The Life Values of the Russian Population

Based on the results of an international comparison, today's average Russian is characterized by a higher degree of caution (or even fear) and a more pronounced need to be protected by a strong state; and is an individual who has less need for novelty, creativity, freedom, and independence and is less inclined to take risks. At the same time, Russians exhibit a strong sense of self-interest, personal success, and power rather than concern for others, which may be the result of a rapid abandonment of Soviet welfarism. In general, though, data do not show Russians to be uniquely submissive to authority. Magun and Rudnev conclude that the current balance between the values of competitive individualism and solidarity in Russian society is not optimal.     

Gender differences in the experience of violence,discrimination, and stress hormone in African Americans: Implications for public health

Violence is more prevalent in African American communities than in other American communities. This has impacts not only on criminal justice interventions but also on the physical and mental health of these communities including their risk for acquiring life-threatening diseases. While many studies have focused on the effects of violence on African American males, we sought to understand the relative gender effects that violence has on African American females. This is of particular interest given the wide array of scientific literature suggesting maternal health has inter-generational health effects. Understanding gender differences associated with exposure to violence, depression, and immune function is an important step in understanding how young women perceive and internalize societal violence directed toward and around them. We analyzed a cohort of 557 young African American adults aged 18–25 years old from the Washington, DC area. We use sociological, epidemiological, mental health, computational biology, and quantitative genetics approaches to build a predictive portrait of the effects of violence on African American health. This study demonstrates that African American males and females experience different constellations of societal violence, that African American women report greater perception of racial and gender bias, and that cortisol, an indicator of stress response, is correlated to perceived discrimination. This work contributes to current understandings of how violence contributes to negative health outcomes and lays the foundation for a predictive model for sociological, health, and behavior risk that young African Americans encounter.     

Scheduling dedicated jobs with variative processing times

We consider the following optimization problem. There is a set of \(n\) dedicated jobs that are to be processed on \(m\) parallel machines. The job set is partitioned into subsets and jobs of each subset have a common due date. Processing times of jobs are interconnected and they are the subject of the decision making. The goal is to choose a processing time for each job in a feasible way and to construct a schedule that minimizes the maximum lateness. We show that the problem is NP-hard even if \(m=1\) and that it is NP-hard in the strong sense if \(m\) is a variable. We prove that there is no approximate polynomial algorithm with guaranteed approximation ratio less than 2. We propose an integer linear formulation for the problem and perform experiments. The experiments show that the solutions obtained with CPLEX within the limit of 5 min are on average about 5 % from the optimum value for instances with up to 150 jobs, 16 subsets and 11 machines. Most instances were solved to optimality and the average CPLEX running time was 32 s for these instances.     

Stochastic volatility demand systems

We address the estimation of stochastic volatility demand systems. In particular, we relax the homoscedasticity assumption and instead assume that the covariance matrix of the errors of demand systems is time-varying. Since most economic and financial time series are nonlinear, we achieve superior modeling using parametric nonlinear demand systems in which the unconditional variance is constant but the conditional variance, like the conditional mean, is also a random variable depending on current and past information. We also prove an important practical result of invariance of the maximum likelihood estimator with respect to the choice of equation eliminated from a singular demand system. An empirical application is provided, using the BEKK specification to model the conditional covariance matrix of the errors of the basic translog demand system.     

Understanding the justifiability scale in international surveys: an exploratory study

ABSTRACT

The justifiability scale (JS) is widely used to measure individual and country differences in moral attitudes. However, the validity of the instrument has been barely assessed. The current study addressed the concurrent and content validity of four popular JS items (justifiability of homosexuality, suicide, prostitution, and euthanasia). A sample of 493 Russians completed both JS and the four validated multi-item scales. Results demonstrated that multi-item scales measuring suicide, prostitution, and euthanasia attitudes explained less than half of the variance of the corresponding JS items. The JS underestimated the justifiability of homosexuality, prostitution and suicide, and overestimated the justifiability of euthanasia. The JS homosexuality item appeared to be a precise measure of attitudes towards male but less so female homosexuality. The concurrent validity of the four items was associated with item non-differentiation. We conclude that JS items should be used either after accounting for their bias, or as indicators of more abstract latent constructs.     

A Typology of European Values and Russians’ Basic Human Values

Research on social values of the Russian population usually is based on dominant or average values as reflected in public opinion surveys. The research reported in this article takes a different approach, looking not at averages but at how differences in values are distributed throughout the society. This shows a more complex picture, and one that is changing with each new generation.     

Evidence from the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident: The Effect on Health,Education, and Labor Market Outcomes in Belarus

The Chernobyl nuclear accident of 1986 had deleterious health consequences for the population of Belarus, especially for those who were children at the time of the disaster. Using the 2003–2008 waves of the Belarusian Household Survey of Income and Expenditure (BHSIE), we estimate the effect of radiation exposure on the health, education, and labor market outcomes among cohorts and areas affected by the accident, utilizing the nuclear accident as a natural experiment. We find that young individuals who came from the most contaminated areas had worse health, were less likely to hold university degrees, were less likely to be employed, and had lower wages compared to those who were older at the time of the accident and who came from less contaminated areas.     

Improvisation and Innovation in Teams: The Jazz Effect

While numerous models examine the linkages between improvisation and innovation, the factors that moderate this relationship at the team level are unknown. Consequently, this study builds on principles and insights from the jazz jam session framework used by jazz musicians and regression analysis to examine the nature of the improvisation process and consider how it affects innovation. By using unbalanced panel data on 2,749 teams containing between two and eight employees in the United Kingdom during 2002–2016, this study demonstrates that the success of the improvisation process relies on both internal and external factors conducive to innovation. Subsequently, the conclusions drawn may help entrepreneurs and team managers think differently about the role improvisation plays in the innovation activity. As a result, important practical implications are drawn for team managers and entrepreneurs intending to cultivate a willingness to improvise in teams and nurture collaborative relationships with external partners for innovation.