Service Credit Banking:

Informal care provided by family and friends is widely recognized as one of the key factors in keeping long-term care financially manageable for individuals as well as for public programs. Sociodemographic trends predict that the demand for formal and informal home care services among the elderly will increase faster than the supply. Programs that allow volunteers to earn credits later redeemable for comparable services when they may be required are beginning to be examined as a way to help fill the need for respite services and other basic home care services. This paper examines key considerations of the service credit concept in the context of existing programs and initiatives designed to encourage its development.     

A Remark on the Alternative Expectation Formula

Students in their first course in probability will often see the expectation formula for nonnegative continuous random variables in terms of the survival function. The traditional approach for deriving this formula (using double integrals) is well-received by students. Some students tend to approach this using integration by parts, but often get stuck. Most standard textbooks do not elaborate on this alternative approach. We present a rigorous derivation here. We hope that students and instructors of the first course in probability will find this short note helpful.     

从社区治安到社区安全治理:城市社区关系的嬗变

随着社区治理的全球化兴起,社区安全治理也将随之受到关注。从社区治安转向社区安全治理的过程,伴随着对社区关系产生直接或间接的影响。本论文试图通过反思社区关系的可能变化来论证从社区治安转向社区安全治理的必然性,以此呈现出社区安全治理的优势。     

Food Insecurity in Regional Rural Australia

ABSTRACT

This study explores food relief recipients' and providers’ experiences and perceptions of food insecurity in a large regional town in Australia. The cross-sectional qualitative methods research design incorporated survey-based interviews of four food relief services, a focus group of food relief recipients and two biographical interviews of food insecurity experience. Qualitative thematic data analysis provided insight into the respondents’ experience and perceptions of the causes of food insecurity, the provision of food relief and the limitations of a charity model. An ecological-model-based analysis shows that food insecurity is the product of multiple complex causes including chronic and situational poverty. Political dimensions emerged in terms of the policies that are developed or omitted.

IMPLICATIONS

• Social workers need to advocate for the human right to food and strengthen capacity at multiple levels to improve food security.

• Improving access to quality and culturally appropriate food requires the implementation of multiple strategies.

     

Failure time regression with continuous covariates measured with error

We consider failure time regression analysis with an auxiliary variable in the presence of a validation sample. We extend the nonparametric inference procedure of Zhou and Pepe to handle a continuous auxiliary or proxy covariate. We estimate the induced relative risk function with a kernel smoother and allow the selection probability of the validation set to depend on the observed covariates. We present some asymptotic properties for the kernel estimator and provide some simulation results. The method proposed is illustrated with a data set from an on-going epidemiologic study.     

危害食品安全犯罪的刑法规制

危害食品安全犯罪作为近几年高发的一类犯罪,严重侵害着广大消费者的生命健康,顺应当前整治形势的<食品安全法>的实施为刑法的规制提出了更高的要求.通过对现行刑法中对危害食品安全犯罪的规定做一简单分析,认为我国应当完善相应的规定,以更好的实现刑法与<食品安全法>的对接和建立严密的食品监管体系.     

Fully exponential Laplace approximations for the joint modelling of survival and longitudinal data

Summary.  A common objective in longitudinal studies is the joint modelling of a longitudinal response with a time-to-event outcome. Random effects are typically used in the joint modelling framework to explain the interrelationships between these two processes. However, estimation in the presence of random effects involves intractable integrals requiring numerical integration. We propose a new computational approach for fitting such models that is based on the Laplace method for integrals that makes the consideration of high dimensional random-effects structures feasible. Contrary to the standard Laplace approximation, our method requires much fewer repeated measurements per individual to produce reliable results.     

Analysis of spatial frailty models by a weighted estimating equation

Spatially correlated survival data are frequently observed in ecological and epidemiological studies. An assumption in the clustered survival models is inter-cluster independence, which may not be adequate to model the dependence in spatial settings. For survival data, the likelihood function based on a spatial frailty may be complicated. In this paper, we develop a weighted estimating equation for spatially right-censored data. Some large sample properties for the estimate are developed. We also conduct simulations to compare estimation performance with other methods. A data set from a study of forest decline in Wisconsin is used to illustrate the proposed method.     

A class of dynamic piecewise exponential models with random time grid

A novel fully Bayesian approach for modeling survival data with explanatory variables using the Piecewise Exponential Model (PEM) with random time grid is proposed. We consider a class of correlated Gamma prior distributions for the failure rates. Such prior specification is obtained via the dynamic generalized modeling approach jointly with a random time grid for the PEM. A product distribution is considered for modeling the prior uncertainty about the random time grid, turning possible the use of the structure of the Product Partition Model (PPM) to handle the problem. A unifying notation for the construction of the likelihood function of the PEM, suitable for both static and dynamic modeling approaches, is considered. Procedures to evaluate the performance of the proposed model are provided. Two case studies are presented in order to exemplify the methodology. For comparison purposes, the data sets are also fitted using the dynamic model with fixed time grid established in the literature. The results show the superiority of the proposed model.     

关于在我国信托法中增设“社会保障基金投资信托”一章的建议——对存在于这一章中的重要规定及其内容的构想

被增设于我国信托法中的"社会保障基金投资信托"一章应当规定:社会保障基金为具有公益性质的事业单位法人且社会保障基金投资信托以这种基金为委托人与受益人,这种信托的投资对象限于股票与金融资产,有资格担任这种信托的受托人的人限于信托投资公司与基金管理公司,这种信托的有关当事人负有分散投资义务与确保投资收益不低于法定的最低收益率的义务,对这种信托的国家监督适用存在于其他法律中的关于社会保障基金投资的国家监督制度。