We argue that behavioural public policies (BPP) should be categorized by the kind of mechanism through which they operate, not by the kind of treatment they implement. Reviewing the energy consumption BPP literature, we argue (i) that BPPs are currently categorized by treatment; (ii) that treatment-based categories are subject to mechanistic heterogeneity: there is substantial variation of mechanisms within each treatment type; and (iii) that they also display mechanistic overlap: there is substantial overlap between mechanisms across treatment types. Consequently, current categorizations of BPPs do not reveal the conditions of their efficacy and should be revised to better reflect mechanistic information.

This report is based on the extrapolation to 2020 of data on the economic burden of mental illnesses in Pakistan in 2006. Given the resultant estimated high economic burden of mental illness in the country (£2.97 billion in 2020), we advocate a revised budget allocation to mental healthcare. As a resource-scarce nation that is entangled in natural disasters, Pakistan needs cost-effective psychological interventions such as culturally adapted manual-assisted problem-solving training (C-MAP) for the prevention of self-harm and suicide and to move towards attaining the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Although government has taken initiatives to support healthcare services (such as the Sehat Sahulat Program for universal health coverage), there is still a need to implement a cost-effective national digital model for mental healthcare such as the Agha Khan Development Network Digital Health Programme.

This paper establishes the mapping properties of pseudo-differential operators and the Fourier integral operators on the weighted Morrey spaces with variable exponents and the weighted Triebel–Lizorkin–Morrey spaces with variable exponents. We obtain these results by extending the extrapolation theory to the weighted Morrey spaces with variable exponents. This extension also gives the mapping properties of Calderón–Zygmund operators on the weighted Hardy–Morrey spaces with variable exponents and the wavelet characterizations of the weighted Hardy–Morrey spaces with variable exponents.

In an extrapolation argument, we prove certain $L^{p}\,(1<p<\infty )$ estimates for nonisotropic Marcinkiewicz operators associated to surfaces under the integral kernels given by the elliptic sphere functions ${\rm\Omega}\in L(\log ^{+}L)^{{\it\alpha}}({\rm\Sigma})$ and the radial function $h\in {\mathcal{N}}_{{\it\beta}}(\mathbb{R}^{+})$. As applications, the corresponding results for parametric Marcinkiewicz integral operators related to area integrals and Littlewood–Paley $g_{{\it\lambda}}^{\ast }$-functions are given.

Continuing increases in life expectancy beyond previously-held limits have brought to the fore the critical importance of mortality forecasting. Significant developments in mortality forecasting since 1980 are reviewed under three broad approaches: expectation, extrapolation and explanation. Expectation is not generally a good basis for mortality forecasting, as it is subjective; expert expectations are invariably conservative. Explanation is restricted to certain causes of death with known determinants. Decomposition by cause of death poses problems associated with the lack of independence among causes and data difficulties. Most developments have been in extrapolative forecasting, and make use of statistical methods rather than models developed primarily for age-specific graduation. Methods using two-factor models (age-period or age-cohort) have been most successful. The two-factor Lee–Carter method, and, in particular, its variants, have been successful in terms of accuracy, while recent advances have improved the estimation of forecast uncertainty. Regression-based (GLM) methods have been less successful, due to nonlinearities in time. Three-factor methods are more recent; the Lee–Carter age-period-cohort model appears promising. Specialised software has been developed and made available. Research needs include further comparative evaluations of methods in terms of the accuracy of the point forecast and its uncertainty, encompassing a wide range of mortality situations.

Sensitivity analysis (with respect to the regularization parameter)of the solution of a class of regularized state constrainedoptimal control problems is performed. The theoretical results arethen used to establish an extrapolation-based numerical scheme forsolving the regularized problem for vanishing regularizationparameter. In this context, the extrapolation technique providesexcellent initializations along the sequence of reducingregularization parameters. Finally, the favorable numericalbehavior of the new method is demonstrated and a comparison toclassical continuation methods is provided.

We prove certain Lp estimates (1<p<∞) for nonisotropic singular integrals along surfaces of revolution. The singular integrals are defined by rough kernels. As an application we obtain Lp boundedness of the singular integrals under a sharp size condition on their kernels. We also prove a certain estimate for a trigonometric integral, which is useful in studying nonisotropic singular integrals.

For the Cramér-Lundberg risk model with phase-type claims, it is shown that the probability of ruin before an independent phase-type time H coincides with the ruin probability in a certain Markovian fluid model and therefore has an matrix-exponential form. When H is exponential, this yields in particular a probabilistic interpretation of a recent result of Avram & Usabel. When H is Erlang, the matrix algebra takes a simple recursive form, and fixing the mean of H at T and letting the number of stages go to infinity yields a quick approximation procedure for the probability of ruin before time T. Numerical examples are given, including a combination with extrapolation.