On a class exhibiting trend change in average failure rate

Abstract

Weak convergence and moment convergence issues are investigated for the New Better than Average Failure Rate (NBAFR) family (introduced by Loh (1984 Loh, W. Y. 1984. A new generalization of the class of NBU distributions. IEEE Transactions on Reliability R-33 :97–113[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar])). We explore the validity of these results in the context of a more general ageing class that we introduce. We prove some new properties of this class and derive its interrelationships with other non-monotonic ageing families. Reliability and moment bounds are obtained and an interesting characterization of exponentiality is proved. Special cases of our results lead to new theorems for the NBAFR class. Finally weak convergence and related issues are established for this class.     

A fresh approach for intercession of nonresponse in multivariate longitudinal designs

The occurrence of nonresponse is very much plebeian in surveys, which troubles the analysis, and hence, an inappropriate inference is left out. To counterbalance the sour effects of the incompleteness, fresh imputation techniques have been proposed with the aid of multi-auxiliary variates for the estimation of population mean on successive waves. Properties of the proposed estimators have been elaborated, and they have been compared with the work of Priyanka et al. (2015). Detailed simulation study is carried out to substantiate the empirical and theoretical results. Several possible cases have been addressed in which nonresponse can occur.     

DOES WHOM YOU KNOW MATTER? UNRAVELING THE INFLUENCE OF PEERS' NETWORK ATTRIBUTES ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

This paper examines how students' network size, distance, prestige, and connections to influential individuals impact academic performance. Larger and closer networks facilitate information exchange, but may also increase distractions that decrease productivity. We resolve this ambiguity using administrative data from a business school that features random assignment of students to multiple overlapping sets of peers, allowing us to calculate degree, closeness, eigenvector, and Katz‐Bonacich centrality for each node. We find that increasing closeness centrality within the network negatively affects student performance measured by grade point average, suggesting that synergy reduction and information processing costs outweigh benefits from greater information access. (JEL I23, L14, L23)     

The ‘digital glimpse’ as imagining home

This paper proposes the concept of the ‘digital glimpse’, which develops the existing framing of imaginative travel. Here it articulates the experiences of mobile workers digitally connecting into family life and everyday rituals when physically absent with work. The recent embedding of digital communication technologies into personal relationships and family life is reconfiguring how absence is experienced and practiced by workers on the move, and through this, new digital paradigms for life on-the-move are emerging. This paper explores how such social relationships are maintained at-a-distance through digital technology – using evidence from qualitative interviews with mobile workers and their families. Digital technology now enables expressive forms of ‘virtual travel’, including video calling, picture sharing, and instant messaging. This has implications for the ways in which families can manage the social and relational pressures of being apart. Experiences of imaginative travel created through novel media can enrich the experience and give a greater sense of connection for both those who are at home and those who are away. While technology is limited in its ability to replicate a sense of co-presence, ‘digital glimpses’ are an emergent set of sociotechnical practices that can reduce the negative impact of absence on family relationships.     

Relations for reliability measures of weighted distributions

Relibility measures of weighted distribution of alifeistribution have been derived Sufficientconditions on the weight function have been obtained for the weighted distribution of an IFR distribution to be IFR. Length-biased and equilibrium distributions have been discussed as weighted distributions in the reliability context.     

Bayes estimators of the average failure rates

In the present paper we have proposed a Bayesian approach for making inferences from accelerated life tests which do not require distributional assumptions     

Perceived Inflation Persistence

This article constructs and estimates a measure called perceived inflation persistence that can be used to determine if professional forecasters’ inflation forecasts indicate there has been a change in inflation persistence. This measure is built via the implied autocorrelation function that follows from the estimates obtained using a forecaster-specific state-space model. Findings indicate that U.S. perceived inflation persistence has changed since the mid-1990s with more consensus among forecasters at lower levels of persistence. When compared to the autocorrelation function for actual inflation, forecasters typically react less to shocks to inflation than the actual inflation data would suggest.     

No city for migrant women: construction workers’ experiences of exclusion from urban governance and discrimination in labour markets in Ahmedabad

ABSTRACT

Ahmedabad, Gujarat, is one of the fastest growing cities in the world, and a reflection of India’s story of exclusionary economic growth. This article focuses on research carried out with women construction workers with the help of a migrant construction workers’ union in Ahmedabad. It describes the method used by women members of the union to make visible their experiences as migrants in the city – with men, local authorities, and employers – to highlight the additional burdens that they bear due to a negligent state and industry, advocate for better working and living conditions, and raise consciousness of gender inequalities that need to be integrated into the demands of the workers’ union.     

Differential Pricing for Information Sharing Under Competition

We consider a two‐echelon supply chain with a manufacturer supplying to multiple downstream retailers engaged in differentiated Cournot competition. Each retailer has private information about uncertain demand. The manufacturer is the Stackelberg leader who sets the contract terms with the retailers, and benefits from retailers sharing their private information. When all retailers are given the same wholesale price, truthful information sharing is not an equilibrium outcome. We propose two variants of differential pricing mechanisms that induce truthful information sharing by all retailers. The first variant rewards a retailer for providing optimistic information and achieves truthful information sharing as a unique equilibrium. The differential pricing mechanism is optimal in the class of linear‐price, incentive‐compatible, direct mechanisms. The second variant, which incorporates provision for a fixed payment in addition to wholesale prices, preserves all the equilibrium properties of the first variant and additionally “nearly coordinates” the supply chain. Our analysis of differential pricing with a fixed payment provides interesting observations regarding the relationship between product substitutability, number of retailers, information precision, and market power. As products become closer substitutes and/or number of retailers increase, the manufacturer's market power increases, enabling her to extract a larger fraction of the supply chain surplus.