The ordinal egalitarian bargaining solution for finite choice sets

Rubinstein et al. (Econometrica 60:1171–1186, 1992) introduced the Ordinal Nash Bargaining Solution. They prove that Pareto optimality, ordinal invariance, ordinal symmetry, and IIA characterize this solution. A feature of their work is that attention is restricted to a domain of social choice problems with an infinite set of basic allocations. We introduce an alternative approach to solving finite social choice problems using a new notion called the Ordinal Egalitarian (OE) bargaining solution. This suggests the middle ranked allocation (or a lottery over the two middle ranked allocations) of the Pareto set as an outcome. We show that the OE solution is characterized by weak credible optimality, ordinal symmetry and independence of redundant alternatives. We conclude by arguing that what allows us to make progress on this problem is that with finite choice sets, the counting metric is a natural and fully ordinal way to measure gains and losses to agents seeking to solve bargaining problems.     

Manuel Castells and the New South Africa

The revisionist literature of the 1970s approached social stratification in South Africa with the insistence that proper ‘weighting’ of the race and class factors should occur. Arguing that class and not racial consciousness was the key determinant of social structure in pre‐industrial South Africa, it concluded that eighteenth century Cape society in certain areas of the colony was characterised by greater fluidity than the caste system of the American South or industrialised South Africa. George Fredrickson's comparative analysis of American and South African history rejects the first mentioned approach but agrees with the conclusion. This article argues that Fredrickson erred by characterising Cape society as being largely based on class and a permeable colour line. The extent to which Cape Town or frontier society can be categorised as such was limited, while the agrarian Western Cape, in terms of manumission rates and the incidence of mixed marriages, was one of the most rigid caste societies in the world. The article concludes by observing that only by studying how political and class relationships reinforced each other can the full complexity of eighteenth century Cape society be revealed.     

Ethnography and News Production: New(s) Developments in the Field*

Ethnographic studies of news production provide invaluable insights into the nature and determinants of news production and a necessary corrective, therefore, to grand speculative claims and theories about the news media. These more grounded studies have variously examined the daily routines, bureaucratic nature, competitive ethos, professional ideologies, source dependencies and cultural practices of the news media. Today, however, the globalising field of news production and journalist practices is fast changing and ethnographies of news production remain as essential as ever for explaining and understanding the complexities involved. This article overviews the field of news production studies and makes the case for why ethnographic studies need to be conducted in the future. It describes past studies and their findings, reflects on the principal strengths and possible blind spots of ethnography as a research method, and finally considers new developments in the field and the challenges that these pose to academic researchers.     

Detection of intrusions in information systems by sequential change-point methods

Sequential multi-chart detection procedures for detecting changes in multichannel sensor systems are developed. In the case of complete information on pre-change and post-change distributions, the detection algorithm represents a likelihood ratio-based multichannel generalization of Page’s cumulative sum (CUSUM) test that is applied to general stochastic models that may include correlated and nonstationary observations. There are many potential application areas where it is necessary to consider multichannel generalizations and general statistical models. In this paper our main motivation for doing so is network security: rapid anomaly detection for an early detection of attacks in computer networks that lead to changes in network traffic. Moreover, this kind of application encourages the development of a nonparametric multichannel detection test that does not use exact pre-change (legitimate) and post-change (attack) traffic models. The proposed nonparametric method can be effectively applied to detect a wide variety of attacks such as denial-of-service attacks, worm-based attacks, port-scanning, and man-in-the-middle attacks. In addition, we propose a multichannel CUSUM procedure that is based on binary quantized data; this procedure turns out to be more efficient than the previous two algorithms in certain scenarios. All proposed detection algorithms are based on the change-point detection theory. They utilize the thresholding of test statistics to achieve a fixed rate of false alarms, while allowing changes in statistical models to be detected “as soon as possible”. Theoretical frameworks for the performance analysis of detection procedures, as well as results of Monte Carlo simulations for a Poisson example and results of detecting real flooding attacks, are presented.     

Klasseneinflüsse auf das Wahlverhalten und die Wahlbeteiligung

The thesis of a declining impact of social class is widely accepted in the social sciences. A central tenet of this thesis is that in particular the impact of social class on voting has declined. Despite a plethora of empirical studies concerning this issue the mechanisms leading to this postulated decline have been relatively less explored. The current paper investigates the thesis of a substitution between class effects on voting and class effects on turnout. Under study are the United States of America and the Federal Republic of Germany. Using multinomial logit and logistic regression models for both countries a decline in class voting could be observed, but class effects on turnout increased in both countries. More specifically, the propensity to vote relatively to the non-manual classes has declined among the manual classes. In conjunction with the observation that class voting is higher among the manual classes this result supports the theory that the decline of class voting is due to an increasing political frustration within the manual classes. This reasoning suggests a substitution between class effects on voting and turnout.     

Direct Data Manipulation for Local Decision Analysis as Applied to the Problem of Arsenic in Drinking Water from Tube Wells in Bangladesh

A wide variety of tools are available, both parametric and nonparametric, for analyzing spatial data. However, it is not always clear how to translate statistical inferences into decision recommendations. This article explores the possibilities of estimating the effects of decision options using very direct manipulation of data, bypassing formal statistical analysis. We illustrate with the application that motivated this research, a study of arsenic in drinking water in nearly 5,000 wells in a small area in rural Bangladesh. We estimate the potential benefits of two possible remedial actions: (1) recommendations that people switch to nearby wells with lower arsenic levels; and (2) drilling new community wells. We use simple nonparametric clustering methods and estimate uncertainties using cross-validation.