Schematic saturated orthogonal arrays obtained by using the contractive replacement method

This paper presents a general method of constructing schematic saturated orthogonal arrays of strength two. We consider a class of mixed saturated orthogonal arrays produced from saturated symmetric orthogonal arrays by using the contractive replacement method, study the Hamming distances of the rows, construct their association schemes, and prove that they are schematic. Some examples are given to illustrate this construction method.     

Residential mobility and the spatial dispersion of personal networks: Effects on social support

Using a representative national sample of personal networks, this article explores how the spatial dispersion of networks, residential mobility and social support are linked. Three issues will be addressed here. Firstly, how is the spatial dispersion of personal networks related to individuals’ social characteristics, network composition and residential mobility? Secondly, how do the spatial dispersion of networks, residential mobility and their combined effect influence the number and (thirdly) the structure of emotional support ties? Results showed that the extent of the support was affected neither by the geographical distribution of the networks nor by residential mobility. Living far from one's birthplace, however, exerted two distinct, and opposite effects on the support network structure. On the one hand, mobility led to high spatial dispersion of personal contacts, which in turn favored a sparsely knit network centered around the mobile individual. On the other hand, by controlling for the effect of distance between the contacts, we found that individuals that cited long-distance ties tended to be part of more transitive support networks than those that cited local ties. We interpreted the latter effect as evidence that transitive ties may survive greater spatial distances than intransitive ones. These findings are discussed in view of spatial mobility and social network research.     

孔子思想再阐释——以《论语》中的“远”为考察中心

孔子的思想体系建立在他对个人与自然、个人与社会、个人与个人三种关系的理解之上。"远"作为这三种关系的一种描述方式,在孔子思想中发挥着不可忽视的作用。学界对《论语》中"远"关注较少,因而以"远"为线索梳理孔子思想不仅饶有趣味而且具有相当的理论意义。     

An approach to measure distance between compositional diet estimates containing essential zeros

For many applications involving compositional data, it is necessary to establish a valid measure of distance, yet when essential zeros are present traditional distance measures are problematic. In quantitative fatty acid signature analysis (QFASA), compositional diet estimates are produced that often contain many zeros. In order to test for a difference in diet between two populations of predators using the QFASA diet estimates, a legitimate measure of distance for use in the test statistic is necessary. Since ecologists using QFASA must first select the potential species of prey in the predator's diet, the chosen measure of distance should be such that the distance between samples does not decrease as the number of species considered increases, a property known in general as subcompositional coherence. In this paper we compare three measures of distance for compositional data capable of handling zeros, but not satisfying some of the well-accepted principles of compositional data analysis. For compositional diet estimates, the most relevant of these is the property of subcompositionally coherence and we show that this property may be approximately satisfied. Based on the results of a simulation study and an application to real-life QFASA diet estimates of grey seals, we recommend the chi-square measure of distance.     

中美大学生权力距离对比研究

在跨文化研究理论中，Hofstede提出的民族文化五维度是被广为接受的研究成果。根据权力距离维度理论，权力距离可以用权力距离指数来显示，他认为中国的权力距离指数高于美国。随着中国经济环境的变化和对外开放进程的加快，文化也会不断发展和变化。因此，在新的环境下研究中美权力距离差异具有现实意义。为了对比当下中美大学生的权力距离感知，在中美两所大学发放调查问卷，分别考察了两组学生对于教师、长者和家长所拥有权力的态度，并用SPSS对调查数据进行分析。结果发现，对于教师和长者，中国学生的权力距离显著高于美国学生，但是对于家长，两国学生并未表现出明显差异，这与Hofstede的研究结果不符。     

Outlier detection in high-dimensional regression model

An outlier is defined as an observation that is significantly different from the others in its dataset. In high-dimensional regression analysis, datasets often contain a portion of outliers. It is important to identify and eliminate the outliers for fitting a model to a dataset. In this paper, a novel outlier detection method is proposed for high-dimensional regression problems. The leave-one-out idea is utilized to construct a novel outlier detection measure based on distance correlation, and then an outlier detection procedure is proposed. The proposed method enjoys several advantages. First, the outlier detection measure can be simply calculated, and the detection procedure works efficiently even for high-dimensional regression data. Moreover, it can deal with a general regression, which does not require specification of a linear regression model. Finally, simulation studies show that the proposed method behaves well for detecting outliers in high-dimensional regression model and performs better than some other competing methods.     

Diagnostics for quasi-likelihood nonlinear models

Quasi-likelihood nonlinear models (QLNMs) are an extension of generalized linear model and include a widen class of models as special cases. This article investigates some diagnostic methods in QLNMs. An equivalency between a case-deletion model and a mean-shift outlier model in QLNM is established. Two simulation study and a real dataset are used to illustrate the proposed diagnostic methods.     

Thinking through tragedy: critical distance and the law of genre

Abstract

This article focuses on two problems associated with tragedy. One ancient: what is it that draws us to the dramatic presentation of events of terrible suffering and loss? And one modern: namely, that while tragedies are still performed and appreciated, little new tragedy is being written. It will be argued in relation to the second problem that the vitality of tragedy as a dramatic form requires a less rigid approach to what might be considered tragic. And in relation to the first problem it will be argued that this more expansive conception of tragedy will allow an understanding of the ‘pay-off’ of tragedy in a way that draws both on the tradition that focuses on tragedy as cathartic therapeutic, and on the tradition that sees it as a thought laboratory that allows ethical dilemmas to be posed and explored from different perspectives. This argument constitutes a two-fold dialectical synthesis (emotional and intellectual approaches to tragedy on the one hand and the technical and popular use of the word ‘tragedy’ on the other) and the effect of this is to facilitate an understanding of tragedy as establishing a ‘critical distance’ that sets the scene for the possibility of thinking.     

New goodness of fit tests for the Cauchy distribution

Some goodness-of-fit procedures for the Cauchy distribution are presented. The power comparisons indicate that the new tests possess good performances among the competitors, especially against symmetric alternatives. A financial data set is analyzed for illustration.