Gaps in social protection for health care and long‐term care in Europe: Are the elderly faced with financial ruin?

While public expenditure on health care and long‐term care (LTC) has been monitored for many years in European countries, far less attention has been paid to the financial consequences for older people of private out‐of‐pocket (OOP) expenditure necessary to access such care. Employing representative cross‐sectional data on the elderly populations of 11 European countries in 2004 from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we find that OOP payments for health care and LTC are very common among the elderly across European countries and such expenditures impact significantly on disposable income: up to 95 per cent of the elderly make OOP payments for health care and 5 per cent for LTC, resulting in income reductions of between 5 and 10 per cent, respectively. Failure to prevent financial ruin, as a consequence of excessive OOP payments, is evident in 0.7 per cent of elderly households utilizing health care and 0.5 per cent of elderly households utilizing LTC. Those particularly concerned are the poor, women and the very old.     

On prediction from the location-scale model with equi correlated response

The location-scale model with equi-correlated responses is discussed. The structure of the location-scale model is utilised to genera-te the prediction distribution of a future response and that of a set of future responses. The method avoids the integration procedures usually involved in derivation of prediction distributions and yields results same as those obtained by the Bayes method with the vague prior distribution* Finally the re-suits have been specialised to cover the case of the normal intra-class model.     

A property of coefficients of variation for ordered bivariate log-normal variables

This paper considers the maximum and minimum of a pair of log-normal variables with equal mean. It shows that either order statistic has a smaller coefficient of variation than the two original log-normal variables provided the latter are of equal variance. When the variances are unequal, as the variance ratio increases, the minimum (maximum), has a smaller coefficient of variation if the correlation coefficient of the log-normal variables is small (small) and the variances are large (small).     

论消费在国际传媒生产总过程中的地位

在国际传媒生产贸易中，传媒产品消费的本质就是价值认可式的精神性消费，在自愿获得消费物的消费中，得到精神与心灵上的满足，实现对一国传媒产品的最优化接受。由此本质出发，总结了消费的六种类型，在分析梳理其逻辑关系的基础上，论证了消费在国际传媒生产总过程中的主导地位。     

德莱塞笔下的新女性形象——嘉莉妹妹的个性分析

在美国文学史上,德莱塞塑造的嘉莉妹妹一直是个有争议的人物形象.本文从19世纪末20世纪初美国新兴消费文化和新女性崛起这一特定社会历史背景出发,从自我实现、自主选择、自我塑造三个方面尝试解读嘉莉妹妹这一形象在个性上表现出的新女性内涵.     

消费文化转型的激励机制与“两型社会”的构建

消费文化具有引导、凝聚和激励的社会效应,实现消费文化由传统向现代的转型,对于"资源节约型、环境友好型"社会的构建有着不可或缺的作用.因此,有必要在明确"两型社会"消费文化转型取向的基础上,探求消费文化转型的激励机制,以期对推动"两型社会"的构建进程有所裨益.     

基于人体膳食均衡视角下的我国果蔬消费趋势预测与结构优化

水果和蔬菜是为人体提供矿物质、维生素、膳食纤维等营养元素的重要农产品,我国居民饮食中普遍存在着能量相对过剩、果蔬摄入量不足的问题。以人体膳食均衡为研究视角,研究我国果蔬消费趋势和结构优化问题,结果表明：按照当前的消费趋势发展,我国居民营养摄入不足与过剩同在的问题依然无法得到解决;我国政府在制定水果和蔬菜战略布局的决策中,应综合考虑人体的膳食营养均衡和未来市场营养需求,以实现我国果蔬产业布局优化;消费者在进行水果和蔬菜消费购买行为时,应在营养膳食均衡的基础上进行合理消费。     

顾客非理性消费行为机理探析

非理性消费已经成为零售企业利润的重要来源,得到学术界的普遍关注。认为顾客非理性消费行为是受到内在的、最本质的特殊顾客需要驱使而产生的不合理行为,揭示了驱动顾客非理性消费行为的顾客需要,并探讨了情绪状态因素调节顾客需要与顾客非理性消费行为关系的作用机理。基于416份问卷的调查结果,社交需要、释压需要和求廉需要是驱使顾客产生非理性消费行为的主要内在动因,情绪对特殊的顾客需要具有不同的调节作用。旨在丰富顾客非理性消费行为的知识,为商家实施目标营销、新服务开发提供重要理论支持。     

我国居民文化消费影响因素探析

运用我国1983—2012年的数据,通过实证分析考察了可支配收入、教育水平、金融发展和政府文化事业支出对我国居民文化消费的影响。长期均衡分析结果表明,教育水平和金融发展对我国居民文化消费具有显著的促进作用;教育水平提高1%,居民文化消费增加0.454%;金融机构信贷提高1%,居民文化消费增加0.363%;可支配收入和政府文化事业支出对居民文化消费的影响不显著。脉冲响应分析结果表明,可支配收入冲击对居民文化消费的影响在短期由正向转为负向,教育水平冲击和金融发展冲击对居民文化消费短期具有正向影响,政府文化事业支出冲击对居民文化消费短期具有负面影响。根据实证分析的结论,文章提出了扩大我国居民文化消费的政策建议。     

Factor screening in nonregular two-level designs based on projection-based variable selection

In this paper, we focus on the problem of factor screening in nonregular two-level designs through gradually reducing the number of possible sets of active factors. We are particularly concerned with situations when three or four factors are active. Our proposed method works through examining fits of projection models, where variable selection techniques are used to reduce the number of terms. To examine the reliability of the methods in combination with such techniques, a panel of models consisting of three or four active factors with data generated from the 12-run and the 20-run Plackett–Burman (PB) design is used. The dependence of the procedure on the amount of noise, the number of active factors and the number of experimental factors is also investigated. For designs with few runs such as the 12-run PB design, variable selection should be done with care and default procedures in computer software may not be reliable to which we suggest improvements. A real example is included to show how we propose factor screening can be done in practice.