly associated to the high level of precariousness and the undeveloped system of social protection that characterize the studied countries.     

Race in an epigenetic time: thinking biology in the plural

The notion that biological memories of environmental experiences can be embedded in the human genome and even transmitted transgenerationally is increasingly relevant in the postgenomic world, particularly in molecular epigenetics, where the genome is conceptualized as porous to environmental signals. In this article I discuss the current rethinking of race in epigenetic rather than genetic terms, emphasizing some of its paradoxical implications, especially for public policy. I claim in particular that: (i) if sociologists want to investigate race in a postgenomic world they should pay more attention to this novel plastic and biosocial view of race; and (ii) there are no reasons to believe that an epigenetic view will extinguish race, or that soft‐inheritance claims will produce a less exclusionary discourse than genetics (hard heredity). Quite the opposite, the ground for a re‐racialization of social debates and the reinforcement of biological boundaries between groups are highlighted in the article.     

Why irregular migrants arrive and remain: the role of intermediaries

Despite many efforts to combat irregular immigration, there is a widespread perception of a failure of public policies in this field. But because unauthorised immigrants are officially excluded from formal labour markets, housing markets and most welfare provisions, they can settle if they find other sources of work, income, housing, and social protection. In this regard, a crucial role is played by various intermediaries: people or institutions who favour the entrance of immigrants, their entry into the labour market, accommodation, response to their social needs, and possibly regularisation. They can act for profit, but also for moral reasons. They can break the laws and work in the shadows, but they can also work in legal forms. In this article, I will explore the identities of these intermediaries and their practices of support towards irregular migrants. My purpose is to show (1) what precisely constitutes intermediation, in what activities it can be factored, and what the main categories of intermediaries are; (2) that the implementation of migration policies is hindered not only by migrants’ practices to circumvent controls but also by the action of these intermediaries. For this reason, too, it is so difficult to eradicate.     

Discovering associations between players' performance indicators and matches' results in the European Soccer Leagues

The application of data mining techniques and statistical analysis to the sports field has received increasing attention in the last decade. One of the most famous sports in the world is soccer, and the present work deals with it, using data from the 2009/2010 season to the 2015/2016 season from nine European leagues extracted from the Kaggle European Soccer database. Overall performance indicators of the four roles in a soccer team (forward, midfielder, defender and goalkeeper) for home and away teams are used to investigate the relationships between them and the results of matches, and to predict the wins of the home team. The model used to answer both these demands is the Bayesian Network. This study shows that this model can be very useful for mining the relations between players'' performance indicators and for improving knowledge of the game strategies applied by coaches in different leagues. Moreover, it is shown that the ability to predict match results of the proposed Bayesian Network is roughly the same as that of the Naive Bayes model.     

Early inference on reliability of upgraded automotive components by using past data and technical information

When a new product is the result of design and/or process improvements introduced in its predecessors, then the past failure data and the expert technical knowledge constitute a valuable source of information that can lead to a more accurate reliability estimate of the upgraded product. This paper proposes a Bayesian procedure to formalize the prior information available about the failure probability of an upgraded automotive component. The elicitation process makes use of the failure data of the past product, the designer information on the effectiveness of planned design/process modifications, information on actual working conditions of the upgraded component and, for outsourced components, technical knowledge on the effect of possible cost reductions. By using the proposed procedure, more accurate estimates of the failure probability can arise. The number of failed items in a future population of vehicles is also predicted to measure the effect of a possible extension of the warranty period. Finally, the proposed procedure was applied to a case study and its feasibility in supporting reliability estimation is illustrated.