Clustering and hot spot detection in socio-economic spatio-temporal data

Distribution of socio-economic features in urban space is an important source of information for land and transportation planning. The metropolization phenomenon has changed the distribution of types of professions in space and has given birth to different spatial patterns that the urban planner must know in order to plan a sustainable city. Such distributions can be discovered by statistical and learning algorithms through different methods. In this paper, an unsupervised classification method and a cluster detection method are discussed and applied to analyze the socio-economic structure of Switzerland. The unsupervised classification method, based on Ward's classification and self-organized maps, is used to classify the municipalities of the country and allows to reduce a highly-dimensional input information to interpret the socio-economic landscape. The cluster detection method, the spatial scan statistics, is used in a more specific manner in order to detect hot spots of certain types of service activities. The method is applied to the distribution services in the agglomeration of Lausanne. Results show the emergence of new centralities and can be analyzed in both transportation and social terms.

Biological embedding of early life exposures and disease risk in humans: a role for DNA methylation.

BACKGROUND: Following wider acceptance of "the thrifty phenotype" hypothesis and the convincing evidence that early life exposures can influence adult health even decades after the exposure, much interest has been placed on the mechanisms through which early life exposures become biologically embedded. METHODS: In this review, we summarize the current literature regarding biological embedding of early life experiences. To this end we conducted a literature search to identify studies investigating early life exposures in relation to DNA methylation changes. In addition, we summarize the challenges faced in investigations of epigenetic effects, stemming from the peculiarities of this emergent and complex field. A proper systematic review and meta-analyses were not feasible given the nature of the evidence. RESULTS: We identified 7 studies on early life socioeconomic circumstances, 10 studies on childhood obesity, and 6 studies on early life nutrition all relating to DNA methylation changes that met the stipulated inclusion criteria. The pool of evidence gathered, albeit small, favours a role of epigenetics and DNA methylation in biological embedding, but replication of findings, multiple comparison corrections, publication bias, and causality are concerns remaining to be addressed in future investigations. CONCLUSIONS: Based on these results, we hypothesize that epigenetics, in particular DNA methylation, is a plausible mechanism through which early life exposures are biologically embedded. This review describes the current status of the field and acts as a stepping stone for future, better designed investigations on how early life exposures might become biologically embedded through epigenetic effects. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Socio-anthropologie et explication sociologique. Une réaction au texte de Laurence Podselver

(Résumé de l'ouvrage) Au travers d'une analyse socio-historique du rabbinat français, d'une enquête sur Sarcelles et d'un examen du mouvement néo-orthodoxe des Loubavitch, l'auteur brosse un tableau vivant du judaïsme contemporain et des modifications qui le traversent. Laurence Podselver apporte du même coup un éclairage sur les recompositions que connaît l'ensemble du champ religieux aujourd'hui: une affirmation de formes identitaires plus marquées venant se greffer sur l'axe de la sécularisation, de ses adaptations libérales et de ses reconstructions culturelles laïques

Does Interviewer-Respondent Socio-Demographic Matching Increase Cooperation in Centralized CATI Household Panels?

Overall it seems that age and gender interviewer characteristics are relevant in achieving higher cooperation rates by telephone panel members. This appears to be the case especially for older male interviewers, who perform the best on gaining cooperation across different types of respondents. This holds if important interviewer covariates like experience are controlled for. There is no evidence that special sex age or sex matches yield a higher cooperation. It may be that not only the perceived authority of the institution that sponsors the survey plays a role when it comes to cooperation (Groves et al., 1992) but also of the interviewer who asks for this cooperation. Presumably older men have more authority to convince sample members to participate. A simple recommendation is to use as many older male interviewers as possible for the recruitment phase. It is likely that this strategy would also be successful in other western cultures than Switzerland.