Deaf and disabled? (Un)Employment of deaf people in Belgium: a comparison of eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century cohorts

In this article, the employment characteristics of pre-industrial and industrial cohorts of deaf men and women are compared with each other, as well as with a cohort of non-disabled siblings. The aim is to determine the extent to which the employment patterns of deaf persons lined up with those of non-disabled people and to see how nineteenth-century industrialization processes influenced their employment opportunities. This article challenges the widely held assumption that the nineteenth century constituted a definitive break by arguing that the professional lives of deaf people were not necessarily better before industrialization. Moreover, I demonstrate that the development of deaf schools in the course of the nineteenth century opened a new range of career opportunities for deaf individuals.     

Risk Analysis: Celebrating the Accomplishments and Embracing Ongoing Challenges

As part of the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Society for Risk Analysis and Risk Analysis: An International Journal, this essay reviews the 10 most important accomplishments of risk analysis from 1980 to 2010, outlines major accomplishments in three major categories from 2011 to 2019, discusses how editors circulate authors’ accomplishments, and proposes 10 major risk-related challenges for 2020–2030. Authors conclude that the next decade will severely test the field of risk analysis.     

A Probabilistic Framework for Risk Analysis of Widespread Flood Events: A Proof‐of‐Concept Study

This article presents a flood risk analysis model that considers the spatially heterogeneous nature of flood events. The basic concept of this approach is to generate a large sample of flood events that can be regarded as temporal extrapolation of flood events. These are combined with cumulative flood impact indicators, such as building damages, to finally derive time series of damages for risk estimation. Therefore, a multivariate modeling procedure that is able to take into account the spatial characteristics of flooding, the regionalization method top‐kriging, and three different impact indicators are combined in a model chain. Eventually, the expected annual flood impact (e.g., expected annual damages) and the flood impact associated with a low probability of occurrence are determined for a study area. The risk model has the potential to augment the understanding of flood risk in a region and thereby contribute to enhanced risk management of, for example, risk analysts and policymakers or insurance companies. The modeling framework was successfully applied in a proof‐of‐concept exercise in Vorarlberg (Austria). The results of the case study show that risk analysis has to be based on spatially heterogeneous flood events in order to estimate flood risk adequately.     

Blinded continuous monitoring in clinical trials with recurrent event endpoints

In studies with recurrent event endpoints, misspecified assumptions of event rates or dispersion can lead to underpowered trials or overexposure of patients. Specification of overdispersion is often a particular problem as it is usually not reported in clinical trial publications. Changing event rates over the years have been described for some diseases, adding to the uncertainty in planning. To mitigate the risks of inadequate sample sizes, internal pilot study designs have been proposed with a preference for blinded sample size reestimation procedures, as they generally do not affect the type I error rate and maintain trial integrity. Blinded sample size reestimation procedures are available for trials with recurrent events as endpoints. However, the variance in the reestimated sample size can be considerable in particular with early sample size reviews. Motivated by a randomized controlled trial in paediatric multiple sclerosis, a rare neurological condition in children, we apply the concept of blinded continuous monitoring of information, which is known to reduce the variance in the resulting sample size. Assuming negative binomial distributions for the counts of recurrent relapses, we derive information criteria and propose blinded continuous monitoring procedures. The operating characteristics of these are assessed in Monte Carlo trial simulations demonstrating favourable properties with regard to type I error rate, power, and stopping time, ie, sample size.     

China’s Choice of Analytical Models for Its Anti-Monopoly Law

Modern analytical models for anti-monopoly laws are a core element of the application of those laws. Since the Anti-Monopoly Law of the People’s Republic of China was promulgated in 2008, law enforcement and judicial authorities have applied different analytical models, leading to divergent legal and regulatory outcomes as similar cases receive different verdicts. To select a suitable analytical model for China’s Anti-Monopoly Law, we need to consider the possible contribution of both economic analysis and legal formalism and to learn from the mature systems and experience of foreign countries. It is also necessary to take into account such binding constraints as the current composition of China’s anti-monopoly legal system, the ability of implementing agencies and the supply of economic analysis, in order to ensure complementarity between the analytical model chosen and the complexity of economic analysis and between the professionalism of implementing agencies and the cost of compliance for participants in economic activities. In terms of institutional design, the models should provide a considered explanation of the legislative aims of the law’s provisions. It is necessary, therefore, to establish a processing model of behavioral classification that is based on China’s national conditions, applies analytical models using normative comprehensive analysis, makes use of the distribution rule of burden of proof, improves supporting systems related to analytical models and enhances the ability of public authorities to implement the law.     

为合法经营活动而侵犯公民个人信息的刑法规制

最高人民法院、最高人民检察院《关于办理侵犯公民个人信息刑事案件适用法律若干问题的解释》第六条对为合法经营活动而侵犯公民个人信息行为进行独立规制,是新型犯罪罪状表述抽象化与罪状解释具体化、信息时代信息价值多元化与危害行为多样化、现代社会犯罪治理精细化与刑法评价精准化的内在要求.为合法经营活动而侵犯公民个人信息行为相关规范要素中的“为合法经营活动”应理解为主观超过要素,“获利五万元”应作严格解释,“曾因侵犯公民个人信息”应作广义解释,“其他情节严重”应包括信息数量标准.     

Price bias and common practice in option pricing

Generally, the semiclosed-form option pricing formula for complex financial models depends on unobservable factors such as stochastic volatility and jump intensity. A popular practice is to use an estimate of these latent factors to compute the option price. However, in many situations this plug-and-play approximation does not yield the appropriate price. This article examines this bias and quantifies its impacts. We decompose the bias into terms that are related to the bias on the unobservable factors and to the precision of their point estimators. The approximated price is found to be highly biased when only the history of the stock price is used to recover the latent states. This bias is corrected when option prices are added to the sample used to recover the states' best estimate. We also show numerically that such a bias is propagated on calibrated parameters, leading to erroneous values. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 48: 8–35; 2020 © 2019 Statistical Society of Canada     

Conditional time-dependent nonparametric estimators with an application to healthcare production function

ABSTRACT

By using the probabilistic framework of production efficiency, the paper develops time-dependent conditional efficiency estimators performing a non-parametric frontier analysis. Specifically, by applying both full and quantile (robust) time-dependent conditional estimators, it models the dynamic effect of health expenditure on countries’ technological change and technological catch-up levels. The results from the application reveal that the effect of per capita health expenditure on countries’ technological change and technological catch-up is nonlinear and is subject to countries’ specific income levels.