Presence of ‘America’ in Religious Circles of India

The paper shows how ‘America’ gradually became present in the Religious Circles of India after the arrival of Swami Vivekananda in America in 1893. Swami Vivekananda is the first individual who not only succeeded in introducing Hinduism, Vedanta in particular, to America and the West, but also in introducing what he considered to be the best aspects of American scientific and material culture to India. The bridge which Swami Vivekananda built and opened between America and India continues to be travelled by the saints, mystics, and religious leaders of India and the philanthropists, spiritual seekers and scholars of religion of America and the West even today. This modern re-synthesis of the material and the scientific with the Vedanta has been beneficial to both countries and cultures.     

Work Design and Integration Glitches in Globally Distributed Technology Projects

In a technology project, project integration represents the pooling together of complete, interdependent task modules to form a physical product or software delivering a desired functionality. This study develops and tests a conceptual framework that examines the interrelationships between the elements of work design, project integration challenges, and project performance. We identify two distinct elements of work design in technology projects: (i) the type of project organization based on whether a technology project spans a firm boundary (Domestic‐Outsourcing) or a country boundary (Offshore‐Insourcing) or both boundaries (Offshore‐Outsourcing) or no boundaries (Domestic‐Insourcing), and (ii) the joint coordination practices among key stakeholders in a technology project—namely, Onsite Ratio and Joint‐Task Ownership. Next, we measure the effectiveness of project integration using integration glitches that capture the incompatibility among interdependent task modules during project integration. Based on analysis of data from 830 technology projects, the results highlight the differential effects of distributed project organizations on integration glitches. Specifically, we find that project organizations that span both firm and country boundaries (Offshore‐Outsourcing) experience significantly higher levels of integration glitches compared to domestic project organizations (Domestic‐Outsourcing and Domestic‐Insourcing). The results further indicate that the relationship between project organization type and integration glitches is moderated by the extent of joint coordination practices in a project. That is, managers can actively lower integration glitches by increasing the levels of onsite ratio and by promoting higher levels of joint‐task ownership, particularly in project organization types that span both firm and country boundaries (Offshore‐Outsourcing). Finally, the results demonstrate the practical significance of studying integration glitches by highlighting its significant negative effect on project performance.     

Body Structure Perception in Infancy

Structural cues, such as the relative size and arrangement of parts, are key aspects of adults' representation of human bodies, and they are used to derive significant social information such as age, sex, and attractiveness. Prior studies have not clearly addressed young infants' sensitivity to these body characteristics. In the current experiments, 3.5‐month‐olds exhibited a preference between images of intact bodies versus those with parts in wrong locations. Infants also discriminated between intact bodies and those with distorted part proportions. In both cases, infants discriminated when images were presented upright but not when they were inverted. These results indicate that infants are sensitive to the arrangement and size of human body parts at least by 3.5 months of age. Thus, contrary to some prior reports, body representation early in life is developed enough to include structural information.     

How Does Relative Income and Variations in Short-Run Wellbeing Affect Wellbeing in the Long Run? Empirical Evidence From China’s Korean Minority

Cognitively appraised life satisfaction is relatively stable over time and can be considered as reflecting subjective wellbeing in the long run. Affect is transitory and can be considered as reflecting subjective wellbeing in the short run. Using the Personal Wellbeing Index to measure cognitively appraised life satisfaction and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule to measure positive and negative affect we examine how income relative to one’s comparator group and variations in short run wellbeing impact upon wellbeing in the long run. We do so for China’s Korean ethnic minority. We find that affective state has an effect on wellbeing in the long run and that a negative shock to affectivity is more persistent than a positive shock. We also find that relative income, rather than absolute income, matters for wellbeing in the long run and that the results are consistent with a status effect.     

Weighted bivariate logarithmic series distributions

In this paper, we are interested in the weighted distributions of a bivariate three parameter logarithmic series distribution studied by Kocherlakota and Kocherlakota (1990). The weighted versions of the model are derived with weight W(x,y) = x^[r] y^[s]. Explicit expressions for the probability mass function and probability generating functions are derived in the case r = s = l. The marginal and conditional distributions are derived in the general case. The maximum likelihood estimation of the parameters, in both two parameter and three parameter cases, is studied. A procedure for computer generation of bivariate data from a discrete distribution is described. This enables us to present two examples, in order to illustrate the methods developed, for finding the maximum likelihood estimates.     

A generalized improvement procedure for variance bounds for minimum variance unbiased estimator in inverse sampling

New bounds are obtained for the variance of the minimum variance unbiased estimator of p i n inverse sampling. A generalized procedure for further improving the bounds is also discussed.     

Mood and Audience Effects on Video Lottery Terminal Gambling

Little is known about the situational factors associated with gambling behavior. We induced 180 male participants (mean age: 21.6) into a positive, negative, or neutral mood prior to gambling on a video lottery terminal (VLT). While gambling, participants were observed by either a male peer, female peer, or no one. Induced mood had no effect on gambling behavior. Participants induced into a negative mood prior to gambling, however, reported more positive moods after gambling, whereas those with positive and neutral moods reported more negative moods after gambling. Participants observed by either a male or female peer spent less time gambling on the VLT compared to those not observed. Participants observed by a female peer lost less money relative to the other observer conditions. Degree of problem gambling in the last year had little influence on these effects. Some practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Statistical morphology

This paper first introduces a parametric model for the generation of stationary random correlated binary sequences. The parameters of the model include the probability that a pixel is a binary one pixel and the length of the structuring element which dilates the initially spatially uncorrelated sequence. The spatial statistics of such eroded, dilated, opened and closed correlated binary sequences are derived in terms of the spatial statistics of the input binary sequence. Understanding of such one-dimensional processing is a precondition for understanding what happens in the more interesting two- dimensional case.     

Book Review: E.A. Wrigley (ed.), Poverty,Progress and Population., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, XIV+ 463 pp.

Book Review

Book Review: E.A. Wrigley (ed.), Poverty, Progress and Population., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, XIV+ 463 pp.