Girlz II women: Age‐grading,language change and stylistic variation

Informed by abstract models of language change or stability over time, we present a longitudinal study of two African American females, first interviewed as teenagers, and re‐recorded twenty years later. As teenagers, they used morpho‐syntactic features of AAVE voraciously. But as working adults, these women distance themselves from their teenage activities and social networks, and display a considerably reduced vernacular usage that accords with their articulated concern to get ahead. The diachronic interpretation that best characterizes their transformation is age‐grading rather than generational change, since change at the individual level is accompanied by stability at the community level. The picture is complicated by intermediate recordings showing that one of the speakers is a stylistic chameleon, capable since her teenage years of varying copula absence rates depending on addressee, topic, and projected persona. But the age‐grading interpretation of change at the individual level remains valid based on the evidence of her reduced use of habitual be2, and third singular present tense –s absence. The case highlights the importance of paying more attention to stylistic variation and including more than two time points in sociolinguistic studies of change in real and apparent time.     

从第27届男篮亚锦赛中国队失利看亚洲篮球新格局

第27届男篮亚锦赛中国队遭遇惨败,年龄结构不合理、攻防两端不平衡、球员的位置技术基础欠缺、主帅与球员磨合期短等因素,是导致中国男篮成绩跌入谷底的主要原因.反观冠军伊朗队,其强势崛起值得思考,亚洲篮球新格局已经形成.     

马克思主义中国化研究述评

马克思主义中国化的研究经过了多年的发展取得了一系列喜人的理论建树,特别是研究的重点不断拓宽,在基本内容、内在关系等方面颇为深入,呈现出了全方位、多层次、宽领域的特点.同时研究焦点的视角不断衍伸, 但仍在诸多方面存在着盲点,而这正是必须深入耕犁的领域,我们也试图从思想下乡、范式建构、信仰研究等方面突破盲点,以期为马克思主义中国化的新发展尽绵薄之力.     

Demand Systems Estimation With Microdata: A Censored Regression Approach

Demand systems estimation increasingly makes use of household-level microdata, mainly to measure the effects of demographic variables. Data based on these household-expenditure surveys present a major estimation problem. For any given household, many of the goods have zero consumption, implying a censored dependent variable. Techniques which do not take this censored dependent variable into account will yield biased results. We utilize a censored regression approach that is computationally simple, consistent, and asymptotically efficient. The results are then presented and compared with those obtained using an uncensored technique.     

Central Limit Theorem approximations for the number of runs in Markov-dependent binary sequences

We consider Markov-dependent binary sequences and study various types of success runs (overlapping, non-overlapping, exact, etc.) by examining additive functionals based on state visits and transitions in an appropriate Markov chain. We establish a multivariate Central Limit Theorem for the number of these types of runs and obtain its covariance matrix by means of the recurrent potential matrix of the Markov chain. Explicit expressions for the covariance matrix are given in the Bernoulli and a simple Markov-dependent case by expressing the recurrent potential matrix in terms of the stationary distribution and the mean transition times in the chain. We also obtain a multivariate Central Limit Theorem for the joint number of non-overlapping runs of various sizes and give its covariance matrix in explicit form for Markov dependent trials.     

The Micro-Formation Mechanism of Trade Conflicts between Large Developing Countries: India’s Anti-dumping Action against China

Abstract

Employing Grossman and Helpman’s “protection for sale” model, this article uses data on anti-dumping actions from 1999 to 2009 to perform a quantitative analysis of factors influencing India’s determinations of anti-dumping duties against China, and reveals the micro-formation mechanism of economic conflicts between China and India. We find that the political power of India’s anti-dumping plaintiffs markedly increases the tariff level of its final determinations and that the relationship between the import penetration ratio and duty rates depends upon whether the plaintiffs are politically organized. Further, there is a significant positive correlation between India’s anti-dumping duty rates and its unfavorable trade balance with China. This indicates that in determining anti-dumping duties, Indian authorities are clearly influenced by the political clout of their domestic interest groups. They are also motivated by the desire to keep down China and gain the upper hand in the face-off between the “dragon and the elephant.”     

Sums of weighted spacings and a test for the logistic distribution

A simple proof for a theorem of Csörgö and Révész (1981b and 1984) concerning sums of weighted spacings is given, The conditions of the theorem are relaxed. As an application, a goodness-of-fit test for the logistic distribution is proposed. The percentage points of the proposed test statistic are obtained by a simulation experiment.     

OPTIMAL SOFTWARE RELEASE POLICY BASED ON MARKOVIAN PERFECT DEBUGGING MODEL

In this paper we consider a Markovian perfect debugging model for which the software failure is caused by two types of faults, one which is easily detected and the other which is difficult to detect. When a failure occurs, a perfect debugging is immediately performed and consequently one fault is reduced from fault contents. We also treat the debugging time as a variable to develop a new debugging model. Based on the perfect debugging model, we propose an optimal software release policy that satisfies the requirements for both software reliability and expected number of faults which are required to achieve before releasing the software. Several measures, including the distribution of first passage time to the specified number of removed faults, are also obtained using the proposed debugging model.     

“The Compass of Our Life”: A Qualitative Study of Marriage and Faith Among Chinese Immigrants

Twenty highly religious Chinese Christian married couples (n = 40) were interviewed to examine how religious faith influenced their perceptions of marriage and family life. Most participants held advanced graduate degrees (14 PhD and 13 MS degrees). Their ages ranged from 28 to 66, and the number of children ranged from one to four. Grounded theory methods (including open coding and axial coding) were applied to analyze the data. Based on the interview data three emergent themes were identified: (1) Moving from atheism to theism (“God is love”), (2) changing perceptions of marriage (“Marriage is established by God”), and (3) a new priority (“Put God first”). Supporting qualitative data are presented in connection with each theme. Implications for research and practice related to Chinese immigrants’ marriage and family in the United States are discussed.     

Fast and Stable Algorithms for Computing and Sampling From the Noncentral Hypergeometric Distribution

Although the noncentral hypergeometric distribution underlies conditional inference for 2 × 2 tables, major statistical packages lack support for this distribution. This article introduces fast and stable algorithms for computing the noncentral hypergeometric distribution and for sampling from it. The algorithms avoid the expensive and explosive combinatorial numbers by using a recursive relation. The algorithms also take advantage of the sharp concentration of the distribution around its mode to save computing time. A modified inverse method substantially reduces the number of searches in generating a random deviate. The algorithms are implemented in a Java class, Hypergeometric, available on the World Wide Web.