LETTER GRADING GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY

We mailed letters to non‐existent business addresses in 159 countries (10 per country), and measured whether they come back to the return address in the United States and how long it takes. About 60% of the letters were returned, taking over six months, on average. The results provide new objective indicators of government efficiency across countries, based on a simple and universal service, and allow us to shed light on its determinants. The evidence suggests that both technology and management quality influence government efficiency, just as they do that of the private sector.     

SHADES OF BROWN AND GREEN: PARTY EFFECTS IN PROPORTIONAL ELECTION SYSTEMS

In proportional representation (PR) systems, political power is typically shared across several political parties. Many parties are small and focused on specific policies, such as environmental policy and immigration. Do these small parties matter for policy? I provide the first systematic evidence for this by developing the first regression discontinuity design tailored specifically for PR systems. With this method, which can be applied in all countries with PR systems, I estimate the causal effect of party representation on immigration policy, environmental policy and tax policy using data on Swedish municipalities. The results show that party representation has a large effect on the first two policies, but not on the tax policy.     

论普特南的数学真理观

美国当代著名哲学家H·普特南作为科学实在论的主要代表人物之一 ,其数学真理观对整个数学真理性问题的研究产生了重大的影响 ,对数学科学的发展具有积极的推动作用。从数学理论的证实问题出发 ,普特南立足于数学与经验科学的统一性 ,深刻阐明数学具有经验性、客观性和必然性。但他并没有将这种必然性绝对化 ,指出数学真理并非仅仅是绝对真理 ,而且也是相对真理 ,是可修正的 ,从而揭示出数学真理的实在论本质     

“童心”说与“第二次天真”说的比较研究

马斯洛的"第二次天真"、"健康的儿童性"说,也就是李贽的"童心"说,正是"第二次天真"和"童心"说,使作为成人的作家,"既是非常成熟的,同时又是非常孩子气的",这看起来是对立的,但文学艺术的创造要的就是这种双重视角. 他以十分成熟的、深刻的、理性的眼光看生活,能够把生活的底蕴揭示出来,但同时他又以儿童般的天真的、陌生的、非理性的眼光看生活,充分地展现生活的充满情趣的方面.所以作家的真正的创作,总是有一种"健康的倒退(复归)",即从二级过程推回原初过程,从意识推回到无意识,从现实原则退回到快乐原则,或者说这是一种"溶合",正是这种"倒退"或"溶合"消除了上述的悖论,从而进入了创造的境界.     

中国社会学课程开设先驱者史实考略

近代中国高校中,社会学属于“舶来”学科。我国社会学史著作中依据许仕廉和孙本文的论述,认为中国高校中最早开设社会学课程的是门·阿瑟（Mr.Arthur Moon）或孟教授（Arthur Monn）,时间是1905年或1908年。但经详细考证,结论是：1905年,孟嘉德教士在圣约翰学院开设的社会学课程是近代中国高等学校最早的。     

Productivity growth,external shocks,and capital inflows in Chile: A general equilibrium analysis

This paper uses a computable general equilibrium model to analyze the growth path of the Chilean economy during 1977–1981. During that period a comprehensive package of reforms liberalized international trade and removed restrictive labor legislation. As a result of the reforms, there were large changes in relative prices and in the structure of production and demand, and the economy enjoyed unprecedented growth with declining inflation. But large macroeconomic imbalance become evident toward the end of the period and in 1982 Chile experienced an abrupt and severe recession. Taking the real exchange rate as an exogenous policy variable, and using the observed levels of employment growth and foreign capital inflows, this paper compares model-generated growth paths with those of the economy. First, the benchmark simulation path is used to estimate the magnitude and pattern of growth and productivity change during the 1971–1981 period. Next, counter-factual simulations are used to assess how Chile's economic performance would have differed if (a) external events had been different; and (b) foreign capital inflows had been different. The analysis suggests that the macroeconomic imbalances that led to the crisis in 1982 were exacerbated by the large capital inflows and real exchange rate appreciation that resulted from the use of the exchange rate as a stabilization device.     

也论方东美哲学思想的理论归趣——兼答余秉颐先生

方东美认为哲学思想的起点与目标是庄子的“寥天一”这一最高的境界,这一对哲学性质及中国哲学的看法具有强烈的道家思想的色彩。从这样的角度,方东美对儒家和道家的价值理想的异同做了比较,指出儒家的价值是相对的人文价值,道家的价值是绝对的、宇宙间最高的价值。方东美以《尚书》和《周易》阐解原始儒家,缺乏史料的根据,是对原始儒家精神的一种曲解,是以自己心目中的儒家精神置换了历史中的原始儒家精神。现代新儒家有其特殊的含义,有其强烈的道统色彩,所以把方东美视为现代新儒家是一种极大的误解。     

Generalized estimating equations by considering additive terms for analyzing time-course gene sets data

Time-course gene sets are collections of predefined groups of genes in some patients gathered over time. The analysis of time-course gene sets for testing gene sets which vary significantly over time is an important context in genomic data analysis. In this paper, the method of generalized estimating equations (GEEs), which is a semi-parametric approach, is applied to time-course gene set data. We propose a special structure of working correlation matrix to handle the association among repeated measurements of each patient over time. Also, the proposed working correlation matrix permits estimation of the effects of the same gene among different patients. The proposed approach is applied to an HIV therapeutic vaccine trial (DALIA-1 trial). This data set has two phases: pre-ATI and post-ATI which depend on a vaccination period. Using multiple testing, the significant gene sets in the pre-ATI phase are detected and data on two randomly selected gene sets in the post-ATI phase are also analyzed. Some simulation studies are performed to illustrate the proposed approaches. The results of the simulation studies confirm the good performance of our proposed approach.     

Robust precision matrix estimation via weighted median regression with regularization

A precision matrix is an important parameter of interests because its elements describe useful association information among multiple variables, which has a wide variety of applications. For example, it is used for inferring gene regulation networks in genomic studies and stock association networks in financial studies. However, in many cases, the precision matrix needs to be robustly estimated due to the presence of outliers. We propose estimating a sparse scaled precision matrix via weighted median regression with regularization. Our weighted median regression approach is consistent under various distributional assumptions including multivariate t‐ or contaminated Gaussian distributions. This fact is illustrated with simulation studies and a real data analysis with monthly stock return data. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 46: 265–278; 2018 © 2018 Statistical Society of Canada     

分裂的自我：《红字》中阿瑟·丁梅斯代尔形象解读

阿瑟·丁梅斯代尔是美国小说家纳撒尼尔.霍桑小说《红字》中的主要形象之一,在表现小说主题方面有不可替代的作用。以生存现象学为理论观照,以R.D.莱恩的存在主义心理学为视角,分析该形象＂分裂的自我＂的具体表现形式及其原因。