The test for logical order in English language testing

In this paper we assess a marking scheme for the test for logical order in English language testing. This is achieved by considering the potential misclassification of students due to guessing. The distribution of scores under the hypothesis of random selection is derived and the asymptotic distribution is shown to be Poisson with a mean of unity. Recommendations are given for selecting the number of sentences in the test for logical order.     

Predictions and home advantage for Australian rules football

In a previous paper, it was demonstrated that distinctly different prediction methods when applied to 2435 American college and professional football games resulted in essentially the same fraction of correct selections of the winning team and essentially the same average absolute error for predicting the margin of victory. These results are now extended to 1446 Australian rules football games. Two distinctly different prediction methods are applied. A least-squares method provides a set of ratings. The predicted margin of victory in the next contest is less than the rating difference, corrected for home-ground advantage, while a 0.75 power method shrinks the ratings compared with those found by the least-squares technique and then performs predictions based on the rating difference and home-ground advantage. Both methods operate upon past margins of victory corrected for home advantage to obtain the ratings. It is shown that both methods perform similarly, based on the fraction of correct selections of the winning team and the average absolute error for predicting the margin of victory. That is, differing predictors using the same information tend to converge to a limiting level of accuracy. The least-squares approach also provides estimates of the accuracy of each prediction. The home advantage is evaluated for all teams collectively and also for individual teams. The data permit comparisons with other sports in other countries. The home team appears to have an advantage (the visiting team has a disadvantage) due to three factors:the visiting team suffers from travel fatigue; crowd intimidation by the home team fans; lack of familiarity with the playing conditions     

Classification and similarity analysis of fundamental frequency patterns in infant spoken language acquisition

Fundamental frequency (F0) patterns, which indicate the vibration frequency of vocal cords, reflect the developmental changes in infant spoken language. In previous studies of developmental psychology, however, F0 patterns were manually classified into subjectively specified categories. Furthermore, since F0 has sequential missing and indicates a mean nonstationarity, classification that employs subsequent partition and conventional discriminant analysis based on stationary and local stationary processes is considered inadequate. Consequently, we propose a classification method based on discriminant analysis of time series data with mean nonstationarity and sequential missing, and a measurement technique for investigating the configuration similarities for classification. Using our proposed procedures, we analyse a longitudinal database of recorded conversations between infants and parents over a five-year period. Various F0 patterns were automatically classified into appropriate pattern groups, and the classification similarities calculated. These similarities gradually decreased with infant’s monthly age until a large change occurred around 20 months. The results suggest that our proposed methods are useful for analysing large-scale data and can contribute to studies of infant spoken language acquisition.     

Origins of Linguistic Zonation in the Australian Alps. Part 2 - Snell's Law

In this second paper, analysing archival SE-Australian Aboriginal word/name lists, Snell's Law is used to deduce the likely minimal sound-systems of pre Ice-Age language superfamilies - some probably dating back beyond the first occupation of Australia by humans. The deduced 'Turuwal-like' ancestral sound-system is then used as a basis for reconstructing deictic forms apparently so ancient that they seem to even unify 'PamaNyungan' and 'non-PamaNyungan' language within a single system of formal logic which, having apparently provided the semantic basis for at least 60,000 years of speech throughout the entire Australian continent, deserves to be called proto-Australian regardless of whether or not it arose in SE-Asia tens of millennia before. Whatever the exact age of this reconstructed proto-Australian, presented here for the first time, it is an order of magnitude older than any known human language and, as such, a 'Rosetta Stone' for human languages worldwide. It also provides an unprecedented window into human consciousness and perception of the world up to 75,000 years ago, which is especially significant given that humans can only have engaged in finely controlled speech and fully modern language since chance mutation of our FOXP2 gene about 120,000 years ago. These truly ancient deictic forms dating halfway back to the beginning of modern human speech, retrieved only through modern statistical analysis, provide insight into our very origins and as such are perhaps amongst the most precious cultural treasures that humanity currently possesses.1     

Origins of linguistic zonation in the Australian Alps. part 1 - Huygens' principle

The hitherto poorly recorded boundaries of extinct traditional south-east-Australian Aboriginal languages can now be redetermined with greatly improved precision using an entropy-maximizing phonetic-signature calculated from existing data sources, including old word-lists and census forms, that have, until now, largely been considered informationally worthless. Having thus determined traditional Aboriginal language zones to a previously unimaginable degree of geographical precision, it is argued that these boundaries should not be viewed merely as a static 'snapshot' but, instead, as the end-product of a knowable dynamic process (Gillieron wave propagation) governed by well-known physical rules (such as Huygens' principle and Snell's Law) and operating over 'deep' time-scales more familiar to the archaeologist than the linguist. Although this initial study is limited to south-eastern Australia, the new methodology provides the first real hope of obtaining a detailed understanding of language dispersal throughout the entire continent over the past 60,000 years.     

Self-avoiding walks,the language of science,and Fibonacci numbers

The self-avoiding walk, restricted to a strip, is considered in the context of linguistic combinatorics.     

Energy Substitution,Separability, and Technical Progress in the Australian Iron and Steel Industry

The effects of the “energy crisis” on the Australian iron and Steel industry are analyzed by using a flexible functional form, the transcendental logarithmic (translog) function, which represents a second-order approximation of any twice differentiable function. The robustness of the translog is analyzed with special attention paid to factor aggregation and separability conditions as they relate to the specification of the functions. The estimation results suggest that capital and energy are substitutes, that aggregation of administrative workers and production labor is inappropriate, and that materials are weakly separable, thereby allowing the estimation of a capital, labor, and energy model. The data set developed covers the financial years from 1946–47 to 1978–79. This 33-year time series allows the use of different temporal subsets. Technical progress is shown to be capital and energy using and labor and material saving. An energy submodel is specified using solid fuels, oil, electricity, and gas; and the interfuel substitutions are estimated.     

Interdisciplinary research: the importance of learning other people’s language

Good interdisciplinary research requires genuine team work and appreciation of the different skills contributed by the partners involved. By the nature of our subject, statisticians are often very important contributors to this kind of research. This short note offers some brief reflection on the issues of communication which are usually present. The skills required and the need to promote these in undergraduate education and beyond have been well documented in the literature but are further emphasised here.     

Modeling demographic relationships: an analysis of forecast functions for Australian births

"This paper discusses the problem of modeling demographic variables for the purpose of forecasting." Two empirical model selection procedures, a time series approach and a sequential testing procedure, are applied to suggest final-form forecasting equations for an Australian births series, namely, first nuptial confinements. The models are compared with the method used to construct the Australian government's IMPACT demographic module. Comments by Joseph B. Kadane, Ronald Lee, Roderick J. A. Little, John F. Long, and Kenneth F. Wallis are included, together with a rejoinder by the author.     

Marking scheme for the test for logical order in English language testing:is it fair?

This note discusses a marking scheme for resting a student's ability to order English language sentences in a logical manner. It is shown that, in some circumstances, a student of intermediate ability may have a lower probability of obtaining a pass score than would a student of poor ability who guesses the order of all the sentences.     

Estimation of infant mortality rates categorized by social class for an Australian population

"This paper reports a method of deriving simultaneous confidence intervals for [Australian] infant mortality rates based on a birth sample rather than the birth population. The large sample size employed enables the use of asymptotic multivariate techniques....[The authors find that] where the population distribution of a characteristic such as social class is not known, confidence intervals can be estimated for rates based on the distribution of this characteristic in a sample of that population."     

Shared gamma frailty models based on reversed hazard rate for modeling Australian twin data

In this paper, we consider shared gamma frailty model with the reversed hazard rate (RHR) with two different baseline distributions, namely the generalized inverse Rayleigh and the exponentiated Gumbel distributions. With these two baseline distributions we propose two different shared frailty models. We develop the Bayesian estimation procedure using Markov Chain Monte Carlo technique to estimate the parameters involved in these models. We present a simulation study to compare the true values of the parameters with the estimated values. A search of the literature suggests that currently no work has been done for these two baseline distributions with a shared gamma frailty with the RHR so far. We also apply these two models by using a real life bivariate survival data set of Australian twin data given by Duffy et a1. (1990) and a better model is suggested for the data.     

Modeling Australian twin data using shared positive stable frailty models based on reversed hazard rate

Unobserved heterogeneity, also called frailty, is a major concern in the application of survival analysis. The shared frailty models allow for the statistical dependence between the observed survival data. In this paper, we consider shared positive stable frailty model with the reversed hazard rate (RHR) with three different baseline distributions, namely the exponentiated Gumbel, the generalized Rayleigh, and the generalized inverse Rayleigh distributions. With these three baseline distributions we propose three different shared frailty models. We develop the Bayesian estimation procedure using Markov Chain Monte Carlo technique to estimate the parameters involved in these models. We present a simulation study to compare the true values of the parameters with the estimated values. A search of the literature suggests that currently no work has been done for these three baseline distributions with a shared positive stable frailty with the RHR so far. We also apply these three models by using a real-life bivariate survival data set of Australian twin data given by Duffy et a1. (1990 Duffy, D.L., Martin, N.G., Mathews, J.D. (1990). Appendectomy in Australian twins. Aust. J. Hum. Genet. 47(3):590–592.[PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and a better model is suggested for the data.     

Spatial modelling of the two‐party preferred vote in Australian federal elections: 2001–2016

We examine the relationships between electoral socio‐demographic characteristics and two‐party preferences in the six Australian federal elections held between 2001 and 2016. Socio‐demographic information is derived from the Australian Census which occurs every 5 years. Since a census is not directly available for each election, an imputation method is employed to estimate census data for the electorates at the time of each election. This accounts for both spatial and temporal changes in electoral characteristics between censuses. To capture any spatial heterogeneity, a spatial error model is estimated for each election, which incorporates a spatially structured random effect vector. Over time, the impact of most socio‐demographic characteristics that affect electoral two‐party preference do not vary, with age distribution, industry of work, incomes, household mobility and relationships having strong effects in each of the six elections. Education and unemployment are among those that have varying effects. All data featured in this study have been contributed to the eechidna R package (available on CRAN).     

The Effects of Variations in the Components of Change on the Size and Structure of The Australian Population: 1911-66

The main aim of the study was to estimate separately the effects of the variations in the components of population change and the effects of their mutual interactions on the size and age structure and other characteristics of the Australian population during 1911-66. The method proposed, called here the factorial projection method, is to project the population over the period under consideration, under different assumptions according to a 2×2×2 factorial design, utilizing the observed variations in fertility, mortality and migration. It was found that, apart from the effects of variations in the components occurring individually, the two factor interaction effects– the interaction effects of the changes occurring simultaneously in two of the components (viz. fertility and mortality or mortality and migration or fertility and migration)–on the population size, were considerable. The contribution of migration to the working age group was greater than its effect on the total size, and mortality improvement played a more prominent role in increasing the size of the old age population, while the reduction in fertility caused a higher proportion in the old age group and thus increased the mean age of the population both in the case of males and females. The two factor interaction effects were not negligible in changing the size of the school age population, population in the working age group and also in the old age group. But the interaction of migration and the decline in fertility was the only interaction effect which was important in changing the percentage age distribution and the mean age of the male and female population.     

Posterior sampling in two classes of multivariate fractionally integrated models: corrigendum to Ravishanker,N. and B. K. Ray (1997) Australian Journal of Statistics 39 (3), 295–311

We discuss posterior sampling for two distinct multivariate generalisations of the univariate autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model with fractional integration. The existing approach to Bayesian estimation, introduced by Ravishanker & Ray, claims to provide a posterior‐sampling algorithm for fractionally integrated vector autoregressive moving averages (FIVARMAs). We show that this algorithm produces posterior draws for vector autoregressive fractionally integrated moving averages (VARFIMAs), a model of independent interest that has not previously received attention in the Bayesian literature.     

Selected problems concerning changes in the population age structure in Czechoslovakia in comparison with those in Poland

A comparative analysis of changes in the characteristics of the populations of Czechoslovakia and Poland by age and sex since 1921 is presented. The emphasis is on changes occurring since 1950.     

利用因子分析法浅析我国健康经济发展状况

在经济发展促进人们收入水平不断提高的同时,经济学界引入了一种全新的理念即"健康经济"来衡量和评价经济的发展。文章利用因子分析的方法来剖析我国各个省市在促进"健康经济"发展上的不同表现,并提出一些相关的政策建议,为促进我国各省市"健康经济"的发展提供一定的理论依据。     

坚持改革，勇于创新

世纪之交 ,我国的国民经济发展和改革开放事业都进入了一个新阶段。经过中央采取一系列重大宏观调控措施和各地的不懈努力 ,目前我国国民经济出现了重要转机 ,各主要宏观经济指标明显回升 ,经济形势总体继续趋好。就统计而言 ,经过二十多年不断努力 ,我国的统计改革已取得了巨大进展。但是 ,随着新世纪信息化时代的到来 ,大量新技术、新思想、新社会经济现象的涌现 ,以及经济全球化的发展 ,使统计方法应用的广泛性 ,统计数据和统计信息的渗透性 ,统计主客体的多样性都发生了质的变化 ,而这一变化对统计改革而言既是机遇也是挑战 ,所谓机遇就…     

The demographic situation in Poland in 1987

Demographic trends in Poland in 1987 are reviewed using data from official sources. The author notes that the population growth rate for 1987 was 0.5 percent, compared to 0.8 percent for the 1980s as a whole.