China and the Different Regional Approaches in Africa

African countries have a tiny share in the international economy and are not able to play more than a small role in the International Relations arena. Nevertheless, major players are looking at Africa with a renewed interest and, among them, China seems to have the most dynamic approach in order to catch-up with other nations and upgrade relations with African countries. However, the EU is also carrying on its new strategy toward parts of Africa. In these world powers strategies, multiple approaches related to subregions exist, instead of a single regional approach. The objective of this paper is to have a closer look and to analyze how the different regions and major nations of Africa Western Africa, Egypt, Eastern Africa and South Africa) are dealing with their economic and political development path and their interconnection with other areas of the World, with an important focus on China-Africa relations.

Sophisticated voting and equilibrium refinements under plurality rule

In this paper we show in the context of voting games with plurality rule that the “perfect” equilibrium concept does not appear restrictive enough, since, independently of preferences, it can exclude at most the election of only one candidate. Furthermore, some examples show that there are “perfect” equilibria that are not “proper”. However, also some “proper” outcome is eliminated by sophisticated voting, while Mertens' stable set fully satisfies such criterium, for generic plurality games. Moreover, we highlight a weakness of the simple sophisticated voting principle. Finally, we find that, for some games, sophisticated voting (and strategic stability) does not elect the Condorcet winner, neither it respects Duverger's law, even with a large number of voters. Received: 16 March 1999/Accepted: 25 September 1999     

Assessing driver's mental representation of Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) and its possible effects on behavioural adaptations

The introduction of Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) could be very helpful for making the longitudinal driving task more comfortable for the drivers and, as a consequence, it could have a global beneficial effect on road safety. However, before or during the usage of the device, due to several reasons, drivers might generate in their mind incomplete or flawed mental representations about the fundamental operation principles of ACC; hence, the resulting usage of the device might be improper, negatively affecting the human-machine interaction and cooperation and, in some cases, leading to negative behavioural adaptations to the system that might neutralise the desirable positive effects on road safety. Within this context, this paper will introduce the methodology which has been developed in order to analyse in detail the topic and foresee, in the future, adequate actions for the recovery of inaccurate mental representations of the system.     

Kinematic analysis of post office employees' workstations

This study analyzed a post office clerk's tasks, comparing two workstation models. The clerk was facing the client in one, and seated at 45 degrees to the counter in the other. We analyzed the most frequent tasks and those presenting the most critical points: 1) payment of a postal order; 2) accepting a registered letter, breaking them down into subtasks. We used an optoelectronic system for kinematic analysis, and calculated the range of motion of the trunk and arms in the three spatial planes. The 45( position required less torsion of the trunk and head when using the printer, placed to the left of the employee. A larger worktop improved the workstation, leaving more room for equipment and allowing the worker to sit frontally to the monitor. However, this solution involved a shorter distance between the worker and the client with longer extension of the shoulder and elbow and less trunk flexion. These findings suggested a modification in the layout that shortens the distance between the worker and client.     

Detecting Deliberate Fertility Control in Pre-transitional Populations: Evidence from six German villages, 1766–1863

This article deals with the possible existence of deliberate fertility control before the fertility transition. The timing of the fertility response to economic stress, as measured by fluctuations in grain prices, is used as a measure of deliberate, but non-parity specific, control. Birth histories from six German villages (1766–1863), including information on occupation of the husband, are used together with community-wide grain price series in a micro-level event-history analysis. The results show a negative fertility response to grain prices both in the year immediately following the price change, and with a 1-year lag. The response was also highly different between socioeconomic groups, with the most pronounced effects among the unskilled laborers. Moreover, the response in this group was very rapid, already present 3–6 months after the price change. As all involuntary fertility responses to economic hardship (e.g., malnutrition, spousal separation, and spontaneous abortion) come with a considerable time lag, the existence of such a rapid response among the lower social groups suggests that individual agency (deliberate control) was an important aspect of reproductive behavior also before the fertility transition.     

Special issue on statistical analysis of networks

Statistical Methods & Applications - The special issue on Statistical Analysis of Networks aspires to convey the breadth and depth of statistical learning with networks, ranging from networks...     

Robust Inference for Inverse Stochastic Dominance

The notion of inverse stochastic dominance is gaining increasing support in risk, inequality, and welfare analysis as a relevant criterion for ranking distributions, which is alternative to the standard stochastic dominance approach. Its implementation rests on comparisons of two distributions’ quantile functions, or of their multiple partial integrals, at fixed population proportions. This article develops a novel statistical inference model for inverse stochastic dominance that is based on the influence function approach. The proposed method allows model-free evaluations that are limitedly affected by contamination in the data. Asymptotic normality of the estimators allows to derive tests for the restrictions implied by various forms of inverse stochastic dominance. Monte Carlo experiments and an application promote the qualities of the influence function estimator when compared with alternative dominance criteria.