Latin American convergence and divergence towards the mortality profiles of developed countries

It is uncertain whether Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) countries are approaching a single mortality regime. Over the last three decades, LAC has experienced major public health interventions and the highest number of homicides in the world. However, these interventions and homicide rates are not evenly shared across countries. This study documents trends in life expectancy and lifespan variability for 20 LAC countries, 2000–14. By extending a previous method, we decompose differences in lifespan variability between LAC and a developed world benchmark into cause-specific effects. For both sexes, dispersion of amenable diseases through the age span makes the largest contribution to the gap between LAC and the benchmark. Additionally, for males, the concentration of homicides, accidents, and suicides in mid-life further impedes mortality convergence. Great disparity exists in the region: while some countries are rapidly approaching the developed regime, others remain far behind and suffer a clear disadvantage in population health.     

‘Rachel's not here’: Constructed dialogue in gossip

Sociolinguistic research has demonstrated that gossip is a co‐constructed phenomenon, which allows participants to establish solidarity and build alignments with each other, while evaluating an absent party. Gossip can also serve important social functions, such as helping to establish and reconfirm group norms and values. The present study provides a detailed analysis of an extended gossip episode that occurred within an institutional context: a study group interaction at a U.S. university. Our analysis shows how, in gossip, constructed dialogue both prompts and legitimizes pejorative evaluations towards an absent third party, and is actually the pivot around which group members negotiate values and norms in the process of arriving at a shared moral stance. Our analysis also demonstrates that alignment in gossip interactions is tenuous and must be continuously renewed.     

A new long-term survival model with dispersion induced by discrete frailty

Lifetime Data Analysis - Frailty models are generally used to model heterogeneity between the individuals. The distribution of the frailty variable is often assumed to be continuous. However, there...     

Behavioral responses of rural and urban greater white-toothed shrews (Crocidura russula) to sound disturbance

Urban Ecosystems - The development of urban areas imposes challenges that wildlife must adapt to in order to persist in these new habitats. One of the greatest changes brought by urbanization has...     

External knowledge search,absorptive capacity and radical innovation in high-technology firms

Open innovation and absorptive capacity are two concepts based on the idea that companies can leverage the knowledge generated externally to improve their innovation performance. The aim of this paper is to analyse the joint effect of open innovation and absorptive capacity on a firm's radical innovation. Open innovation is expressed in terms of external search breadth and depth strategies and absorptive capacity is described by distinguishing between potential and realized absorptive capacity. In order to test our hypotheses, we carried out empirical research in firms operating in high-technology industries. The results indicate that internal routines and processes for absorbing external knowledge help explain radical innovation as they show a significant effect of potential and realized absorptive capacity. Also, there is a moderating effect of absorptive capacity on open innovation. Specifically, potential absorptive capacity exerts a positive effect on the relationship between external search breadth and depth and radical innovation. Realized absorptive capacity moderates the influence of external search breadth. These findings confirm the complementary nature of absorptive capacity and open innovation search strategies on radical innovation.     

Tests for time series of counts based on the probability-generating function

We propose testing procedures for the hypothesis that a given set of discrete observations may be formulated as a particular time series of counts with a specific conditional law. The new test statistics incorporate the empirical probability-generating function computed from the observations. Special emphasis is given to the popular models of integer autoregression and Poisson autoregression. The asymptotic properties of the proposed test statistics are studied under the null hypothesis as well as under alternatives. A Monte Carlo power study on bootstrap versions of the new methods is included as well as real-data examples.     

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...     

Computing maximum likelihood estimates from type II doubly censored exponential data

It is well-known that, under Type II double censoring, the maximum likelihood (ML) estimators of the location and scale parameters, θ and δ, of a twoparameter exponential distribution are linear functions of the order statistics. In contrast, when θ is known, theML estimator of δ does not admit a closed form expression. It is shown, however, that theML estimator of the scale parameter exists and is unique. Moreover, it has good large-sample properties. In addition, sharp lower and upper bounds for this estimator are provided, which can serve as starting points for iterative interpolation methods such as regula falsi. Explicit expressions for the expected Fisher information and Cramér-Rao lower bound are also derived. In the Bayesian context, assuming an inverted gamma prior on δ, the uniqueness, boundedness and asymptotics of the highest posterior density estimator of δ can be deduced in a similar way. Finally, an illustrative example is included.