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1 – 10 of over 59000The Epidemiologic Transition can help us understand a fundamental puzzle about aging. The puzzle stems from two seemingly contradictory facts. The first fact is that death rates…
Abstract
The Epidemiologic Transition can help us understand a fundamental puzzle about aging. The puzzle stems from two seemingly contradictory facts. The first fact is that death rates from noninfectious degenerative maladies – the so-called diseases of aging – increase as people age. It seems to be at odds with the historical fact that for nearly a century in which people were aging more than ever before, the aggregate rates of such diseases have been decreasing. In what sense can both be true? Crucial to resolving the puzzle are the age-profiles of such diseases in cohorts that grew up in the different regimes of the Transition. For each cohort, noninfectious diseases had increased with age, resulting in an upward-sloping age profile, which affirms the first fact. As the regimes were transitioning from the Malthusian to the modern one, however, the profiles of successive cohorts had been shifting downward: death rates from noninfectious diseases were shrinking at each age, signifying the newer cohorts’ greater aging potentials. The shifting profiles had been renewing the cohort mix of the population, shaping the century-long descent of such diseases in aggregate, giving rise to the historical fact. The profiles had shifted early in the cohorts’ adult years, associating closely with the newer epidemiologic conditions in childhood. Those conditions appear to be a circumstance under which aging potentials of cohorts could be misgauged, including in one troubling episode in the first half of the nineteenth century when the potentials had reversed.
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The purpose of this paper is to introduce signature analysis to humour research. Signature analysis is not widely used in the fields of humanities, the introduction of a new…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce signature analysis to humour research. Signature analysis is not widely used in the fields of humanities, the introduction of a new technique will invite comparison with the long standing factor analysis method.
Design/methodology/approach
A signature presumes the existence of a model with ideal attributes for the purpose of identification. The model derived from types of humour which describe four types of age dependence. Age dependence contrast sharply with factor analysis which usually ignores age differences in humour. The signatures of four types of humour were calculated from the average scores of all line scores of each type. The Cramer-Rao Bounds were also calculated from the same groups, this defines the centre points and the limits of best type estimators. The age profiles of individual lines were plotted against their type signatures. The error distributions were plotted, with and without offset compensation.
Findings
The error plot with offset compensation showed a spike close to the zero error, indicating the existence of significant matching between profiles and signature.
Research limitations/implications
This is an exploratory analysis of responses from 277 participants in an online long survey. More participation is required/hoped for to confirm these findings.
Practical implications
The graphical identification of context in sentences, humorous and non-humorous.
Originality/value
Signature analysis is well known in the physical sciences, the author knows of no application in psychology or humour research.
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Kadija Charni and Stephen Bazen
Cross-section data suggest that the relationship between age and hourly earnings is an inverted U shape. Evidence from panel data does not necessarily confirm this finding…
Abstract
Purpose
Cross-section data suggest that the relationship between age and hourly earnings is an inverted U shape. Evidence from panel data does not necessarily confirm this finding suggesting that older workers may not experience a reduction in earnings at the end of their working life. The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper the authors use panel data on males for Great Britain in order to examine why the two types of data provide conflicting conclusions. Concentrating on the over 50s, several hypotheses are examined: overlapping cohorts, job tenure, job-changing, labour supply behaviour, and selectivity bias.
Findings
Cohort and individual fixed effects partly explain the divergent conclusions. However, for fully, year-on-year employed individuals, there is no evidence of earnings decline at the end of working life. The authors find no role for selectivity due to retirement, although shorter working hours or partial retirement along with job-changing late in life does provide an explanation for why hourly earnings decline for certain older workers.
Originality/value
The authors find no evidence that the process of ageing itself leads to lower earnings as suggested by the cross-section profile.
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Wim Van Opstal, Eva Deraedt and Caroline Gijselinckx
The sector of work integration social enterprises (WISEs) has grown considerably all across Europe during the last few decades. Unfortunately, many governments do not have a clear…
Abstract
Purpose
The sector of work integration social enterprises (WISEs) has grown considerably all across Europe during the last few decades. Unfortunately, many governments do not have a clear sight on the profile of WISEs they are supporting. The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed profile of WISEs in Flanders and identify shifts and differences within and between WISE work forms.
Design/methodology/approach
Data are utilized from a newly designed monitoring instrument to capture the profile of WISEs in Flanders (Belgium). This paper discusses some methodological issues in using administrative data to monitor this sector, and present a profile at the enterprise level and at the worker level. Parametric and nonparametric tests are applied to assess the significance of profile shifts and differences within this sector.
Findings
One of the dominant features of the analysis has been the identification of profound differences that can be observed between the work forms and the slighter differences that are observed within the work forms while comparing start‐ups to their mature counterparts. Therefore, it might be concluded that the policy framework on the social insertion economy as it currently exists in Flanders has a strong regulative impact on the WISEs in Flanders. This impact translates itself through differences in the profile of enterprises, as well as differences in the profile of the target group workers they employ.
Originality/value
A dataset combining administrative data are created to estimate enterprise and target group worker profiles in this sector. The discussion on methodological aspects involved contributes to the literature on monitoring this sector.
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Tanja Istenič, Jože Sambt and Daša Farčnik
European Union (EU) member states are dedicated to a set of sustainable development goals, among them to: (1) promote well-being for all at all the ages and (2) achieve gender…
Abstract
European Union (EU) member states are dedicated to a set of sustainable development goals, among them to: (1) promote well-being for all at all the ages and (2) achieve gender equality. This chapter uses the National Transfer Accounts (NTA) methodology that enables comprehensive measurement of intergenerational transfers, both public and private, and differences in the gender equality promotion among the countries. Our analysis is based on the fully comparable NTA results for 25 EU countries from 2010. The authors perform cluster analysis based on five indicators, measuring the importance of different types of age reallocations and the differences in gender equality promotion among the EU countries. Since the economic life cycle (showing the level of dependency) and its financing strongly depend on country-specific institutional and cultural settings, the authors link their results with the typical welfare regimes’ typology. The authors end up with three different groups of countries showing a clear north–south division of countries.
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Abdul Kareem Abdul Jawwad, Adnan Al-Bashir, Muhammad Saleem and Bassam Hasanain
This study aims to investigate and model interrelationships between process parameters, geometrical profile characteristics and mechanical properties of industrially extruded…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate and model interrelationships between process parameters, geometrical profile characteristics and mechanical properties of industrially extruded aluminum alloys.
Design/methodology/approach
Statistical design of experiments (DOE) was applied to investigate and model the effects of eight factors including extrusion ratio, stem speed, billet-preheat temperature, number of die cavities, quenching media (water/air), time and temperature of artificial aging treatment and profile nominal thickness on four mechanical properties (yield strength, ultimate tensile strength, percent elongation and hardness). Experiments were carried out at an actual extrusion plant using 8-in. diameter billets on an extrusion press with 2,200 ton capacity.
Findings
Main factors and factor interactions controlling mechanical properties were identified and discussed qualitatively. Quantitative models with high prediction accuracy (in excess of 95%) were also obtained and discussed.
Practical implications
The obtained results are believed to be of great importance to researchers and industrial practitioners in the aluminum extrusion industry.
Originality/value
All practical and relevant parameters have been used to model all important mechanical properties in a collective manner in one study and within actual industrial setup. This is in contrast to all previous studies where either a partial set of parameters and/or mechanical properties are discussed and mostly under limited laboratory setup.
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Frank Slesnick, James Payne and Robert J. Thornton
Over the past 15 years or so, a very large proportion of the forensic economics literature has been devoted to research concerning better ways of estimating damages in cases…
Abstract
Over the past 15 years or so, a very large proportion of the forensic economics literature has been devoted to research concerning better ways of estimating damages in cases involving personal injury and wrongful death (PI/WD). This is probably not surprising since the largest fraction of consulting income for forensic economists (at least those in the National Association of Forensic Economics, NAFE) comes from such cases.
Joseph G. Altonji, John Eric Humphries and Ling Zhong
This chapter uses a college-by-graduate degree fixed effects estimator to evaluate the returns to 19 different graduate degrees for men and women. We find substantial variation…
Abstract
This chapter uses a college-by-graduate degree fixed effects estimator to evaluate the returns to 19 different graduate degrees for men and women. We find substantial variation across degrees, and evidence that OLS overestimates the returns to degrees with the highest average earnings and underestimates the returns to degrees with the lowest average earnings. Second, we decompose the impacts on earnings into effects on wage rates and effects on hours. For most degrees, the earnings gains come from increased wage rates, though hours play an important role in some degrees, such as medicine, especially for women. Third, we estimate the net present value and internal rate of return for each degree, which account for the time and monetary costs of degrees. Finally, we provide descriptive evidence that satisfaction gains are large for some degrees with smaller economic returns, such as education and humanities degrees, especially for men.
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The paper aims to “re-use” the Open Government Data (OGD) published by the Election Commission of India (ECI). Bihar’s performance across General Elections, 2014, and Bihar…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to “re-use” the Open Government Data (OGD) published by the Election Commission of India (ECI). Bihar’s performance across General Elections, 2014, and Bihar Legislative Assembly Elections, 2015, is compared, wherein the role of contestants’ demographic profiles in determining their vote share is being investigated.
Design/methodology/approach
Hypotheses are derived based on the impact of contestants’ demographic profiles (age, marital status, social category, political party affiliation, educational qualification, availing telephone and email facility, criminal antecedents) on their vote share. Following a quantitative approach, multiple regression and logistic regression are used to draw inferences from the data contestants’ affidavits – sourced from the ECI website.
Findings
Results show that contestants’ demographic profiles impact their vote share in the elections. While the ECI website is a viable source for re-using the data available there, data are not available in a user-friendly format and this leads to difficulty in being re-used by different stakeholders.
Originality/value
Academic research on OGD re-use is negligible, and the present study seeks to contribute towards extant literature by underlining the significance of re-using OGD by drawing inferences from the data accessible via ECI.
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Presents results of an investigation into the rate of rental and capital obsolescence in the City of London office market. Using a theoretical approach based on a “vintage model”…
Abstract
Presents results of an investigation into the rate of rental and capital obsolescence in the City of London office market. Using a theoretical approach based on a “vintage model” of capital investment and data from the IPD database, assesses the historic rate of obsolescence in the City and draws comparisons with previous studies, finding similar rates of rental obsolescence (1.2 per cent p.a.), but lower rates of capital obsolescence (1.6 per cent p.a.). Considers the potential for an acceleration in the rate of obsolescence resulting from the introduction of new working practices and the emergence of an endemic over‐supply in the market.
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