Who cares and how much: exploring the determinants of co-residential informal care

The importance of informal care provided inside the household (co-residential care) is widely acknowledged in policy circles. However, the factors that determine the likelihood and scale of provision are not fully understood. A two-part model (2PM) is used to investigate both participation and levels of provision. Random effects dynamic panel specifications are employed. Results show that co-residential informal care competes with other time demanding activities, such as childcare and employment. Wealthier individuals are less likely to be caregivers, whereas wealthier households have a higher tendency towards caregiving. Evidence of both substitution and complementarity is found between formal and informal care. Informal care and health status are significantly related, with carers more likely to report worse General Health Questionnaire scores than non-carers. Finally, significant dynamic effects are observed with the continuance of the provision of informal care being more likely than the initiation of such activity, while heavy commitment in the past increases the hours provided in the current period.

Measures of uniformity in experimental designs: A selective overview

ABSTRACT

Discrepancies are measures which are defined as the deviation between the empirical and the theoretical uniform distribution. In this way, discrepancy is a measure of uniformity which provides a way of construction a special kind of space filling designs, namely uniform designs. Several discrepancies have been proposed in recent literature. A brief, selective review of these measures including some construction algorithms are given in this paper. Furthermore, a critical discussion along with some comparisons is provided, as well.     

Tuning Parameter Estimation in Penalized Least Squares Methodology

The efficiency of the penalized methods (Fan and Li, 2001 Fan , J. , Li , R. ( 2001 ). Variable selection via nonconcave penalized likelihood and its oracle properties . Journal of the American Statistical Association 96 : 1348 – 1360 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) depends strongly on a tuning parameter due to the fact that it controls the extent of penalization. Therefore, it is important to select it appropriately. In general, tuning parameters are chosen by data-driven approaches, such as the commonly used generalized cross validation. In this article, we propose an alternative method for the derivation of the tuning parameter selector in penalized least squares framework, which can lead to an ameliorated estimate. Simulation studies are presented to support theoretical findings and a comparison of the Type I and Type II error rates, considering the L ₁, the hard thresholding and the Smoothly Clipped Absolute Deviation penalty functions, is performed. The results are given in tables and discussion follows.     

From social workers to socio-therapists: the transformative journey of substance abuse therapists

ABSTRACT

The efficiency of interventions in addiction is associated with the processes of practitioners’ professional development. Identity formation is studied extensively for clinical professions but little research focuses on social workers working in addiction settings. This study examined the experience of social workers working in a community treatment network in Greece. Fifteen interviews were conducted with 11 women and 4 men, ranging between 29 and 47 years οf age, who worked in different centers within the network. Data were analyzed following the guidelines of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, offering in-depth examinations of people’s lived experience. The results delineate a series of transformations in professional identity comprising a process of biographization. The participants highlighted intrapersonal and relational factors that influence this process which leads to self-understanding and engagement with the therapeutic community. The results contribute to deciphering the factors that influence social workers’ experience in their professional identity formation in substance abuse treatment contexts.     

Experimental evidence on the effect of incentives and domain in risk aversion and discounting tasks

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty - Environmental policy evaluation is often criticised for employing discount rates that have little grounding in research. Yet, experimental research aimed at...     

QUANTITATIVE EASING AND THE UK STOCK MARKET: DOES THE BANK OF ENGLAND INFORMATION DISSEMINATION STRATEGY MATTER?

We use intraday aggregate stock market data and an event‐study framework to assess the UK's equity market reaction to the unexpected element of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee's (MPC) asset purchase announcements for the 2009–2017 period. We assess the reactions of equity returns and their volatility over various time frames, both preceding and following the MPC announcements. Our results show that the UK unconventional monetary policy shocks have a significant impact on domestic equity returns and volatilities. The strength of this impact depends on the Bank's information dissemination through inflation reports and the publication of the MPC's voting records. (JEL G14, E44, E52)     

Model Discrimination Criteria on Model-Robust Designs

Recently, interest about model discrimination has been focused on methods based on model estimation. Due to the problem of model aliasing, several criteria have been proposed aimed at assessing the capacity of a design for model discrimination. Three of these measures, along with a new criterion that combines them and assesses the overall discrimination capacity of a design, are implemented to evaluate a class of 27-run orthogonal arrays in three levels.     

Valuing Informal Care Experience: Does Choice of Measure Matter?

Well-being equations are often estimated to generate monetary values for non-marketed activities. In such studies, utility is often approximated by either life satisfaction or General Health Questionnaire scores. We estimate and compare monetary valuations of informal care for the first time in the UK employing both measures, using longitudinal data on well-being and informal care provision. The choice of well-being measure has some effect on the estimated parameters and resulting monetary valuations, but any differences are not statistically significant. Further research is needed to confirm the comparability of these measures if researchers are to continue to use them interchangeably.     

A new variable selection method for uniform designs

As an important class of space-filling designs, uniform designs (UDs) choose a set of points over a certain domain such that these points are uniformly scattered, under a specific discrepancy measure. They have been applied successfully in many industrial and scientific experiments since they appeared in 1980. A noteworthy and practical advantage is their ability to investigate a large number of high-level factors simultaneously with a fairly economical set of experimental runs. As a result, UDs can be properly used as experimental plans that are intended to derive the significant factors from a list of many potential ones. To this end, a new screening procedure is introduced via penalized least squares. A simulation study is conducted to support the proposed method, which reveals that it can be considered quite promising and expedient, as judged in terms of Type I and Type II error rates.     

A real survival analysis application via variable selection methods for Cox's proportional hazards model

Variable selection is fundamental to high-dimensional statistical modeling in diverse fields of sciences. In our health study, different statistical methods are applied to analyze trauma annual data, collected by 30 General Hospitals in Greece. The dataset consists of 6334 observations and 111 factors that include demographic, transport, and clinical data. The statistical methods employed in this work are the nonconcave penalized likelihood methods, Smoothly Clipped Absolute Deviation, Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator, and Hard, the maximum partial likelihood estimation method, and the best subset variable selection, adjusted to Cox's proportional hazards model and used to detect possible risk factors, which affect the length of stay in a hospital. A variety of different statistical models are considered, with respect to the combinations of factors while censored observations are present. A comparative survey reveals several differences between results and execution times of each method. Finally, we provide useful biological justification of our results.