All Data are Wrong,but Some are Useful? Advocating the Need for Data Auditing

In a recent article from the Annals of Applied Statistics, Cox discussed the main phases of applied statistical research ranging from clarifying study objectives to final data analysis and interpreting results. As an incidental remark to these main phases, we advocate that beyond cleaning and preprocessing the data, it is a good practice to audit the data to determine if they can be trusted at all. A case study based on Ghanaian Official Fishery Statistics is used to illustrate this need, with Benford's law being the tool used to carrying out the data audit. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.     

Bootstrap methods for multivariate hypothesis testing

The nonparametric and parametric bootstrap methods for multivariate hypothesis testing are developed. They are used to approximate the null distribution of the test statistics proposed by Duchesne and Francq (2015 Duchesne, P., Francq, C. (2015). Multivariate hypothesis testing using generalized and {2}-inverses—with applications. Statistics 49:475–496.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), resulting in bootstrap testing procedures. In the problem of testing for the mean vector of a multivariate distribution, the asymptotic validity of the bootstrap methods is proved. The finite sample performance of the new solutions is demonstrated by means of Monte Carlo simulation studies. They indicate that for small-sample size, the bootstrap tests provide a better finite sample properties than the asymptotic tests considered by Duchesne and Francq (2015 Duchesne, P., Francq, C. (2015). Multivariate hypothesis testing using generalized and {2}-inverses—with applications. Statistics 49:475–496.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).     

Convergence rate of wavelet density estimator with data missing randomly when covariables are present

In this article, we study global L₂ error of non linear wavelet estimator of density in the Besov space B^s_pq for missing data model when covariables are present and prove that the estimator can achieve the optimal rate of convergence, which is similar to the result studied by Donoho et al. (1996) Donoho, D.L., Johnstone, I.M., Kerkyacharian, G., Picard, D. (1996). Density estimation by wavelet thresholding. Ann. Stat. 24:508–539.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] in complete independent data case with term-by-term thresholding of the empirical wavelet coefficients. Finite-sample behavior of the proposed estimator is explored via simulations.     

Ignorability conditions for frequentist non parametric analysis of conditional distributions with incomplete data

Rubin (1976 Rubin, D.B. (1976). Inference and missing data. Biometrika 63(3):581–592.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) derived general conditions under which inferences that ignore missing data are valid. These conditions are sufficient but not generally necessary, and therefore may be relaxed in some special cases. We consider here the case of frequentist estimation of a conditional cdf subject to missing outcomes. We partition a set of data into outcome, conditioning, and latent variables, all of which potentially affect the probability of a missing response. We describe sufficient conditions under which a complete-case estimate of the conditional cdf of the outcome given the conditioning variable is unbiased. We use simulations on a renal transplant data set (Dienemann et al.) to illustrate the implications of these results.     

人口受教育程度对居民消费的影响研究--基于动态面板分位数回归法

本文采用1996～2015年的31个省市自治区宏观数据,使用动态面板分位数回归方法研究人口受教育程度和居民消费的数量关系。研究结果表明,人口受教育程度对消费有着较为显著的影响,且人口受教育程度对中等消费支出水平的影响略大于高、低消费支出水平的影响,这说明中等消费水平的居民消费受到人口受教育程度的影响更加敏感和有弹性。另外,模型中其他各解释变量系数在各分位数上的差异不大,说明这些影响因素对于不同消费支出水平的消费影响没有太明显差异。     

Virtual Worlds and Social Work Education

ABSTRACT

The introduction of computerised virtual worlds in the early twenty-first century was considered to be an innovation that would be widely used in higher education. There are a number of examples of virtual worlds used for higher education in medicine, nursing, and allied health, including examples in social work. The aim of this article is to explore the potential value of virtual-world technology to enhance the student learning experience for social work education in interpersonal communication skills in a virtual health centre. Findings of a study of Australian undergraduate social work students who engaged in a role play in a virtual health centre for skill development in interpersonal communication are presented. The study findings highlight issues for social work educators to consider when deciding whether or not to use virtual-world technology in social work education, and when designing further research on similar innovations.     

20世纪后半期中国古代经济史资料的整理与出版

中国经济史学科形成于20世纪上半期,对经济史资料的搜求和整理工作也很快开始进行,但大规模的资料整理汇编工作则是在中华人民共和国成立以后.本文从三个方面对20世纪后半期中国古代经济史资料的整理与汇编情况作了综合回顾与考察.     

网络犯罪对刑事侦查的挑战与应对

网络犯罪不仅包括以网络为对象的犯罪,也包括以网络为工具的犯罪。由于网络犯罪具有犯罪主体、手段的专业化、犯罪客体的多样化、犯罪行为的隐蔽化的特点,导致犯罪行为扩散迅速、身份易藏、证据有限、毁证容易、适用法律困难等问题,对刑事侦查带来了极大的挑战。这种挑战主要体现在管辖权、证据制度和侦查措施三个方面。我国应对网络犯罪的侦查制度较为落后,应当从专门侦查机构、管辖制度、电子数据收集制度和技术侦查措施四个方面来加以完善。     

降糖药物——阿尔茨海默病治疗的新思路

流行病学研究表明2型糖尿病（type 2 diabetes mellitus T2DM）能够增加患者发生阿尔茨海默病（Alzheimer＇s disease,AD）的风险。进一步的分子机制研究也表明,胰岛素抵抗以及胰岛素缺乏,这个T2DM特征性和最主要的发病机制也在AD的发病机制中发挥着重要作用。近年来甚至有人提议将AD称作＂3型糖尿病＂。基于这些研究,降糖药物也许是治疗AD的一个新选择。大量的临床试验研究也已经表明AD患者能够从降糖药物中获益,本文将主要介绍胰岛素、二甲双胍、噻唑烷二酮类药物以及胰升糖素样多肽1类似物。