How Do Disaster Characteristics Influence Risk Perception?

The main purpose of this study is to examine how risk perception is influenced by the type of disaster (flood or landslide) and victim characteristics. The data reported here are based on the National Risk Perception Survey (NRPS) that was administered for the victims and the general public in Taiwan in 2004. In that year, many towns in Taiwan were seriously affected by floods and landslides, resulting in huge economic losses and fatalities. The primary findings are: (1) the victims and the general public are concerned about the different potential hazards that might affect their residential area, (2) the negative associations between the sense of controllability and the perceived impact is high for landslide victims, but not for flood victims, and (3) disaster type, gender, and previously experienced disasters are good predictors of victims' attitudes toward natural disasters.     

A bivariate noncentral T-disttrtoution with applications

The particular bivariate noncentral t-distribution associated with two univariate noncentral t variates having a correlation coefficient of one is considered. Some applications and properties are presented together with tables in the same form as Johnson and Welch's tables for a univariate noncentral t-distribution.     

Acceptance control charts for non-normal data

Control charts are one of the most important methods in industrial process control. The acceptance control chart is generally applied in situations when an X¯ chart is used to control the fraction of conforming units produced by the process and where 6-sigma spread of the process is smaller than the spread in the specification limits. Traditionally, when designing control charts, one usually assumes that the data or measurements are normally distributed. However, this assumption may not be true in some processes. In this paper, we use the Burr distribution, which is employed to represent various non-normal distributions, to determine the appropriate control limits or sample size for the acceptance control chart under non-normality. Some numerical examples are given for illustration. From the presented examples, ignoring the effect of non-normality in the data leads to a higher type I or type II error probability.     

神性与人性的对话——藏族和古希腊关于人类起源神话之比较

藏族和古希腊关于人类起源神话都反映了“神造人”的世界性母题,体现了早期先民们对自身起源之谜的大胆探索,充满了神奇瑰丽的想象和创造精神;另外,二者都揭示了劳动与人类产生之间的密切关系,透露出强烈的人本主义色彩。作为不同文化的产物,藏族人类起源神话带有最素朴的唯物色彩,但已有后期佛教思想明显改造的痕迹,其“善”与“恶”对立统一的二元论思想构成了藏族文化哲学思维的基础;古希腊人类起源神话带有强烈的抗争精神,其精髓是西方“渎神”精神、悲剧精神的具体体现和升华。