Using the Summed Rank Cusum for monitoring environmental data from industrial processes

Environmental issues have become a hot topic recently, especially those surrounding industrial outputs. Effluents, emissions, outflows, by-products, waste materials, product de-commissioning, land reclamation and energy consumption are all the subject of monitoring, either under new legislation or through economic necessity. Many types of environmental data are often difficult to understand or measure because of their unusual distribution of values however. Standard methods of monitoring these data types often fail or are unwieldy. The scarcity of events, small volume measurements and the unusual time scales sometimes involved add to the complexity of the task. One recently developed monitoring technique is the Summed Rank Cusum (SRC) that applies non-parametric methods to a standard chart. The SRC can be used diagnostically and this paper describes the application of this new tool to three data sets, each derived from a different problem area. These are measuring industrial effluent, assessing the levels of potentially harmful proteins produced by an industrial process and industrial land reclamation in the face of harmful waste materials. The use of the SRC to spot change points in time retrospectively is described. The paper also shows the use of SRC in the significant-difference testing mode, which is applied via the use of spreadsheets. Links to other similar methods described in the literature are given and formulae describing the statistical nature of the transformation are shown. These practical demonstrations illustrate that the graphical interpretation of the method appears to help considerably in practice when trying to find time-series change points. The charts are an effective graphical retrospective monitoring technique when dealing with non-normal data. The method is easy to apply and may help considerably in dealing with environmental data in the industrial setting when standard methods are not appropriate. Further work is continuing on the more theoretical aspects of the method.     

The dangers posed by saddle points,and other problems,when using central composite designs

This paper discusses two problems, which can occur when using central composite designs (CCDs), that are not generally covered in the literature but can lead to wrong decisions-and therefore incorrect models-if they are ignored. Most industrialbased experimental designs are sequential. This usually involves running as few initial tests as possible, while getting enough information as is needed to provide a reasonable approximation to reality (the screening stage). The CCD design strategy generally requires the running of a full or fractional factorial design (the cube or hypercube) with one or more additional centre points. The cube is augmented, if deemed necessary, by additional experiments known as star-points. The major problems highlighted here concern the decision to run the star points or not. If the difference between the average response at the centre of the design and the average of the cube results is significant, there is probably a need for one or more quadratic terms in the predictive model. If not, then a simpler model that includes only main effects and interactions is usually considered sufficient. This test for 'curvature' in a main effect will often fail if the design space contains or surrounds a saddle-point. Such a point may disguise the need for a quadratic term. This paper describes the occurrence of a real saddle-point from an industrial project and how this was overcome. The second problem occurs because the cube and star point portions of a CCD are sometimes run as orthogonal blocks. Indeed, theory would suggest that this is the correct procedure. However in the industrial context, where minimizing the total number of tests is at a premium, this can lead to designs with star points a long way from the cube. In such a situation, were the curvature test to be found non-significant, we could end with a model that predicted well within the cube portion of the design space but that would be unreliable in the balance of the total area of investigation. The paper discusses just such a design, one that disguised the real need for a quadratic term.     

Control fraud, gambling for resurrection, and moral hazard: Accounting for white-collar crime in the savings and loan crisis

This paper reviews the relevant literature regarding the role of control fraud, or major frauds committed by controlling organizational insiders, in the savings and loan crisis. Using both economics and criminological concepts, it contrasts the claims made by “fraud minimalists” with those who saw fraud playing a significant role in the crisis. The paper concludes that the economics-based official history of the debacle that sees moral hazard and gambling for resurrection as responsible for major financial losses is not supported by the empirical data generated by criminological research.     

双三螺旋：创新与可持续发展

是否存在着第四个螺旋的问题已成为大学—产业—政府三螺旋争论的焦点之一。一些学者提出可以将劳动力、风险资本、公众等看做第四螺旋。劳动力和风险资本可以纳入创新三螺旋的支撑结构,但公众则需另当别论。公众可能积极支持创新活动的开展,也可能因创新会带来负面影响而反对和限制创新。无论如何第四螺旋的引入都可能导致原有的三方相互作用模式失去它的系统动力,需要一个更完善的模型兼并公众这个重要的维度,因而提出大学—公众—政府可持续发展三螺旋,作为创新三螺旋的补充,以在保持三螺旋动力的同时将公众因素纳入社会创新系统。     

Review Essay: Two Portraits of Urban Informality in Latin America

Qualitative Sociology -     

Book Reviews

From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict. Jack Snyder. New York, NY: Norton, 2000. 382 pages.     

The anti-social model of disability

Social theories are usually developed to enable a clearer understanding of a situation or problem. The 'Social Model' in various forms is currently the dominant model for researching disability, addressing disability from within a socio-political framework that draws substantially on a 'social constructionist' perspective. This article critiques some of the core sociological assumptions of the Social Model, questioning what 'work' this kind of theory does in informing a set of practical concerns around the design of assistive technologies, suggesting an alternative framework of analysis, supported by extensive ethnomethodologically informed ethnographic research     

Altruism, ideological entrepreneurs and the non-profit firm

Ideology and altruism are central to understanding the non-profit charitable sector. This paper addresses three questions. Why do people make charitable gifts? Why do they usually give to non-profit organisations? When can non-profits run by committed ideologues compete with profit-oriented entrepreneurs in the provision of services? the altruistic motives of individuals and the ideological commitments of entrepreneurs come together to support charitable organisations. The non-profit form provides a weak guarantee that gifts are not being syphoned off as profits. Furthermore, independent non-profits can often better reflect donors' desires than public agencies constrained by majoritarian claims, and ideological entrepreneurs can use the non-profit form to reify their beliefs without being accountable to profit-seeking investors. A non-profit organisation can only survive, however, if it can attract money and customers. Sometimes its ideological character will facilitate both tasks. Non-ideological customers may, nevertheless, patronise an ideological non-profit if the entrepreneur's commitment helps to guarantee high quality.     

Ecological Risk Ranking: Development and Evaluation of a Method for Improving Public Participation in Environmental Decision Making

This article reports an extension of the Carnegie Mellon risk-ranking method to incorporate ecological risks and their attributes. On the basis of earlier risk-perception studies, we identified a set of 20 relevant attributes for describing health, safety, and environmental hazards in standardized risk summary sheets. In a series of three ranking sessions, 23 laypeople ranked 10 such hazards in a fictional Midwestern U.S. county using both holistic and multiattribute ranking procedures. Results were consistent with those from previous studies involving only health and safety hazards, providing additional evidence for the validity of the method and the replicability of the resulting rankings. Holistic and multiattribute risk rankings were reasonably consistent both for individuals and for groups. Participants reported that they were satisfied with the procedures and results, and indicated their support for using the method to advise real-world risk-management decisions. Agreement among participants increased over the course of the exercise, perhaps because the materials and deliberations helped participants to correct their misconceptions and clarify their values. Overall, health and safety attributes were judged more important than environmental attributes. However, the overlap between the importance rankings of these two sets of attributes suggests that some information about environmental impacts is important to participants' judgments in comparative risk-assessment tasks.