On weighted Renyi’s entropy for double-truncated distribution

In a recent paper, Nourbakhsh and Yari (2017 Nourbakhsh, M., and G. Yari. 2017. Weighted Renyi’s entropy for lifetime distributions. Communications in Statistics—Theory and Methods 46 (14):7085–98.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) introduce the weighted version of Renyi’s entropy for left/right truncated random variables and studied their properties in context of reliability analysis. In the present communication we extend the notion of weighted Renyi’s entropy for two-sided truncated random variable. In reliability theory and survival analysis, this measure may help to study the quantitative-qualitative information spectrum of a system/component when it fails between two time points. Various aspects of weighted Renyi’s interval entropy have been discussed and some mistakes in the preceding literature have also been corrected. These results generalize and enhance the related existing results that are developed based on weighted Renyi’s entropy for one-sided truncated random variable. Finally, a simulation study is added to provide the estimates of the proposed measure and to demonstrate the performance of the estimates.     

Statistical analysis of intercropping data using a correlated error structure *

Intercropping is an important farming system, especially in tropical regions. A statistical model with competition coefficients and correlated error structure is suggested for the analysis of data from intercropping experiments involving two crop species. Data from an intercropping experiment with pearl millet and sorghum genotypes are used to illustrate the technique.     

An improved two stage randomized response strategy

Mangat and Singh (1990) have suggested a two stage randomized response technique to estimate the proportion of population possessing a sensitive attribute. The procedure was shown to be more efficient than the procedure due to Warner (1965). Recently, Tracy and Osahan (1993) have suggested a modification to the Mangat and Singh (1990) procedure which results in a more efficient strategy in practice. In this paper we propose a modification to the Tracy and Osahan (1993) procedure. The modified procedure is a generalization of Tracy and Osahan (1993) and is always more efficient than their strategy. An empirical study has also been undertaken to find the extent of relative efficiency.     

Contradictions in consciousness or variations in tradition: Hindu women in the South African diaspora

The introductory section of this paper reviews previous studies of the Indian diaspora to show their lack of attention to gender issues. While ideals of Hindu fundamentalism and social conditions imposed by caste are unlikely to be recreated in South Africa, it is proposed that Hindu women in South Africa are custodians of Hindu values. The paper goes on to present a brief history of middle and upper-class Hindu women in South Africa to place them within the context of the Indian diaspora. After describing the fieldwork and methodology (data were gathered from extensive interviews with 20 women representing the four major linguistic groups currently living in Durban), some of the distinctive characteristics of women's experiences and the problems these present because they are either contradictions or variations of conditions in India are discussed. The study then demonstrates that the individual choices made by the women are inconsistent with the apartheid notions of unambiguous social boundaries and also challenge the opposing Marxist perspective that ethnic consciousness is false. It is concluded that cultural adornments and self-imposed limitations on travel and socialization publicize status and ethnic identity and continuity with tradition. Hindu women in South Africa emphasize this continuity through personal beliefs or through the way they present themselves in public.     

Strategic Cognition of Operations Executives

The nature of operations executives’ strategic cognition, as the antecedent to their choices about operations strategy, remains underexplored in the literature. This mixed‐methods study examines executives’ thinking about supply chain strategy through the lens of managerial cognition. Our qualitative study at a pharmaceutical distributor, which examined 25 executives’ outlook on the future of the turbulent U.S. healthcare sector and their suggestions for adapting the company's supply chain strategy to that future, suggests that an executive's strategic cognition can be defined by its regulatory focus—whether the executive envisions the future environment in terms of opportunities or threats—and the level of optimism in regards to the envisioned future. We propose a typology that predicts the strategic choices of operations executives based on four types of cognition: pioneering, pushing, protective, and provocative. It describes whether an executive's strategic choices target traditional or novel sources of revenue, and if they seek to influence either the firm's structure and practices or its environment. Our empirical test of the typology using quantitative data collected in a survey of senior operations executives supports the study's propositions associating three of the four types of cognition with their respective preferred strategic choices.     

Chain ratio and regression type estimators for median estimation in survey sampling

In this paper, we consider chain ratio and regression type estimators for estimating median in survey sampling. We find expressions for the variance of the chain-ratio and chain-regression type estimators considered in the present investigation. The optimum values of the first phase and second phase sample sizes are also obtained for the fixed cost of survey. The relative efficiency of chain-ratio and chain-regression type estimators have been studied in comparison to ratio and regression type estimators of median proposed by Singh, Joarder and Tracy (2001).     

Calibration of the estimators of variance

This investigation suggests new techniques to calibrate estimators of variance. Estimators of the variance of simple mean, ratio and regression estimators under different sampling schemes are shown to be special cases of the proposed calibration techniques. The approach has more practical use due to recent advances in programming techniques and computational speed. An empirical study has been carried out to address the properties of these proposed strategies.     

Diversity and representation in infant research: Barriers and bridges toward a globalized science of infant development

Psychological researchers have become increasingly concerned with generalized accounts of human behavior based on narrow participant representation. This concern is particularly germane to infant research as findings from infant studies are often invoked to theorize broadly about the origins of human behavior. In this article, we examined participant diversity and representation in research published on infant development in four journals over the past decade. Sociodemographic data were coded for all articles reporting infant data published in Child Development, Developmental Science, Developmental Psychology, and Infancy between 2011 and 2022. Analyses of 1682 empirical articles, sampling approximately 1 million participants, revealed consistent under-reporting of sociodemographic information. For studies that reported sociodemographic characteristics, there was an unwavering skew toward White infants from North America/Western Europe. To address a lack of diversity in infant studies and its scientific impact, a set of principles and practices are proposed to advance toward a more globally representative science.     

Post-racial pedagogy – challenges and possibilities

Against the backdrop of ongoing discussions about how best to conceptualise, confront and ultimately eradicate racism, this paper seeks to critically examine the relevance of ‘post-racial’ thinking, both in a general sense, but also in relation to education. The argument is framed around a concern that multi-cultural, and to a lesser extent, anti-racist approaches have become hostage to the very same essentialising practices around ‘race’ thinking that they seek to challenge. This is best illustrated in the plethora of racial, ethnic, geographic, national and religious categories that are currently deployed my many educational institutions in the furtherance of ‘equality and diversity’ policy objectives. In setting out some of the underpinning ideas and controversies linked with the idea of ‘post-racial’, the paper offers some tentative suggestions as to how a ‘post-racial pedagogy’ could be manifested in pedagogical practices.     

Do Children With Gender Dysphoria Have Intense/Obsessional Interests?

This study examined whether children clinically referred for gender dysphoria (GD) show increased symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Circumscribed preoccupations or intense interests were considered as overlapping symptoms expressed in GD and ASD. In gender-referred children (n = 534; 82.2% male) and their siblings (n = 419; 57.5% male), we examined Items 9 and 66 on the Child Behavior Checklist, which measure obsessions and compulsions, respectively. Non-GD clinic-referred (n = 1,201; 48.5% male) and nonreferred (n = 1,201; 48.5% male) children were also examined. Gender-referred children were elevated compared to all other groups for Item 9, and compared to siblings and nonreferred children for Item 66. A gender-related theme was significantly more common for gender-referred boys than male siblings on Item 9 only. A gender-related theme was not significantly more common for gender-referred girls compared to their female siblings on either item. The findings for Item 9 support the idea that children with GD show an elevation in obsessional interests. For gender-referred boys in particular, gender-related themes constituted more than half of the examples provided by their mothers. Intense/obsessional interests in children with GD may be one of the factors underlying the purported link between GD and ASD.