抢夺行为的定型化与体系性解读 ——从抢夺罪与盗窃罪的界分切入

文章以刑法体系解释和罪刑结构为视角,回归刑事本土化立场,秉持刑法学界的理论通说,坚持将公然和秘密作为盗窃罪和抢夺罪的界分标准,以在现行刑法体系中实现罪刑均衡。基于对盗窃罪与抢夺罪行为特征的分析,明确公然性是抢夺罪的本质和核心特征,公然非法取得他人财物的行为应认定为抢夺罪,并非所有的抢夺行为都具有致人伤亡的可能性,“对物暴力”不是构成抢夺罪的必备要素,财物“紧密占有”的含义需要扩大解释为处于被害人视线范围内的财物。     

Citizenship Status and TANF Exits: A Proportional Hazard Model

ABSTRACT

This study compared exits between citizen and noncitizen heads of household from the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program. With longitudinal monthly administrative data and a Cox proportional hazard model, the study examined how the economy and recipients’ personal characteristics affected their exits. The sample consisted of 28,308 families headed by citizens and 2,547 families headed by a noncitizen on TANF. Key findings reveal that families on TANF exit the rolls primarily during the first 8 months after entrance. Results showed that families headed by a noncitizen remain on TANF longer than families headed by a citizen. The roles of minimum wage and unemployment in shaping the risk of exit for noncitizen compared to citizen families were explored. Suggestions for further research and how to serve recipients best in times of economic downturns are provided. Similar research needs to be conducted in states where temporary TANF time limits do not exist.     

Designing of variables quick switching sampling system by considering process loss functions

This paper proposes a variables quick switching system where the quality characteristic of interest follows a normal distribution and the quality characteristic is evaluated through a process loss function. Most of the variables sampling plans available in the literature focus only on the fraction non-conforming and those plans do not distinguish between the products that fall within the specification limits. The products that fall within specification limits may not be good if their mean is too away from the target value. So developing a sampling plan by considering process loss is inevitable in these situations. Based on this idea, we develop a variables quick switching system based on the process loss function for the application of the processes requiring low process loss. Tables are also constructed for the selection of parameters of variables quick switching system for given acceptable quality level and limiting quality level. The results are explained with examples.     

On the adequacy of the chi-squared approximation for the coefficient of variation

The X² approximation to the distribution of the sample coefficient of variation of a normally distributed random variable, due to McKay 1932 is not nearly as accurate as suggested by the confirmatory studies of Fieller 1932 and Pearson 1932.The approximation will, however, be adequate in many practical situations and has the convenience of requiring nothing more than the readily available tables of x².     

A process capability index for discrete processes

Perakis and Xekalaki 2002, A process capability index that is based on the proportion of conformance. Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation, 72(9), 707–718. introduced a process capability index that is based on the proportion of conformance of the process under study and has several appealing features. One of its advantages is that it can be used not only for continuous processes, as is the case with the majority of the indices considered in the literature, but also for discrete processes as well. In this article, the use of this index is investigated for discrete data under two alternative models, which are frequently considered in statistical process control. In particular, distributional properties and estimation of the index are considered for Poisson processes and for processes resulting in modeling attribute data. The performance of the suggested estimators and confidence limits is tested via simulation.     

Extrapolation of subsampling distribution estimators: The i.i.d. and strong mixing cases

Politis & Romano (1994) proposed a general subsampling methodology for the construction of large‐sample confidence regions for an arbitrary parameter under minimal conditions. Nevertheless, the subsampling distribution estimators may sometimes be inefficient (in the case of the sample mean of i.i.d. data, for instance) as compared to alternative estimators such as the bootstrap and/or the asymptotic normal distribution (with estimated variance). The authors investigate here the extent to which the performance of subsampling distribution estimators can be improved by interpolation and extrapolation techniques, while at the same time retaining the robustness property of consistent distribution estimation even in nonregular cases; both i.i.d. and weakly dependent (mixing) observations are considered.     

A new generation of process capability indices

In quality control, we may confront imprecise concepts. One case is a situation in which upper and lower specification limits (SLs) are imprecise. If we introduce vagueness into SLs, we face quite new, reasonable and interesting processes, and the ordinary capability indices are not appropriate for measuring the capability of these processes. In this paper, similar to the traditional process capability indices (PCIs), we develop a fuzzy analogue by a distance defined on a fuzzy limit space and introduce PCIs, where instead of precise SLs we have two membership functions for upper and lower SLs. These indices are necessary when SLs are fuzzy, and they are helpful for comparing manufacturing process with fuzzy SLs. Some interesting relations among these introduced indices are proved. Numerical examples are given to clarify the method.     

Optimal lamination test of ethylene vinyl acetate sheets for solar modules

ABSTRACT

Solar power is inexhaustible and has become one of the most appreciated alternative energy choices. In the development stage, solar modules are subjected to relevant reliability tests to ensure a long lifetime and optimal power generation efficiency. After the lamination process, the performance of solar modules is closely related to the degree of crosslinking of ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) sheets. Traditionally, the degree of crosslinking on EVA sheets is obtained using the chemical extraction method to measure the gel content of these sheets. Motivated by lamination data, this study first constructed a statistical model to describe the relationship between the degree of crosslinking on EVA sheets and lamination time. Next, under the specification limits of the gel content of EVA sheets, the optimal lamination time of solar modules was derived, and the optimal allocation for measuring EVA sheets was addressed. The chemical extraction method is time consuming and leads to high pollution. The latest method is differential scanning calorimetric (DSC), which measures the curing degree of EVA sheets as the degree of crosslinking on these sheets. This study determined the specification limits of the curing degree under the DSC method. An example is presented to elucidate the proposed procedure.     

Tolerance intervals for symmetric location-scale families based on uncensored or censored samples

Exact methods for constructing two-sided tolerance intervals (TIs) and tolerance intervals that control percentages in both tails for a location-scale family of distributions are proposed. The proposed methods are illustrated by constructing TIs for a normal, logistic, and Laplace (double exponential) distributions based on type II singly censored samples. Factors for constructing one-sided and two-sided TIs for a logistic distribution are tabulated for the case of uncensored samples. Factors for constructing TIs based on censored samples for all three distributions are also tabulated. The factors for all cases are estimated by Monte Carlo simulation. An adjustment to the tolerance factors based on type II censored samples is proposed so that they can be used to find approximate TIs based on type I censored samples. Coverage studies of the approximate TIs based on type I censored samples indicate that the approximation is satisfactory as long as the proportion of censored observations is no more than 0.70. The methods are illustrated using some practical examples.     

Nonparametric control chart based on change-point model

A change-point control chart for detecting shifts in the mean of a process is developed for the case where the nominal value of the mean is unknown but some historical samples are available. This control chart is a nonparametric chart based on the Mann–Whitney statistic for a change in mean and adapted for repeated sequential use. We do not require any knowledge of the underlying distribution such as the normal assumption. Particularly, this distribution robustness could be a significant advantage in start-up or short-run situations where we usually do not have knowledge of the underlying distribution. The simulated results show that our approach has a good performance across the range of possible shifts and it can be used during the start-up stages of the process.