Test of symmetry based on copula function

We introduce some new nonparametric statistical tests of symmetry. The limiting behaviors of the proposed statistics are established under the null hypothesis. Emphasis is placed on explanation of the strong approximation methodology. The asymptotic validity of a re-sampling method to compute p-values is also established. A simulation study for some considered statistics is performed.     

Protected Sites: Reconceptualising Secret Societies in Colonial and Postcolonial Singapore

Street gangs in Singapore are commonly known as secret societies. The irony behind this term is that these secret societies have not only been contributing to the making of modern Singapore for more than a century, they have often carried out their dealings in the public sphere. These overt operations of the underworld are possible, in part, due to the symbiotic relationship forged between the Chinese triads and the police which have continued till today. Through examining the notion of protected sites, this article explores how the postcolonial state has taken on a similar pragmatic approach as that practised by its colonial predecessor in the management of the criminal underworld.     

Diagonal latent block model for binary data

This paper addresses the problem of co-clustering binary data in the latent block model framework with diagonal constraints for resulting data partitions. We consider the Bernoulli generative mixture model and present three new methods differing in the assumptions made about the degree of homogeneity of diagonal blocks. The proposed models are parsimonious and allow to take into account the structure of a data matrix when reorganizing it into homogeneous diagonal blocks. We derive algorithms for each of the presented models based on the classification expectation-maximization algorithm which maximizes the complete data likelihood. We show that our contribution can outperform other state-of-the-art (co)-clustering methods on synthetic sparse and non-sparse data. We also prove the efficiency of our approach in the context of document clustering, by using real-world benchmark data sets.     

A response to criticism of our estimates of under-5 mortality in Iraq, 1980–98

According to estimates published in this journal, the number of deaths of children under 5 in Iraq in the period 1991–98 resulting from the Gulf War of 1991 and the subsequent imposition of sanctions by the United Nations was between 400,000 and 500,000. These estimates have since been held to be implausibly high by a working group set up by an Independent Inquiry Committee appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General. We believe the working group's own estimates are seriously flawed and cannot be regarded as a credible challenge to our own. To obtain their estimates, they reject as unreliable the evidence of the 1999 Iraq Child and Maternal Mortality Survey—despite clear evidence of its internal coherence and supporting evidence from another, independent survey. They prefer to rely on the 1987 and 1997 censuses and on data obtained in a format that had elsewhere been rejected as unreliable 30 years earlier.     

Multiple step-stress accelerated life test: the tampered failure rate model

Battacharyya and Soejoeti (1989) proposed the tampered failure rate model for step-stress accelerated life testing. In this note, their model is generalized from the simple (2-step) step-stress setting to the multiple (k-step, k > 2) setting. For the parametric setting where the life distribution under constant stress is Weibull, maximum likelihood estimation is investigated and the situation where the different stress levels are equispaced is looked at.     

Evidence-Based Evaluation of Staircase Architectural Design to Reduce the Risk of Falling for Older Adults

The impact of an increasingly aging population warrants accommodations in home architectural design. Focusing on the staircase design criteria as part of the home environment, this article presents an integrated evidence-based staircase evaluation for home staircase design to reduce the risk of falling for older adults (those 65 years and older). The staircase evaluation has been developed by dividing the staircase into four design elements: handrail design, step design, staircase geometric design, and lighting. Each element is divided into several features that define its architectural design. For example, the step design element is further divided into four features: going depth, riser height, nosing, and step finishing material. A hierarchical list is provided based on an evidence-based comparison of various scenarios for each feature. The hierarchical list presents the comparative effect of each scenario on reducing the risk of falling for older adults.     

When data justice and environmental justice meet: formulating a response to extractive logic through environmental data justice

ABSTRACT

Environmental data justice (EDJ) emerges from conversations between data justice and environmental justice while identifying the limits and tensions of these lenses. Through a reflexive process of querying our entanglement in non-innocent relations, this paper develops and engages EDJ by examining how it informs the work of the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI), a distributed, consensus-based organization that formed in response to the 2016 US presidential election. Through grassroots archiving of data sets, monitoring federal environmental and energy agency websites, and writing rapid-response reports about how federal agencies are being undermined, EDGI mobilizes EDJ to challenge the ‘extractive logic’ of current federal environmental policy and data infrastructures. ‘Extractive logic’ disconnects data from provenance, privileges the matrix of domination, and whitewashes data to generate uncertainty. We use the dynamic EDJ framework to reflect on EDGI’s public comment advising against the US Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rule for Transparent Science. Through EDJ, EDGI aspires to create new environmental data infrastructures and practices that are participatory and embody equitable, transparent data care.