Small area estimation on poverty indicators

We propose to estimate non-linear small area population quantities by using Empirical Best (EB) estimators based on a nested error model. EB estimators are obtained by Monte Carlo approximation. We focus on poverty indicators as particular non-linear quantities of interest, but the proposed methodology is applicable to general non-linear quantities. Small sample properties of EB estimators are analyzed by model-based and design-based simulation studies. Results show large reductions in mean squared error relative to direct estimators and estimators obtained by simulated censuses. An application is also given to estimate poverty incidences and poverty gaps in Spanish provinces by sex with mean squared errors estimated by parametric bootstrap. In the Spanish data, results show a significant reduction in coefficient of variation of the proposed EB estimators over direct estimators for most domains.Empirical best estimator, Parametric bootstrap, Poverty mapping, Small area estimation

Small area estimation of general parameters with application to poverty indicators: A hierarchical Bayes approach

Poverty maps are used to aid important political decisions such as allocation of development funds by governments and international organizations. Those decisions should be based on the most accurate poverty figures. However, often reliable poverty figures are not available at fine geographical levels or for particular risk population subgroups due to the sample size limitation of current national surveys. These surveys cannot cover adequately all the desired areas or population subgroups and, therefore, models relating the different areas are needed to 'borrow strength" from area to area. In particular, the Spanish Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) produces national poverty estimates but cannot provide poverty estimates by Spanish provinces due to the poor precision of direct estimates, which use only the province specific data. It also raises the ethical question of whether poverty is more severe for women than for men in a given province. We develop a hierarchical Bayes (HB) approach for poverty mapping in Spanish provinces by gender that overcomes the small province sample size problem of the SILC. The proposed approach has a wide scope of application because it can be used to estimate general nonlinear parameters. We use a Bayesian version of the nested error regression model in which Markov chain Monte Carlo procedures and the convergence monitoring therein are avoided. A simulation study reveals good frequentist properties of the HB approach. The resulting poverty maps indicate that poverty, both in frequency and intensity, is localized mostly in the southern and western provinces and it is more acute for women than for men in most of the provinces.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/13-AOAS702 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Small area estimation on poverty indicators

We propose to estimate non-linear small area population quantities by using Empirical Best (EB) estimators based on a nested error model. EB estimators are obtained by Monte Carlo approximation. We focus on poverty indicators as particular non-linear quantities of interest, but the proposed methodology is applicable to general non-linear quantities. Small sample properties of EB estimators are analyzed by model-based and design-based simulation studies. Results show large reductions in mean squared error relative to direct estimators and estimators obtained by simulated censuses. An application is also given to estimate poverty incidences and poverty gaps in Spanish provinces by sex with mean squared errors estimated by parametric bootstrap. In the Spanish data, results show a significant reduction in coefficient of variation of the proposed EB estimators over direct estimators for most domains

Small area estimation of general parameters under complex sampling designs

When the probabilities of selecting the individuals for the sample depend on the outcome values, we say that the selection mechanism is informative. Under informative selection, individuals with certain outcome values appear more often in the sample and therefore the sample is not representative of the population. As a consequence, usual model-based inference based on the actual sample without appropriate weighting might be strongly biased. For estimation of general non-linear parameters in small areas, we propose a model-based pseudo empirical best (PEB) method that incorporates the sampling weights and reduces considerably the bias of the unweighted empirical best (EB) estimators under informative selection mechanisms. We analyze the properties of this new method in simulation experiments carried out under complex sampling designs, including informative selection. Our results confirm that the proposed weighted PEB estimators perform significantly better than the unweighted EB estimators in terms of bias under informative sampling, and compare favorably under non-informative sampling. In an application to poverty mapping in Spain, we compare the proposed weighted PEB estimators with the unweighted EB analogues.Acknowledgements: the second author acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, research project MTM2015-64842-P

A Comparison of Small Area Estimation Methods for Poverty Mapping

Poverty maps are an important source of information on the regional distribution of poverty and are currently used to support regional policy making and to allocate funds to local jurisdictions. But obtaining accurate poverty maps at low levels of disaggregation is not straightforward because of insufficient sample size of official surveys in some of the target regions. Direct estimates, obtained with the region-specific sample data, are unstable in the sense of having very large sampling errors for regions with small sample size. Very unstable poverty estimates might make the seemingly poorer regions in one period appear as the richer in the next period, which can be inconsistent. On the other hand, very stable but biased estimates (e.g., too homogeneous across regions) might make identification of the poorer regions difficult. Here we review the main small area estimation methods for poverty mapping. In particular, we consider direct estimation, the Fay-Herriot area level model, the method of Elbers, Lanjouw and Lanjouw (2003) used by the World Bank, the empirical Best/Bayes (EB) method of Molina and Rao (2010) and its extension, the Census EB, and finally the hierarchical Bayes proposal of Molina, Nandram and Rao (2014). We put ourselves in the point of view of a practitioner and discuss, as objectively as possible, the benefits and drawbacks of each method, illustrating some of them through simulation studies

Screening the seventies: Representations of the 1970s in British film and television

This thesis maps how the 1970s has been constructed in twenty-first century British culture. It analyses representations of the decade in British film and television made between the years 2002 and 2014. The thesis suggests that the repeated audio-visual return to the 1970s in contemporary Britain entails a recognition of the decade as a transitional period that saw the arrival of the changes that define our world today. It demonstrates how the manner in which the 1970s is remembered and understood is of considerable significance to how we understand the present. It also argues that the complexities and nuances of these representations have been largely unexplored. The thesis has four chapters. Chapter One situates the detailed textual analysis that follows within the broader concerns of the thesis and existing scholarly literature. This first chapter develops the contours of the thesis’ argument and outlines the originality of the project. It argues that the nuance and complexity of the relationship between past and present in audio-visual histories is underexplored and subsumed in dichotomies that argue for their ‘progressive’ or ‘reactionary’ potential. This argument is developed through the proposition that insufficient attention has been paid to the formal, stylistic and narrational strategies used to construct the past on screen. The chapter proposes an approach which brings questions of tone, style, and point of view to the forefront of analysis. Chapter Two groups generic engagements with the 1970s, the spy thriller Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson, 2011), the conspiracy thriller Red Riding (Channel 4, 2009), and the retro police procedural Life on Mars (BBC, 2006-8). The chapter considers how these texts interweave the historic with the generic. It also affirms the importance of tone in considering how the past is shaped in the present, as the case studies are viewed in conjunction with writing on melancholia and mourning. Chapter Three challenges the usual definitions of British cinema by including texts that are set in Northern Ireland. It explores difficult and traumatic associations of the 1970s in representations of the ‘Troubles’ on screen in Five Minutes of Heaven (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2009), Shadow Dancer (James Marsh, 2012) and ’71 (Yann Demange, 2014). Chapter Four considers questions of identity and consumerism by looking at two films that engage with music and youth culture in locations far from the metropolitan core, Anita & Me (Metin Hüseyin, 2002) and Good Vibrations (Lisa Barros D’Sa, Glenn Leyburn, 2012). Both films are marked as autobiographical or semi-autobiographical in nature and the chapter focuses on point of view and questions of retro and nostalgia. It explores how the texts facilitate a different relationship between past, present and future than previous case studies. The thesis thus brings together a range of films and television programmes set in the 1970s, and through detailed textual analysis pays attention to questions of tone and the articulation of temporality in history. It demonstrates that the 1970s are being made and remade with considerable sophistication and nuance in twenty-first century texts. Attention to the tone and point of view of these texts gives insight into the struggles over the history of the present

HLA class I allele promiscuity revisited

The peptide repertoire presented on human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I molecules is largely determined by the structure of the peptide binding groove. It is expected that the molecules having similar grooves (i.e., belonging to the same supertype) might present similar/overlapping peptides. However, the extent of promiscuity among HLA class I ligands remains controversial: while in many studies T cell responses are detected against epitopes presented by alternative molecules across HLA class I supertypes and loci, peptide elution studies report minute overlaps between the peptide repertoires of even related HLA molecules. To get more insight into the promiscuous peptide binding by HLA molecules, we analyzed the HLA peptide binding data from the large epitope repository, Immune Epitope Database (IEDB), and further performed in silico analysis to estimate the promiscuity at the population level. Both analyses suggest that an unexpectedly large fraction of HLA ligands (>50%) bind two or more HLA molecules, often across supertype or even loci. These results suggest that different HLA class I molecules can nevertheless present largely overlapping peptide sets, and that “functional” HLA polymorphism on individual and population level is probably much lower than previously anticipated

Tyrosine Phosphorylation Regulates the Endocytosis and Surface Expression of GluN3A-Containing NMDA Receptors

Selective control of receptor trafficking provides a mechanism for remodeling the receptor composition of excitatory synapses, and thus supports synaptic transmission, plasticity, and development. GluN3A (formerly NR3A) is a nonconventional member of the NMDA receptor (NMDAR) subunit family, which endows NMDAR channels with low calcium permeability and reduced magnesium sensitivity compared with NMDARs comprising only GluN1 and GluN2 subunits. Because of these special properties, GluN3A subunits act as a molecular brake to limit the plasticity and maturation of excitatory synapses, pointing toward GluN3A removal as a critical step in the development of neuronal circuitry. However, the molecular signals mediating GluN3A endocytic removal remain unclear. Here we define a novel endocytic motif (YWL), which is located within the cytoplasmic C-terminal tail of GluN3A and mediates its binding to the clathrin adaptor AP2. Alanine mutations within the GluN3A endocytic motif inhibited clathrin-dependent internalization and led to accumulation of GluN3A-containing NMDARs at the cell surface, whereas mimicking phosphorylation of the tyrosine residue promoted internalization and reduced cell-surface expression as shown by immunocytochemical and electrophysiological approaches in recombinant systems and rat neurons in primary culture. We further demonstrate that the tyrosine residue is phosphorylated by Src family kinases, and that Src-activation limits surface GluN3A expression in neurons. Together, our results identify a new molecular signal for GluN3A internalization that couples the functional surface expression of GluN3A-containing receptors to the phosphorylation state of GluN3A subunits, and provides a molecular framework for the regulation of NMDAR subunit composition with implications for synaptic plasticity and neurodevelopment