Reconciling the needs and wants of respondents in two rural Ethiopian communities

This paper uses the Quality of Life research carried out by the Wellbeing in Developing Countries (WeD) Research Group to examine the importance respondents have attributed to a variety of goals in two rural communities in Ethiopia. The results are analysed at the community, household and individual levels to expose the contestation involved in expressions of goal preference at different levels, and the power relations that underlie and contribute to the formation of these goal preferences. In this way, taking communities or households as homogenous units is shown to be inaccurate and potentially misleading. Analysis of individual case studies also provides insight into the complex decision-making process where people with access to limited resources are forced to give certain goals priority depending on current exigencies. The fact that the ordering of priorities can change with time highlights the dangers of any one-off measure being considered as a time-independent picture of individuals’ goals. By relating the results of the research to Doyal and Gough’s Theory of Human Need, the paper considers to what extent ‘universal’ human needs correspond to the most important goals as expressed by respondents in the Ethiopian research. Whilst considerable support is found for needs such as health, food and shelter, several respondents in the two research sites consider needs such as education to be unnecessary. This incongruence between the priority of people’s goals and theories of need leads us to question what the aim of development should be: to assist beneficiaries in the pursuit of what they want, or provide the things that they are thought to need.

Point and block prediction in log-Gaussian random fields: The non-constant mean case

This work considers the problems of point and block prediction in log-Gaussian random fields for the case when the mean of the log-process is not constant and depends linearly on unknown parameters. First, we propose a new point predictor that is optimal within a certain family of predictors, which extend a result in De Oliveira [2006. On optimal point and block prediction in log-Gaussian random fields. Scand. J. Statist. 33, 523–540.] that holds in the case when the mean of the log-process is constant. Second, we show that the results in De Oliveira [2006. On optimal point and block prediction in log-Gaussian random fields. Scand. J. Statist. 33, 523–540.] regarding optimal block prediction cannot be extended to the case when the mean of the log-process is not constant. Specifically, we show that the two families of block predictors considered by De Oliveira lack an optimal predictor. Finally, we numerically compare the predictive efficiency of the proposed point and block predictors.     

从“人”作为伦理主体看类伦理的时代意义

依据马克思人类历史发展三个阶段的论述,人的伦理主体的历史发展相应经历了三个阶段,即作为群体的伦理主体、作为个体的伦理主体和作为"类"的伦理主体。"类伦理"概念的提出,是从唯物史观的伦理学视野出发,对人类道德发展规律进行探索的一种尝试。从这一意义上,类伦理是人类道德发展的必然选择,它作为一种理想模型构成了马克思设想的共产主义社会的道德逻辑之始点。当今人类社会正经历着全球发展面临的前所未有的诸多困境,需要类伦理作为一种普遍伦理所展现的实践智慧来应对重重危机。     

天道兼爱,尚同节用:社会运行的一体化理论——春秋战国时期墨者的社会思想研究

墨子的十大主张构成一个求治去乱的理论体系,天志、兼爱、尚同、节用是其基本架构.天是一切合法性的来源,也是外在的社会控制力量,人们的行动必须服从天的要求,天与鬼神在冥冥之中控制着人们去恶向善;兼爱是天意的要求,也是人们内化的伦理情感,推己及人,以仁爱之心对待他人,则使人们达成价值共识,消除人际的争斗和家国的攻伐;尚同是兼爱的逻辑结果,也是天意的最终归宿,要求世人无条件服从于贤者、仁人,以形成上下贯通、整齐划一的社会秩序.崇俭节用是一种积累物质财富的途径,由此可有效消除饥寒困顿,保障了大多数人的生存,也就维护了社会稳定.因此墨子的"十伦"是社会良性运行和秩序稳定的完美设想.     

Optimal balanced block designs for correlated observations

The construction of universally optimal designs, if such exist, is difficult to obtain, especially when there are some nuisance effects or correlated errors. The hub correlation is a special correlation structure with applications to experiments in genetics, networks and other areas in industry and agriculture. There may be restrictions on the correlation values of the hub structure depending on the experiment. Optimality of block designs under hub correlation has been studied for the case of a constant correlation value. In this article, we consider the hub structure when one of the correlation values is different from the others, and the universally optimal block designs, binary or non-binary, are theoretically obtained. Also, we introduce an algorithm to construct the optimal designs. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 48: 596–604; 2020 © 2020 Statistical Society of Canada     

墨子的天、鬼、命观新解

从墨子的兼爱出发 ,结合中华农业文明的特征 ,阐明兼爱、天志、明鬼、非命之间相辅相成的关系 ,由此得出结论 :天志、明鬼、非命不是单纯的宗教思想 ,同时还充当着墨子施政思想的辅助工具的角色 ;他的天人观是一种顺天有为的天人合一论 ,其思想前后并不矛盾。     

Comparison of designs equivalent under one or two criteria

Two designs equivalent under one or two criteria may be compared under other criteria. For certain configurations of eigenvalues of the information matrices, we decide which design is the better of the two for many other such criteria. The relationship to universal optimality (in the case of equivalence under one criterion) is indicated. For two criteria, applications are given to weighing and treatment-with-covariate settings.     

BCI—代数直积的泛性质

用泛性质定义了BCI－代数的直积,并证明了直积的存在性和唯 一性。     

Private Information and the ‘Information Function’: A Survey of Possible Uses

Under certain conditions private information can be a source of trade. Arbitrage for instance can occur as a result of the existence of private information. In this paper we want to explicitly model information. To do so we define an ‘information function’. This information function is a mathematical object, also known as a so called ‘wave function’. We use the definition of wave function as it is used in quantum mechanics and we attempt to show the usefulness of this wave function in an economic context. We attempt to answer the following questions. How does the information function relate to private information? How can we use the information function to define the ‘quantity’ of information? How can we use the information function in arbitrage-based option pricing? How can the information function be used in the formulation of a so called Universal Brownian motion?     

Human Rights: What the United States Might Learn from the Rest of the World and,Yes, from American Sociology

The U.S. Constitution includes civil and political rights—as individual rights—but does not include what is internationally understood to be “human rights,” namely rights we enjoy as equals, including economic, social, and cultural rights, and protections for vulnerable persons, such as children, minorities, mothers, and refugees. The United States has not ratified any international (United Nations) or regional (Organization of American States) human rights treaty, is not a party to the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court, and is no longer a member of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. It might be concluded that Americans do not know what human rights are. It is more complicated than that. While opinion polls show that Americans often endorse individual rights—e. g., the rights of women—they do not frame them as being interdependent or being within the purview of government. Can we conclude that human rights have no place in the United States? Not at all. This article concludes by showing that many U.S. institutions of higher learning have programs in human rights and that some academic associations, including the American Sociological Association, recognize human rights.