Characterising persistence of performance amongst South African general equity unit trusts

This study analyses the relative performance of general equity unit trusts from 1980 to 1999 using a database that has been verified for accuracy and is free of survivorship bias. It characterises the behaviour of performance persistence in order to explain the conflicting results of previous persistence studies.A positive but weak relationship was found between past and future performance rankings. As the holding period lengthens, the persistence results became more sensitive to the beginning date and ending date of the period under examination.Regardless of the ending date chosen, persistence of winning funds and losing funds was evident when holding periods of 6 months were used. Persistence was particularly evident during the 1995–1999 period. However, even in this period, there were situations where rankings from one holding period to the next appeared random and situations where rankings reversed.Although individual unit trusts did not perform consistently over multiple holding periods, when using a trading strategy of buying the top performing fund over the last 6 months and holding it for 6 months, it was shown that, in most cases, an investor would have earned a return over 5 years that beat the average return of all general equity unit trusts after taking switching costs into account.     

Children's Homicide and Road Deaths in England and Wales and the USA: An International Comparison 1974-1997

Correspondence to Professor Colin Pritchard, Department of Mental Health, University of Southampton, Southampton SO14 OYG, UK. Summary Child murder often leads to demands for new legislation. Todetermine relative risks and the need for such change, children's(0–14) homicide and road deaths were compared internationally.All data were extrapolated from WHO standardized mortality statisticsand ratios of change were calculated. Five-year summed actualnumbers and rates for 1974–78 and 1993–97 were usedfor comparison. The findings indicate that children's road deathsfell substantially everywhere across the two periods; Englandand Wales had the lowest rate, and the fifth biggest reduction.In addition, in every country, the figures for children's homicidewere substantially lower than road deaths. England and Waleshad been fourth highest but by the later period were the thirdlowest. While children's homicide rose substantially in Franceand the USA, the biggest reductions were found in Japan andin England and Wales. For every country considered, road deathsfell proportionately more than deaths by homicide, althoughthe latter remained considerably lower than road deaths. Thestatistics led to the clear interpretation that the averagechild is substantially more at risk of being killed on the roadthan being murdered.     

Errors of Logic and Scholarship Concerning Dissociative Identity Disorder

The author reviewed a two-part critique of dissociative identity disorder published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. The two papers contain errors of logic and scholarship. Contrary to the conclusions in the critique, dissociative identity disorder has established diagnostic reliability and concurrent validity, the trauma histories of affected individuals can be corroborated, and the existing prospective treatment outcome literature demonstrates improvement in individuals receiving psychotherapy for the disorder. The available evidence supports the inclusion of dissociative identity disorder in future editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.     

Fathers,others: The sacrificial victim in Freud,Girard, and Levinas

Abstract

This paper derives from an interest in murder. This interest began through reading fictional narratives which ceaselessly stage and restage scenes of murder; but it has also become clear that a range of theoretical texts are no less preoccupied with the basic question, ‘Why kill?’ (see Davis, 2000). In particular, the three theorists I shall discuss here, Freud, Girard and Levinas, directly address the question of murder, its causes and consequences. In each case, the theoretical question turns out to depend upon a minimal core narrative in which the stakes of murder are crystallized; rival theoretical accounts are thus also bound up in a competition of stories. As this paper traces a common concern from Freud's Totem and Taboo, through Girard's La Violence et le sacré, to Levinas's Totalité et infini, the question ‘Why kill?’ gets entangled with the dynamics of storytelling and the issue of what it means to do theory.     

Notes on contributors

The notion that anti‐immigrant and racist voting sentiment underscore mass electoral behaviour has been a familiar aspect of the British political landscape for more than a generation. Although debates persist on the scale and significance of such sentiment, many commentators have agreed that this has been an important influence and effect upon Labour and Conservative electoral strategy for 30 years or more. Indeed, attention has often focused upon the so‐called ‘race card’, a form of shorthand that refers, in particular, to the implicit structural advantage enjoyed by the Conservatives over other parties on electoral issues of race and immigration.

This article seeks to place these assumptions in the context of modern party competition. It notes that a tremendous head of steam developed surrounding the race card thesis in the period leading up to the 1997 general election. Furthermore, a fundamental misunderstanding of the influence of this factor in the 1992 election had only served to confuse the picture. Scant attention has been paid to traditional psephological tests of issue voting and these, the article reports, indicate that the race card argument was shaky even before the 1997 election. Finally, the analysis turns to the relative absence of race card politics in 1997 and presents a range of explanations for this dog that did not bark. The article concludes that substantial reworking of the race card hypothesis is now an urgent question facing academic and press commentators alike.     

Period effects,cohort effects,and the narrowing gender wage gap

Despite the abundance of sociological research on the gender wage gap, questions remain. In particular, the role of cohorts is under investigated. Using data from the Current Population Survey, we use age–period–cohort analysis to uniquely estimate age, period, and cohort effects on the gender wage gap. The narrowing of the gender wage gap that occurred between 1975 and 2009 is largely due to cohort effects. Since the mid-1990s, the gender wage gap has continued to close absent of period effects. While gains in female wages contributed to declines in the gender wage gap for cohorts born before 1950, for later cohorts the narrowing of the gender wage gap is primarily a result of declines in male wages.     

Creatively prototyping the future high street

Abstract

This paper gives a voice to a range of community and individual stakeholders who would not generally be heard in the conventional town planning process. We present a methodological technique, described as creative prototyping, that has at its heart, the capability to enable full stakeholder inclusivity into the future imagining of the smart city. Actively involving these individuals and community representatives in the research process enables deeper understanding of how technology and people can interact productively to create smart cities that are socially inclusive while still being commercially relevant. The research data for this paper are drawn from the findings of a workshop conducted by the authors that utilised Science Fiction Prototyping and Lego Serious Play. This research activity was driven by questions focusing upon the current complex interplay and tensions of technology and the UK’s physical high street. We first explore these issues theoretically in previous literature and then drawn upon this review to analyse the outcomes of the workshop. Three themes emerge from this analysis that have operational and strategic relevance to the development of future high streets; the importance of ever present but invisible technology, the forefronting of people in the smart city and the need for wide-ranging stakeholder input and participation into planning. The findings also illustrate that not all future imaginings of the retail high street are immediately practical or realistically applicable. However, in examining the many issues facing the current high street and in negotiating the multiplicity of voices with their competing demands and expectations, we offer the conclusion that the future smart city must become a place of truly shared sociality – rather than just mere proximity, customised convenience or a concentration point for multiple forms of entertainment.     

Expected Absolute Error of the Usual Estimator of the Binomial Parameter

For X with binomial (n, p) distribution the usual measure of the error of X/n as an estimator of p is its standard error S_n(p) = √{E(X/n – p)²} = √{p(1 – p)/n}. A somewhat more natural measure is the average absolute error D_n(p) = E‖X/n – p‖. This article considers use of D_n(p) instead of S_n(p) in a student's first introduction to statistical estimation. Exact and asymptotic values of D_n(p), and the appearance of its graph, are described in detail. The same is done for the Poisson distribution.     

Contextualizing LMX within the workgroup: The effects of LMX and justice on relationship quality and resource sharing among peers

While leader–member exchange (LMX) has evolved, a richer understanding continues to evade scholars due to the sustained focus on the leader–member dyad. We argue that LMX theory remains incomplete until contextual factors surrounding these pivotal relationships are accounted for including the impact of coworker exchange relationships, peer exchange, and perceptions of justice regarding individual LMX relationships. A fully crossed experimental design manipulating participant LMX and distributive justice and coworker LMX and distributive justice was employed to understand how these constructs affect coworker exchange relationships. Support was found for a causal model which specifies that justice moderates the causal relationship between LMX similarity and CWX, which subsequently leads to increased sharing of resources among coworkers. The data suggest that workgroup members are savvy to differences within individual leader–member relationships, where the sharing of resources among peers is determined by their own LMX, the LMX of their coworker and perceptions of justice of their respective LMX levels. These findings are contextualized in extant leadership research and practice.