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Stated choice experiments can be used to estimate the parameters in discrete choice models by showing hypothetical choice situations to respondents. These attribute levels in each choice situation are determined by an underlying experimental design. Often, an orthogonal design is used, although recent studies have shown that better experimental designs exist, such as efficient designs. These designs provide more reliable parameter estimates. However, they require prior information about the parameter values, which is often not readily available. Serial efficient designs are proposed in this paper in which the design is updated during the survey. In contrast to adaptive conjoint, serial conjoint only changes the design across respondents, not within-respondent thereby avoiding endogeneity bias as much as possible. After each respondent, new parameters are estimated and used as priors for generating a new efficient design. Results using the multinomial logit model show that using such a serial design, using zero initial prior values, provides the same reliability of the parameter estimates as the best efficient design (based on the true parameters). Any possible bias can be avoided by using an orthogonal design for the first few respondents. Serial designs do not suffer from misspecification of the priors as they are continuously updated. The disadvantage is the extra implementation cost of an automated parameter estimation and design generation procedure in the survey. Also, the respondents have to be surveyed in mostly serial fashion instead of all parallel.

The design of bibliographic records for computer input is explored. The elements of a record provide bibliographic description, serve as retrieval keys, facilitate ordered filing, and indicate locations. The effect of each of these functions on the form of the record is discussed. Problems are raised that must be resolved before an optimal record can be designed.

This paper introduces some of the research that has been conducted into staff stress in learning disability services. It also examines how some individual characteristics of service users, particularly challenging behaviour and mental health problems, may influence the levels of staff stress reported. Service changes as a result of the development of supported living are also considered briefly. Some suggestions are made as to how these changes might influence staff. The importance of new research investigating these developments from a staff perspective is highlighted.

Evidence is mounting to suggest that stress not only influences an individual's well‐being, but can also have an impact on the quality of work they perform. This paper starts with a consideration of some important issues relating to stress in staff who work with people who have learning disabilities, particularly those who work in community group homes. Current research indicates a number of common themes. A model is presented that attempts to summarise some of these. However, it is also clear that there is considerable variability between organisations. This variability must be assessed when considering the needs of individuals and groups of staff. Some groups of staff seem to Report higher levels of stress and can benefit from stress management interventions. For stress management to be effective, assessments that take into account individual and organisational issues are necessary. An example of a successful intervention package is provided. This is based on the assessment of staff teams and implemented within a problem‐solving framework.

It has long been recognised that humans draw from a large pool of processing aids to help manage the everyday challenges of life. It is not uncommon to observe individuals adopting simplifying strategies when faced with ever increasing amounts of information to process, and especially for decisions where the chosen outcome will have a very marginal impact on their well-being. The transactions costs associated with processing all new information often exceed the benefits from such a comprehensive review. The accumulating life experiences of individuals are also often brought to bear as reference points to assist in selectively evaluating information placed in front of them. These features of human processing and cognition are not new to the broad literature on judgment and decision-making, where heuristics are offered up as deliberative analytic procedures intentionally designed to simplify choice. What is surprising is the limited recognition of heuristics that individuals use to process the attributes in stated choice experiments. In this paper we present a case for a utility-based framework within which some appealing processing strategies are embedded (without the aid of supplementary self-stated intentions), as well as models conditioned on self-stated intentions represented as single items of process advice, and illustrate the implications on willingness to pay for travel time savings of embedding each heuristic in the choice process. Given the controversy surrounding the reliability of self-stated intentions, we introduce a framework in which mixtures of process advice embedded within a belief function might be used in future empirical studies to condition choice, as a way of increasingly judging the strength of the evidence.

There is growing evidence for the efficacy of anger treatment programmes, which aim to reduce inappropriate aggression in people with learning disabilities. To date they have been provided in both group and individual formats, but the differential efficacy of these approaches is yet to be assessed. Individuals with a learning disability and inappropriately expressed anger were assigned to either group or individual treatment or a waiting list control, depending on the availability of treatment options. In this way, 23 participants completed group treatment, 18 individual treatment and 21 were included in a waiting list control. Participants were assessed both before and after treatment using an anger provocation inventory. Improvements were found in the scores obtained on the anger inventory for both the group and individual treatments compared to the control using a 2 by 3 split plot ANOVA. There was no difference between group and individual treatments. These results replicate previous findings that suggest that both group and individual cognitive behavioural interventions are effective treatment options for people with learning disabilities, but do not support either method of delivery as the preferred option. Limitations of the data are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the performance of the Indian non-life (general) insurance sector in terms of total factor productivity (TFP) over the period 2005–2016.

This study utilises Färe‒Primont index (FPI) to access the change in TFP and its components: technical change, technical efficiency and mix and scale efficiency over the observation period. Moreover, it employs the Mann–Whitney U-test to scrutinise the difference between the public and the private insurers in terms of growth in productivity.

The results reveal that the insurance sector possesses a very low level of TFP. Also, the results divulge an improvement of 11.98 per cent in TFP of the insurance sector at an annual average rate of 12.41 per cent over the observation period. The growth in productivity is mainly attributable to the improvement of 10.81 per cent in the scale‒mix efficiency. The progress in scale‒mix efficiency is mainly the result of improvements in residual scale and residual mix efficiency. The results also show that the privately owned insurers have experienced a high productivity growth rate than the state-owned insurers.

The results hold practical implications for the regulators, policymakers and decision makers of the Indian non-life insurance companies.

This study is the first of its kind to use FPI, which satisfies all economically relevant axioms and tests defined by the index number theory to comprehensively access the change in TFP of the Indian non-life insurance sector.

In this paper, we analyze statistical properties of stated choice experimental designs when model attributes are functions of several design attributes. The scheduling model is taken as an example. This model is frequently used for estimating the willingness to pay (WTP) for a reduction in schedule delay early and schedule delay late. These WTP values can be used to calculate the costs of travel time variability. We apply the theoretical results to the scheduling model and design the choice experiment using measures of efficiency (S-efficiency and WTP-efficiency). In the simulation exercise, we show that the designs based on these efficiency criteria perform on average better than the designs used in the literature in terms of the WTP for travel time, schedule delay early, and schedule delay late variables. However, the gains in efficiency decrease in the number of respondents. Surprisingly, the orthogonal design performs rather well in the example we demonstrated.