Multiple criteria decision analysis of treatment and land-filling technologies for waste incineration residues

In this paper, we present a real-world case realized in Switzerland on behalf of the federal agency in charge of the waste policy. The incineration of urban wastes generates hazardous residues that need specific treatment and/or land-filling technologies. The variety of local situations and appraisals led to the choice of very different solutions. Moreover, proponents were keen to propose new technologies. The purpose of this study was to provide the background for a national policy that would apply to all future projects.     

The impact of language and culture on perceived website usability

Online retailers offering their products across national and cultural borders are eager to enhance the usability of their websites to attract large numbers of visitors. The results of the present research show that the perceived usability increases when the website was originally conceived in the native language of the user. Thus, translation, even though of excellent quality, creates a cultural distance which impacts on the web users’ evaluation of the site. Conversely, where language is less important, such as in the evaluation of the quality of an offer, a consumer's native language has no impact on the buying decision.     

Changing marital and family patterns: a test of the post-modern perspective

"Four central constructs of the post-modern perspective are extended and tested using secondary analysis of [U.S.] Census data and the NORC General Social Survey: 1972-94 data sets. The modified postmodern themes of: (1) the decline of a single universal family organizational standard, and (2) growing cultural diversity...were supported by examining changes in American family structure, attitudes toward such structural changes, and changing attitudes toward marital and family patterns over the last quarter century. However, little support was found for the greater use of, and reliance on, (3) the mass media. Mixed results were found on the fourth construct, greater variance in, and/or loss of, personal happiness or personal or family life satisfaction."     

New Results for Computing Blaker’s Exact Confidence Interval for One Parameter Discrete Distributions

The authors state new general results for computing Blaker’s exact confidence interval limits for usual one-parameter discrete distributions. Specific results for implementing an accurate and fast algorithm are made explicit for the binomial, negative binomial, Poisson and hypergeometric model.     

Regression model for surrogate data in high dimensional statistics

Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of estimating the regression of a surrogated scalar response variable given a functional random one. We construct an estimator of the regression operator by using, in addition to the available (true) response data, a surrogate data. We then establish some asymptotic properties of the constructed estimator in terms of the almost-complete and the quadratic mean convergences. Notice that the obtained results generalize a part of the results obtained in the finite dimensional framework. Finally, an illustration on the applicability of our results on both simulated data and a real dataset was realized. We have thus shown the superiority of our estimator on classical estimators when we are lacking complete data.