Regional disparities in Indonesia: A social indicators approach

The paper examines the nature of regional imbalance in Indonesia by using a number of social indicators. Several disaggregated social indices are constructed with the help of a taxonomic technique. For the purpose of comparison, an overall economic index is also constructed. It is observed that the ranking of provinces differ substantially across the indices, implying that there is no causal relationship between the selected social and economic indicators. Regional disparities declined in the past decade in terms of all social indices except the demographic index. Economic inequality nowever increased between 1970 and 1980.     

The effect of child mortality experience on subsequent fertility: in Pakistan and Bangladesh

Summary This paper presents an empirical analysis of the effects, behavioural and biological, of child mortality experience on subsequent fertility in two South Asian Islamic nations. Data for the investigation came from retrospective pregnancy histories of 2,910 currently married women interviewed in the Pakistan National Impact Survey (1968-69) and from longitudinal vital registration data (1966-2070) of 5,236 women residing in a rural area of Bangladesh collected by the Cholera Research Laboratory. The aim of this study was to assess the importance of the child-replacement motivational response to child death experience after biological effects have been controlled adequately. A common approach employed previously has been to examine cumulative fertility according to child death experience. In Pakistan and Bangladesh, a consistently positive relationship was demonstrated between the number of children ever born and the number of child deaths. This method, however, did not exclude the inverse relationship, the influence of fertility on mortality, nor did it dissect out behavioural from biological effects. Utilizing a measure of subsequent fertility, live-birth-to-live-birth intervals, the study further illustrated another common pitfall. Since the risk of infant death, which leads to shorter birth intervals, is associated with the mother's reproductive history, women with child mortality experience are more likely to experience shorter intervals because of the biological effect of subsequent infant death. Behavioural influences may, therefore, be observed by considering only those birth intervals in which the first-born child survives to the end of the interval. With these limitations controlled, very few, if any, behavioural influences were noted in the Pakistan and Bangladesh data. Median birth intervals in Pakistan varied between 35-43 and 41-42 months, increasing with parity. Within each parity group, no consistent difference was observed between women with and without previous child loss. In Bangladesh, the median birth interval for all women with a surviving infant was 37-2 months. This was shortened to 24-31 months by an infant death. When intervals with infant deaths were excluded, little or no behavioural influence was detected among women of the same parity, but with varying levels of previous child loss. Even without behavioural effects, elimination of infant mortality in Bangladesh would reduce fertility by prolonging the average period of post-partum sterility. In the Bangladesh setting, however, the size of the effect was only about four per cent. This modest effect, more-over, was counterbalanced by an overall increase of net reproduction by seven per cent due to better survivorship of infants.     

Generalized bent-cable methodology for changepoint data: a Bayesian approach

The choice of the model framework in a regression setting depends on the nature of the data. The focus of this study is on changepoint data, exhibiting three phases: incoming and outgoing, both of which are linear, joined by a curved transition. Bent-cable regression is an appealing statistical tool to characterize such trajectories, quantifying the nature of the transition between the two linear phases by modeling the transition as a quadratic phase with unknown width. We demonstrate that a quadratic function may not be appropriate to adequately describe many changepoint data. We then propose a generalization of the bent-cable model by relaxing the assumption of the quadratic bend. The properties of the generalized model are discussed and a Bayesian approach for inference is proposed. The generalized model is demonstrated with applications to three data sets taken from environmental science and economics. We also consider a comparison among the quadratic bent-cable, generalized bent-cable and piecewise linear models in terms of goodness of fit in analyzing both real-world and simulated data. This study suggests that the proposed generalization of the bent-cable model can be valuable in adequately describing changepoint data that exhibit either an abrupt or gradual transition over time.     

Circular versions of systematic sampling in the presence of linear trend

In this paper, an alternative approach was employed and derived the explicit expressions of sample mean and its variance for the circular and the diagonal circular systematic schemes since these expressions were unavailable in the existing literature. The study also found the corrected estimator of population mean and average variance under super-population model for these scheme. It further revealed that the circular systematic sampling almost performed better than that of the diagonal circular systematic sampling in both linear and auto-correlated super-population models.     

Employee voice on social media — An affordance lens

Voice mechanisms in organizations provide an opportunity for employees to have a say about their work. As new digital mechanisms, such as social media (SM), are being increasingly adopted by organizations for knowledge sharing, employee engagement and general communication, it is important to consider the extent to which SM may facilitate employee voice. The limited attempts to examine SM and employee voice have mostly focused on identifying the contextual factors that could promote constructive voice on SM. The extant literature does not explore how SM features may (or may not) facilitate all types of voice, such as those which promote employee interests. Adopting an affordance lens, this paper answers the call of voice scholars to explore the potential of SM as a voice mechanism by discussing the perceived value of different SM features for different types of employee voice content. The paper brings together SM and voice literature and explores how different SM affordances may potentially facilitate certain voice content more so over others. In doing so, future directions for research of voice on SM are also discussed.     

以EMME／2为平台估测温室气体的研究成果

京都协议已确认并应用战略战术措施来减少温室气的排放，因此，城市交通系统规划人员不得不寻求一种革新的方法来满足京都协议的要求。本文包括四部分：第一部分简要介绍了环境可持续的城市交通的概念，油耗，温室气体排放和京都协议的要求；第二部分描述了温室气体排放估测所需的方法，并指出了在实践中存在的缺陷，第三部分阐述了如何应用ＥＭＭＥ／２作为平台来估测室气体的排放；最后第四部分作了总结。     

How Do Mutual Dependence and Power Imbalance Condition the Effects of Technological Similarity on Post-acquisition Innovation Performance Over Time?

This study investigates how mutual dependence and power imbalance, which have been differentiated by recent studies adopting the theoretical lens of resource dependence theory (RDT) as two distinct forms of interdependence, change the effect of technological similarity between the acquiring firm and the target firm on post-acquisition innovation across times. The analysis of panel data on mergers and acquisitions undertaken by US firms reveals that in the short-run, mutual dependence strengthens the effect of technological similarity on post-acquisition innovation, whereas power imbalance weakens it. However, the effect of mutual dependence persists over time, while that of power imbalance declines over time. These findings extend the RDT to the context of technological acquisition and innovation and offer important implications for research and practice.