Role of social welfare in European suicide prevention

Yur'yev A, Värnik A, Värnik P, Sisask M, Leppik L. Role of social welfare in European suicide prevention The aims of this study were to assess the relationship between suicide mortality and social expenditure in 26 European countries, explore attitudes towards welfare systems and their relationship with suicide mortality, and compare attitudes towards welfare provision in Eastern and Western Europe. The World Health Organization suicide data and Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development social expenditure data for 1980–2005 were used. Data on attitudes towards welfare systems were taken from the European Social Survey. Differences between mean scores for attitudes in Western and Eastern European countries were calculated. Correlations between social expenditure and suicide trends were negative in most countries for both genders. Inverse correlations between attitudes towards welfare provision and suicide mortality rates were demonstrated for males only. Differences in attitudes were found between Eastern and Western European countries; for example, confidence in the welfare system was found to be stronger in Western Europe. Higher social expenditure and greater confidence in welfare provision appear to have suicide‐preventive effects.     

An Empirical Analysis of Backlog,Inventory, Production,and Price Adjustments: An Application of Recursive Systems of Log-Linear Models

This article presents an empirical analysis of firms' order backlogs, inventories, production, and price adjustments to unanticipated demand shocks. The data are obtained from quarterly INSEE Business Survey Tests on firms' realizations, expectations, and appraisals of some various economic variables. The analysis is based on the formulation and the estimation of a recursive system of conditional log-linear probability models.     

Using a mixture model for multiple imputation in the presence of outliers: the 'Healthy for life' project

Summary.  We consider the problem of obtaining population-based inference in the presence of missing data and outliers in the context of estimating the prevalence of obesity and body mass index measures from the 'Healthy for life' study. Identifying multiple outliers in a multivariate setting is problematic because of problems such as masking, in which groups of outliers inflate the covariance matrix in a fashion that prevents their identification when included, and swamping, in which outliers skew covariances in a fashion that makes non-outlying observations appear to be outliers. We develop a latent class model that assumes that each observation belongs to one of K unobserved latent classes, with each latent class having a distinct covariance matrix. We consider the latent class covariance matrix with the largest determinant to form an 'outlier class'. By separating the covariance matrix for the outliers from the covariance matrices for the remainder of the data, we avoid the problems of masking and swamping. As did Ghosh-Dastidar and Schafer, we use a multiple-imputation approach, which allows us simultaneously to conduct inference after removing cases that appear to be outliers and to promulgate uncertainty in the outlier status through the model inference. We extend the work of Ghosh-Dastidar and Schafer by embedding the outlier class in a larger mixture model, consider penalized likelihood and posterior predictive distributions to assess model choice and model fit, and develop the model in a fashion to account for the complex sample design. We also consider the repeated sampling properties of the multiple imputation removal of outliers.     

当代音系理论管窥

20世纪60年代,生成音系学诞生,开始了音系研究的崭新阶段。70年代以后,非线性音系理论提出,使得音系研究更为立体。80年代以来,各种观点和流派异彩纷呈,蔚为大观。当代音系理论的出现,极大地推动了语音系统的研究,丰富了语言理论的探索。     

陕西青年对构建和谐社会认识的调研

本文以陕西青年对构建和谐社会的调研为依据，分析当前陕西青年的思想现状，为进一步正确教育和引导青年积极参与社会主义和谐社会建设提供了可供借鉴的依据，并就共青团组织在构建和谐社会中如何充分发挥青年的作用进行了思考和探索。     

Employment, family union and childbearing decisions in Great Britain

Summary.  The paper investigates the life-cycle relationship of work and family life in Britain based on the British Household Panel Survey. Using hazard regression techniques we estimate a five-equation model, which includes birth events, union formation, union dissolution, employment and non-employment events. We find that transitions in and out of employment for men are relatively independent of other transitions. In contrast, there are strong links between employment of females, having children and union formation. By undertaking a detailed microsimulations analysis, we show that different levels of labour force participation by females do not necessarily lead to large changes in fertility events. Changes in union formation and fertility events, in contrast, have larger effects on employment.     

Factors that influence reading and comprehension of branching instructions in self–administered questionnaires

Summary: In this paper we examine the tendency for branching instructions to be ignored, misread, or otherwise not appropriately followed so that item nonresponse occurs for follow–up questions. The potential influence on branching errors of seven features of question complexity are examined, including high number of question words, high number of answer categories, last categories branch, all categories branch, write–in responses, location at the bottom of a page, and high distance between the answer box and branching instruction. A logistic regression analysis revealed that question complexity had a tendency to increase certain errors, but not others.* A more detailed version of this paper with additional analysis and discussion is available at http://www.sesrc.wsu.edu/dillman/. The opinions expressed here are those of the authors, not necessarily of the institutions where they presently work or the U.S. Census Bureau, which provided financial support for the collection of these data. We would like to thank Aref Dajani and Yves Thibaudeau for their advice on the analysis used in this paper.     

Quality of life indicators and program evaluation

Social indicators and program evaluation research have much in common. Quality of life work specifically raises the question of objective versus subjective variables, aggregate data versus distributional and individual issues, and the reference standards used in judgment and evaluation decisions. This article presents perspectives on these issues from the orientation of quality of life research and proposes that these approaches have relevance for program evaluation work.     

社会主义新农村建设的稳步发展——以淄博市淄川区罗村镇南韩村为例

新农村建设是在我国总体上进入以工促农、以城带乡的发展新阶段后面临的崭新课题,是时代发展和构建和谐社会的必然要求。笔者对自己的家乡淄川区罗村镇南韩村进行以访谈为主的实地调查,并结合文献全面分析该村的发展状况,肯定其建设的丰硕成果,提出尚未解决的问题以及解决措施,对淄博市目前的社会主义新农村建设具有一定的参考意义。