Schematic saturated orthogonal arrays obtained by using the contractive replacement method

This paper presents a general method of constructing schematic saturated orthogonal arrays of strength two. We consider a class of mixed saturated orthogonal arrays produced from saturated symmetric orthogonal arrays by using the contractive replacement method, study the Hamming distances of the rows, construct their association schemes, and prove that they are schematic. Some examples are given to illustrate this construction method.     

Thinking through tragedy: critical distance and the law of genre

Abstract

This article focuses on two problems associated with tragedy. One ancient: what is it that draws us to the dramatic presentation of events of terrible suffering and loss? And one modern: namely, that while tragedies are still performed and appreciated, little new tragedy is being written. It will be argued in relation to the second problem that the vitality of tragedy as a dramatic form requires a less rigid approach to what might be considered tragic. And in relation to the first problem it will be argued that this more expansive conception of tragedy will allow an understanding of the ‘pay-off’ of tragedy in a way that draws both on the tradition that focuses on tragedy as cathartic therapeutic, and on the tradition that sees it as a thought laboratory that allows ethical dilemmas to be posed and explored from different perspectives. This argument constitutes a two-fold dialectical synthesis (emotional and intellectual approaches to tragedy on the one hand and the technical and popular use of the word ‘tragedy’ on the other) and the effect of this is to facilitate an understanding of tragedy as establishing a ‘critical distance’ that sets the scene for the possibility of thinking.     

New goodness of fit tests for the Cauchy distribution

Some goodness-of-fit procedures for the Cauchy distribution are presented. The power comparisons indicate that the new tests possess good performances among the competitors, especially against symmetric alternatives. A financial data set is analyzed for illustration.     

Is ethnic prejudice declining in Britain? Change in social distance attitudes among ethnic majority and minority Britons

Most literature on racial prejudice deals with the racial attitudes of the ethnic majority and ethnic minorities separately. This paper breaks this tradition. We examine the social distance attitudes of white and non‐white British residents to test if these attitudes follow the same trends over time, whether they are driven by the same social processes and whether they are inter‐related. We have three main findings. Firstly, social distance from other ethnic groups has declined over time for both white and ethnic minority Britons. For the white majority there are both period and cohort elements to this decline. Secondly, we see some evidence that social distance between the majority and minority groups is reciprocal. Specifically, minorities who experience rejection by the white British feel a greater sense of distance from them. Thirdly, we find that all groups share the perception of the same ethnic hierarchy. We see evidence of particularly widespread hostility towards Muslim Britons from all ethnic groups suggesting that Muslims are singled out for negative attention from many British residents of all other backgrounds, including a large number who do not express hostility to other groups.     

On Old-Fashioned Versus Modern Homonegativity Distinction: Evidence From Poland

Psychological research on prejudice against homosexuals distinguishes between old-fashioned (traditional) and modern (contemporary) homonegativity, which differ with regard to their content, correlates, and consequences. The current research offers evidence for the validity of old-fashioned versus modern homonegativity distinction in the post-communist, East European context. In Studies 1 and 2 (Ns = 295 and 327, respectively) the Polish adaptations of the non-gendered and gendered Homonegativity Scale (Morrison, Parriag, & Morrison, 1999) and the Modern Homonegativity Scale (Morrison & Morrison, 2003) were developed. Furthermore, divergent (discriminant) validity of traditional and contemporary anti-homosexual prejudice was demonstrated. Old-fashioned and modern homonegativity exhibited differential relationships with social distance and support for same-sex couples’ relational rights.     

Residential mobility and the spatial dispersion of personal networks: Effects on social support

Using a representative national sample of personal networks, this article explores how the spatial dispersion of networks, residential mobility and social support are linked. Three issues will be addressed here. Firstly, how is the spatial dispersion of personal networks related to individuals’ social characteristics, network composition and residential mobility? Secondly, how do the spatial dispersion of networks, residential mobility and their combined effect influence the number and (thirdly) the structure of emotional support ties? Results showed that the extent of the support was affected neither by the geographical distribution of the networks nor by residential mobility. Living far from one's birthplace, however, exerted two distinct, and opposite effects on the support network structure. On the one hand, mobility led to high spatial dispersion of personal contacts, which in turn favored a sparsely knit network centered around the mobile individual. On the other hand, by controlling for the effect of distance between the contacts, we found that individuals that cited long-distance ties tended to be part of more transitive support networks than those that cited local ties. We interpreted the latter effect as evidence that transitive ties may survive greater spatial distances than intransitive ones. These findings are discussed in view of spatial mobility and social network research.     

Compensation or competition: Bias in immigrants' access to active labour market measures

Whether participation in active labour market programmes (ALMPs) pushes individuals back into employment depends on the programme's characteristics. On the basis of encompassing registry data that allow us to control for usually unobserved employability, we find evidence of a systematic access bias whereby jobcentre caseworkers in Switzerland assign unemployed persons to activation measures based on a competition logic that is mainly driven by an economic rationale and the jobcentre's performance evaluation. This practice seems problematic because it results in an overrepresentation of immigrants in measures with little efficacy rather than in measures that could compensate for employability disadvantages. Conversely, Swiss citizens are more likely to enter beneficial human-capital-intensive measures. It is plausible that this discrepancy in programme participation amplifies the general labour market disadvantages of immigrants.     

企业财务危机预警双基点距离比值法

本文介绍了国内外主要企业财务危机预警模型,对模型的空间几何意义进行解释。提出了企业财务危机预警双基点距离比值模型,该模型采用非线性方法对危机企业与非危机企业的财务指标集合进行分割。用112例样本实证,预警识别率达到92.8%。     

The Center Location Improvement Problem Under the Hamming Distance

In this paper, we consider the center location improvement problems under the sum-type and bottleneck-type Hamming distance. For the sum-type problem, we show that achieving an algorithm with a worst-case ratio of O(log |V|) is NP-hard, and for the bottleneck-type problem, we present a strongly polynomial algorithm.     

Slack free MEA and RDM with comprehensive efficiency measures

This paper extends two directional distance function models, the Multi-directional Efficiency Analysis (MEA) Model and the Range Directional Model (RDM), in order to account for any type of technical inefficiency, i.e. both directional and non-directional inefficiencies. We first focus on the variable returns to scale (VRS) case, because both VRS-MEA and RDM are translation invariant models, which mean that both models are able to deal with negative data. Our main result is the definition of a new comprehensive efficiency measure which is units invariant and translation invariant and covers both models. Secondly, we introduce the RDM model under constant returns to scale (CRS) together with a new comprehensive efficiency measure.