Improved Transferability of Data‐Driven Damage Models Through Sample Selection Bias Correction

Damage models for natural hazards are used for decision making on reducing and transferring risk. The damage estimates from these models depend on many variables and their complex sometimes nonlinear relationships with the damage. In recent years, data‐driven modeling techniques have been used to capture those relationships. The available data to build such models are often limited. Therefore, in practice it is usually necessary to transfer models to a different context. In this article, we show that this implies the samples used to build the model are often not fully representative for the situation where they need to be applied on, which leads to a “sample selection bias.” In this article, we enhance data‐driven damage models by applying methods, not previously applied to damage modeling, to correct for this bias before the machine learning (ML) models are trained. We demonstrate this with case studies on flooding in Europe, and typhoon wind damage in the Philippines. Two sample selection bias correction methods from the ML literature are applied and one of these methods is also adjusted to our problem. These three methods are combined with stochastic generation of synthetic damage data. We demonstrate that for both case studies, the sample selection bias correction techniques reduce model errors, especially for the mean bias error this reduction can be larger than 30%. The novel combination with stochastic data generation seems to enhance these techniques. This shows that sample selection bias correction methods are beneficial for damage model transfer.     

The Welfare State as Safety Net in Migration Preferences: Empirical Evidence from an Experiment Among Dutch Master Students

Population Research and Policy Review - The welfare state can be perceived as a safety net which helps individuals adjust to situations of risk or transition. Starting from this idea of the welfare...     

Inequality Assessment by Probabilistic Development Indices

Social Indicators Research - This paper analyses the Human Development Index (HDI) time series from 2010 to 2017. An alternative index is studied, which combines the same components of the HDI by...     

The African Evaluation Guidelines: 2002. A checklist to assist in planning evaluations, negotiating clear contracts, reviewing progress and ensuring adequate completion of an evaluation

A review of the US ‘program evaluation standards’ (PES), undertaken in a series of workshops and meetings of networks of evaluators in Africa, resulted in modifications to those standards. The result was presented to a plenary session of the Inaugural Conference of the African Evaluation Association in September 1999, attended by over 300 evaluators from 35 countries. The AfrEA Conference decided that a systematic effort should be made to produce a list of African evaluation guidelines, similar to the PES, and that this checklist should be reviewed by national evaluation associations and networks in Africa and field tested in several countries. Ten national and regional networks and associations suggested modifications to the text and endorsed the final version of the guidelines.     

Fire and restoration of the largest urban forest of the world in Rio de Janeiro City,Brazil

National Park of Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) is about 3,300 ha and considered the largest urban forest in the world. Its floristic composition is typical of Atlantic Rain Forest. The reserve is being altered because of fire occurrences and urban expansion. This study identified locations and causes of forest fires, and makes management recommendations to restore damaged areas. From 1991 to 2000, forest firefighters recorded an average of 75-fire occurrences/year. Identified causes included hot air balloons (24%), intentional (24%), rubbish burning (21%) and religious practices (17%). Primary fuels included invasive grasses and ferns. Although hot air balloons destroyed larger areas of forest in each occurrence, a greater number of fires started in the invasive vegetation along roads that bisect the forest. In response to recurrent forests, invasive vegetation has spread gradually into the forest increasing forest degradation. To decrease fire damage, sites with high fire frequencies and density of invasive vegetation were planted with less flammable species. Results indicate that fire frequency decreased and density of invasive vegetation declined. This approach appears to prevent fire incidence, reduce the need for fire fighting, and preserve existing biodiversity.     

改善开发所致移民安置项目的后果——牛津大学难民研究中心研究成果报告

论文在讨论四个移民典型案例的基础上 ,讨论在项目中与政策相关的教训     

Form Perception of Partly Occluded Shapes in 4‐Month‐Old Infants

Two habituation experiments were conducted to investigate how 4‐month‐old infants perceive partly occluded shapes. In the first experiment, we presented a simple, partly occluded shape to the infants until habituation was reached. Then we showed either a probable completion (one that would be predicted on the basis of both local and global cues) or an improbable completion. Longer looking times were found for the improbably completed shape (compared to probable and control conditions), suggesting that the probable shape was perceived during partial occlusion. In the second experiment, infants were habituated to more ambiguous partly occluded shapes, where local and global cues would result in different completions. For adults, the percept of these shapes is usually dominated by global influences. However, after habituation the infants looked longer at the globally completed shapes. These results suggest that by the age of 4 months, infants are able to infer the perceptual completion of partly occluded shapes, but for more ambiguous shapes, this completion seems to be dominated by local influences.     

Les agriculteurs dans la fabrique d'une nouvelle agriculture

The model of development that has governed the modernization of farming in France is increasingly coming under attack. Given this, analysing the “work” that farming performs to “translate” the criticisms with which it must cope in formulating new definitions of roles is important in order to understand changes under way in this sector. The changes undergone by farming over the past eighty years are briefly presented and then the procedures and results of a survey, conducted during the mad cow disease among beef-farmers in Burgundy, are described. Light is thus shed on the diversity of the positions that farmers have adopted with regard to the future of their occupation. An interpretation is proposed of how the distribution (and interplay between) these positions might affect agriculture. - Special issue on Agriculture and food.     

Psychological taxing in Flemish municipalities

We analyse whether the psychological pricing in the private sector has a public sector counterpart in tax policy. Analysing the main theoretical arguments for the existence of price points, and applying them to the public sector, suggests that psychological taxing reveals itself by the use of non-0 ending tax rates. The tax rate endings of the local income taxes, which are set by 308 Flemish municipalities in the fiscal year 1998, suggests the presence of psychological taxing. Non-0 endings occur more frequently in municipalities where demand for public policy is more elastic (and where, therefore, the benefits to the politicians from setting a tax just below a tax point is higher). The pre-tax income inequality and the level of the tax rate positively affect psychological taxing. The latter effect is reinforced in those municipalities where the existing tax rate is above the average tax rate in neighbouring municipalities and below their neighbours’ minimum, although this effect has a limited effect and is offset the further below the minimum the tax is set.