abstract

2016

Methodological and practical problems have to be faced when building a master sampling frame for agricultural, rural and agri-environmental statistics. This paper addresses some of them, focusing on quality and coverage issues and on the impact of increasing computational ability to handle massive data sets on the generation and updating of master sampling frames. Advantages, disadvantages and requirements of the combination of different kinds of frames and the main methods for linking frames at the design stage and at the estimation stage are analysed. A proposal for increasing the efficiency of the allocation of the sample units to the different combined frames is also discussed.

2013

The Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics, endorsed at the United Nations Statistical Commission in February 2010, underlines the need to ensure the consistency and the integration of agricultural statistics into national statistical systems, allowing building agricultural statistics in which the information on land parcels, households and farms are interlinked. The sample strategy, presented in this paper, achieves this strategic objective and simultaneously provides consistent statistics on the environmental, social and economic dimensions of agriculture. The methodological approach extends the use of indirect sampling to the case of producing integrated estimates on three target populations. The proposed techniques are quite flexible and may be tailored to the different informative contexts which characterize the production of agricultural statistics in developing countries. Furthermore, under quite general conditions, they allow to produce unbiased statist...

2014

The objective of the Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics is to enable developing countries to build a sound and comprehensive agricultural statistical system, that is sustainable, well integrated in the overall national statistical system and that is capable of responding to the information needs of the 21 st century. One of the three pillars of the Global Strategy is the integration of agriculture into the national statistical system which is obtained through three methodological tools: (i) an integrated survey framework, that defines the mix and frequency of data collection initiatives needed to meet the predefined data requirements; (ii) an integrated statistical data base, that provides data management system for different data sources (censuses, surveys, administrative data), using common definitions and classifications and ensuring that only one number is agreed as official statistics; (iii) a master sampling frame, that is the basis for selecting the ...

2015

The traditional approach for producing agricultural statistics adopted in most developed countries is the following (see Benedetti et al. eds. 2010): a complete enumeration census is carried out every 5-10 years. The census is carried out by interviewing the farmers and allows generating the list frame that is used for all kinds of sample surveys of farms. In this paper, the quality of data collected by a census and the coverage of the list generated by a census are discussed. The impact of incomplete or out of date sampling frames for agricultural statistics is analysed. Some approaches for updating the sampling frames, the problems involved and the difficulties faced are addressed. Then, different kinds of sampling frame and estimation approaches are analysed, taking into consideration the specificities of countries.

sis-statistica.it

2015

For agricultural surveys, a Dual Frame design combining the customary area frame with an additional list frame has been suggested in the 70s (Hartley, Sankhya 1974) for reducing costs and improving estimate accuracy. The availability of two or more partial list frames that could be used to supplement the area frame is often the case in modern applications so that a more general Multiple Frame design appears as a promising tool for agricultural surveys. Some major issues are discussed both at selection and estimation stage of the survey in order to handle data from overlapping frames.

Frontiers in Psychology, 2024

Mental disorders are increasingly understood as involving complex alterations of self that emerge from dynamical interactions of constituent elements, including cognitive, bodily, affective, social, narrative, cultural and normative aspects and processes. An account of self that supports this view is the pattern theory of self (PTS). The PTS is a non-reductive account of the self, consistent with both embodied-enactive cognition and phenomenological psychopathology; it foregrounds the multidimensionality of subjects, stressing situated embodiment and intersubjective processes in the formation of the self-pattern. Indications in the literature already demonstrate the viability of the PTS for formulating an alternative methodology to better understand the lived experience of those suffering mental disorders and to guide mental health research more generally. This article develops a flexible methodological framework that front-loads the self-pattern into a minimally structured phenomenological interview. We call this framework ‘Examination of Self Patterns’ (ESP). The ESP is unconstrained by internalist or externalist assumptions about mind and is flexibly guided by person-specific interpretations rather than pre-determined diagnostic categories. We suggest this approach is advantageous for tackling the inherent complexity of mental health, the clinical protocols and the requirements of research.