The Rise and Prominence of Skip-Generation Households in Lower- and Middle-Income Countries

Investigations into changes in household formations across lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs) rarely consider skip-generation households. Yet, demographic, social, and economic forces increasingly encourage skip-generation household formations. We examine trends and changes in the prevalence of skip-generation households from 1990 to 2016, examining households, adults aged 60+, and children under 15, across 49 countries using household roster data from Demographic and Health Surveys. Analysis takes place in stages, first describing trends in skip-generation households across countries and next providing explanatory analyses using multilevel modeling to assess whether, and the degree to which, country-level characteristics like AIDS mortality and female labor force participation explain trends in the probability that a household is, or that an individual resides in, a skip-generation household. Results indicate extensive increases in skip-generation households in many LMICs, although there is also variation. The increases and variations are not well-explained by the country-level characteristics in our models, suggesting other underlying reasons for the rise and prominence of skip-generation households across LMICs.     

Can Children Recognize Bodily Expressions of Emotion?

Journal of Nonverbal Behavior - Past research has demonstrated that children understand distinct emotion concepts and can accurately recognize facial expressions of distinct emotions by a young...     

Über Macht und Ehre in Vereinen und Verbänden: Ein Rückblick auf Forschung und Politik

Cultural and professional associations are the expression of the modern society with structured organisations. The 19th century was the marking epoch of the constitution of associations in Germany. The involvement of associations in the political live, specially the professional ones, is typical in Germany. While political sciences focus on the analyses of interest representation and mediation functions of organisations, sociology research covers the full range of social, psychological, political and economical functions of organisations. Management and especially human resource management topics are presently gaining a growing importance within the research community which focuses on the cultural and professional organisations.     

The Value of Information in Decision‐Analytic Modeling for Malaria Vector Control in East Africa

Decision analysis tools and mathematical modeling are increasingly emphasized in malaria control programs worldwide to improve resource allocation and address ongoing challenges with sustainability. However, such tools require substantial scientific evidence, which is costly to acquire. The value of information (VOI) has been proposed as a metric for gauging the value of reduced model uncertainty. We apply this concept to an evidenced‐based Malaria Decision Analysis Support Tool (MDAST) designed for application in East Africa. In developing MDAST, substantial gaps in the scientific evidence base were identified regarding insecticide resistance in malaria vector control and the effectiveness of alternative mosquito control approaches, including larviciding. We identify four entomological parameters in the model (two for insecticide resistance and two for larviciding) that involve high levels of uncertainty and to which outputs in MDAST are sensitive. We estimate and compare a VOI for combinations of these parameters in evaluating three policy alternatives relative to a status quo policy. We find having perfect information on the uncertain parameters could improve program net benefits by up to 5–21%, with the highest VOI associated with jointly eliminating uncertainty about reproductive speed of malaria‐transmitting mosquitoes and initial efficacy of larviciding at reducing the emergence of new adult mosquitoes. Future research on parameter uncertainty in decision analysis of malaria control policy should investigate the VOI with respect to other aspects of malaria transmission (such as antimalarial resistance), the costs of reducing uncertainty in these parameters, and the extent to which imperfect information about these parameters can improve payoffs.     

Tolerance limits under Poisson regression based on small-sample asymptotic methodology

This article explores the calculation of tolerance limits for the Poisson regression model based on the profile likelihood methodology and small-sample asymptotic corrections to improve the coverage probability performance. The data consist of n counts, where the mean or expected rate depends upon covariates via the log regression function. This article evaluated upper tolerance limits as a function of covariates. The upper tolerance limits are obtained from upper confidence limits of the mean. To compute upper confidence limits the following methodologies were considered: likelihood based asymptotic methods, small-sample asymptotic methods to improve the likelihood based methodology, and the delta method. Two applications are discussed: one application relating to defects in semiconductor wafers due to plasma etching and the other examining the number of surface faults in upper seams of coal mines. All three methodologies are illustrated for the two applications.     

European Civil Societies Compared: Typically German–Typically French?

According to the ‘social origin theory’ of civil society studies (Salamon and Anheier, Voluntas, 9(3): 213–248 (1998)), the nonprofit sector of today constitutes a ‘repository of former societal struggles and conflicts’. Correspondingly, nonprofits are embedded in administrative and organizational settings, which in many cases date as far back as the latter half of the 19th century—a time when industrialisation and urbanisation started to exert influence in the western world. France and Germany stand for very different societal traditions, political legacies and administrative structures. Traditionally, France is a highly centralized country in which local governments do not enjoy much autonomy. In contrast, Germany is a federalized country where self-government of local communities was introduced as early as at the beginning of the 19th century. Against this background, it comes as a surprise that, aside from few exceptions, the nonprofit sectors in the two countries are very similar. How does this come? We argue that the reason why the French nonprofit sector of today is very similar to the German nonprofit sector is closely linked to the growth of the welfare state in the two countries.