entropy and internal inormation of printed urdu

This paper presents a systematic study for the entropy and coding of the printed Urdu language. Comparison with the study of printed Arabic and printed English is also given. We also find the alphabet entropy of the Urdu language using Bayesian estimator given by Gill and Joane (1979) and compare it with the entropy calculated through using the usual maximum likelihood estimator.     

Comparing Joint GQL Estimation and GMM Adaptive Estimation in COM-Poisson Longitudinal Regression Model

It is of scientific interest to study the application of COM-Poisson model to the case of longitudinal response data, the analysis of which is quite challenging due to the fact that longitudinal responses of a subject are correlated and the correlation pattern is usually unknown. In this article, we extend the COM-Poisson GLM to the generalized linear longitudinal model. We also develop a joint generalized quasi-likelihood estimating equation approach based on a stationary autocorrelation structure for the repeated count data. We further compare the performance of this estimation method with that of Generalized Method of Moments through a simulation study.     

Inference about the parameters of a bi-variate simultaneous equation model: structural approach

The paper considers a system of bi-linear responses having a regression structure with known predetermined variables. In econometric studies, the model is widely used and is known as simultaneous equation model. The probability distribution for the coefficients of the exogenous variables as well as that of the error variances along with the marginal likelihood function of the coefficients of the endogenous variables have been derived. The model in this paper has been analysed in the framework of a conditional structural model (Fraser 1968, 1979), which provides the basis of inference about all the parameters.     

The foster care system in India

The author has undertaken the difficult task of giving us an overall view of the foster care picture of all India, the first such panorama we have received.     

Competing constructions of calamity: The April 1991 Bangladesh cyclone

On April 30, 1991, a cyclone of unusual intensity hit the coastline of Bangladesh, causing over one hundred thousand deaths and widespread property damage. An international debate ensued over whether the disaster was due to natural phenomena and should be addressed by relief measures, or whether it was due to social, economic, and political factors and should be addressed by structural change in society. This study explores the dimensions of this debate by means of a content analysis of accounts of the cyclone by the Bangladesh media and government, and by the international media and scholarly community.Bangladeshi accounts of the cyclone emphasize its purported inevitability and natural origins. However, scholars maintain that while cyclones are inevitable, disasters such as occurred in April 1991 are not: they are a function of the historically increasing socioeconomic vulnerability of the Bangladesh population. According to this view, the natural disaster of April 1991 could more accurately be called a social or political disaster. The factor chiefly responsible for transforming natural disasters into sociopolitical disasters is occupation of hazardous areas.The Bangladesh media and government suggest that the cyclone's impact was worsened by the irrational behavior of individuals and the limited resources of the nation. Non-Bangladeshi accounts focus instead on the poverty of individuals and the structural inequities of society, which compel people to live in hazardous areas. Bangladeshi accounts attempted to link the cyclone to global warming and the greenhouse gas emissions of the industrialized nations, thus shifting the focus from internal problems of structure and equity to international problems of structure and equity. Debates such as this promise to become more common, as the global environment becomes increasingly post-natural and the framing of relations between population and environment is increasingly contested.     

The Correlated Bivariate Noncentral F Distribution and Its Application

This article proposes the singly and doubly correlated bivariate noncentral F (BNCF) distributions. The probability density function (pdf) and the cumulative distribution function (cdf) of the distributions are derived for arbitrary values of the parameters. The pdf and cdf of the distributions for different arbitrary values of the parameters are computed, and their graphs are plotted by writing and implementing new R codes. An application of the correlated BNCF distribution is illustrated in the computations of the power function of the pre-test test for the multivariate simple regression model (MSRM).     

Discussion of “Simple Estimators for Invertible Index Models” by H. Ahn,H. Ichimura,J. Powell,and P. Ruud

This is an interesting article that considers the question of inference on unknown linear index coefficients in a general class of models where reduced form parameters are invertible function of one or more linear index. Interpretable sufficient conditions such as monotonicity and or smoothness for the invertibility condition are provided. The results generalize some work in the previous literature by allowing the number of reduced form parameters to exceed the number of indices. The identification and estimation expand on the approach taken in previous work by the authors. Examples include Ahn, Powell, and Ichimura (2004 Ahn, H., Powell, J., and Ichimura, H. (2004), “Simple Estimators for Monotone Index Models,” UC Berkeley Working Paper. [Google Scholar]) for monotone single-index regression models to a multi-index setting and extended by Blundell and Powell (2004 Blundell, R. W., and Powell, J. L. (2004), “Endogeneity in Semiparametric Binary Response Models,” The Review of Economic Studies, 71, 655–679.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Powell and Ruud (2008 Powell, J., and Ruud, P. (2008), “Simple Estimators for Semiparametric Multinomial Choice Models,” UC Berkeley Working Paper. [Google Scholar]) to models with endogenous regressors and multinomial response, respectively. A key property of the inference approach taken is that the estimator of the unknown index coefficients (up to scale) is computationally simple to obtain (relative to other estimators in the literature) in that it is closed form. Specifically, unifying an approach for all models considered in this article, the authors propose an estimator, which is the eigenvector of a matrix (defined in terms of a preliminary estimator of the reduced form parameters) corresponding to its smallest eigenvalue. Under suitable conditions, the proposed estimator is shown to be root-n-consistent and asymptotically normal.     

Exponentiated Weibull regression for time-to-event data

The Weibull, log-logistic and log-normal distributions are extensively used to model time-to-event data. The Weibull family accommodates only monotone hazard rates, whereas the log-logistic and log-normal are widely used to model unimodal hazard functions. The increasing availability of lifetime data with a wide range of characteristics motivate us to develop more flexible models that accommodate both monotone and nonmonotone hazard functions. One such model is the exponentiated Weibull distribution which not only accommodates monotone hazard functions but also allows for unimodal and bathtub shape hazard rates. This distribution has demonstrated considerable potential in univariate analysis of time-to-event data. However, the primary focus of many studies is rather on understanding the relationship between the time to the occurrence of an event and one or more covariates. This leads to a consideration of regression models that can be formulated in different ways in survival analysis. One such strategy involves formulating models for the accelerated failure time family of distributions. The most commonly used distributions serving this purpose are the Weibull, log-logistic and log-normal distributions. In this study, we show that the exponentiated Weibull distribution is closed under the accelerated failure time family. We then formulate a regression model based on the exponentiated Weibull distribution, and develop large sample theory for statistical inference. We also describe a Bayesian approach for inference. Two comparative studies based on real and simulated data sets reveal that the exponentiated Weibull regression can be valuable in adequately describing different types of time-to-event data.     

A case study on a generalist service delivery model for street children in Durban,South Africa: Insights from the capability approach

This paper adopts a qualitative case study on the generalist service delivery model of I‐Care, a Durban‐based non‐governmental organization that works with male street children. Fifteen face‐to‐face interviews were conducted with 10 I‐Care employees and 5 former street children. A focus group was set up with I‐Care employees. Although existing literature is forthright about a generalist approach for children at risk, it remains unclear how to implement this approach in practice. This paper reviews a continuity of 5 fundamental social work practices for working with street children: (a) outreach work, (b) child–family and child–community mediation, (c) transitory care centres and programmes, (d) brokerage, and (e) mentorship and follow‐ups. The study analyses how these practices contribute to the capability and agency expansion of the street children and outlines challenges that service providers and former street children experience. The main challenges acknowledged are balancing between the agency and protection of street children and the adaptation of children to street life. The study proposes intervention strategies to overcome these challenges.     

Deserving citizenship? Exploring migrants' experiences of the ‘citizenship test’ process in the United Kingdom

Since the early 2000s several European countries have introduced language and citizenship tests as new requirements for access to long‐term residence or naturalization. The content of citizenship tests has been often presented as exclusionary in nature, in particular as it is based on the idea that access to citizenship has to be ‘deserved’. In this paper, we aim to explore the citizenship tests ‘from below’, through the focus on the experience of migrants who prepare and take the ‘Life in the UK’ test, and with particular reference to how they relate to the idea of ‘deservingness’. Through a set of in‐depth interviews with migrants in two different cities (Leicester and London), we show that many of them use narratives in which they distinguish between the ‘deserving citizens’ and the ‘undeserving Others’ when they reflect upon their experience of becoming citizens. In so doing, they negotiate new hierarchies of inclusion into and exclusion from citizenship, which reflect broader neo‐liberal and ethos‐based conceptions of citizenship.