To split or not to split the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals: A simple statistical argument,counterargument, and critique

A statistical argument was presented quite recently, as an Op-Ed in The Los Angeles Times, purporting to conclude that the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals should be split. A corresponding statistical counterargument and critique are introduced in the present paper, by making use of some combinatorial formulas and by proposing an alternative empirical approach. In addition, with this issue of the Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference dedicated to Ted Anderson, I also include here comments on his contributions to both statistical inference about Markov chains and to statistical inference about latent classes.     

Comparison of bias-reducing methods for estimating the parameter in dilution series

Ten different estimators of the parameter in a limiting or serial dilution assay are compared. Eight of them are constructed to reduce the bias of the commonly used maximum likelihood estimator. Extensive Monte Carlo experiments using various designs, and practical considerations, suggest that a particular jackknife version of the maximum likelihood estimator is preferred, provided that the design is not too small.     

The value of planned death

In this paper we propose a theoretical model of evaluating the economic costs and benefits of physician assisted suicide (euthanasia). The contemplation of euthanasia is modeled akin to the valuation of a real option. Our modeling of the decision shows that euthanasia is optimal when certain conditions are satisfied. The findings in this paper suggest that if more money is spent on medical research (such as pain management), the demand for Euthanasia could be reduced.     

Popular Culture and Workplace Gendering among Varieties of Capitalism: Working Women and their Representation in Japanese Manga

Female empowerment is a prerequisite for a just and sustainable developed society. Being the most developed non‐western country, Japan offers an instructive window onto concerns about gender worldwide. Although overall gender equality is advancing in Japan, difficulties remain, especially in achieving equality in the workplace. We draw on theories of ontological commitment and the psychology of fiction to critically analyse the role of popular culture — in this case manga — in the reproduction of gender inequality in the Japanese workplace. We present examples of four of the most popular mainstream manga aimed at working men and women in Japan and show how women are depicted. We argue that the hyper‐mediated fictional realism of representative tropes generates an ontological commitment to characters and narratives among consumers that reinforces the reproduction of a culturally exceptionalist national political economic space, one of whose essential defining characteristics is a gendered workplace. Our research suggests important implications for researching the relationship between culture, in all its forms, and spatial variation in persistent institutional biases among varieties of capitalism.     

Der Einfluss von Systemischen Strukturaufstellungen auf Koh?sion, Kooperation, Koordination und Kommunikation in Teams: Eine L?ngsschnittstudie

This article deals with the evaluation of structural team constellations (STC)??a special form of organisational constellation. 67 team members from 14 working teams carried out an STC and were surveyed at three time intervals, by means of a questionnaire, on their estimation of cohesion, cooperation, communication and coordination in the team as well as on their satisfaction with the relationship to the constellator. Stable chronologically increases were noticed in the variables of cohesion and cooperation. For the variables communication and coordination, however, improvements could only be established, between the first and second measurement. Participants who better evaluated the team variables over time were also more satisfied with their relationship to the constellator. Given the low time requirements involved, STCs can be rated as recommendable compared to other team training and team building processes.     

Abstracts and reviews

Although men are far less likely than women to be victims of heterosexual assault, such cases have been reported with increasing frequency in recent years. We compared social judgments about male and female victims of heterosexual and homosexual rape and tested hypotheses concerning social cognitions that are assumed to underlie a male rape mythology. In a 2 × 2 × 2 design, 77 male and 89 female subjects made a series of judgments about a sexual assault case in which sex of victim and sex of assailants were manipulated. Consistent with the hypotheses, the male victim of sexual assault by females was judged more likely to have initiated or encouraged the sex acts, and more enjoyment and less stress were attributed to him. This pattern of results was more pronounced among male subjects. The results are discussed in relation to stereotypic beliefs concerning male sex roles, sexual motivation, and sexual functioning that are likely to affect the social cognitions of both observers and male victims of heterosexual assault.     

Demographic and health-related predictors of the incidence of sudden infant death

This report employs several demographic and health-related variables to predict the incidence of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (or SIDS) in 324 census tracts of the city of Philadelphia during the years 1970–1975. Two types of multivariate statistical procedures — multiple regression and classification by linear discriminant function — provide significant and strongly predictive results. While a number of new univariate findings are also presented and some limitations of the use of census tracts are noted, a major emphasis is on the incremental effects that occur when variables are entered into multivariate equations in a predetermined order to remove the influences of confounding demographic predictors. The presence of significant incremental relationships between pregnancy-related health variables and SIDS frequencies and rules provides encouragement for future research into common predictive and etiological strategies across SIDS and other types of infant deaths. Additional applications of the methods and results are indicated.     

Systemische Aufstellungen und lösungsfokussierte Beratung in der Schulpraxis

Systemic sculpturing and solution oriented counseling is a possibility to help students to improve their teaching competencies when problems with teaching may be ascribed to unfavorable mental modells about teaching in general and their roles as teachers. After clarifying some basic assumptions about systemic formations and solution oriented counseling, the steps of such a process are described and illustrated by means of a case study. The mode of action and effect of systemic sculpturing are described at the end.     

看张爱玲的《对照记》

张爱玲的《对照记》对照的是形象(照片)与个人身世的真实,因此她用文字来解释心得。《对照记》本身有很强的“后设性”,对《对照记》的解读,则是“后设”的“后设”。从《对照记》中所列的相当可观的张爱玲祖父祖母一代人的照片中,可以解读出她的怀古幽思,她所怀念的就是她祖父母这一代的人物和生活方式,这自觉或不自觉地展露了她的历史怀旧意识。《对照记》中没有张爱玲与父亲或母亲的合影,也没有她父母亲的合影,这些照片的缺失使《对照记》创设了一股幼时的失落感或被遗弃的情境,呈现出“褪了色”的苍凉。张爱玲自己的照片在全书中有30多幅,她的姿态在“镜花水月”式的美学意境中制造了一种神秘感。张爱玲“传奇”不仅是她的文字,也是她的形象造成的。