Population fluctuations and natural mortalities of the pine-moth,Dendrolimus spectabilis

Summary Annual changes in the population of the pine-moth,Dendrolimus spectabilis Butler, were studied in Kashima district. The insect completes two generations in one year, and the adult emerges in early summer and again in autumn. The insect population showed fairly drastic fluctuations in the past years, and a conspicuous peak was recorded in three times, in 1950, 1955 and 1961. It was noted in each of those three years that a great number of adults of the summer generation emerged in autumn. The main reason for this great abundance of the insect population seemed to be high survival rate of the young larvae in summer. It was suggested that the climate in July had powerful influence upon the survival f thos e young larvae. The effects of natural enemies were usually the greatest on the egg population of the pine-moth in either generation. Much greater number of insects in the overwintering generation was destroyed by parasites and diseases than in the summer generation. Finally, a rapid increase of the insect population in autumn was considered to be caused by a combined effect of climatic conditions and of natural enemies.     

Generalized Utilitarianism and Harsanyi's Impartial Observer Theorem

Harsanyi's impartial observer must consider two types of lotteries: imaginary identity lotteries (“accidents of birth”) that she faces as herself and the real outcome lotteries (“life chances”) to be faced by the individuals she imagines becoming. If we maintain a distinction between identity and outcome lotteries, then Harsanyi‐like axioms yield generalized utilitarianism, and allow us to accommodate concerns about different individuals' risk attitudes and concerns about fairness. Requiring an impartial observer to be indifferent as to which individual should face similar risks restricts her social welfare function, but still allows her to accommodate fairness. Requiring an impartial observer to be indifferent between identity and outcome lotteries, however, forces her to ignore both fairness and different risk attitudes, and yields a new axiomatization of Harsanyi's utilitarianism.     

从当代日本媒体社会看耻辱感文化

“耻辱感”是日本人日常行为的驱动力的基本因素之一。而当今日本社会高度发达的经济和媒体,进一步强化了这一“耻辱感”文化。日本民众的耻辱感深层心理促进了日本社区集体意识的形成,也带来了一些负面影响。     

The Present Situation of Research in Japan and the Japanese Certification Board for Social Researchers

Abstract:  The purpose of this paper is present the issues facing social research in Japan and how the Certification Board for Social Researcher is trying to address these issues.     

A MONTE CARLO COMPARISON OF VARIOUS ASYMPTOTIC APPROXIMATIONS TO THE DISTRIBUTION OF INSTRUMENTAL VARIABLES ESTIMATORS

We examine empirical relevance of three alternative asymptotic approximations to the distribution of instrumental variables estimators by Monte Carlo experiments. We find that conventional asymptotics provides a reasonable approximation to the actual distribution of instrumental variables estimators when the sample size is reasonably large. For most sample sizes, we find Bekker[11] asymptotics provides reasonably good approximation even when the first stage R² is very small. We conclude that reporting Bekker[11] confidence interval would suffice for most microeconometric (cross-sectional) applications, and the comparative advantage of Staiger and Stock[5] asymptotic approximation is in applications with sample sizes typical in macroeconometric (time series) applications.     

Analyzing multiple endpoints in a confirmatory randomized clinical trial—an approach that addresses stratification,missing values,baseline imbalance and multiplicity for strictly ordinal outcomes

Confirmatory randomized clinical trials with a stratified design may have ordinal response outcomes, ie, either ordered categories or continuous determinations that are not compatible with an interval scale. Also, multiple endpoints are often collected when 1 single endpoint does not represent the overall efficacy of the treatment. In addition, random baseline imbalances and missing values can add another layer of difficulty in the analysis plan. Therefore, the development of an approach that provides a consolidated strategy to all issues collectively is essential. For a real case example that is from a clinical trial comparing a test treatment and a control for the pain management for patients with osteoarthritis, which has all aforementioned issues, multivariate Mann‐Whitney estimators with stratification adjustment are applicable to the strictly ordinal responses with stratified design. Randomization based nonparametric analysis of covariance is applied to account for the possible baseline imbalances. Several approaches that handle missing values are provided. A global test followed by a closed testing procedure controls the family wise error rate in the strong sense for the analysis of multiple endpoints. Four outcomes indicating joint pain, stiffness, and functional status were analyzed collectively and also individually through the procedures. Treatment efficacy was observed in the combined endpoint as well as in the individual endpoints. The proposed approach is effective in addressing the aforementioned problems simultaneously and straightforward to implement.     

Multidimensional Poverty and Inequality: Insights from the Upper Blue Nile Basin,Ethiopia

As stated in the 2018 global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report, Ethiopia has the second largest multidimensionally poor population in Africa (after Nigeria). The global MPI was created to measure household’s multiple deprivations, but little systematic study has been carried out on the application of MPI measures on a smaller scale and vis-à-vis other measures of poverty. In addition, most of the few existing studies ignore any measure of inequality amongst the multidimensionally poor. This study explored multidimensional poverty in three different drought-prone agro-ecological settings of the Upper Blue Nile basin, Ethiopia. A preliminary participatory exercise was carried out at the study sites to select important indicators and then a structured survey was administered to 390 systematically and randomly selected households. The Alkire–Foster method was used to analyse multidimensional poverty and verified it with Correlation Sensitive Poverty Index (CSPI). Multidimensional poverty incidence, adjusted head count ratio and inequality were significantly different between study sites (p?<?0.001). Results indicated a high incidence (88%, 82% and 80%), intensity (52%, 55% and 56%), MPI (46%, 45% and 45%) and inequality (53%, 60% and 63%) of poverty in Aba Gerima, Guder and Dibatie study sites, respectively. A high level of divergence was revealed between the MPI and CSPI in terms of identifying the poor. The living standard and land and livestock ownership dimensions contributed the most to MPI. The case study signifies the importance of inclusion of land and livestock indicators for the national MPI. Besides, it implies that researchers and policymakers need to account for smaller scale contextualised indicators and location differences when studying and designing anti-poverty interventions.

     

Preference for Information and Dynamic Consistency

We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for a dynamically consistent agent always to prefer more informative signals (in single-agent problems). These conditions do not imply recursivity, reduction or independence. We provide a simple definition of dynamically consistent behavior, and we discuss whether an intrinsic information lover (say, an anxious person) is likely to be dynamically consistent.     

Between- and within-group wage inequalities, and the advent of new technology

We present a simple model that explains two features of the dynamics of wage inequalities: between-group and within-group. Individuals are assumed to be heterogeneous in their innate abilities. With the advent of a new technology, each individual decides whether or not to acquire the skill for the new high-tech sector. The heterogeneity explains not only the between-group wage inequality but also the within-group wage inequality, which are observed in advanced countries such as the US and UK.