IF LIONS COULD SPEAK:

Though they have not tended to be the focus of sociological attention in the past, interactions between humans and nonhuman animals are central to contemporary social life. This discussion presents the problems inherent in and the unique rewards offered by investigations of animal-human relationships. Of particular importance are the issues of whether one can and how one goes about assuming the perspective of alingual and/or nonhuman others. We also examine the inclination to intervene which arises when researchers gain intimate familiarity with animal perspectives in the typically unequal contexts in which they interact with humans. General issues of central sociological and social significance upon which the study of animal-human relationships can potentially shed light are identified.     

Changes in the Political Iconography of East Central European Capitals after 1989 (Berlin,Warsaw, Prague,Bratislava)

The fall of communism in 1989/1990 has led not only to the establishment of new political systems and ideologies, but also to significant modifications in the visual self-representation of the respective states in Eastern and East Central Europe. Statues of communist heroes were abolished and replaced by monuments and memorials reflecting the new political situation. New state buildings were erected, and the old ones remodelled and adapted to the representational needs of the new authorities. In some cases, the political changes even have had a strong impact on principles of city planning, effecting urban structures of symbolic value.

The focal points of these developments are the capital cities, being principal places of the execution of state power as well as of its self-representation. However, the conditions for the staging of the state in the capital are in each case different. They depend on one hand on the architectural shape and historic role of the city, and on the political situation and self-image of the state on the other.

The article provides a comparative analysis of the changes in the political iconography of four East Central European capitals—Berlin, Warsaw, Prague and Bratislava—since 1989, focusing on selected monuments, architectural projects for state institutions and concepts of town planning.     

Bounds on deviations of estimates arising in finite population regression models

Bounds for the maximum deviation between parameters of a finite population and their corresponding sample estimates are found in the multiple regression model. The parameters considered are the vector of regression coefficients and the value ofthe regression function for given values of the independent variable (or variables). Applications are considered to several widely employed sampling methods.     

Locally most powerful rank tests

It is the purpose of this present paper to introduce a new concept of locally most powerful rank tests. In the sequel we obtain finite sample results undervery mild regularity conditions. The approach is more v general than the related treatment of Hájek and ?idák (1967). In contrast to those authors, we need no assumptions concerning the derivatives of the underlying denstities. For instance, in the case of a regression problem in location, the density of the location family must be only square integrable. Thus the results also apply to discontinuous densities. We treat hypotheses H. of the following kind against parametric alternatives; H₀, H₁(secttest of symmetry) and H(test of independence).     

On multiple constraint skewed models

The Azzalini [A. Azzalini, A class of distributions which includes the normal ones, Scandi. J. Statist. 12 (1985), pp. 171–178.] skew normal model can be viewed as one involving normal components subject to a single linear constraint. As a natural extension of this model, we discuss skewed models involving multiple linear and nonlinear constraints and possibly non-normal components. Particular attention is devoted to a distribution called the extended two-piece normal (ETN) distribution. This model is a two-constraint extension of the two-piece normal model introduced by Kim [H.J. Kim, On a class of two-piece skew normal distributions, Statistics 39(6) (2005), pp. 537–553.]. Likelihood inference for the ETN distribution is developed and illustrated using two data sets.     

Bootstrap and permutation rank tests for proportional hazards under right censoring

We address the testing problem of proportional hazards in the two-sample survival setting allowing right censoring, i.e., we check whether the famous Cox model is underlying. Although there are many test proposals for this problem, only a few papers suggest how to improve the performance for small sample sizes. In this paper, we do exactly this by carrying out our test as a permutation as well as a wild bootstrap test. The asymptotic properties of our test, namely asymptotic exactness under the null and consistency, can be transferred to both resampling versions. Various simulations for small sample sizes reveal an actual improvement of the empirical size and a reasonable power performance when using the resampling versions. Moreover, the resampling tests perform better than the existing tests of Gill and Schumacher and Grambsch and Therneau . The tests’ practical applicability is illustrated by discussing real data examples.

     

Has Successful Terror Gone to Ground?

This article considers all 87 attacks worldwide against air and rail transport systems that killed at least two passengers over the 30‐year period of 1982–2011. The data offer strong and statistically significant evidence that successful acts of terror have “gone to ground” in recent years: attacks against aviation were concentrated early in the three decades studied whereas those against rail were concentrated later. Recent data are used to make estimates of absolute and comparative risk for frequent flyers and subway/rail commuters. Point estimates in the “status quo” case imply that mortality risk from successful acts of terror was very low on both modes of transportation and that, whereas risk per trip is higher for air travelers than subway/rail commuters, the rail commuters experience greater risk per year than the frequent flyers.     

Early Transition Stages and Heterogeneity in Criminal Careers among Young Offenders*

Dans cet article, nous examinons différents modèles de rapports avec les forces policières parmi des sous-populations hétérogènes de jeunes, dans les premiers stades de transition de leur carrière criminelle. Nous croyons que la recherche axée sur l'hétérogénéité et sur les premiers stades de la transition vers la criminalité peut nous renseigner sur les éléments de la dynamique comportementale - jusqu'ici ignorés - dans l'étude de l'apparition d'un comportement criminel et de sa persistance. À partir de données policières informatisées provenant d'une grande ville de l'ouest du Canada, nous utilisons certains modèles de survie basés sur des événements pour dégager des modèles d'apparition et de persistance de comportements criminels sur une période de six mois, dans les premiers rapports avec la police. Les résultats démontrent des modifications importantes à court terme dans le comportement criminel de sousgroupes de jeunes de niveaux différents. Certains semblent avoir un comportement criminel ponctuel, qu'ils abandonnent par la suite, tandis que d'autres continuent de se comporter en criminels, en augmentant la fréquence et le taux d'infractions. Toutefois, certains modèles hétérogènes existent au sein de ces sous-groupes de jeunes délin quants dans les premières phases de développement de la criminalité. We investigate distinctive patterns of police contacts among heterogeneous subpopulations of youths in the early transition stages of their criminal careers. We argue that research focussing upon heterogeneity and the initial transition stages of criminality can provide insights into behavioural dynamics previously overlooked in the study of the onset and development of criminal careers. Using computerized police archival data from a large western Canadian city, we employ event history survival models to estimate patterns of onset and persistence for delinquent careers over six-month intervals in the early stages of police contact. Our results provide strong evidence of meaningful short-term change in offending among multiple levels of youth subgroups. Some youths appear to offend only briefly and then desist, while others continue offending and at a higher rate. However, there also appear to be patterns of heterogeneity within as well as between these subgroups of young offenders during the early stages of criminal careers.