The Secrets of Scheherazade: Toward a Functional Analysis of Imaginative Literature

A functional analysis of selected aspects of imaginative literature is presented. Reading imaginative literature is described as a process in which the reader makes indirect contact with the contingencies operating on the behavior of story characters. A functional story grammar is proposed in which the reader''s experience with a story is interpreted in terms of escape contingencies in which the author initially introduces an establishing operation consisting of a source of tension, which is resolved in some way by the outcome of the story. Although escape contingencies represent the functional basis for the structure of stories, they are to be understood in a context of many other reinforcers for reading fiction. Other contingencies that maintain reading are discussed. Functional analyses of imaginative literature have much to offer, both in improving literary education and in understanding the behavioral processes that occur on the part of the reader.     

The non-profit sector in East Germany: before and after unification

The paper describes how the non-profit sector in East Germany has passed through several distinct phases in recent years. It shows how the role of the non-profit sector under the system of party dominance and centralised economic and social planning signified a major contradiction of East German society: the artificial under-development of civic society in eastern Europe's most successful economy. During the first phase of the transition period in late 1989, the expression and manifestation of political views was predominant. With the disintegration of the socialist party-state, the needs for social service provision increased. West German organisations have increasingly become the dominant factor in East German non-profit sector affairs. The paper argues that the East German non-profit sector will emerge as a slightly poorer and more secular version of its West German counterpart.     

Are there more almost separable partitions than separable partitions?

A partition of a set of n points in d-dimensional space into p parts is called an (almost) separable partition if the convex hulls formed by the parts are (almost) pairwise disjoint. These two partition classes are the most encountered ones in clustering and other partition problems for high-dimensional points and their usefulness depends critically on the issue whether their numbers are small. The problem of bounding separable partitions has been well studied in the literature (Alon and Onn in Discrete Appl. Math. 91:39–51, 1999; Barnes et al. in Math. Program. 54:69–86, 1992; Harding in Proc. Edinb. Math. Soc. 15:285–289, 1967; Hwang et al. in SIAM J. Optim. 10:70–81, 1999; Hwang and Rothblum in J. Comb. Optim. 21:423–433, 2011a). In this paper, we prove that for d≤2 or p≤2, the maximum number of almost separable partitions is equal to the maximum number of separable partitions.     

Generalized perfect domination in graphs

Let k be a positive integer and G=(V,E) be a graph. A vertex subset D of a graph G is called a perfect k-dominating set of G, if every vertex v of G, not in D, is adjacent to exactly k vertices of D. The minimum cardinality of a perfect k-dominating set of G is the perfect k-domination number γ _kp (G). In this paper, we give characterizations of graphs for which γ _kp (G)=γ(G)+k?2 and prove that the perfect k-domination problem is NP-complete even when restricted to bipartite graphs and chordal graphs. Also, by using dynamic programming techniques, we obtain an algorithm to determine the perfect k-domination number of trees.     

Current Constraints and Future Directions for Risk Adapted Land-Use Planning Practices in the High-Density Asian Setting of Ho Chi Minh City

The need to integrate adaptation efforts into land-use planning policies has been only recently recognized in Ho Chi Minh City. The city's latest planning guidance addresses both flooding resilience and mitigation of urban heat. This paper outlines the development contexts and the current barriers for adapted land-use planning within the city. The key challenge for land-use planning is communicating the important functions and services of open and natural urban spaces and effectively guiding the mainly individual developer-driven development. As the realization of non-structural adaptation measures is in strong contrast to the current market-driven private and short-term developer interests, the main development trajectories are questioned and synergies identified.     

Distribution of the cross-correlations of squared residuals in ARIMA models

ABSTRACT The distribution of the cross-correlations of squared residuals from Box-Jenkins models is considered in very general conditions, and the asymptotic distribution is derived. A test for a lagged relationship in volatility for economic time series under instantaneous causality is proposed, and its empirical behaviour is studied. An example involving the international stock market's volatility is studied, and an interesting result is observed.