An Empirical Analysis of Backlog,Inventory, Production,and Price Adjustments: An Application of Recursive Systems of Log-Linear Models

This article presents an empirical analysis of firms' order backlogs, inventories, production, and price adjustments to unanticipated demand shocks. The data are obtained from quarterly INSEE Business Survey Tests on firms' realizations, expectations, and appraisals of some various economic variables. The analysis is based on the formulation and the estimation of a recursive system of conditional log-linear probability models.     

The political activities of social workers in the context of changing roles and political transition in Hong Kong

The article reports on a fourth study on the political participation of social workers based on a methodology developed by Gray and Collett van Rooyen (2000). Thus far studies have been conducted in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The present study examined the political activities of social workers in Hong Kong. It begins with a review of the politicisation of Hong Kong's social workers, tracing developments from the 1960s onwards. It then examines the literature on political participation in social work, particularly various typologies of political activity, in order to add to theory relating to this important aspect of social-work practice. Thereafter, it outlines the conceptual framework and methodology used in the study, the results of which provide the basis for the discussion of the political activities of social workers in Hong Kong. It ends with an in-depth discussion of the implications of the findings for the political role of social workers in Hong Kong's changing political context.     

Modelling the management of underground water assets

Central to the activities of any industry is the modernization of its assets. This paper describes the application of statistical methods to the asset management plan of a large water company. A model for the underground assets is given in detail, and the extensive computations required are illustrated. A Bayesian model shows the consequences of various policy options and provides realistic measures of the uncertainty connected with them.     

Survival Analysis For A Sequenced Clinical Trial With Covariates

In this paper we discuss the survival analysis for a clinical trial in which treatment categories and general prognostic data are realised at different stages during a patient's survival time. In the light of possible strategies for the parsimonious modelling of such data, a corresponding sequence of illustrative analyses is presented. Detailed results are given for a weighted least squares analysis and these generally agree with those obtained by maximum likelihood.     

Familial spinal shape

It has been proposed that there is a familial relationship in the shape of the spine. This paper describes a pilot study investigating familial shape in the sagittal plane (side view), using three data sets of normal Leeds schoolchildren. The study is exploratory in nature, because only small samples were available. Data acquisition was by means of the Quantec system, which obtains surface shape measurements and extracts a line representing the spinal curve. The coordinates of the spine line in the sagittal plane are then used to investigate familial correlations of spinal shape. The spine lines first undergo some preprocessing, including Procrustes rotations to remove location, rotation and size effects. Smoothed principal component analysis of the curves provides suitable shape variables, and familial correlations between curves are then investigated. The covariates of sex and height are also investigated in the analysis. It does appear that there could be some evidence for familial correlations in sagittal spinal shape, although a further large-scale study is required. Finally, a discussion of the approach and other alternatives is considered.     

Using logic programming to facilitate qualitative data analysis

Conventional word-processing programs and LOGLISP, a system which integrates logic programming with LISP, form the basis for QUALOG, a set of computer programs which facilitates the qualitative data analysis process. These programs aid the researcher's conceptual work in data analysis in four areas: 1) formatting the data as text files; 2) creating, organizing, and storing a knowledge base of information about the data; 3) testing knowledge-base queries relevant to working hypotheses for confirming and for disconfirming information; and 4) creating, organizing, and storing files for the researcher's memoranda.     

Union effects on employment stability: A comparison of panel versus cross-sectional data

In analyzing the impact of unions on employment stability, we introduce two innovations to correct for previous overestimates of the union effect: (1) a different approach to measure employment stability (although we use traditional measures for comparisons) and (2) panel data to obtain estimates uncontaminated by unmeasurable person differences between union and nonunion workers. Using common cross-sectional techniques, the new measures of employment stability indicate that unions account for 15 to 20 percent of employment stability variance rather than the 40 to 60 percent indicated in previous findings. Using panel techniques further reduces these measured union effects to no more than 11 percent. This research emanates from an undergraduate honors thesis written by McCutcheon, under the direction of Polachek. The authors wish to thank Thomas Kniesner, H. Gregg Lewis, and W. Stanley Siebert for valuable comments; Paul Jellinek and Lynn Igoe for superb editorial assistance; and the editor and a referee of this journal for valuable comments. The research was supported by the Carolina Population Center and the NICHD. All errors are the responsibility of the authors.     

A survey of nested designs

A nest with parameters (r,k,λ)→(r′,k′,λ′) is a BIBD on (b,v,r,k,λ) where each block has a distinguished sublock of cardinality k, the sublocks forming a (b,v,r,k,λ)-design.These designs are ‘nested’ in the sense of W.T. Federer (1972), who recommended the use of these designs for the sequential addition of periods in marketing experiments in order to retain Youden design properties as rows are added. Note that for a Youden design, the b columns and v treatments are in an SBIBD arrangement with parameters v=b, k=r, and λ.