A statistical test for detecting discordance in rankings between k groups

In several research areas such as psychology, social science, and medicine, studies are conducted in which objects should be ranked by different judges/raters and the concordance of the different rankings is then analyzed. In such studies, it is also frequently of interest to compare the rankings between different groups of judges, e.g. female vs. male judges or judges from different professions. In the two-group case, the two-group concordance test of Schucany & Frawley can be employed for such a comparison. In this article, we propose an extension of this test enabling the comparison of rankings from more than two groups of judges. This test aims to detect disagreement in the average rankings of the objects between k groups with an at least moderate intra-group concordance. We evaluate this test in an extensive simulation study and in an application to data from an aesthetics study. This simulation study shows that the proposed test is able to detect differences between average rankings and performs well even in situations in which the disagreement is comparably small or the intra-group concordance is inhomogeneous.     

The Public Perception of Female and Male Violence in Marital Relationships

Most studies dealing with intimate partner violence (IPV) investigate situations where the man is the aggressor. The present study examines the participants’ social perception of IPV and the connection between social perception and the severity of the violent act and its justification when carried out by men against women and vice versa. The research is based on a structured, self-reported anonymous questionnaire answered by 240 participants. The questionnaire examined demographic variables, attitudes toward IPV, the severity of the violent act, and its justification. Findings indicate that violent behavior of women is perceived as more justified than that of men and that men’s violent behavior is perceived as more severe by women than by men, but women’s violent behavior is perceived to be equally severe by men and women. The study raises awareness of the lack of gender boundaries in violence and of gender discrimination against males.     

奥巴马就职演讲的语料库检索文体分析

20世纪80年代迅速发展起来的语料库语言学通过对文本的取样、检索、统计和分析为语言的研究提供了一种新方法,使语言研究更具客观性、科学性。本文利用语料库检索工具W ord Sm ith从词汇、句子和语篇三个方面分析奥巴马的就职演讲文本,揭示其文体特征,以帮助大家更好地学习奥巴马的演讲技巧,提高语言的应用能力。     

基于语料库的词语搭配和类联接研究

基于语料库语言学理论,利用语料库,运用关键词检索工具（Concordance）以set一词为例,以set／setting为检索词,从NEWS语料库中得到92条索引来讨论对词语搭配及类联接的认识,并探索语料库在英语词汇教学中的应用途径及对英语词汇学习的启示。     

Infants’ Style of Emotion Regulation with Their Mothers and Fathers: Concordance between Parents and the Contribution of Father–Infant Interaction Quality

The concordance between infants’ emotion regulation styles with different partners has not been consistently analysed nor have the relational correlates of such potential across‐partners similarities. We explored these issues by assessing 10‐month‐olds’ (59.6 percent boys) emotion regulation styles separately with mother and father and by evaluating mother–infant and father–infant interaction quality. The sample consisted of 50 low‐risk families. Two home visits were conducted and similar procedures were adopted for each visit. Parent–infant interaction quality was assessed during daily routines and during free play; both parents independently completed a temperament questionnaire. Infant emotion regulation was assessed in a semi‐structured problem‐solving task: adaptive vs. maladaptive (under and over‐regulation) styles. As predicted, infants’ emotion regulation with their mothers and fathers were related. However, only father–infant interaction quality predicted infants’ emotion regulation concordance: lower interaction quality was associated with maladaptive concordance compared with non‐concordance and higher interaction quality was associated with adaptive concordance compared with non‐concordance. Our results support the claim that by the end of the first year of life, infants use similar emotion regulation styles with mother and father and point to father–infant interaction as an important correlate of emotion regulation across‐parents.     

Simple moment-based inferences of generalized concordance correlation

We proposed two simple moment-based procedures, one with (GCCC1) and one without (GCCC2) normality assumptions, to generalize the inference of concordance correlation coefficient for the evaluation of agreement among multiple observers for measurements on a continuous scale. A modified Fisher's Z-transformation was adapted to further improve the inference. We compared the proposed methods with U-statistic-based inference approach. Simulation analysis showed desirable statistical properties of the simplified approach GCCC1, in terms of coverage probabilities and coverage balance, especially for small samples. GCCC2, which is distribution-free, behaved comparably with the U-statistic-based procedure, but had a more intuitive and explicit variance estimator. The utility of these approaches were illustrated using two clinical data examples.     

Operational Hedging and Diversification under Correlated Supply and Demand Uncertainty

When facing supply uncertainty caused by exogenous factors such as adverse weather conditions, firms diversify their supply sources following the wisdom of “not holding all eggs in one basket.” We study a firm that decides on investment and production levels of two unreliable but substitutable resources. Applying real options thinking, production decisions account for actual supply capabilities, whereas investment decisions are made in advance. To model triangular supply and demand correlations, we adapt the concepts of random capacity and stochastic proportional yield while using concordant ordered random variables. Optimal profit decreases monotonically in supply correlation and increases monotonically in supply–demand correlation. Optimal resource selection, however, depends on the trivariate interplay of supply and demand and responds non‐monotonically to changing correlations. Moreover, supply hedges (i.e., excess capacity at alternative sources) can be optimal even if supply resources are perfectly positively correlated. To accommodate changing degrees of correlation, the firm adjusts the lower margin capacities under random capacity; but under stochastic proportional production capability, it uses either low‐ or high‐margin capacities to create tailored “scale hedges” (i.e., excess capacity at one source which can partially substitute for diversification).     

CORRELATIONS AND CHARACTERIZATIONS OF THE UNIFORM DISTRIBUTION

Two characterizations of the uniform distribution on a suitable compact space are proved. These characterizations are applied to a number of particular examples of which the most interesting is the following: if X , Y and Z are independent n-vectors whose components are independent and identically distributed within a vector, then the pairwise independence of the product moment correlation coefficients between X , Y and Z implies that these vectors are normally distributed.     

Bayesian inference for contingency tables with given marginals

Summary In this paper we introduce a class of prior distributions for contingency tables with given marginals. We are interested in the structrre of concordance/discordance of such tables. There is actually a minor limitation in that the marginals are required to assume only rational values. We do argue, though, that this is not a serious drawback for all applicatory purposes. The posterior and predictive distributions given anM-sample are computed. Examples of Bayesian estimates of some classical indices of concordance are also given. Moreover, we show how to use simulation in order to overcome some difficulties which arise in the computation of the posterior distribution.     

基于协调分析的电子商务综合评价方法

为解决电子商务网站的评估问题，文章引入了基于妥协原理的协调分析方法，建立了基于协调分析的电子商务综合评价方法模型，并给出了一个实例分析。该模型用协调优先指标与非协调优先指标，从满意度与非满意度两个方面揭示被评价对象的性质。与其他评价方法相比，该模型综合考虑了被评价对象的优缺点，评价结果客观可信；模型简单，可操作性强，便于编程实现；信息量比其他评价方法丰富。