The Role of Media Exposure on Coordination in the Humanitarian Setting

Despite high demand and resource limitations, humanitarian organizations (HOs) typically do not share resources and/or coordinate in the field. While coordination enhances operational performance and saves costs, the general perception is that it dilutes the media attention that individual organizations might receive, and negatively influences their future donation income. In this study, we empirically unveil the impact of media exposure and operational performance on the donations obtained by HOs. Then, based on the empirical results, we develop a stylized model to characterize the structure of preferred coordination policies with respect to an organization's funding source and main mandate. Our findings shed light on the incentives and dynamics that drive behaviors in humanitarian operations and provide insights for policy makers on designing and implementing mechanisms that encourage humanitarian coordination.     

Simultaneous confidence intervals for comparing several inverse Gaussian means under heteroscedasticity

Recently, Zhang [Simultaneous confidence intervals for several inverse Gaussian populations. Stat Probab Lett. 2014;92:125–131] proposed simultaneous pairwise confidence intervals (SPCIs) based on the fiducial generalized pivotal quantity concept to make inferences about the inverse Gaussian means under heteroscedasticity. In this paper, we propose three new methods for constructing SPCIs to make inferences on the means of several inverse Gaussian distributions when scale parameters and sample sizes are unequal. One of the methods results in a set of classic SPCIs (in the sense that it is not simulation-based inference) and the two others are based on a parametric bootstrap approach. The advantages of our proposed methods over Zhang’s (2014) method are: (i) the simulation results show that the coverage probability of the proposed parametric bootstrap approaches is fairly close to the nominal confidence coefficient while the coverage probability of Zhang’s method is smaller than the nominal confidence coefficient when the number of groups and the variance of groups are large and (ii) the proposed set of classic SPCIs is conservative in contrast to Zhang’s method.     

Vehicle Procurement Policy for Humanitarian Development Programs

This article aims to identify optimal vehicle procurement policies for organizations engaged in humanitarian development programs and to derive general insights on the characteristics of these policies. Toward that end, we follow an inductive approach. First, we study the operations of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in three representative countries: Sudan, Afghanistan, and Ethiopia. Using a linear programming (LP) model primed with field data provided by the ICRC, we calculate the optimal vehicle fleet size and compare it with the policies actually implemented. Second, drawing from results of the LP model, we develop a stylized quadratic control model and use it to characterize the general structure of the optimal policy under different demand scenarios and operational constraints. After demonstrating that the results of the control model are consistent with those of the LP model in the specific context analyzed, we discuss the optimal policies and the applicability of the former as a practical tool for strategic asset planning.     

Testing the equality of several inverse Gaussian means under heterogeneity

Abstract

We consider the problem of testing the equality of several inverse Gaussian means when the scale parameters and sample sizes are possibly unequal. We propose four parametric bootstrap (PB) tests based on the uniformly minimum variance unbiased estimators of parameters. We also compare our proposed tests with the existing ones via an extensive simulation study in terms of controlling the Type I error rate and power performance. Simulation results show the merits of the PB tests.     

HIV prevention barriers in transgender women: a qualitative study

Abstract

Sexual contact is still one of the most important routes of HIV transmission. The aim of this study was identify the factors that underlie the higher prevalence of high-risk sexual behaviors in a sample of transgender women in Iran. The qualitative study used face-to-face, semi-structured, in-depth interviews in a sample of 15 transgender women. Our participants used sexual practices as a way to be approved/accepted as a woman. Using sex for this purpose led them to engage in high-risk sexual relationships. It is essential to consider these issues in consulting and education about high-risk behaviors.     

The Association Between Social Competence in Adolescents and Mothers’ Parenting Style: A Cross Sectional Study on Iranian Girls

This study is to determine the association between parenting style of mothers and the social competence of their adolescent daughters in effective communication, problem solving skills and use of basic social skills dimensions. The data were gathered for the mean age of 11–15 years on 737 Iranian adolescent girls in a cross sectional study design. The parenting style of mothers was based on their demand and responsiveness. These scales classified mothers into four parenting styles as follows: authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, or neglectful. The social competence was also categorized into effective relationship, problem solving skills, use of basic social skills dimensions. The mean scores of the adolescents’ social competence whose mothers had permissive and authoritative parenting style was higher than that for the two other groups for all the dimensions (p < 0.05). The results showed that with the expectation of controlling roles, the supportive role of mothers can be more effective in providing opportunities for social competence performance.     

Testing the equality of several multivariate normal mean vectors under heteroscedasticity: A fiducial approach and an approximate test

We consider the problem of testing the equality of several multivariate normal mean vectors under heteroscedasticity. We first construct a fiducial confidence region (FCR) for the differences between normal mean vectors and we then propose a fiducial test for comparing mean vectors by inverting the FCR. We also propose a simple approximate test that is based on a modification of the χ² approximation. This simple test avoids the complications of simulation-based inference methods. We show that the proposed fiducial test has correct type one error rate asymptotically. We compare the proposed fiducial and approximate tests with the parametric bootstrap test in terms of controlling the type one error rate via an extensive simulation study. Our simulation results show that the proposed fiducial and approximate tests control the type one error rate, while there are cases that the parametric bootstrap test is out of control. We also discuss the power performance of the tests. Finally, we illustrate with a real example how our proposed methods are applicable in analyzing repeated measure designs including a single grouping variable.