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This article investigates the effect of unemployment on obesity during the Great Recession. Previous studies using mainly individual data surveys find that the relationship is inconclusive. Motivat...

The aim of this study is to contribute to the decision-makers in terms of creating awareness to prevent and reduce the harmful consumption of alcohol by revealing sociodemographic, health-related, ...

This article proposes the individual data privacy during collaborative computation in data mining method using an optimization model. The privacy problem is solved using different methodologies. Th...

Evidence-based decision making often relies on meta-analyzing multiple studies, which enables more precise estimation and investigation of generalizability. Integrative analysis of multiple heterogeneous studies is, however, highly challenging in the ultra high dimensional setting. The challenge is even more pronounced when the individual level data cannot be shared across studies, known as DataSHIELD constraint (Wolfson et al., 2010). Under sparse regression models that are assumed to be similar yet not identical across studies, we propose in this paper a novel integrative estimation procedure for data-Shielding High-dimensional Integrative Regression (SHIR). SHIR protects individual data through summary-statistics-based integrating procedure, accommodates between study heterogeneity in both the covariate distribution and model parameters, and attains consistent variable selection. Theoretically, SHIR is statistically more efficient than the existing distributed approaches that integrate debiased LASSO estimators from the local sites. Furthermore, the estimation error incurred by aggregating derived data is negligible compared to the statistical minimax rate and SHIR is shown to be asymptotically equivalent in estimation to the ideal estimator obtained by sharing all data. The finite-sample performance of our method is studied and compared with existing approaches via extensive simulation settings. We further illustrate the utility of SHIR to derive phenotyping algorithms for coronary artery disease using electronic health records data from multiple chronic disease cohorts.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to determine the socio-demographic and economic factors affecting the frequency of alcohol use by employees aged 15 and above in Turkey. Method: In this st...

Most studies of seasonal variation in mortality rely on aggregated death counts at population level. In this paper, we use individual data to present a series of models for different aspects of sea...

Geoscientific datasets can contain individual data for more than 50 different chemical elements. The association between these variables is as important as their individual values. However, it is c...

The paper examines the conditional effect of income on mortality risk of men in Tunisia in a population based case-control survey study combining individual data from two databases on 11,231 surviv...

Inferences from different data sources can often be fused together, a process referred to as “fusion learning,” to yield more powerful findings than those from individual data sources alone. Effect...

Welfare services are an important channel for building institutional trust. But does it matter if the service is publicly or privately provided? Using SEM on individual data from public and private...

Most previous research on the associations between pornography use and relational well-being has utilized individual data sets that have limited scholars' ability to truly understand the dyadic nature of pornography use within romantic couples. Using a dyadic data set of 240 committed heterosexual couples from the United States, we explored actor and partner associations between pornography use, sexual dynamics, and relational well-being. We also explored how couple pornography use and partner knowledge of pornography use were associated with well-being. Results suggested that female pornography use was associated with higher female sexual desire but no other dependent variables. Male pornography use was associated with a wide array of negative well-being indicators, including less male and female relationship satisfaction, lower female sexual desire, and lower male positive communication. Couple pornography use was associated with higher reported sexual satisfaction for both partners but no other well-being indicators. Partner knowledge of use had little direct association with well-being, but some evidence suggested that unknown individual use may be associated with less sexual satisfaction but more relationship satisfaction. Results suggest that different configurations of use among heterosexual couples are associated with varying relational well-being indicators.

This study seeks to discuss the survivability of charitable nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Russia without foreign funding. We use cross-sectional data from a quantitative household survey conducted in April 2016 to investigate common giving patterns of Russians. We find that Russians prefer to give directly to people in need rather than to NGOs; the donations are small, spontaneous, and irregular; they are mainly targeted to supporting the poor and the sick. Involvement in religious activities and higher self-assessed income are two factors that contribute most to the probability of donating. Educated and younger donors are more likely to donate to NGOs compared to donating to particular people/families. The study suggests that private donations to NGOs will decline if no changes in public policy are made. NGOs supporting education, environment, culture, or civil organizations seem to be worst hit.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of auditory training in noise on auditory behaviors and life habits in children with auditory processing disorder.Methods: Ten children ...

Precision governance is an administrative capacity in which policy decisions are enhanced with information about individual and collective preferences and contexts. We introduce the prospects for precision governance of natural hazards through the use of both big and individual data technologies, describing what is enabled and what concerns arise with their use. We ground our perspective with a topical focus on mitigating the health risks of high temperatures in the chronically hot setting of Phoenix, Arizona, USA. A study examining individually experienced temperature data provides compelling evidence that the transition towards data-driven precision governance will enhance hazard preparedness and response efforts.

This study aimed to explore the strength of the force–velocity (F–V) relationship of lower limb muscles and the reliability of its parameters (maximum force [F0], slope [a], maximum velocity [V0], and maximum power [P0]). Twenty-three men were tested in two different jump types (squat and countermovement jump: SJ and CMJ), performed under two different loading conditions (free weight and Smith machine: Free and Smith) with 0, 17, 30, 45, 60, and 75 kg loads. The maximum and averaged values of F and V were obtained for the F–V relationship modelling. All F–V relationships were strong and linear independently whether observed from the averaged across the participants (r ≥ 0.98) or individual data (r = 0.94–0.98), while their parameters were generally highly reliable (F0 [CV: 4.85%, ICC: 0.87], V0 [CV: 6.10%, ICC: 0.82], a [CV: 10.5%, ICC: 0.81], and P0 [CV: 3.5%, ICC: 0.93]). Both the strength of the F–V relationships and the reliability of their parameters were significantly higher for (1) the CMJ ...

Exploration is becoming harder, at depth or under cover and decisions need to be made in model rather than data space; supported by multiple data sets. Geophysics plays an ever increasing role and integration of information from various geophysical data sets in tight collaboration with geological control is required to maximise the return from the individual data sets. In terms of integrating geological and geophysical data, the essential goal is to interpret the available geophysical data in terms of geological domains. The process requires a common sense approach to interpretation that is flexible, adaptive and objective driven. It is not an exact formula or procedure; particularly when multiple geophysical surveys are involved. Understanding the relationships between geology, geophysical responses and rock properties is the key to develop a geological basis for your integrated interpretation. Following this, rapid 3D geological modelling and geologically based forward modelling and inversion are essential for model validation and quantitative integration of data. An integrated interpretation is not necessarily the simplest approach, but does provide answers to geoscientific questions that are stronger than individual elements interpreted on their own. This paper presents a review of the mechanics involved in integrated interpretation and demonstrates the results with selected case study examples.

Expanding road capacity and raising fuel economy are two policy mechanisms to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but each is susceptible to feedback effects that might offset their overall effectiveness at promoting sustainable transportation. Expanding road capacity engenders more traffic through the induced demand effect and raising fuel economy encourages more use through the rebound effect. Research on each feedback effect is evident in the sustainable transportation literature. However, research on their interaction is lacking. To fill this void, this article analyzes how additional road capacity and higher fuel economy interact to affect individual vehicle kilometers of travel (VKT) in metropolitan areas across the United States. The article pools individual data from the respective 2001 and 2009 National Household Travel Surveys (NHTS) and adopts a novel methodological approach known as multilevel modeling to estimate a three-level VKT model that nests individuals within vehicles within metro...

In this paper, a stochastic individual data model is considered. It accommodates occurrence times, reporting, and settlement delays and severity of every individual claims. This formulation gives rise to a model for the corresponding aggregate data under which classical chain ladder and Bornhuetter–Ferguson algorithms apply. A claims reserving algorithm is developed under this individual data model and comparisons of its performance with chain ladder and Bornhuetter–Ferguson algorithms are made to reveal the effects of using individual data to instead aggregate data. The research findings indicate a remarkable promotion in accuracy of loss reserving, especially when the claims amounts are not too heavy-tailed.

Consulting with patients is the core learning activity of Australian family medicine (general practice/GP) training, providing a rich source of reflective learning for trainees. We have developed a reflective learning program for postgraduate vocational trainees based on clinical encounters.The Registrar Clinical Encounters in Training (ReCEnT) program is an educational program documenting GP trainees' consultations in five Australian GP training providers. Trainees record patient demographics, consultation details, problems managed, management practices and educational factors from sixty consecutive consultations per six-month training term. Trainees receive a detailed feedback report comparing individual data to aggregated trainee data and national GP data.The patient encounter system provides multiple opportunities for reflective learning across a number of domains of exposure and practice. Reflection can occur during completion of the encounter form; as self-reflection on the feedback report; as facilitated reflection with the GP trainer and medical educator; and as part of integration of data into teaching. We have identified areas for further development, including enhancing the reflective skills of trainees and trainers.The ReCEnT patient encounter program provides a rich platform for reflective learning for vocational trainees and supports development of skills in lifelong learning.

Research benefits a great deal when different kinds of registers can be combined. Record linkage is an important tool for connecting sources to create longitudinal databases of individual data. In ...

This study investigates the role of cigarette prices on smoking initiation and cessation among youth in a sample of eight primarily non-Western low, middle, and high income countries, with a particular focus on a subsample of 40 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Using split-population duration models on longitudinally-transformed individual data from the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS), the average impact of cigarette prices in the presence of unobserved country heterogeneity and shifting cultural norms within countries is identified by the variation of cigarette prices within countries over time. Price increases are found to effectively reduce initiation in early youth, and girls are considerably more responsive than boys. The price elasticity of initiation in LMICs is −0.82 for the combined gender analysis, −0.46 for boys only and −1.5 for girls only. There is some indication that youths in developing countries may be slightly less responsive to price changes than in high-income countries. No...

Inclusive financial sectors are important for development in terms of equity and efficiency. Although microfinance has developed rapidly, little is known about the actual costs for clients to access microfinance services, except for interest rates. The insufficient outreach of microfinance in rural areas remains one of the main challenges for the sector. This paper uses the individual data of 255 clients in India and the data of 48 groups to which they belong to compare the transaction costs (TCs) between urban and rural microfinance clients. The results suggest that the TCs incurred by urban microfinance borrowers are globally higher than those incurred by their rural counterparts (4.81% compared with 3.35%), mainly because of their opportunity expenses and individual costs that are unrelated to microfinance groups. Yet, when considering a household's total monthly expenditure level, the microfinance TCs constitute a much higher relative expenditure for rural households than for their urban counterparts....

This paper deals with the issues of selective migration moves, and the production and reproduction of immigrantdense neighbourhoods in Stockholm, Sweden. It has been shown earlier that selective migration, that is, socioeconomic and ethnic differences between those leaving, entering and staying in so-called deprived neighbourhoods, reproduces these neighbourhoods' characteristics of being poor and immigrant dense. Key concepts launched to inform such studies and derived from the US segregation discourse are “white fight” and “white avoidance”, meaning that native people (or white people in the US case) tend to leave neighbourhoods experiencing growing numbers of immigrants (black people) and which they also tend to avoid moving into such neighbourhoods. Using a complete set of geo-coded longitudinal individual data for the 2005–2008 Stockholm County population, this paper contributes to our understanding of ethnic differences in the intra-urban migration system. Three empirical questions are addressed: what individual characteristics distinguish (1) those who move into neighbourhoods experiencing rapidly increasing immigrant densities from those moving elsewhere in the urban region; (2) those who leave neighbourhoods experiencing rapidly increasing immigrant densities from those who stay put; (3) those who move in the direction of higher immigrant densities from those moving into lower densities? Results from multivariate statistical analyses provide support for the avoidance hypothesis but less support for the fight hypothesis. When controlling for a range of individual and neighbourhood attributes there is clear evidence that native-born Swedes are less inclined than most immigrant categories to move into immigrant dense areas while ethnic origin does not seem to matter much when explaining who leaves such areas.

Copulas are functions that parameterize the dependence between univariate marginal distribution functions to form a joint distribution function. Copulas provide a consistent procedure for testing dependence and guiding the choice of empirical model. In this study we use copulas to measure the dependence in labour supply by married farm couples. Using individual data our research provides an easy method that researchers can use to address the issues of dependence. The method outlined here reduces computational time and provides a more efficient method of testing dependence early in the investigative process. Unlike previous studies findings from this study show with robustness that labour supply decision of married farm couples is best modelled jointly.

By using new linked firm and individual data for cases in one US region, including firms in banking, we contribute to three issues concerning the incidence of financial incentive (FI) schemes: (1) firm-level data reveal the existence of substantial differences in incidence across firms in similar industries in this region and provide weak evidence of a role for urban versus regional location in accounting for differences in implementation of FIs; (2) individual-level data, gathered from face-to-face surveys for almost 900 employees in the cases, show substantial within-firm heterogeneity concerning the distribution of particular FIs among employees, although probit estimates do not uncover consistent evidence concerning the key determinants of the reasons behind these mainly managerial choices for all FIs; (3) the individual data also indicate the existence of substantial within-establishment heterogeneity in employee knowledge of the coverage of FIs. In accounting for the determinants of this variation i...

Reference data for speech range profiles (SRP), voice range profiles (VRP), and Voice Handicap Index (VHI) are presented for Swedish males (n = 30). For comparisons, individual data for four male contact granuloma patients are also reported. For the vocally healthy group mean values were: speaking fundamental frequency 123 Hz (SD 12.1), speaking equivalent level, Leq, 72.2 dB (SD 2.1), SRP area 142 ST*dB (SD 24.1), and VRP area 1,706 ST*dB (SD 340). Mean VHI was 5 (SD 4.8). Test-retest recordings of VRP and SRP for three subjects suggested good reliability. SRP and VRP values for three of the patients fell more than 2 SD outside the reference values. Protocols and results are discussed and standardized recording and analyses procedures are suggested.

A Markov chain approach is used to determine the run-length distribution of the two-sided nonparametric exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) control chart for i.i.d. individual data and some associated performance characteristics.

Due to its unique political institutions and good economic track record, Switzerland used to be called a special case. This paper investigates the start-up propensities in this country based on the individual data of the adult population survey of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. The focus is on the factors that are distinctive for Switzerland: language differences and differences in taxes on corporate profit and personal income. There are substantial entrepreneurship disparities among the language areas of Switzerland. Still, I do not find evidence for a cultural influence. The different start-up propensities in the three language areas can be explained by structural characteristics of the regional economy. The same applies to differences in income and profit taxes. If other regional factors are taken into account, I do not find evidence for a direct influence of taxes on the entrepreneurial propensity of the inhabitants of Swiss regions. There is however some evidence for indirect effects. This pape...

Background: Although persons with aphasia typically have difficulty with the production of language at the level of discourse, there is a paucity of reliable measurement systems to quantify the characteristics of spoken language. Nicholas and Brookshire (1993) developed one of the few standardised, rule-based systems to quantify the informativeness of spoken language samples. While the authors reported temporal stability for all measures, they also noted variability at the individual level. Because individual data were not reported, it is difficult to determine the nature and extent of that variability. Aims: The aim of the current investigation was to further explore Nicholas and Brookshire's (1993) quantitative linguistic analyses, and to examine individual variability over time in persons with aphasia. Methods & Procedures: Five fluent and six nonfluent persons with aphasia produced language samples over repeated sampling times in response to the 10 stimulus items used by Nicholas and Brookshire (1993)...

This study uses individual data to explore the reasons young Japanese workers are becoming nonpermanent employees, and to analyze the factors including both year effects and effects tied to individuals' characteristics that account for recent increases in nonpermanent employment rate. The results are, first, there has been an increase in the number of young people who are becoming nonpermanent employees "reluctantly." Even among people in the same age group, those who entered the workforce later tend to have higher rates of nonpermanent employment. Second, factor analysis reveals the possibility that covariant factors, such as macroeconomic fluctuations or changes in labor demand, are a major reason for the increase in nonpermanent employment rate among young people. Third, the increase in the number of females and unmarried people in the labor force are also a predominant factor behind the increase in nonpermanent employment rates.

In two experiments participants had to detect changes in periodic sinusoidal functions, displayed in either graphic or tabular displays. Graphs had a major advantage over tables when the task required considering configurations of data. Both displays led to similar results when task performance could rely on inspecting individual data points. With graphs almost all participants reported using the optimal method for detecting changes in the function, i.e., they used the method requiring the least effort to perform the task. With tables only about half used the optimal detection method, and these participants showed transfer of learning of detection methods between tasks. Experience in using a detection method led to improved performance if the new task relied on the same method of detection. These findings demonstrate the need to consider task performance methods when determining the relative value of different displays. The set of tasks for which a display is used is likely to affect performance and needs to be analysed as a whole, since methods employed for one task can affect task performance in other tasks.

Privatisation faces strong and increasingly popular opposition in Latin America. This paper uses individual data on social attitudes, socioeconomic status and demographic information from three waves of Latinobarometro surveys (1998, 2000 and 2002) in 17 countries to study the role of privatisation of utilities and its distributional impact. We find that disagreement with privatisation is most likely when the respondent is on a low-to-middle income and when it involves a high proportion of public services such as water and electricity. This complements recent empirical research that points to distributional concerns in the implementation of privatisation in Latin America, particularly because of inadequate regulation of utilities.

In this article, individual data from the Survey on the Baby-Boomer Generation's Work and Life Vision conducted in October 2006 by the Japan Institute for Labor Policy and Training (JILPT) are used to perform a quantitative analysis on the effects of occupational career type on employment pattern choices among baby-boomers. The main conclusions are: first, an analysis of the effects on employment pattern choice before age sixty shows that specialists have a higher probability than generalists of working in part-time jobs or being self-employed; and second, an analysis of the effects on preferred employment patterns at age sixty-five shows that specialists are more likely than generalists to prefer self-employment. This analysis suggests that to promote the employment of seniors, it will be important to provide occupational retraining to generalists who are in middle age, which includes baby-boomers, and to respond to the occupational needs of specialists with specialized skills by providing a social envir...

In this article, we investigate the pay–performance relationship of soccer players using individual data from eight seasons of the German soccer league Bundesliga. We find a nonlinear pay–performance relationship, indicating that salary does indeed affect individual performance. The results further show that player performance is affected not only by absolute income level but also by relative income position. An additional analysis of the performance impact of team effects provides evidence of a direct impact of team-mate attributes on individual player performance.

Analyses of individual data have failed to identify any strong source of support for the British Liberal Democrats. This paper suggests that an analysis at an aggregate level may reveal the reasons why the party gains a higher or lower vote share at a certain election. Regression analysis indicates that the Liberal Democrat vote share is positively affected by major‐party polarisation. The impact of such polarisation on the third‐party vote is much stronger than that of social factors, such as the increase in the number of degree‐holders or the growth of the salariat, or even of the party's own moderate policy profile. In the light of such findings, the Liberal Democrats can do little on their own to improve their electoral performance.

During the past two decades the wage gap between high and low skill labour has increased more in the USA than in many European countries. In this paper, the correspondence between occupation and education is used to construct aggregates of skill supply, skill demand and unemployment by skill group that are comparable across countries. Using individual data for years 1983–1994, it is found that the relative demand for skilled labour has increased to a similar extent in the USA and in Europe and that wage inequality remained low in Europe partly because the European relative supply of skill increased much faster than in the USA, and partly because European relative wages were rigid, which caused an increase in unemployment among the low-skilled.

Owing to the growing concerns over data confidentiality, many national statistical agencies are considering remote access servers to disseminate data to the public. With remote servers, users submit requests for output from statistical models fit using the collected data, but they are not allowed access to the data. Remote servers also should enable users to check the fit of their models; however, standard diagnostics like residuals or influence statistics can disclose individual data values. In this article, we present diagnostics for categorical data regressions that can be safely and usefully employed in remote servers. We illustrate the diagnostics with simulation studies.

Controlled data exchange is the next important growth phase of the Web and related technologies. Digital identity technology provides a foundation to realistically model real-world entities, their attributes, and the exchange of data between them as individual data authorities in a trusted data exchange environment.

Background: The twin method was used to examine the genotype/phenotype relationship in colour vision, by determining concordance in colour perception within pairs of monozygotic (MZ) twins and dizygotic (DZ) twins. For MZ twins, whose photopigments are genetically identical, higher concordance in colour perception was expected; conversely, differences within each MZ pair would indicate a non-genetic contribution. Method: Ratings of dissimilarity between successively presented colours were elicited from four MZ and three DZ twin pairs. A non-twin sibling pair and three unrelated normal trichromats were enrolled, for comparison. Concordance for each twin (sibling) pair was estimated by Spearman correlations (rs) between data matrices and by Procrustes distances (gl) between colour spaces, reconstructed from individual data using multidimensional scaling (MDS). Results: For MZ twins, rs values (0.94–0.97) were comparable to intra-individual variability and significantly higher than those for DZ twins and siblings (0.72–0.82). Further, colour spaces for MZ co-twins were less discordant, with gl values (0.008–0.029) lower than for DZ co-twins (0.073–0.079) and siblings (0.052). Finally, concordances among all pairs of subjects were summarised by a geometrical ‘subject space’: the mean distance between MZ co-twins was 29 per cent of that between DZ and sibling pairs. Discussion: Lower concordance rates in DZ twins and siblings can be attributed to differences in the inherited arrays of photopigment genes. The high concordance for MZ twins is in line with their shared photopigment genotype, placing an upper limit on contributions to discordance from possible individual variations in non-genetic factors. Potential photoreceptor, ocular and cognitive sources of inter-twin variation are discussed.

This paper uses a large individual data set from the Euro Barometer Survey (ICPSR 1993) to estimate the influence of religious phenomena on self-perceived satisfaction of an individual, controlling for macroeconomic conditions, effects of his political stance, and other socio-economic variables. Our estimated ordered logit model results show that an individual's life satisfaction is positively related to measures of strong religious attachment in the sense of being willing to commit to attending religious services frequently. Our other findings include that no strong evidence exists for the hypothesis that leftists suffer more from income inequality.

C HEVASSUS-LOZZA E. and G ALLIANO D. (2003) Local spillovers, firm organization and export behaviour: evidence from the French food industry, Reg. Studies 37 , 147-158. The objective of this paper is to determine the respective effects of spatial externalities (urban and industrial economies of agglomeration), specific internal characteristics (due to the organization of firms) and industrial spillovers (due to national specialization) on the export behaviour of firms. For this purpose, this econometric study, based on individual data of firms, distinguishes two aspects: firstly, the firms' decision to export or not; and, secondly its export performance. The first results confirm that the competitiveness of firms is not only due to the effect of national specialization, but also to firms specific advantages that are closely related to the characteristics of their spatial environment.

This article examines the availability of data to produce a rationale for the allocation of resources to develop learning opportunities focused on a particular geographical area. Data may be generated through people's engagement with various systems that register their involvement, such as school, adult education, unemployment and social security benefits. Ward or postal district/postcode performance within individual data sets needs to be interpreted, so that the relationship between different results across a local authority's patch is understood. The analysis of various data sets builds up a profile of an area. The combination and layering of different data sets may or may not produce a correlation which supports the case for intervention, which no one set of data can provide. The consequence of such an exercise with London Borough of Ealing has been the targeting of resources on the wards and postal district that make up the Northolt area of the Borough.

Ecologic U.S. county data suggest negative associations between residential radon exposure and lung cancer mortality (LCM) that are inconsistent with clearly positive ones revealed by individual data on underground miners. If this inconsistency is due to competing effects of induced cell killing vs. mutations in alpha-radiation exposed bronchial epithelium, then linear extrapolation from miner data may overestimate typical residential radon risks. To investigate the plausibility of this hypothesis, a biologically based “cytodynamic 2-stage” (CD2) cancer-risk model was fit to combined 1950 to 1954 age-specific person-year data on white females of age 40+ y in 2821 U.S. counties (∼90% never-smokers), and on five cohorts of underground miners who never smoked, conditional on a realistic rate of alpha-radiation-induced killing of human lung cells, and on linear-no-threshold dose-response relations for both processes assumed to affect cancer risk (alpha-induced mutations and cell killing). As summarized previo...

Data on 1420 high-standard rugby union players measured between 1905 and 1999 were collated to chart the evolution of body size and shape in rugby union football. Individual data were available for 843 players. Where only summary statistics were presented, Monte Carlo simulation was used to generate pseudo-data. Anthropometric variables included height, body mass, body mass index (BMI) and somatotype where available. The rates of increase in body mass (2.6 kg per decade) and BMI (0.4 kg x m(-2) per decade) were well above those of the general population of young males. The increase in height (1.0 cm per decade) was comparable to the secular increase. The increases in body mass and BMI since 1975 have been three to four times those between 1905 and 1975. Since 1975, players have been less endomorphic (-0.3 units per decade) and less ectomorphic (-0.4 units per decade), but much more mesomorphic (+1.1 units per decade) than before. There is a close association between body size and success. Final ranking in the 1999 World Cup showed significant correlations with the average mass of the squads.

To fight unemployment in Germany, since 1994 public promotion of start-ups by the unemployed (called bridging allowances) were accelerated. Empirical analyses based on individual data show that unemployed entrepreneurs are not a random sample of the group of persons who leave unemployment. Simultaneous econometric models based on firm data for the period from 1994 to 1997 indicate that bridging allowances had no positive impact on firm survival and employment growth in the group of promoted firms. Selectivity, heterogeneity, and general equilibrium effects of bridging allowances are among the reasons for the empirical findings

This paper examines the relevance of individual and structural theories of migration for Salvadoran circular migrants to the U.S. and other countries. Using 1995 individual data taken from impoverished suburban areas corresponding to cities across the fourteen Salvadoran geographic departments, our results strongly support the importance of network theories of migration. Thus, the existence of networks of support in the U.S. increases individuals' migration likelihood; in contrast, attachment to networks in the sending country, such as community organizations, decreases people's probability to become circular migrants to any country. Finally, contrary to hypothetical expectations, political factors do not influence our sample's migration patterns.

The effect of straw bedding on aggression, production and welfare in loose-housed, pregnant sows was studied in 14 commercial farms, half of them with straw bedding and the other half with a concrete floor. The herds were visited twice and agonistic behaviour was observed. Body lesions, movement disorders and production results were also recorded. There were no significant differences in aggression, body lesions or production results between herds with concrete floor and herds with straw bedding. Movement disorders were more common in herds with concrete floor than in herds with straw bedding. Herds with a high score for movement disorders tended to have a higher percentage of sows returning to oestrus than herds with a low score. Individual data showed no significant correlation between production variables and body lesion score. However, the sows that were culled had a higher mean score for body lesions than the means of both types of farms. Altogether, this study shows that straw bedding was advantageo...

In this paper a panel of workers and firms is used to investigate employment composition and dynamics in industries which differ by innovation intensity. To define the latter industry-wide statistics were used (for a subset of 2,800 firms, individual data on R&D expenditures and investments in innovative processes were available from a survey on manufacturing). Firms and workers are observed over the period 1985–1991. The paper document an high rate of labour turnover. Annual separation rates are high in all size-classes, but they decline from 50% in small firms (less than 20 employees) to 13% in large ones (with more than 1,000 employees). Separations are inversely related to an industry's innovative intensity (from 18% in the highly innovative industries to 31% in the traditional industries). A logit model, which controlled for the characteristics of workers and firms, showed that the probability of separation is higher among manual and young workers and decreases monotonically with the firm size. The p...

In the last 20 years the exposure of German coal miners to respirable dust has been lowered and controlled according to enacted dust standards. The incidence of coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP) dropped substantially, but the question remains whether the CWP risk has been eliminated. A historical cohort study was performed enrolling all hard coal miners at two typical collieries of the Ruhr area (Heinrich Robert, high rank coal: n = 564; Walsum, low rank coal: n = 693) and at all six collieries of the Saar area (n = 4521, special low rank coal) who began work underground without earlier exposure between 1974 and 1979 (Ruhr) or 1980 and 1986 (Saar). Thus all three typical stratigraphic horizons of German coal seams were considered. Complete individual data on shifts worked underground, exposures to respirable coal mine dust and quartz dust, and CWP development during time underground were compiled for each miner. Historical exposures were based mainly on 43,842 static gravimetric measurements. CW...

A versatile graphical tool, the BLiP plot, was developed for displaying one-dimensional data. The basic building blocks are boxes, lines, and points. Like many standard one-dimensional distribution plots, the BLiP plot is capable of displaying individual data values in points or lines and grouped information in lines or boxes. In addition, the BLiP plot includes many new features such as variable-width plots and several choices of point patterns. The main advantage of the BLiP plot is that it provides users with basic graphical elements in a friendly and flexible environment so that users can, according to their needs, construct anything from a simple, standard plot to a complex, customized plot to best present their data.