Legislative history and evaluation

Legislative histories can be done with those evaluative studies which are based on programs which have a history in the legislature. ESEA Title I, Title IV, and the Title I Technical Assistance Centers are examples of programs which have their direct source in federal legislation. The evaluator could ask whether the intent (aims and objectives) of a program is the same as the intent of the legislation or could ask whether the outcomes of a program were the same as those intended by the legislature. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the reader to the doing of legislative history in an evaluation study. The paper introduces the reader to five major sources for legislative history. The paper then discusses seven acceptable sources of information. Following this is a five-step guide to doing a legislative history.     

On-line control procedures under the random-walk model with measurement error and attribute observations

Assuming the quality characteristic process follows the random-walk model, the economic online control procedures are investigated by using the boundary correction technique when (1) the noise or measurement error follows either the random-walk model or the pure random model, and (2) the observations are taken by attributes only. Simple approximations for the long-run cost rate and optimal-control parameters are obtained.     

On the identifiability of copulas in bivariate competing risks models

In competing risks models, the joint distribution of the event times is not identifiable even when the margins are fully known, which has been referred to as the “identifiability crisis in competing risks analysis” (Crowder, 1991). We model the dependence between the event times by an unknown copula and show that identification is actually possible within many frequently used families of copulas. The result is then extended to the case where one margin is unknown. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 41: 291–303; 2013 © 2013 Statistical Society of Canada     

Analyzing panel count data with a dependent observation process and a terminal event

Panel count data occur in many fields and a number of approaches have been developed. However, most of these approaches are for situations where there is no terminal event and the observation process is independent of the underlying recurrent event process unconditionally or conditional on the covariates. In this paper, we discuss a more general situation where the observation process is informative and there exists a terminal event which precludes further occurrence of the recurrent events of interest. For the analysis, a semiparametric transformation model is presented for the mean function of the underlying recurrent event process among survivors. To estimate the regression parameters, an estimating equation approach is proposed in which an inverse survival probability weighting technique is used. The asymptotic distribution of the proposed estimates is provided. Simulation studies are conducted and suggest that the proposed approach works well for practical situations. An illustrative example is provided. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 41: 174–191; 2013 © 2012 Statistical Society of Canada     

O(N 2)-Operation Approximation of Covariance Matrix Inverse in Gaussian Process Regression Based on Quasi-Newton BFGS Method

Gaussian process (GP) is a Bayesian nonparametric regression model, showing good performance in various applications. However, during its model-tuning procedure, the GP implementation suffers from numerous covariance-matrix inversions of expensive O(N³) operations, where N is the matrix dimension. In this article, we propose using the quasi-Newton BFGS O(N²)-operation formula to approximate/replace recursively the inverse of covariance matrix at every iteration. The implementation accuracy is guaranteed carefully by a matrix-trace criterion and by the restarts technique to generate good initial guesses. A number of numerical tests are then performed based on the sinusoidal regression example and the Wiener–Hammerstein identification example. It is shown that by using the proposed implementation, more than 80% O(N³) operations could be eliminated, and a typical speedup of 5–9 could be achieved as compared to the standard maximum-likelihood-estimation (MLE) implementation commonly used in Gaussian process regression.     

N_（1923）－TBP协同萃取铼（Ⅶ）的动力学研究

本文采用上升单液滴法研究了Ｎ１９２３－ＴＢＰ正已烷协同体系萃取ＲｅＯ－４（Ⅶ）的动力学机理，测定了不同萃取条件对萃取速率的影响，提出了速率方程，并对萃取反应机理进行了探讨     

Developments in and prospects for external debt position and burden of developing countries: The case of Korea

The delay of strong economic recovery by industrialized nations, slowed world export growth, and higher interest rates have worsened the financial situation of a number of developing countries which have relied on external borrowings to sustain current account deficits and protect economic development. Recently, well-publicized concerns over the ability to these countries to repay their considerable debt burden have been raised. To shed light on these concerns, the paper focuses on Korea—one of the heavier debt-holding countries. It describes the process through which Korea has acquired its external debt over the past decade, assesses the trends in its debt burden, and presents prospects for the period 1982–1986. Using the Korean experience, the paper shows that the most common indicators used for evaluating foreign debt burden, such as the long-term service ratio, need to be supplemented by other measurements. In a world economy characterized by short-term debts with variable interest rates, the paper suggests that an important tool in analyzing the external debt burden should be the short-term debt burden.     

认知语义学视角下英语N+N离心复合词语义研究

英语N+N复合词研究一直是语言学领域重点关注的课题之一。随着认知语言学研究的不断深入,其中的离心结构型复合词得到认知语言学界特别的重视,国内外学者试图从认知的角度来解析英语N+N离心复合词的语义特征。本文重点探讨和分析了框架语义学、概念整合理论和LCCM理论在英语N+N离心复合词语义研究中的运用,以期对这类复合词的认知语义学研究视角有一个更加系统和全面的认识。