The ratification of ILO Conventions and the provision of unemployment benefits: An empirical analysis

This article tests the relationship between the ratification of International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions and the provision of unemployment benefits. Statistical tests focus on two related issues: why countries ratify ILO Conventions on unemployment benefits, and whether ratification influences government spending on unemployment benefits. The main findings are that democracy, region, income, and globalization are the main factors influencing why countries ratify ILO Conventions on unemployment benefits. In turn, the ratification of ILO Conventions is systematically associated with higher spending if countries have ratified more than two Conventions.     

Semantic Analysis of the Theoretical Foundations of Biology

生物学理论作为科学哲学研究中的一个另类一直受到关注。它与传统科学模式间的差异是造成这种现象的原因之一。解读这种差异的根源,需要对生物学的理论基础以及理论结构给予充分的关注。生物学特有理论结构所表现出的多元语境与语义结构的复杂性,决定了对生物学理论基础的研究应当重视语义分析的方法,尤其是对理论本身进行语义分解并研究其中的语义关联问题,从而解读生物学模式作为一种不同于理化科学的特殊科学解释观的合理性。     

Intersubjectivity: Towards a Dialogical Analysis

Intersubjectivity refers to the variety of possible relations between perspectives. It is indispensable for understanding human social behaviour. While theoretical work on intersubjectivity is relatively sophisticated, methodological approaches to studying intersubjectivity lag behind. Most methodologies assume that individuals are the unit of analysis. In order to research intersubjectivity, however, methodologies are needed that take relationships as the unit of analysis. The first aim of this article is to review existing methodologies for studying intersubjectivity. Four methodological approaches are reviewed: comparative self-report, observing behaviour, analysing talk and ethnographic engagement. The second aim of the article is to introduce and contribute to the development of a dialogical method of analysis. The dialogical approach enables the study of intersubjectivity at different levels, as both implicit and explicit, and both within and between individuals and groups. The article concludes with suggestions for using the proposed method for researching intersubjectivity both within individuals and between individuals and groups.     

Moment‐Independent Sensitivity Analysis Using Copula

In risk assessment, the moment‐independent sensitivity analysis (SA) technique for reducing the model uncertainty has attracted a great deal of attention from analysts and practitioners. It aims at measuring the relative importance of an individual input, or a set of inputs, in determining the uncertainty of model output by looking at the entire distribution range of model output. In this article, along the lines of Plischke et al., we point out that the original moment‐independent SA index (also called delta index) can also be interpreted as the dependence measure between model output and input variables, and introduce another moment‐independent SA index (called extended delta index) based on copula. Then, nonparametric methods for estimating the delta and extended delta indices are proposed. Both methods need only a set of samples to compute all the indices; thus, they conquer the problem of the “curse of dimensionality.” At last, an analytical test example, a risk assessment model, and the levelE model are employed for comparing the delta and the extended delta indices and testing the two calculation methods. Results show that the delta and the extended delta indices produce the same importance ranking in these three test examples. It is also shown that these two proposed calculation methods dramatically reduce the computational burden.     

A Framework for Analyzing the Economic Tradeoffs Between Urban Commerce and Security Against Terrorism

This article presents a framework for economic consequence analysis of terrorism countermeasures. It specifies major categories of direct and indirect costs, benefits, spillover effects, and transfer payments that must be estimated in a comprehensive assessment. It develops a spreadsheet tool for data collection, storage, and refinement, as well as estimation of the various components of the necessary economic accounts. It also illustrates the usefulness of the framework in the first assessment of the tradeoffs between enhanced security and changes in commercial activity in an urban area, with explicit attention to the role of spillover effects. The article also contributes a practical user interface to the model for emergency managers.     

The shifting landscape of LGBT organizational research

Over the past generation, sexual minorities—particularly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons—have gained increased visibility in the public arena. Yet organizational research has lagged behind in recognizing and studying this category of organizational members. This article offers a critical review of this growing body of research. More specifically, we identify and discuss four dominant scholarly frames that have informed LGBT organizational research from the late nineteenth century to date. The frames include a “medical abnormality,” “deviant social role,” “collective identity,” and “social distinctiveness” view of sexual minorities. We argue that these frames have profoundly shaped the scope and range of organizational scholarship devoted to sexual minorities by showing that scholars using such contrasted frames have been drawn to very different research questions with respect to sexual minorities. We document and discuss the main and contrasted questions asked within each of these frames and show how they have both enabled and constrained LGBT organizational research. We conclude by calling for more attention to the frames organizational scholars adopt when studying sexual minorities, but also for more research on both minority and majority sexual orientations in organizations.     

Fitting competing risks data to bivariate Pareto models

This paper revisits two bivariate Pareto models for fitting competing risks data. The first model is the Frank copula model, and the second one is a bivariate Pareto model introduced by Sankaran and Nair (1993 Sankaran, P. G., and N. U. Nair. 1993. A bivariate Pareto model and its applications to reliability. Naval Research Logistics 40 (7):1013–1020. doi:10.1002/1520-6750(199312)40:7%3c1013::AID-NAV3220400711%3e3.0.CO;2-7.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). We discuss the identifiability issues of these models and develop the maximum likelihood estimation procedures including their computational algorithms and model-diagnostic procedures. Simulations are conducted to examine the performance of the maximum likelihood estimation. Real data are analyzed for illustration.     

Efficiency measures of the Chinese commercial banking system using an additive two-stage DEA

Measuring and improving the efficiency of the Chinese commercial banking system has recently attracted increasing interest. Few studies, however, have adopted the two-stage network DEA to explore this issue in the Chinese context. Because the entire operational process of the banking system could be divided into two sub-processes (deposit producing and profit earning), the evaluation of the sub-process efficiencies could be used to assist in identifying the sources of the inefficiency of the entire banking system. In this study, we utilize the network DEA approach to disaggregate, evaluate and test the efficiencies of 16 major Chinese commercial banks during the third round of the Chinese banking reform period (2003–2011) with the variable returns to scale setting and the consideration of undesirable/bad output. The main findings of this study are as follows: (i) the two-stage DEA model is more effective than the conventional black box DEA model in identifying the inefficiency of banking system, and the inefficiency of the Chinese banking system primarily results from the inefficiency of its deposit producing sub-process; (ii) the overall efficiency of the Chinese banking system improves over the study period because of the reform; (iii) the state-owned commercial banks (SOBs) appear to be more overall efficient than the joint-stock commercial banks (JSBs) only in the pre-reform period, and the efficiency difference between the SOBs and the JSBs is reduced over the post-reform period; (iv) the disposal of non-performing loans (NPLs) from the Chinese banking system in general explains its efficiency improvement, and the joint-equity reform of the SOBs specifically increases their efficiencies.     

An Integrated Risk Assessment Model of Township‐Scaled Land Subsidence Based on an Evidential Reasoning Algorithm and Fuzzy Set Theory

Land subsidence risk assessment (LSRA) is a multi‐attribute decision analysis (MADA) problem and is often characterized by both quantitative and qualitative attributes with various types of uncertainty. Therefore, the problem needs to be modeled and analyzed using methods that can handle uncertainty. In this article, we propose an integrated assessment model based on the evidential reasoning (ER) algorithm and fuzzy set theory. The assessment model is structured as a hierarchical framework that regards land subsidence risk as a composite of two key factors: hazard and vulnerability. These factors can be described by a set of basic indicators defined by assessment grades with attributes for transforming both numerical data and subjective judgments into a belief structure. The factor‐level attributes of hazard and vulnerability are combined using the ER algorithm, which is based on the information from a belief structure calculated by the Dempster‐Shafer (D‐S) theory, and a distributed fuzzy belief structure calculated by fuzzy set theory. The results from the combined algorithms yield distributed assessment grade matrices. The application of the model to the Xixi‐Chengnan area, China, illustrates its usefulness and validity for LSRA. The model utilizes a combination of all types of evidence, including all assessment information—quantitative or qualitative, complete or incomplete, and precise or imprecise—to provide assessment grades that define risk assessment on the basis of hazard and vulnerability. The results will enable risk managers to apply different risk prevention measures and mitigation planning based on the calculated risk states.