Some notes on how to catch a red herring Ageing, time-to-death & care costs for older people in Sweden

In this paper we test the 'red herring' hypothesis for expenditures on long-term care. The main contribution of this paper is that we assess the 'red herring' hypothesis using an aggregated measure that allows us to control for entering the final period of life on the individual level. In addition we implement a model that allows for age specific time-to-death (TTD) effects on Long Term Care. We also account for the problem that mortality, and therefore TTD, are themselves influenced by care expenditure. For our analysis we use administrative data from the Swedish statistical office. In contrast to many previous empirical studies, we are able to use the entire population for estimation instead of a sample. Our identification strategy is based on fixed effects estimation and the instrumental variable approach to achieve exogenous variation in TTD. Our results indicate that although time-to-death is a relevant indicator for long term care, age itself seems to be much more important for the projection of long-term care expenditure.

Are the dimensions of private information more multiple than expected? Information asymmetries in the market of supplementary private health insurance in England

Our study reexamines standard econometric approaches for the detection of information asymmetries on insurance markets. We claim that evidence based on a standard framework with 2 equations, which uses potential sources of information asymmetries, should stress the importance of heterogeneity in the parameters. We argue that conclusions derived from this methodology can be misleading if the estimated coefficients in such an `unused characteristics' framework are driven by different parts of the population. We show formally that an individual's expected risk from the perspective of insurance, conditioned on certain characteristics (which are not used for calculating the risk premium), can equal the population's expectation in risk { although such characteristics are both related to risk and insurance probability, which is usually interpreted as an indicator of information asymmetries. We provide empirical evidence on the existence of information asymmetries in the market for supplementary private health insurance in the UK. Overall, we found evidence for advantageous selection into the private risk pool; ie people with lower health risk tend to insure more. The main drivers of this phenomenon seem to be characteristics such as income and wealth. Nevertheless, we also found parameter heterogeneity to be relevant, leading to possible misinterpretation if the standard `unused characteristics' approach is applied

The Brenda Mines\u27 Cycloned- Sand Tailings Dam

For the benefit of those readers not fully conversant with mine tailings and the methods commonly used to store them, the paper presents a brief overview covering the composition of tailings and the procedures commonly used to design and construct the required tailings dams. The remainder of the paper presents a detailed description of the design, construction, and performance of the Brenda Cycloned-Sand Tailings Dam. This includes a summary and assessment of the large volume of data available from extensive field, laboratory, and office studies that have been ongoing since the start of construction in 1968. The most recent of these studies (1980-83) involved state-of-the-art seismic analyses to determine if the original dam could be raised to an ultimate height of 530 ft and remain stable under the maximum credible earthquake for the site

Some notes on how to catch a red herring Ageing, time-to-death & care costs for older people in Sweden

In this paper we test the 'red herring' hypothesis for expenditures on long-term care. The main contribution of this paper is that we assess the 'red herring' hypothesis using an aggregated measure that allows us to control for entering the final period of life on the individual level. In addition we implement a model that allows for age specific time-to-death (TTD) effects on Long Term Care. We also account for the problem that mortality, and therefore TTD, are themselves influenced by care expenditure. For our analysis we use administrative data from the Swedish statistical office. In contrast to many previous empirical studies, we are able to use the entire population for estimation instead of a sample. Our identification strategy is based on fixed effects estimation and the instrumental variable approach to achieve exogenous variation in TTD. Our results indicate that although time-to-death is a relevant indicator for long term care, age itself seems to be much more important for the projection of long-term care expenditure

Informative and decorative pictures in health and safety posters for children

Health and safety (H&S) campaigns for children are often aimed at six to twelve year olds, with the same materials targeted across this age range despite their developmental and cognitive differences. We conducted a study to examine whether three different visual approaches to H&S posters influenced children’s engagement with and ability to elaborate from the poster content, and preferences for the posters. The study was conducted with children from two age groups (7-8 and 10-11 years of age). The posters were designed with the same verbal information but we varied the presented pictorial information: Poster 1 had informative pictorial information; Poster 2 had decorative pictorial information; poster 3 had no pictorial information. The study consisted of a written activity and a discussion. The results suggest children from each age group have different responses to the different kinds of posters tested, and particularly age-related preferences for informative or decorative pictures. We describe four responses tendencies that should be considered for further research

Welcoming the Wild Salmon Caravan: Socially Engaged Art as a Decolonizing Practice

The Wild Salmon Caravan (WSC) is an Indigenous led socially engaged art project designed to celebrate and call for the protection of wild salmon in so-called BC, and particularly in Secwe̓pemcul’ecw. I use critical reflection (Morely, 2008) to gain insights from my involvement organizing arts-build workshops, festivities and building relationships through this annual event since 2016. The Cross Cultural Protocol (Morrison, 2016) and the Cross Cultural Interface Framework developed by Dawn Morrison and the Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty provided the scaffolding for reflections on my research questions: “What do the Cross Cultural Protocols teach non-Indigenous people about acting as an ally?” and, “How does socially engaged art such as the WSC contribute to public pedagogy regarding decolonization?” In the research findings, I share stories that relate to each of the 12 Cross Cultural Protocols and identify the points of entry, interface, contradiction and strategy present in each narrative that helped me to understand how, as a non-Indigenous person, I can better act as an ally, as the protocols urge us to do. I also find that the WSC, as a socially engaged art project contributes to public pedagogy regarding decolonization through healing multiple facets of self-in-relation (Graveline, 1998): self, family, community, agency and the world. Along with personal reflection, the research findings resulted from learning through semi-structured dialogues with Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants of the WSC, and are presented using métissage (Hasbe-Ludt, Chambers & Leggo, 2009) and writing as a method of inquiry (Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005). As such, my own voice in the research findings is woven together with historic documents, Indigenous poetry, stories and Secwe̓pemc voices

The use of informative and decorative pictures in health and safety posters for children

This thesis investigates printed health and safety (H&S) information for children, focusing on pictures typically presented in posters and their relationship to the poster message. It examines the impact of different approaches to pictures on children aged 7 to 11. A sample of H&S information for children was analysed with a framework developed in this research. The analysis revealed that pictures tend to play either a decorative or an informative role, respectively independent of or supporting the message given in a poster’s text. The impact of the different types of picture was further investigated in two studies that aimed to identify children’s responses to them across two age groups: 7–8 year olds and 10–11 year olds. These age groups were chosen because the materials in the sample were targeted at 6–12 year olds, despite children’s developmental and cognitive differences across these years. Five posters were designed and tested. The verbal information was held constant in the posters but the pictorial information varied: two variants had informative pictures, two had decorative pictures, and one had no picture. The results suggested that children’s responses to the different kinds of picture differed according to their age. In the first study younger children benefitted more from the decorative picture than older children, who benefitted more from the informative picture. In the second study this polarisation was less evident. Overall, three concluding remarks were drawn from the studies: (1) Posters with informative picture communicate slightly better for older than younger children; (2) an emotional response to pictures benefits younger children more than older children; and finally, (3) tthe detail of picture–message relationship should be considered when designing posters for children. This thesis suggests that conducting research with lower and higher age segments might be beneficial for designing appropriate H&S information for children. A classification of pictures for artefacts such as posters for children is proposed. Finally, the limitations and contributions of the thesis are discussed, and suggestions are made for further research in this area to expand our understanding of how to maximise the impact of H&S posters for children