Small Business Success Among Men- and Women-Owned Firms in Rural Areas1

Abstract Rural women have difficulty finding good jobs. Ownership of small businesses offers an alternative but the sales and income of women-owned firms are significantly lower than those of men-owned firms. Compared with men, women owners are more likely to operate smaller and newer businesses; however, these differences do not completely account for the gap in gross sales between men- and women-owned businesses. The strongest influences on business success are firm size, corporate status, and industrial sector. Though significant, the owner's gender is less important than these organizational characteristics. The factors influencing success of small businesses generally are the same for men- and women-owned businesses. More research on business networks and the start-up phase of small businesses is necessary for a better understanding of the sources of gender differences in success.     

Ninth-Grade Students' Attitudes Toward Nontraditional Occupations

This study explored how students choose careers, their attitudes toward vocational education, and whether or not they would consider enrolling in a nontraditional vocational education program.     

Modelling map positional error to infer true feature location

The authors consider the issue of map positional error, or the difference between location as represented in a spatial database (i.e., a map) and the corresponding unobservable true location. They propose a fully model‐based approach that incorporates aspects of the map registration process commonly performed by users of geographic informations systems, including rubber‐sheeting. They explain how estimates of positional error can be obtained, hence estimates of true location. They show that with multiple maps of varying accuracy along with ground truthing data, suitable model averaging offers a strategy for using all of the maps to learn about true location.     

SUNK COSTS, PROFIT VARIABILITY, AND TURNOVER

Dynamic competitive models of industry evolution suggest that firm profit will be more volatile, and turnover lower, in industries with higher sunk costs. These implications are consistent with empirical observation. (JEL L00 )     

The humorous construction of disability: 'stand-up' comedians in the United States

We examine how stand-up [sic] comedy constructs, circulates, perpetuates and/or disrupts stereotypical images of disabled persons in the United States. We use disabled people, rather than people-first language, to remind readers that disability is an ill-defined, culturally imposed attribute. Although humor is culturally specific, we draw on works of an international cadre of humanities scholars and social scientists to ground our analyses. We conclude that disability humor constitutes an emerging, liberatory art form. Disabled and non-disabled comedians elicit thought-provoking laughter and present disability as an interesting way to live. However, disabling humor still perpetuates stereotyping and isolation.     

Optimal designs for generalized linear models

Summary This paper solves some D-optimal design problems for certain Generalized Linear Models where the mean depends on two parameters and two explanatory variables. In all of the cases considered the support point of the optimal designs are found to be independent of the unknown parameters. While in some cases the optimal design measures are given by two points with equal weights, in others the support is given by three point with weights depending on the unknown parameters, hence the designs are locally optimal in general. Empirical results on the efficiency of the locally optimal designs are also given. Some of the designs found can also be used for planning D-optimal experiments for the normal linear model, where the mean must be positive. This research was carried out in part at University College, London as an M.Sc. project. Thanks are due to Prof. I. Ford (University of Glasgow) and Prof. A. Giovagnoli (University of Perugia) for their valuable suggestions and critical observations.     

丰水区筑坝截流——调丰补歉

该文从中国人口快速增长、经济建设加快、用水量逐年增大 ,加上气候变暖、少雨干旱将持续到 2 0 15年 ,我国北方水生态环境日趋恶化现状 ,说明在丰水区筑坝截流、调丰补歉势在必行 ,完全符合生态经济学发展原则和国际水法