Global Development Goals: The Folly of Technocratic Pretensions

This article argues that, although effective strategic choices for achieving global development goals need to be based on assessments of the costs and benefits of alternative approaches, existing methods of arriving at such assessments are highly unreliable, in particular deriving from implausible and restrictive assumptions and often depending on data of poor quality, and on the pretence that the future can be adequately known. Such weaknesses can be mitigated, but not easily overcome, without abandoning deeply held technocratic presumptions.     

Socio-economic differentials in childhood immunization in India, 1992–2006

This paper examines the socio-economic differentials in coverage of basic childhood immunization in India and the states of Bihar and Gujarat using three rounds of National Family Health Survey data. States are selected on the basis of changes in full immunization coverage during 1992–2006. Bivariate, multivariate, and progression rate is used to understand the differentials and changes in immunization coverage. Results indicate that there has been a substantial increase in partial immunization in most of the states, but the increase in full immunization coverage is relatively slow in many of the states. Along with mother’s education, standard of living, mass media exposure, and availability of health card is a significant predictor in explaining the full immunization coverage irrespective of time.     

Despite the crisis: The resilience of intercultural nationalism in Catalonia

Interculturalism provides the core framework for immigration‐related policies in Catalonia, while remaining deeply intertwined with Catalan nationalism. We first identify ‘intercultural nationalism’ as the core doctrine through which Catalan nationalist discourse has been articulated in relation to immigration. We trace interculturalism's origins to nationalism in Quebec and argue that, in Catalonia also, regional immigration policies have been constructed in opposition to those of the central state, while attempting to involve immigrants closely in subnational belonging and social cohesion. Second, we investigate whether interculturalism is durable during economic and political crises, arguing that intercultural policies did not change following the economic recession of the 2010s. This harmonises with broader interpretations that de‐emphasise the role of economic factors in ethnic conflicts. In conclusion we note how the continuing resilience of interculturalism in Catalan policies on immigration contrasts sharply with the rise of xenophobia elsewhere.     

Generalised Linear Models Incorporating Population Level Information: An Empirical Likelihood Based Approach

In many situations information from a sample of individuals can be supplemented by population level information on the relationship between a dependent variable and explanatory variables. Inclusion of the population level information can reduce bias and increase the efficiency of the parameter estimates.Population level information can be incorporated via constraints on functions of the model parameters. In general the constraints are nonlinear making the task of maximum likelihood estimation harder. In this paper we develop an alternative approach exploiting the notion of an empirical likelihood. It is shown that within the framework of generalised linear models, the population level information corresponds to linear constraints, which are comparatively easy to handle. We provide a two-step algorithm that produces parameter estimates using only unconstrained estimation. We also provide computable expressions for the standard errors. We give an application to demographic hazard modelling by combining panel survey data with birth registration data to estimate annual birth probabilities by parity.     

CONSTRUCTION OF BALANCED TERNARY DESIGNS

In this paper variance balanced ternary designs are constructed in unequal block sizes for situations when suitable BIB designs do not exist for a given number of treatments because of the constraints bk=vr,and λ(v - 1) =r(k- 1).     

Bayes estimators of the reliability function and parameter of inverted exponential distribution using informative and non-informative priors

In this paper, we propose Bayes estimators of the parameter and reliability function of inverted exponential distribution under the general entropy loss function for complete, type I and type II censored samples. The proposed estimators have been compared with the corresponding maximum-likelihood estimators for their simulated risks (average loss over sample space).     

Variance estimation for tree-order restricted models

In this article, we discuss the estimation of the common variance of several normal populations with tree-order restricted means. We discuss the asymptotic properties of the maximum-likelihood estimator (MLE) of the variance as the number of populations tends to infinity. We consider several cases of various orders of the sample sizes and show that the MLE of the variance may or may not be consistent or be asymptotically normal.     

On two-person Nash implementable choice functions

An elementary proof of a theorem on two-person Nash implementable choice functions is provided.     

Selection of logistics service provider: An analytic network process (ANP) approach

This article presents a comprehensive methodology for the selection of a logistic service provider. The proposed methodology consists of two parts: (i) preliminary screening of the available providers, and (ii) analytic network process (ANP)-based final selection. The criteria, which are relevant in the selection of a provider, have been identified and used to construct an ANP model. Thereafter, the application of ANP for the final selection of a provider has been demonstrated through an illustrative example. The results of this example indicate that compatibility between the user and the provider companies is the most important determinant, which influences the final selection process. This approach also enables the decision-makers to better understand the complex relationships of the relevant attributes in the decision-making, which may subsequently improve the reliability of the decision.