Parameter measures of skewness

Several different measures of skewness are commonly used in place of γ₁, the third central moment divided by the cube of the standard deviation. The numerical values of these measures are compared in this paper for members of the gamma, lognormal or Weibull family of distributions and shown to vary considerably in most cases even when skewness and kurtosis are moderate.     

A Question of Ethics

This article identifies three consulting roles—helper, leader, and colleague; recommends that statistical consultants ask more questions about basic mechanisms; suggests that statistical consultants regard their primary responsibility as providing guidance about the scientific method itself; discusses the need for continuing education to help improve consulting skills; and describes Wisconsin's Master's degree examination, which was designed to help students become effective practicing statisticians.     

An Introduction to Ranking and Selection

This expository paper explains the philosophy of the indifference-zone approach and the subset-selection approach to ranking and selection procedures. It includes examples of operating characteristic curves and data applications for selection problems based on the binomial and normal distributions. A variety of different models and goals are provided with a list of references.     

Multivariate Kendall's tau for change‐point detection in copulas

Statistical procedures for the detection of a change in the dependence structure of a series of multivariate observations are studied in this work. The test statistics that are proposed are $L_1$ , $L_2$ , and $L_{\infty }$ distances computed from vectors of differences of Kendall's tau; two multivariate extensions of Kendall's measure of association are used. Since the distributions of these statistics under the null hypothesis of no change depend on the unknown underlying copula of the vectors, a procedure based on the multiplier central limit theorem is used for the computation of p‐values; the method is shown to be valid both asymptotically and for moderate sample sizes. Alternative versions of the tests that take into account possible breakpoints in the marginal distributions are also investigated. Monte Carlo simulations show that the tests are powerful under many scenarios of change‐point. In addition, two estimators of the time of change are proposed and their efficiency is carefully studied. The methodologies are illustrated on simulated series from the Canadian Regional Climate Model. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 41: 65–82; 2013 © 2012 Statistical Society of Canada     

Getting real: heuristics in sociological knowledge

Theory and Society - This article examines the connections among heuristics, the epistemological and ontological presuppositions that underlie theorizing, and substantive explanations in sociology....     

Parenting and children’s negative emotionality,self‐regulation,and academic skills: The moderating role of fathers’ residency

We examined whether fathers’ residency modified the associations among mothers’ supportiveness, father involvement, children’s negative emotionality during toddlerhood and children’s academic skills in pre‐kindergarten via children’s self‐regulation. Participants were 2,291 mothers (M_age = 23.24 years) and children (M_age = 14.99 months at Wave 1; 50.7% girls) in the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project. Results revealed distinctive associations by fathers’ residency: self‐regulation mediated the association between mothers’ supportiveness and academic skills only in resident‐father‐families. Self‐regulation mediated the association between negative emotionality and academic skills only in nonresident‐father‐families. The findings highlight the family processes of mothers, fathers, and children in low‐income family contexts that contribute to children’s academic skills, and how those family processes may vary by fathers’ residency status.     

The media and the formation of the public sphere in the new Independent States

This paper analyses the development of the media in the successor states of the USSR from a public sphere perspective. This approach allows the post‐communist media to be placed within the context of the process of democratization that these societies are currently experiencing by postulating that the role of the media in this process should be to provide a symbolic space where the economic and political dimensions of the process of transition offer themselves to the comprehension of citizens, and where those who hold representative opinions on this process are able to express themselves. This article argues that two main obstacles exist to the development of East European media as a public sphere institution. These are the various means of control East European governments employ to check the freedom of the press, and some of the profit‐oriented journalistic practices market‐driven media entrepreneurs are introducing in the East European media field. In its conclusion, this article argues that media policies in the New Independent States should specifically aim at developing the media as a public sphere institution rather than simply an industry.