Weak disintegrability as a form of preservation of coherence

Summary Weak disintegrations are investigated from various points of view. Kolmogorov's definition of conditional probability is critically analysed, and it is noted how the notion of disintegrability plays some role in connecting Kolmogorov's definition with the one given in line with de Finetti's coherence principle. Conditions are given, on the domain of a prevision, implying the equivalence between weak disintegrability and conglomerability. Moreover, weak sintegrations are characterized in terms of coherence, in de Finetti's sense, of, a suitable function. This fact enables us to give, an interpretation of weak disintegrability as a form of “preservation of coherence”. The previous results are also applied to a hypothetical inferential problem. In particular, an inference is shown to be coherent, in the sense of Heath and Sudderth, if and only if a suitable function is coherent, in de Finetti's sense. Research partially supported by: M.U.R.S.T. 40% “Problemi di inferenza pura”.     

Meningococcal serogroup B outbreak response University of Wisconsin-Madison

A meningococcal serogroup B (MenB) outbreak at a large public university prompted an emergency response to immunize undergraduates. Objective: To report on a successful meningococcal serogroup B (MenB) vaccine clinic response at a large public university. Methods: We assembled the team leaders to write this case report. Results: Activation of the emergency plan and points of dispensing required cooperation of many units on campus under the leadership of university health officials with support from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, state division of public health and the city-county health department. Significant efforts to provide consistent messages to students and parents regarding the outbreak and the availability of the MenB vaccines were made. Volunteers were recruited to staff the clinics alongside university healthcare providers. Over 22,000 doses of vaccine were administered. Conclusion: We report our experience and lessons learned which may be helpful to universities in preventing and responding to disease outbreaks.     

Italian Children's Understanding of War: A Domain-Specific Approach

Studies of children's conceptions of war, which have been carried out up to now mainly by asking for a definition of war and associating it with other notions, have found few age-related changes after the age of 6. Considering the complexity of the concept, and its embeddedness in the political conceptual domain, which emerges at around 11 years, we expect that greater differences should emerge if children's ideas on the causes and consequences of war, and the actors involved, are carefully assessed. Semi-structured interviews carried out with a total of 80 Italian children from 2nd to 8th grades confirmed this hypothesis. Many 2nd graders described war as a clash between collectives without structure, attributing all decisions about starting, the development of, and ending a war to the individual fighters and explaining these decisions (when they did) as due to emotions such as hatred, envy, revenge, or being tired or unwilling to fight any longer. Most 6th and 8th graders depicted war as a clash between nation-states, attributing decisions about its starting and ending to political authorities on the basis of political and economic reasons, and the actual fighting of battles to an organized army collaborating with, or subordinate to, political authorities. Many 2nd and 4th graders also showed a mixed pattern of answers, involving both political authorities and individual fighters, thus showing that the transition from the rudimentary backward conception to the more advanced one occurs through the piecemeal addition and deletion of concepts and beliefs.     

Strong previsions of random elements

LetC be a class of arbitrary real random elements andP an extended real valued function onC. Two definitions of coherence forP are compared. Both definitions reduce to the classical de Finetti's one whenC includes bounded random elements only. One of the two definitions (called strong coherence) is investigated, and some criteria for checking it are provided. Moreover, conditions are given for the integral representation of a coherentP, possibly with respect to a δ-additive probability. Finally, the two definitions and the integral representation theorems are extended to the case whereC is a class of random elements taking values in a given Banach space.     

A unifying view on some problems in probability and statistics

Statistical Methods & Applications - Let $$L$$ be a linear space of real random variables on the measurable space $$(\varOmega ,\mathcal {A})$$ . Conditions for the existence of a probability...     

What kind of country we want for our children: an analysis of media coverage of the 2017 New Zealand General Election

ABSTRACT

This article is the third in a series investigating media reporting of New Zealand elections. Based on content analysis of 510 articles published in the New Zealand Herald, and thematic analysis of a subset of news stories related to young people, the study examines media coverage of the 2017 elections by looking at the topics of news stories, presence of party policies, diversity of sources and references to social groups. Comparing the 2017 results with the results of the Herald’s coverage of 2014 elections, we register a shift towards a stronger presence of policy issues, more female voices in the reports and significantly higher reference to young people. We further investigated the high number of references to young people by conducting qualitative analysis on the subset of articles mentioning young people.     

A note on zenga concentration index

Summary The Zenga index, , is shown to be a concentration index, in the sense that, ifX andY are non negative random variables with 0<E(X), E(Y)<+∞, then (X)⩾ (Y) whenever the Lorenz curves satisfyL _x(p)≤L _y(p) for all p. Research partially supported by: M.U.R.S.T. 40% ?Inferenza statistica: basi probabilistiche e sviluppi metodologici?.     

The development of economic notions: Single sequence or separate acquisitions?

The conceptions on shops and factories of a group of 3rd-grade children were assessed by means of the Piagetian clinical method. Factorial analysis showed that children's answers about the two economic institutions yielded two distinct factors. Children were then divided into three groups (one control and two experimental); children in the experimental groups were taught, by means of two different training procedures, how the shopkeeper can earn a profit. A post-test interview, one month later, showed that both experimental groups had progressed in the target notion; however, children did not generalize to the factory what they had learned about shops. According to these results, 3rd-graders' thinking about economics consists of separate part-systems, which will eventually become integrated as children grow older.     

KNOWING THE RIGHT PERSON IN THE RIGHT PLACE: POLITICAL CONNECTIONS AND RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

We use a political economy model of Schumpeterian growth with entry to investigate how an incumbent politician can strategically use the level of red tape to acquire incumbency advantage. By setting sufficiently high red tape, the politician induces the incumbent firm in the intermediate sector to invest in political connections, which are valued also by voters, who recognize that bureaucratic costs can be reduced by connected firms. Within this framework, we study the Markov perfect equilibria of an infinitely repeated game among politicians, firms, and voters, and show that all equilibria are characterized by investments in political connections and the re‐election of the incumbent politician. Political connections may prevent entry of advanced competitors and cause the economy to lag behind the technological frontier. Our model provides a possible explanation for the persistence of inefficient democracies and political barriers to technology development, where these reflect shared rather than conflicting interests.