Strategy-proofness and the reluctance to make large lies: the case of weak orders

This article incorporates agents’ reluctance to make a large lie into an analysis. A social choice rule is D(k)-proof if the rule is nonmanipulable by false preferences within k distance from the sincere one, where k is a positive integer. If D(k)-proofness is not logically equivalent to strategy-proofness, then agents’ reluctance to make a large lie embodied in D(k)-proofness is effective to construct a nonmanipulable rule. This article considers weak orders as agents’ preferences. I prove that on the universal domain, D(k)-proofness is equivalent to strategy-proofness if and only if k ≥ m ? 1, where m is the number of alternatives. Moreover, I find a sufficient condition on a domain for the equivalence of D(1)-proofness and strategy-proofness.     

The factoring likelihood method for non-monotone missing data

We address the problem of parameter estimation in multivariate distributions under ignorable non-monotone missing data. The factoring likelihood method for monotone missing data, termed by Rubin (1974), is applied to a more general case of non-monotone missing data. The proposed method is asymptotically equivalent to the Fisher scoring method from the observed likelihood, but avoids the burden of computing the first and second partial derivatives of the observed likelihood. Instead, the maximum likelihood estimates and their information matrices for each partition of the data set are computed separately and combined naturally using the generalized least squares method. A numerical example is presented to illustrate the method.     

Perceptions of Life Quality among the Korean Mass Public: Unraveling their Dynamics and Standards

South Korea is widely known as an Asian model of economic development and democratization. Yet until now, research has not shown whether the country’s successful transition to democracy and market capitalism has enabled ordinary citizens to experience a life of happiness and satisfaction in their private and public lives. To address this question, this study analyzes a 2002 Euromodule survey of the Korean electorate designed to appraise the quality of life as a whole and in its various important domains. Results of the analysis reveal that a substantial minority of South Koreans still leads undesirable lives full of unhappiness and dissatisfaction. Furthermore, among the socioeconomically deprived, more people report deteriorations rather than improvements in their living conditions over the past five years. On the basis of these findings, we conclude that the surging forces of democratization and marketization can hinder ordinary people from experiencing a better quality of life by motivating them to compare themselves with other people in better situations to a greater extent than they did under past circumstances.     

Avowed happiness as an overall assessment of the quality of life

The concept of happiness has been mistakenly identified with feelings of pleasure in recent studies of quality of life. This paper clarifies the meaning of the concept ‘happiness’ and establishes grounds for its proper use in scholarly research. In addition, an empirical test of four major accounts of happiness derived from a careful review of philosophical and empirical literature is undertaken to propose a theory of happiness. The theory suggests that happiness is primarily a product of the positive assessments of life situations and favorable comparisons of these life situations with those of others and in the past. The various personal characteristics of an individual and the resources in his command, such as sex, age and income, influence happiness mostly through their effects upon the two psychological processess of assessment and comparison.     

Association Study on Pathological Gambling and Polymorphisms of Dopamine D1, D2, D3, and D4 Receptor Genes in a Korean Population

Several studies have reported that some dopaminergic receptor polymorphisms are associated with pathological gambling (PG). Considering that there are major race and ethnic group difference in dopaminergic polymorphisms, the result of genetic association studies should be confirmed in more homogeneous population to avoid problems of population stratification. The present study aimed to investigate whether selected polymorphisms in the dopamine receptors genes (DRD1, DRD2, DRD3, and DRD4) are associated with PG in Korean population which is consisted of only Korean ancestry. Subjects were 104 men with a diagnosis of PG and 114 unrelated age-matched normal control men. Genotyping was performed for the DRD1 gene -48 A/G, DRD2 gene TaqI A, DRD3 gene Ser9Gly, and DRD4 gene exon III variable number tandem repeat polymorphisms. The method of multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR) was used to analyze gene-gene interactions. There were no differences in the frequencies of any studied polymorphisms between patients with PG and normal controls. MDR analysis did not show a significant effect of the 4 dopamine receptor gene polymorphisms on susceptibility to PG (P > 0.05). The present study suggests that the analyzed polymorphisms of the dopamine receptor genes might not be associated with PG in a Korean population.     

Environmental effects on perceptions of life quality in Korea

Both in industrialized and industrializing countries environment is widely believed to be an important contributing source of the quality which people seek to bring to their lives. Yet, quality of life researchers have made little effort to determine the exact nature of environmental effects on perceptions of quality of life. This paper examines the individual and joint effects of community, housing and household on the levels of satisfaction, dissatisfaction, pleasure, and worry which Korean people experience.     

Status of organization–public relationship research from an analysis of published articles, 1985–2004

This study analyzes trends and patterns of research about organization-public relationships (OPR) through a content analysis of articles published between 1985 and 2004. The current status of OPR studies suggests that we have made progress in OPR research over the past two decades but need to explicate, replicate and extend the existing studies and cumulate the research trend.     

Prenatal Cardiac Function and Postnatal Cognitive Development: An Exploratory Study

Fetal cardiac function was measured at 24, 30, and 36 weeks gestation and quantified in terms of heart rate, variability, and episodic accelerations. Children's representational capacity was evaluated at 27 months in terms of language and play. Thirty‐ and 36‐wcek‐old fetuses that displayed greater heart‐rate variability and more episodic accelerations, and fetuses that exhibited a more precipitous increase in heart‐rate variability and acceleration over gestation achieved higher levels of language competence. Thirty‐six‐week‐old fetuses with higher heart‐rate variability and accelerations, and steeper growth trajectories over gestation, achieved higher levels of symbolic play. Cardiac patterning during gestation may reflect an underlying neural substrate that persists through early childhood: Individual variation in rate of development could be stable, or efficient cardiac function could positively influence the underlying neural substrate to enhance cognitive performance.     

Child health in Peru: importance of regional variation and community effects on children's height and weight

In developing countries, height and weight are good indicators of children's health and nutritional status. Maternal education has been accepted as one of the most important influences on child health. Using the 2000 Demographic and Health Survey of Peru, however, I find that the effect of maternal education varies as a function of region. In the most prosperous urban region, maternal education is less important for child health than in poor rural areas, and a higher level of education has a greater effect in rural areas. Multilevel analysis shows that a significant part of the observed correlation between maternal education and child health is moderated by regional differences and community characteristics. The finding suggests that Peruvian public policy should emphasize resource redistribution as well as women's education, and that investment in maternal education should be considered within regional contexts to enhance child health in rural areas.     

Bootstrapping Spatial Median for Location Problems

In multivariate location problems, the sample mean is most widely used, having various advantages. It is, however, very sensitive to outlying observations and inefficient for data from heavy tailed distributions. In this situation, the spatial median is more robust than the sample mean and could be a reasonable alternative. We reviewed several spatial median based testing methods for multivariate location and compared their significance level and power through Monte Carlo simulations. The results show that bootstrap method is efficient for the estimation of the covariance matrix of the sample spatial median. We also proposed bootstrap simultaneous confidence intervals based on the spatial median for multiple comparisons in the multi-sample case.