Determinants of obesity: The case of Germany

Obesity now has the rank of a global epidemic, but finds its severest expression in the economically advanced parts of the world. This study offers an interdisciplinary analysis of obesity in Germany, including socio-economic factors. In comparison to related studies, it uses a continuous BMI variable as well as an improved empirical design. The coefficient of the term for sport activities is significantly negative, and the coefficient for the age terms are significantly positive. The results for the income variable are ambiguous. Cigarette consumption does not indicate negative relationships with individual BMI-levels. No evidence was found for systematic differences in BMI between the eastern and western regions in reunified Germany.     

企业中层领导者绩效影响因素与评价指标的关系研究

笔者以企业的中层领导者为研究对象,在西方领导理论研究的基础上,总结了影响领导绩效的七个因素即领导特质、领导风格、努力程度、任务特性、权力大小、下属能力和内部环境;建立了绩效影响因素和评价指标的关系模型。在关系模型的基础上设计了调查问卷,选取江苏省40家企业的200个样本进行领导者和下属的配对调查,利用SPSS统计软件对调查数据进行统计分析和研究,得出了模型系数。     

Detection of patterns in noisy time series

In the context of a research project in ergonomy, myoelectric signals monitored over two to three hour periods gave rise to long noisy time series, which were smoothed using running medians. Tests developed by the authors show that the patterns displayed by the smoothed time series are not artifacts of smoothed white noise. Indeed, the smoothed series show amplitude fluctuations and short‐term correlations which are larger than those obtained by applying running medians to independent, identically distributed data. The key idea is that of reduction of data to binary signals.     

Well-Being and Social Capital: Does Suicide Pose a Puzzle?

This paper has a double purpose: to see how well Durkheim’s [1897, Le Suicide (Paris: 1^e edition)] findings apply a century later, and to see if the beneficial effects of social capital on suicide prevention are parallel to those already found for subjective well-being (Helliwell 2003, Economic Modelling 20(2), pp. 331–360). The results show that more social capital and higher levels of trust are associated with lower national suicide rates, just as they are associated with higher levels of subjective well-being. Furthermore, there is a strong negative correlation between national average suicide rates and measures of life satisfaction. Thus social capital does appear to improve well-being, whether measured by higher average values of life satisfaction or by lower average suicide rates. There is a slight asymmetry, since the very high Scandinavian measures of subjective well-being are not matched by equally low suicide rates. To take the Swedish case as an example, this asymmetry is explained by Sweden having particularly high values of variables that have more weight in explaining life satisfaction than suicide (especially quality of government), and less beneficial values of variables that have more influence in explaining suicide rates (Swedes have low belief in God and high divorce rates), because with the latest data and models the Swedish data fit the well-being and suicide equations with only tiny errors. If the international suicide data pose a puzzle, it is more because suicide rates, and their estimated equations, differ greatly by gender, while life satisfaction and its explanations are similar for men and women.     

Effects of Etiological Agent and Bather Shedding of Pathogens on Interpretation of Epidemiological Data Used to Establish Recreational Water Quality Standards

The overall goal of the study reported herein was to use techniques in the field of risk assessment (specifically a state-space population dynamic model of disease transmission within recreational waters) to explore the relative significance of (1) active shedding of microorganisms from bathers themselves, and (2) the type and concentration of etiological agent on the observed heterogeneity of the incidence of illness in epidemiological studies that have been used to develop ambient water quality criteria. The etiological agent and corresponding dose ingested during recreational contact was found to significantly impact the observed incidence of illness in an epidemiological study conducted in recreational water. In addition, the observed incidence of illness was found not to necessarily reflect background concentrations of indicator organisms, but rather microorganisms shed during recreational contact. Future revisions to ambient water quality criteria should address the etiological agent, dose, and the significance of microbial shedding relative to background concentrations of pathogens and indicator organisms in addition to the incidence of illness and concentration of indicator organisms. Without a quantitative assessment of these additional variables, study findings may potentially be site specific and not representative of the health risks associated with specific indicator concentrations in all recreational waters.     

直方图所表达的统计信息

综述了各种形态的直方图所包含的统计信息。     

On inference for a semiparametric partially linear regression model with serially correlated errors

The authors consider a semiparametric partially linear regression model with serially correlated errors. They propose a new way of estimating the error structure which has the advantage that it does not involve any nonparametric estimation. This allows them to develop an inference procedure consisting of a bandwidth selection method, an efficient semiparametric generalized least squares estimator of the parametric component, a goodness‐of‐fit test based on the bootstrap, and a technique for selecting significant covariates in the parametric component. They assess their approach through simulation studies and illustrate it with a concrete application.     

一类Bernstein变节点算子的特征刻划

本文讨论一类Bernstern变节点算子在一致逼近意义下的正定理，逆定理和特征刻划．     

制造业绿色产品评价研究

随着人类生存环境恶化而出现的“环境问题”法律化和国际贸易由关税壁垒向绿色贸易壁垒的转化，企业竞争优势的取向已从产品的技术性、经济性发展到绿色性。分析了制造业绿色产品的属性内涵及其多生命周期结构，指出其在评价观、评价准则、追求目标、竞争优势取向、决策目标体系、评价时间和空间跨度等方面与以往一般产品评价的不同，在此基础上，建立了制造业绿色产品评价指标体系、评价流程和评价方法，并给出了评价系统软件开发的总体框架。