Modes of incorporation: a conceptual and empirical critique

Entering the debate over segmented assimilation, this paper seeks to refocus discussion on a core, but neglected claim: that inter-group disparities among immigrant offspring derive from differences in a contextual feature shared by immigrant and immigrant descendants: a nationality's mode of incorporation. The paper engages in both theoretical and empirical assessment. We critically examine the concept of mode of incorporation, demonstrating that its operational implications have not been correctly understood; consequently, the core hypothesis has never been appropriately tested. The second part of the paper implements those tests, making use of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey. We do so by using nationality as a proxy for mode of incorporation, systematically contrasting more advantaged against less advantaged nationalities. We show: (a) that tests systematically varying modes classified as more or less advantageous yield inconsistent outcomes; (b) that positive or negative modes of incorporation are associated with few long-lasting effects; (c) that differences in governmental reception are particularly unlikely to be associated with interethnic disparities; and (d) that compared to theoretically relevant nationalities, neither Mexicans, a nationality assigned to a negative mode of incorporation, nor pre-Mariel Cubans, a nationality assigned to positive mode of incorporation, prove distinctive.     

全球商业革命、瀑布效应以及中国企业面临的挑战

20世纪末发生的全球商业革命具有三大特征：一是在跨国公司重组并购浪潮中所形成的高度产业集中．二是由核心公司对其所在价值链所进行的“系统集成”的管理手段,三是在系统集成过程中所产生的对价值链各个层面的巨大的集约压力,即所谓的“瀑布效应”。文章通过对航空工业和饮料业两个截然不同的产业的案例分析来显示这几个特征的普遍性。这些变化对正在步入世界商业体系的中国企业带来了巨大的挑战。     

Knowledge translation strategies in a community–university partnership: examining local Quality of Life (QoL)

There is a growing interest in quality of life as an integrated approach to addressing key social, environmental and economic determinants of health. The University of Saskatchewan’s Community-University Institute for Social Research, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (grant #410-2004-0669) has examined the process and results of a multi-stakeholder approach to the ongoing sustainability of Saskatoon, Canada as a healthy city with an improving and a more equitably distributed quality of life. Using quantitative and qualitative analysis, together with GIS technology, this research has examined the quality of life across three locales in Saskatoon—representing Low, Middle and High socio-economic status in both 2001 and 2004. The participatory action research approach used in this work ensures the value of the outputs to the stakeholders. Given the strong recognition of the importance of interfacing policy, research and community, and the growing impatience with the limited application of research findings to social and health practices and policies, this project has undertaken four major knowledge translation/transfer strategies, above and beyond the traditional academic channels: (1) engagement of local media on a consistent basis, (2) implementing community policy forums to ensure continued community readiness and uptake, (3) facilitation of and successful functioning of a steering committee, and (4) employment of an action researcher to operate as a policy entrepreneur. This paper will review and discuss each of these strategies and outline the evaluative research being done to document the success of these strategies.

Symmetric quantiles and their applications

To develop estimators with stronger efficiencies than the trimmed means which use the empirical quantile, Kim (1992) Kim, S. J. 1992. The metrically trimmed means as a robust estimator of location. Annals of Statistics, 20: 1534–1547. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar] and Chen & Chiang (1996) Chen, L. A. and Chiang, Y. C. 1996. Symmetric type quantile and trimmed means for location and linear regression model. Journal of Nonparametric Statistics, 7: 171–185. [Taylor & Francis Online] [Google Scholar], implicitly or explicitly used the symmetric quantile, and thus introduced new trimmed means for location and linear regression models, respectively. This study further investigates the properties of the symmetric quantile and extends its application in several aspects. (a) The symmetric quantile is more efficient than the empirical quantiles in asymptotic variances when quantile percentage α is either small or large. This reveals that for any proposal involving the α th quantile of small or large α s, the symmetric quantile is the right choice; (b) a trimmed mean based on it has asymptotic variance achieving a Cramer-Rao lower bound in one heavy tail distribution; (c) an improvement of the quantiles-based control chart by Grimshaw & Alt (1997) Grimshaw, S. D. and Alt, F. B. 1997. Control charts for quantile function values. Journal of Quality Technology, 29: 1–7. [Taylor & Francis Online] [Google Scholar] is discussed; (d) Monte Carlo simulations of two new scale estimators based on symmetric quantiles also support this new quantile.     

Research on persistent pain in late life: current topics and challenges

Older women often experience pain in their daily lives. This article provides an overview of topics addressed in the geriatric pain research published between 1999 and 2004. New areas of emphasis of research have emerged such as the recognition of body mass and weight as a factor in persistent pain, while other areas have expanded, including the focus on pain among elders with cognitive impairments and the use of alternative treatment approaches. Understanding of pain in late life is hindered by study samples that lack diversity, treatment approaches that are narrowly focused, and a lack of attention to quality of life issues.     

Bargaining on Board Structure at the Initial Public Offering

Going public often creates an agency conflict between the owner-manager and minority shareholders. One possible way to resolve this conflict is through independent board monitoring. But board monitoring does not arise automatically in IPO companies. Owner-managers tend to entrench and capture the board. Analyzing a sample of French IPO firms, we find that the fraction of independent directors declines if the owner-manager is more powerful. However, we find that large pre-IPO non-management shareholders, such as venture capitalists, are successful in bargaining on board composition. These shareholders are successful in opposing the owner-manager and prevent a further reduction in the proportion of independent directors in the board. We also find that these shareholders contract on board composition in shareholder agreements.     

SEMIPARAMETRIC COMPARISON OF REGRESSION CURVES VIA NORMAL LIKELIHOODS

Härdle & Marron (1990) treated the problem of semiparametric comparison of nonparametric regression curves by proposing a kernel-based estimator derived by minimizing a version of weighted integrated squared error. The resulting estimators of unknown transformation parameters are n-consistent, which prompts a consideration of issues. of optimality. We show that when the unknown mean function is periodic, an optimal nonparametric estimator may be motivated by an elegantly simple argument based on maximum likelihood estimation in a parametric model with normal errors. Strikingly, the asymptotic variance of an optimal estimator of θ does not depend at all on the manner of estimating error variances, provided they are estimated n-consistently. The optimal kernel-based estimator derived via these considerations is asymptotically equivalent to a periodic version of that suggested by Härdle & Marron, and so the latter technique is in fact optimal in this sense. We discuss the implications of these conclusions for the aperiodic case.     

Children with disabilities and chronic conditions and longer-term parental health

This paper uses panel data from the Statistics Canada National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (1994–2000) to study the implications of parenting a child with a disability or chronic condition for subjective assessments of parental health. We find mother's health to be negatively affected, particularly if the disability is longer-term. Within families, the wife's health deteriorates relative to her husband's when they are parenting a child with a disability. These results are consistent with Akerlof and Kranton's [Akerlof, G., Kranton, R., 2000. Economics and identity. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 105(3), 715–753] arguments that ‘identity’ is an important determinant of both behaviour and well-being. For parents of children with disabilities, the behaviour associated with a traditional ‘good mother’ identity (e.g., care-giving) appears to have more adverse health consequences than the behaviour associated with a ‘good father’ identity (e.g., breadwinning).