Computer literacy: It's time to “get back to basics”

This paper argues the need for a back-to-basics approach in computer literacy education. It then presents such an approach. This approach has worked well both in courses designed for majors in computer science and in information systems, as well as in a course designed for nonmajors. The current view of literacy as indicated by courses taught at universities and in industry around the country is that literacy means learning about the computer (lots of terminology) and learning to use microcomputer application packages. It might include a glimpse of programming, but the feeling seems to be that computer users do not need to understand more than packages. We contend that the current approach is not literacy, does not prepare users to use the computer effectively, that the function of the universities is not to teach skills, and that such skills are in fact taught more efficiently if understanding that is true literacy, precedes the teaching of skills.     

On blest's measure of rank correlation

Blest (2000) proposed a new nonparametric measure of correlation between two random variables. His coefficient, which is dissymmetric in its arguments, emphasizes discrepancies observed among the first ranks in the orderings induced by the variables. The authors derive the limiting distribution of Blest's index and suggest symmetric variants whose merits as statistics for testing independence are explored using asymptotic relative efficiency calculations and Monte Carlo simulations.     

Microsimulation as a tool for evaluating redistribution policies

During the last 20 years, microsimulation models have been increasingly applied in qualitative and quantitative analysis of public policies. This paper discusses microsimulation techniques and their theoretical background as a tool for the analysis of public policies. It next analyses basic principles for using microsimulation models and interpreting their results, with emphasis on tax incidence, redistribution and poverty analysis. It then discusses social welfare analysis permitted by microsimulation techniques and points to the limits of present approaches and some directions for future developments.     

Development,a Question of Opportunity? A Critique of the 2006 World Development Report: Equity and Development

The World Bank's World Development Report 2006 addresses equity and development, defining equity as respect for equal opportunities combined with the avoidance of absolute deprivation. Equity has up to now remained a marginal issue in development economics. This detailed analysis endeavours to place the subject within the context of the evolution of World Bank thinking and policies. The wealth of the concept is illustrated, the downside being the difficulty in defining it accurately. We also emphasise the gap between the prospects opened up by such an enlargement of development goals and the report's policy recommendations, which are generally merely an extension of the World Bank's traditional analyses.     

What Are You Doing Here? 'Non-disabled' people and the disability movement: A response to Robert F. Drake

There appears to be a growing move amongst 'non-disabled' people, who research and work in our area, to justify their involvement. In my view, however, their attempts at justification are doomed to failure. The relation between 'non-disabled' people and the disability movement is very difficult, if not impossible. This is not said in anger or despair but rather this is a political statement. Obviously 'non-disabled' people have a role to play in so far as the aim of the disability movement is to remove disabling social and environmental inequalities. 'Non-disabled' people are going to have to change if we want to succeed and end the reality of our oppression. But this necessarily means that the relation of 'non-disabled' people to the disability movement involves a degree of exclusion.     

On a new goodness‐of‐fit process for families of copulas

A goodness‐of‐fit procedure is proposed for parametric families of copulas. The new test statistics are functionals of an empirical process based on the theoretical and sample versions of Spearman's dependence function. Conditions under which this empirical process converges weakly are seen to hold for many families including the Gaussian, Frank, and generalized Farlie–Gumbel–Morgenstern systems of distributions, as well as the models with singular components described by Durante [Durante ( 2007 ) Comptes Rendus Mathématique. Académie des Sciences. Paris, 344, 195–198]. Thanks to a parametric bootstrap method that allows to compute valid P‐values, it is shown empirically that tests based on Cramér–von Mises distances keep their size under the null hypothesis. Simulations attesting the power of the newly proposed tests, comparisons with competing procedures and complete analyses of real hydrological and financial data sets are presented. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 37: 80‐101; 2009 © 2009 Statistical Society of Canada     

Detecting change in a hazard regression model with right-censoring

The hazard function plays an important role in survival analysis and reliability, since it quantifies the instantaneous failure rate of an individual at a given time point t, given that this individual has not failed before t. In some applications, abrupt changes in the hazard function are observed, and it is of interest to detect the location of such a change. In this paper, we consider testing of existence of a change in the parameters of an exponential regression model, based on a sample of right-censored survival times and the corresponding covariates. Likelihood ratio type tests are proposed and non-asymptotic bounds for the type II error probability are obtained. When the tests lead to acceptance of a change, estimators for the location of the change are proposed. Non-asymptotic upper bounds of the underestimation and overestimation probabilities are obtained. A short simulation study illustrates these results.