Identifying Dispersion Effects in Robust Design Experiments—Issues and Improvements

The two experimental methods most commonly used for reducing the effect of noise factors on a response of interest Y aim either to estimate a model of the variability (V(Y), or an associated function), that is transmitted by the noise factors, or to estimate a model of the ratio between the response (Y) and all the control and noise factors involved therein. Both methods aim to determine which control factor conditions minimise the noise factors' effect on the response of interest, and a series of analytical guidelines are established to reach this end. Product array designs allow robustness problems to be solved in both ways, but require a large number of experiments. Thus, practitioners tend to choose more economical designs that only allow them to model the surface response for Y. The general assumption is that both methods would lead to similar conclusions. In this article we present a case that utilises a design based on a product design and for which the conclusions yielded by the two analytical methods are quite different. This example casts doubt on the guidelines that experimental practice follows when using either of the two methods. Based on this example, we show the causes behind these discrepancies and we propose a number of guidelines to help researchers in the design and interpretation of robustness problems when using either of the two methods.     

SOME SECOND ORDER ASYMPTOTICS IN EXPONENTIAL FAMILY NON-LINEAR REGRESSION MODELS (A GEOMETRIC APPROACH)

The differential geometric framework of Amari (1982a, 1985) is applied to the study of some second order asymptotics related to the curvatures for exponential family nonlinear regression models, in which the observations are independent but not necessarily identically distributed. This paper presents a set of reasonable regularity conditions which are needed to study asymptotics from a geometric point of view in regression models. A new stochastic expansion of a first order efficient estimator is derived and used to study several asymptotic problems related to Fisher information in terms of curvatures. The bias and the covariance of the first order efficient estimator are also calculated according to the expansion.     

民初司法发展的制度性环境——以司法官考试制度为例的分析

民国司法官考试制度的建立、发展和运作离不开民初各种社会因素交互作用形成的大环境。为了使国家走上独立富强之路,民初法律人极尽法律启蒙之能,力倡司法独立,大力发展法律教育,希冀通过法律教育的普及推动司法的进步。现代司法需要专业化的司法官。就民初国情考量,考察法律知识、选拔合格法律人的最好办法即为司法官考试制度。然而民初的中国,外遭列强欺压,内有社会动荡。所有这一切又无不在时时制约着近代司法官考试制度的运作和发展。     

命题态度句的成真条件

用动态认知逻辑特别是话语表现理论为主要研究工具,充分考虑语境因素,探讨命题态度句的语义解释,得出的结论是:(一)命题态度句的语义依赖于被报道的信念和解释者对信念主体的认知状态的表征的其它元素的交互作用;(二)对命题态度句的处理揭示了语义的动态更新过程。     

Comparison of the Historic Recycling Risk for BSE in Three European Countries by Calculating the Basic Reproduction Ratio R0

A deterministic model of BSE transmission is used to calculate the R(0) values for specific years of the BSE epidemics in the United Kingdom (UK), the Netherlands (NL), and Switzerland (CH). In all three countries, the R(0) values decreased below 1 after the introduction of a ban on feeding meat and bone meal (MBM) to ruminants around the 1990s. A variety of additional measures against BSE led to further decrease of R(0) to about 0.06 in the years around 1998. The calculated R(0) values were consistent with the observations made on the surveillance results for UK, but were partially conflicting with the surveillance results for NL and CH. There was evidence for a dependency of the BSE epidemic in NL and CH from an infection source not considered in the deterministic transmission model. Imports of MBM and feed components can be an explanation for this discrepancy, and the importance of imports for these observations is discussed.     

La qualité de l'emploi en Amérique latine: théorie et faits

Traditionnellement, la littérature sur le développement consacrée aux marchés du travail d'Amérique latine s'est concentrée sur le nombre d'emplois et la productivité. Mais, étant donné la persistance d'une forte proportion d'emplois informels ou précaires, pour que l'analyse ait du sens, il faut aussi considérer des implications du statut professionnel sur la qualité de l'emploi. Partant d'observations faites ces dernières décennies, les auteurs concluent que la plupart des aspects de cette qualité – protection sociale comprise – dépendent de la signature d'un contrat écrit. Ce constat les conduit à formuler quelques suggestions pour stabiliser l'emploi formel et assurer un financement suffisant de la protection sociale.     

Quality of employment in Latin America: Theory and evidence

Historically, the development literature concerned with Latin American labour markets has focused on job numbers and productivity. But given the persistence of large shares of informal and now otherwise precarious employment, the authors argue that meaningful analysis also requires consideration of the implications of occupational status for the quality of employment. Based on empirical evidence from recent decades, they conclude that most dimensions of this concept – including social protection – depend on the conclusion of a written contract of employment. This finding leads them to outline policy options for stabilizing formal employment and securing adequate funding for social protection.     

论韩孟诗派的组合条件及其文化史意义

作为中唐时期的重要文学流派，韩孟诗派的聚合有其必然性。首先与大历、贞元年间江南诗人文学思想与创作倾向有着直接的师承关系，其次诗派成员有着相似的人生经历乃至遭受压抑的现实基础，更重要的是具体诗人个性禀赋及气质趣味相似相投。韩孟诗派以奇险为创新的艺术精神与总体风貌，既有时代因素的促成，又有历史传统的延承，表现为审美时尚与诗史进程的联结与交汇。其结果既是诗人艺术个性的发挥，又是时代性文化精神的体现，更是文学史逻辑推衍的必然，具有多重的文学史与文化史意义。