Effects of Group Practice of the Transcendental Meditation Program on Preventing Violent Crime in Washington,D.C.: Results of the National Demonstration Project,June--July 1993

This paper reports the results of a prospective experiment in which a group of approximately 4,000 participants in the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi assembled in Washington, D.C., from June 7 to July 30, 1993. It was hypothesized that levels of violent crime in the District of Columbia would fall substantially during the Demonstration Project, as a result of the group's effect of increasing coherence and reducing stress in the collective consciousness of the District. A 27-member Project Review Board comprising independent scientists and leading citizens approved the research protocol and monitored the research process. Weekly crime data was derived from database records provided by the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department (DCMPD), which are used in the FBI Uniform Crime Reports. Statistical analysis considered the effect of weather variables, daylight, historical crime trends and annual patterns in the District of Columbia, as well as trends in neighboring cities. Consistent with previous research, levels of homicides, rapes and assaults (HRA crimes) correlated with average weekly temperature. Robberies approximately followed an annually recurring cycle. Time series analysis of 1993 data, controlling for temperature, showed that HRA crimes dropped significantly during the Demonstration Project, corresponding with increases in the size of the group; the maximum decrease was 23.3% (p < 2 × 10–9) [24.6% using a longer baseline, with 1988--1993 data (p < 3 × 10–5)], coincident with the peak number of participants in the group during the final week of the assembly. When the same period in each of the five previous years was examined, no significant decreases in HRA crimes were found. Robberies did not decrease significantly. However, a model that jointly estimated the effect of the Demonstration Project on both HRA crimes and robberies showed a significant reduction in violent crimes overall of 15.6% (p = 0.0008). Further analysis showed that the effect of the coherence-creating group on reducing HRA crimes could not be accounted for by additional police staffing. The time series analysis for HRA crimes gave results that are highly robust to alternative model specifications, and showed that the effect of the group size was cumulative and persisted after the Demonstration Project ended. Also, calculation of the steady state gain based on the time series model predicted that a permanent group of 4,000 coherence-creating experts in the District would have a long-term effect of reducing HRA crimes by 48%.     

Preference in flower visits and partitioning in pollen diets of stingless bees in an Asian tropical rain forest

Floral resource partitioning among stingless bees (Trigona, Meliponini, Apidae) in a lowland rain forest in Sarawak, Malaysia, was investigated using tree towers and walkways in a 4-year study that included a general flowering period. We obtained 100 collections of insect visitors to flowers of varying floral location and shape representing 81 plant species. The tendency of 11 species of stingless bees to visit specific flowers with a particular floral location and shape was analyzed by logistic regression analysis. This analysis showed that the proportion of flower visitor collections containing Trigona fuscobalteata and T. melanocephala differed according to floral location. The former was frequently collected at canopy and gap flowers, whereas the latter was most often collected at understory flowers. The analysis also suggested that T. erythrogastra was more rarely collected at shallow flowers than at deep flowers. Analysis of the pollen diets of T. collina, T. fuscobalteata, T. melanocephala, and T. melina revealed that similarity of pollen sources differed among the six permutated pairs of the four species. The lowest mean rank of similarity found was between T. fuscobalteata and T. melanocephala. This result supports the hypothesis that preference in visiting flowers in different locations leads to pollen resource partitioning. Received: May 14, 1997 / Accepted: April 23, 1999     

Stages of the Demographic Transition from a Child's Perspective: Family Size,Cohort Size,and Children's Resources

This article provides a new characterization of stages of the demographic transition from the perspective of children competing for resources within families and cohorts. In Stage 1 falling mortality increases the size of both families and birth cohorts. In Stage 2 falling fertility overtakes falling mortality to reduce family size, but population momentum causes continued growth in cohort size. In Stage 3 falling fertility overtakes population momentum to produce declining cohort size. We apply our framework to census microdata for eight countries and to United Nations population projections for a larger set of countries. The results suggest that most countries spend two to three decades in Stage 2, with declining family size offset by increasing cohort size. From the perspective of children aged 9–11, many countries enter Stage 3 between 2000 and 2010. Other countries, especially in Africa, will continue to experience increasing cohort size for several more decades.     

A Profile of the World's Young Developing Country International Migrants

Individual‐level census and household survey data are used to present a rich profile of young developing country international migrants around the world. They are found to comprise a large share of the flow of migrants, particularly among migrants to other developing countries, with the age distribution of migrants peaking in the late teens or early twenties. Detailed data are presented on the age and sex composition of migrants, on whether young migrants move alone or with a parent or spouse, on their participation in schooling and work in the destination country, on the types of jobs they have, and on the incidence and age of return migration. The results suggest a high degree of commonality in the youth immigrant experience across a number of destination countries. Recent developing country young migrants tend to work in similar occupations and are more concentrated in these occupations than recent older migrants or young immigrants who arrived at an earlier age. Nevertheless, there is also considerable heterogeneity among young immigrants with respect to school attendance and work in their destination country. The potential of international migration for building human capital is significant but far from being fully used.     

Survival Convergence and the Preceding Mortality Crossover for Two Population Subgroups

In this paper, we present and develop the argument that if the survival functions for two population subgroups converge in later life, a mortality crossover must precede the occurrence of this convergence. Specifically, two survival curves, S ₁(x) and S ₂(x), associated with two distinct population subgroups, G₁ and G₂, tend to converge before all members die out, as often observed and anticipated. This convergence leads to an increased mortality acceleration for the “advantaged” group, and eventually fosters the occurrence of a mortality crossover. We present a mathematical proof for this relationship and offer several explanations for the mechanisms involved in the process of survival convergence and the preceding mortality crossover. This new presentation demonstrates that mortality crossover is a highly observable demographic event given the trend of survival convergence in later life.     

Three faces of international inequality

Recent studies of international inequality have focused mostly on the trend in international income inequality. This article extends the analysis of international inequality to also include inequalities in education and health. Analyses of time-series data for more than 100 countries show that international income inequality declined from 1980 to 2003 as several large, poor Asian countries outpaced many Western countries in national income growth. By contrast, international health inequality followed a U-shaped trend, falling in the 1980s before rising in the 1990s. The turnaround in health inequality coincides with a trend of declining life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa. International educational inequality experienced the sharpest recent decline, spurred by the global expansion of formal schooling. These findings confirm that there is more to international inequality than income inequality alone and suggest that patterns of inequality in the current era of globalization are likely more complex than many leading theories suggest.     

为中国人民服务

我来自加拿大安大略省的多伦多市,相信大家对这个地方并不陌生,它是大山的家乡,白求恩医生也在此出生并接受医疗培训。我所在的约克大学就有一个本科生学院是以白求恩医生的名字命名的。白求恩医生的事迹感召着我们．我们每一位获奖外国专家都将永远为我们有机会“为人民服务”,为中国人民服务而心存感激,这是我们无上的荣耀。     

USING DUMMY VARIABLES TO CHECK FOR ROUNDING ERROR IN COMPUTERIZED REGRESSION PROGRAMS*

After a brief review of the role of dummy variables in regression analysis and the current state-of-the art in rounding/truncation error detection in computerized least squares programs, this paper presents a theorem that can be used to detect this type of error whenever an analyst is running a regression program that has one (or more) dummy variables as independent variables.     

REGRESSION METHODOLOGY WITH GROSS OBSERVATION ERRORS IN THE EXPLANATORY VARIABLES***

The robustness of linear programming regression estimators is examined where the disturbance terms are normally distributed and there are observation errors in the explanatory variables. These errors are occasional gross biases between one set of observations and another. The simulation of short series data offers preliminary evidence that when these biases have a non-zero mean, MSAE estimation is more robust than least squares.     

THE EFFECTS OF INTERDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL FORMATS ON CONCEPT RETENTION AND PROBLEM–SOLVING ABILITY*

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of different interdisciplinary problem-oriented formats on a student's knowledge of and retention of disciplinary concepts and principles, his application of these concepts and principles to disciplinary problems, and his use of a discipline in his analysis of a complex problem. Performances of students enrolled in the experimental sections were compared to those of students enrolled in standard lecture-discussion sections. Regression analysis was used to analyze students' performance in order to control the effects of differences in student backgrounds. It was found that altering the pedagogical format and reward system within the experimental sections had no significant effect upon student performances in the experimental, problem-oriented program. In general, this study indicates that students taught in the standard lecture-discussion format in which grades are determined by examination over course material retain concepts and principles, apply these concepts and principles to disciplinary problems, and integrate disciplinary concepts into their analysis of complex problems as well as, if not better than, students taught in an interdisciplinary, problem-solving format.