From Parts to Wholes: Mechanisms of Development in Infant Visual Object Processing

Visual object processing in infancy is often described as proceeding from an early stage in which object features are processed independently to a later stage in which relations between features are taken into account (e.g., Cohen, 1998). Here we present the Representational Acuity Hypothesis, which argues that this behavioral shift can be explained by a developmental decrease in the size of neural receptive fields in the cortical areas responsible for object representation, together with a tuning to specific object features. We evaluate this hypothesis with a connectionist model of infant perceptual categorization. The model shows a behavioral shift in featural to relational processing consistent with similar results observed in the infant categorization experiments of Younger (1985) and Younger and Cohen (1986).     

MODEL BUILDING AND DATA MINING

This paper defines the phenomenon of data mining in econometrics and discusses various outcomes of and solutions to data mining. Both classical and Bayesian approaches are considered, each with notable advantages and disadvantages, and with the choice of loss function affecting critical values. Illustrative examples include variable addition and exclusion in a standard linear regression model, the choice of lag structure in a dynamic single equation, and specification in a simultaneous equations model.     

Using Simulation to Evaluate Time to Detect Incursions in Honeybee Biosecurity in Australia

A key determinant of the efficiency of a surveillance system for exotic mites is whether an incursion might be detected sufficiently quickly to allow successful management actions to occur. To assess this possibility we have developed a spatial modeling system and synthesized knowledge of honeybee and mite behavior to explore the potential spread of exotic mites and the likelihood of their detection in sentinel hives. We find that increasing the number of hives and the efficiency of the detection method are the most effective means of improving the time to detection.     

Product Assortment and Price Competition under Multinomial Logit Demand

The role of assortment planning and pricing in shaping sales and profits of retailers is well documented and studied in monopolistic settings. However, such a role remains relatively unexplored in competitive environments. In this study, we study equilibrium behavior of competing retailers in two settings: (i) when prices are exogenously fixed, and retailers compete in assortments only; and (ii) when retailers compete jointly in assortment and prices. For this, we model consumer choice using a multinomial Logit, and assume that each retailer selects products from a predefined set, and faces a display constraint. We show that when the sets of products available to retailers do not overlap, there always exists one equilibrium that Pareto‐dominates all others, and that such an outcome can be reached through an iterative process of best responses. A direct corollary of our results is that competition leads a firm to offer a broader set of products compared to when it is operating as a monopolist, and to broader offerings in the market compared to a centralized planner. When some products are available to all retailers, that is, assortments might overlap, we show that display constraints drive equilibrium existence properties.     

Correlates of divorce in the U.S.S.R.

The theoretical rationale of this study is that conditions associated with divorce reside outside the family within a broader social system where the family finds itself located. The absence of major differences in divorce law from one place to another within the Soviet Union makes it possible to explore this hypothesis by examining areal differentials in divorce rates. Crude divorce rates and crude marriage rates for 1960 have been published in Vestnik Statistiki for 109 political-administrative areas in the Soviet Union. Several indicators of modernization are available for the same areas from the 1959 U.S.S.R. Census of Population. About 80 per cent of the variation among areas with respect to the crude divorce rate is accounted for by six variables: the crude marriage rate, the percentage of urban population, and the employee-worker ratio in the labor force, each of which is positively associated with the divorce rate; and the proportion of poorly educated women, the ratio of children to adult males, and the mean household-family size, each of which is negatively associated with the divorce rate.     

Creeping-In als neues Instrument des Erwerbs von Unternehmenskontrollrechten ?C Taktische Meisterleistung oder unkalkulierbares Risiko?

A modern method for (partial) acquisitions is the so called creeping-in tactic. In this procedure the acquirer uses cash settled equity swaps to undermine WpHG notification requirements systematically until she holds at least 30% of the voting rights in the target company. In this case the acquirer has the obligation to submit a mandatory takeover bid for the remaining outstanding shares. In many cases acquirers are not interested in a complete acquisition of the target company but rather want to make use of low shareholder presence levels during the general assembly and therefore have the opportunity to significantly influence fundamental decisions like, e.g. allocation of the net income, corporate actions etc. The mandatory takeover bid has to be equal at least to the three months average share price. At first glance, this involves a high risk of an unintentional acceptance by the targets?? shareholders. The goal of this paper is to analyze the effectiveness of the mandatory takeover bid. We show that with a temporal shift of the mandatory takeover bid to a point in time when the share price is above the three months average share price an unintentional acceptance is virtually impossible. In a logit-regression company specific context factors for the acceptance risk are indentified and rejected.     

"Government Can Do Whatever It Wants": Moral Regulation in Ralph Klein's Alberta*

Cet article offre une analyse des pratiques étatiques du gouvernement Klein en Alberta en vue de contribuer à la compréhension de la place de l'État dans le contexte actuel de mondialisation de l'économie. Le gouvernement Klein est d'abord situé au sein du projet politico-culturel de la nouvelle droite, puis le concept de «régulation morale>> est introduit comme principe d'interprétation de la pratique gouverne-mentale. La restructuration des secteurs de la santé, de l'éducation et des services sociaux est ensuite analysée, de même que l'intérêt que porte le gouvernement Klein aux enjeux de «la loi et l'ordre>> ainsi que ceux des droits de la personne. L'article prétend que, en Alberta comme ailleurs> alors même que sa pratique est profondément restructurée, l'État demeure le partenaire irremplaçable du capital.
The state practices of Alberta's Klein government are analysed with respect to the issue of whether the state becomes powerless in the current wave of capitalist globalization. The Klein government is first situated within the political/cultural project of the new right, and the concept of "moral regulation" is introduced to make sense of the government's overall practice. The restructuration of education, health care and social services in the province is then analysed, along with the government's interest in law and order, and human rights issues. It is claimed that, in Alberta as elsewhere, while the state is undergoing a deep restructuring, it retains its importance as capital's irreplaceable partner.     

An Affine-Invariant Generalization of the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test for the Bivariate Location Problem

This paper proposes an affine‐invariant test extending the univariate Wilcoxon signed‐rank test to the bivariate location problem. It gives two versions of the null distribution of the test statistic. The first version leads to a conditionally distribution‐free test which can be used with any sample size. The second version can be used for larger sample sizes and has a limiting χ₂² distribution under the null hypothesis. The paper investigates the relationship with a test proposed by Jan & Randles (1994). It shows that the Pitman efficiency of this test relative to the new test is equal to 1 for elliptical distributions but that the two tests are not necessarily equivalent for non‐elliptical distributions. These facts are also demonstrated empirically in a simulation study. The new test has the advantage of not requiring the assumption of elliptical symmetry which is needed to perform the asymptotic version of the Jan and Randles test.